Lord Byron - Christopher Hitchens - Carl Sagan - James Garfield - Jeremy Taylor - William Shakespeare - Sigmund Freud - Woody Allen - Rab C Nesbitt TV - Paul Foot - Charles Darwin - Adam Smith - Matthew Arnold - W Somerset Maugham - Thomas Browne - Vincent van Gogh - Gone With The Wind 1939 - Star Trek: Voyager TV - Robert Lowe - Albert Schweitzer - William Blake - William James - Samuel Johnson - Alyson Noel - Victor Hugo - Franz Kafka - Alain de Botton - John Keats - Baron d’Holbach - George Orwell - Charles Bukowski - Miguel de Cervantes - Franz Kafka - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Mary Shelley - Douglas Adams - Leon Trotsky - Spike Milligan - Voltaire - George Eliot - John Milton - Charles Dickens - Edward Gibbon - Blaise Pascal - Eleanor Roosevelt - Jane Austen - Gunnar Myrdal - Brief Encounter 1946 - Aldous Huxley - Martin Amis - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Robert Tressell - Spring Breakers 2012 -
368. I do not believe in any religion. I will have nothing to do with your immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating on another. (Religion & Misery & Life’s Like That) Lord Byron
77,013. I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another. (Immortal & Misery & Religion & Life’s Like That) Lord Byron, letter to Francis Hodgson 3 September 1811
602. There’s no expiation for the generations of misery and suffering that religion has inflicted in this way and continues to inflict and I still haven’t heard enough apology for it. (Religion & Misery & Suffering & Apology) Christopher Hitchens
89,986. Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. (Stupidity & Misery & Ignorance) Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
879. The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. (Truth & Misery) James A Garfield
1,105. As our life is very short, so it is very miserable, and therefore it is well it is short. (Life’s Like That & Misery) Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying 1651
9,267. Just Death, kind umpire of men’s miseries. (Death & Misery) William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixth II v 29
50,644. My heart is drowned with grief,
Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes,
My body round engirt with misery;
For what’s more miserable than discontent? William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention 2 Henry VI III i 142-144, King Henry
50,645. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death! William Shakespeare, Richard III IV i 33-34, Duchess of York
1,168. If there were reason for these miseries,
Then into limits could I bind thy woes.
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow? (Life’s Like That & Reason & Misery) William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus III i 218-220, Titus to Marcus
1,190. There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. (Life’s Like That & Man & Flood & Fortune & Misery & Fortunate) William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar IV iii 217
4,167. Jaques: Will you sit down with me, and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery?
Orlando: I will child no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults. (World & Misery & Fault) William Shakespeare, As You Like It III ii 271-275
76,329. The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope. (Misery & Hope) William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure III i 2-3, Claudio
46,082. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. (Shakespeare & Misery & Tempest) The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor, Trinculo
50,646. For misery is trodden on by many,
And, being low, never relieved by any. William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
2,082. What good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, as if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer? (Life’s Like That & Old Age & Misery & Death) Sigmund Freud
2,145. Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering – it’s all over much too soon. (Life's Like That & Misery & Loneliness & Suffering) Woody Allen
5,287. If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job. (Job & Film & Misery) Woody Allen
79,262. Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. (Life’s Like That & Misery) Annie Hall 1977 starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton & Tony Roberts & Carol Kane & Paul Simon & Janet Margolin & Shelley Duvall & Christopher Walken & Colleen Dewhurst & Donald Symington & Joan Newman et al, director Woody Allen, him to her
4,135. The world is a veil of hopeless misery. Marriage nothing but institutionalised boredom. (World & Misery & Marriage & Boredom & Life's Like That) Rab C Nesbitt, Growth, BBC 1997
76,522. Why, son, we hope you’re happy here. I mean, I’m not happy here. I’m as miserable as sin here. This house is nothing but a pit of misery and despair. A coffin with windows. Anyway enjoy. (House & Happiness & Misery) Rab C Nesbitt: New
5,214. The subjection of human beings by the organisation of productive labour has increased a hundredfold since Engels wrote that passage. The greater the exploitation, the more miserable the lot of so many workers, and the greater the case for socialism. The worst crime of capitalism is its enslavement and corruption of the human spirit. It binds that spirit to the yoke of productive labour, lobs it back and forth between boom and slump, insults and degrades it as if it were no more than part of the machinery. ‘We are,’ says the Guatemalan peasant in the film El Norte, ‘just arms and legs for them.’ (Work & Socialism & Like’s Like That & Slave & Misery) Paul Foot, The Case for Socialism chapter 5
6,152. If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. (Society & Misery & Institution) Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
6,160. No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable. (Society & Majority & Misery & Poor) Adam Smith
6,255. Resolve to be thyself: and know that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery. (Self & Misery) Matthew Arnold, Self-Dependence, 1852
7,141. To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. (Read & Misery & Life’s Like That) W Somerset Maugham, Books and You
9,222. He forgets that he can die who complains of misery, we are in the power of no calamity, which death is in our own. (Death & Misery) Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici
10,340. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. (Art: Van Gogh & Misery) Vincent van Gogh, letter to brother Theo
23,202. Most of the miseries of the world were caused by wars. (South & Misery & War) Gone With the Wind 1939 starring Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh & Leslie Howard & Olivia de Haviland & Thomas Mitchell & Barbara Mitchell & Evelyn Keyes & Ann Rutherford & George Reeves & Fred Crane & Hattie McDaniel & Alicia Rhett et al, director Victor Fleming, Ashley
25,120. Leave us alone in our misery. (Star Trek: Voyager & Misery) Star Trek: Voyager: Heroes and Demons s1e12 Viking bloke
25,137. You’ve got something on your mind. What tells me that it’s making you miserable is that cloud of doom that’s rising from you like a ground fog. (Star Trek: Voyager & Misery) Star Trek: Voyager: Learning Curve s1e16, Neelix to Tuvok
45,237. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man whose duties make him more or less of a taxing machine. He is intrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can. (Politics & Misery) Robert Lowe, speech House of Commons 11th April 1870
46,258. The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats. (Music & Misery & Cat) Albert Schweitzer
50,647. And because I am happy, and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King
Who make up a heaven of our misery. William Blake, Songs of Experience
50,648. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James, the Principles of Philosophy 1890
50,649. If a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it. Samuel Johnson