These suffering quotes will inspire you. Suffering, the state or experience of one that suffers or the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging suffering quotes, suffering sayings, and suffering proverbs.
Best Suffering Quotes
- “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~ Khalil Gibran
- “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” ~ Helen Keller
- “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.” ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
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“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.” ~ Mother Teresa , Suffering quotes & pain
- “I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” ~ Charles Dickens
- “Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional.” ~ Desmond Tutu
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“Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth.” ~ Anthony de Mello
- “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, Blessed are they that morn.” ~ C. S. Lewis
- “If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ.” ~ Ignatius of Loyola
- “It requires more courage to suffer than to die.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
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“All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” ~ Helen Keller
- “God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” ~ Saint Augustine
- “The universe is a soul making machine, and part of that process is learning, maturing, and growing through difficult and challenging and painful experiences. The point of our lives in this world isn’t comfort, but training and preparation for eternity.” ~ Lee Strobel
- “DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. NOTHINGS OTHERS DO IS BECAUSE OF YOU. WHAT OTHERS SAY AND DO IS A PROJECTION OF THEIR OWN REALITY, THEIR OWN DREAM. WHEN YOU ARE IMMUNE TO THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS, YOU WON’T BE THE VICTIM OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING.” ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz
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“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.” ~ Elie Wiesel
- “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” ~ Haruki Murakami
- “The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.” ~ Thomas Merton
- “A suffering person does not need a lecture – he needs a listener.” ~ Billy Graham
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“Fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.” ~ Paulo Coelho
- “I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh , Love and suffering quotes
- “Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.” ~ Aristotle
- “But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.” ~ Paulo Coelho
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“Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” ~ Bob Marley
- “There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.” ~ Ajahn Chah
- “If the first mark of a true and living church is love, the second is
suffering. The one is naturally consequent on the other. A
willingness to suffer proves the genuineness of love.” ~ John Stott - “We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us – a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don’t close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.” ~ Pema Chodron
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“Wisdom comes alone through suffering.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. , Human suffering quotes
- “We need to be aware of the suffering, but retain our clarity, calmness and strength so we can help transform the situation.” ~ Nhat Hanh
- “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.” ~ Teresa of Avila
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“The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.” ~ Deepak Chopra
- “We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally.” ~ Dalai Lama
- “Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is… The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.” ~ Dan Millman
- “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.” ~ Jim Rohn
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“Everyone faces the challenge of finding meaning to their suffering.” ~ Phil McGraw
- “What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.” ~ Seneca the Younger
- “The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had chosen suffering in preference to the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering itself into a way by which man could come to the perfect knowledge of God.” ~ Thomas Merton
- “The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales.” ~ Aesop
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“Job never saw why he suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough.” ~ Timothy Keller
- “If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.” ~ Thomas Aquinas
- “Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.” ~ Franz Kafka
- “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” ~ Mark Twain
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“Pain is never permanent.” ~ Teresa of Avila
- “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~ Nhat Hanh
- “You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” ~ Henri Frederic Amiel
- “When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.” ~ Chinua Achebe
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“Courage would be impossible in a world without pain.” ~ Lee Strobel
- “A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.” ~ Byron Katie
- “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.” ~ Paulo Coelho
- “To perceive is to suffer.” ~ Aristotle
- “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.” ~ Bill Vaughan
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“To become a spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of life.” ~ Oscar Wilde
- “Suffering is one of life’s great teachers.” ~ Bryant H. McGill
- “Whatever pain and suffering you’ve experienced in your life has been a blessing at least in this one regard: you now know some true things that you couldn’t have learned any other way.” ~ Eric Maisel
- “God will either shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it.” ~ Saint Francis de Sales
- “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” ~ Bertrand Russell
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“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.” ~ Helen Keller
- “Pain is the great teacher of mankind. Beneath its breath souls develop.” ~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
- “If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
- “Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe
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“God will not look you over for medals degrees or diplomas, but for scars.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
- “We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” ~ Winston Churchill
- “Like the ocean that remains calm in its depths even when waves rage over its surface, and like the sun that continues shining on high even during storms, we can at each moment create value and develop our state of life, enjoying our existence to the fullest in times of both suffering and joy.” ~ Daisaku Ikeda
