People invent gods to explain their suffering.
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes - and we must.
It is true that 'I seem to see a table' does not entail 'I see a table'; but 'I seem to feel a pain' does entail 'I feel a pain'. So scepticism loses its force - cannot open up its characteristic gap - with regard to that which ultimately most concerns us, pleasure and pain.
Cruelty is no more the cure of crimes than it is the cure of sufferings; compassion, in the first instance, is good for both; I have known it to bring compunction when nothing else would.
Acting is, to me now, artificial. Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.
The knowledge that you were beaten and that this, as your parents tell you, was for your own good may well be retained (although not always), but the suffering caused by the way you were mistreated will remain unconscious and will later prevent you from empathizing with others. This is why battered children grow up to be mothers and fathers who beat their offspring
Just know what is happening in your mind - not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer see it, know it, and be empty. It's like a letter - you have to open it before you can know what's in it.
We all want a world without war, without conflict, without human suffering.
The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out to your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout your coming when you return from your daily victory and defeat.
Suffering does not call into question the "big picture" of the Christian faith. It reminds us that we do not see the whole picture, and are thus unable to fit all of the pieces neatly into place.
Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment.
Our bodies are always exposed to Satan. The maladies I suffer are not natural, but Devil's spells.
It is the greatest and the tallest of trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder. For the gods love to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves.
Suffering brings the patient to us. . . the patient needs to feel heard and seen-that is, met, by another person.
Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.
I didn't appreciate the young woman that I was, or my young beauty, because I was so obsessed with the fact that I felt fat. It's never good to add to anybody else's suffering. It's an important topic to really get the gravity and the importance of - dealing with dignity.
To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides.
I used to suffer from excessive pride. Well, I got over that one.
Who can take away suffering without entering it?