The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion. . . a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort.
The four most miserable years of my life were my four years in the presidency.
I just read about John Le Carre, the great spy novelist. He had an absolutely miserable childhood. His mother deserted him when he was young. His father was a playboy and a drunk. He was shifted around to many different homes. He knew he was a writer when he was about nine, but he was dyslexic. So here was a person with an absolutely messed-up childhood and a symptom that prevented him from doing what he wanted to do most. Yet that very symptom was part of the calling. It forced him to go deeper.
Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That's one of my favorite things to say. So what.
Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.
Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy, and make the most of where you are
I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.
[T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care. . . They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.
Why get married and make one man miserable when I can stay single and make thousands miserable?
Being heartbroken is like having this really horrible freedom. You can be selfish with your thoughts, which can lead to manic creativity, but at the same time you're just really miserable.
Make a child a painting and he'll be happy for a day. Teach a child to paint and he'll be miserable for a lifetime.
Why live in the darkness all your life? Why, if you are unhappy, if you are having a miserable time, why not just look at it? Why are you in the darkness? Look for the light. The light is within.
Most men spend the first half of their lives making the second half miserable.
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.
Dying legacies are a miserable substitute for living benevolence.
For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.
A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books, but when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school. (Act 2, scene 2)
If you're actually being paid to be miserable, and to be as miserable as you can be, that's a very fortunate thing, if you're prone to occasional lapses of spirit.
You can make yourself happy or miserable - it's the same amount of effort.