Best 116 quotes in «misfortune quotes» category

In Book VIII of the Odyssey we read that the gods weave misfortunes into the pattern of events to make a song for future generations to sing. ---------- Στην Όγδοη Ραψωδία της Οδύσσειας διαβάζουμε ότι οι θεοί κλώθουν τις συμφορές για να μη λείπουν από τις μελλούμενες γενιές θέματα για τραγούδια. (μτφ Δ. Καλοκύρης)

I no longer believe that people are born without virtue. It gets beaten out. Misfortune threshes our souls as a flail threshes wheat, and the lightest parts of ourselves are scattered to the wind.

In terms of the real quality of a human being, only when suffering comes, when pain comes, does a man stand up as a human being. You can see great human beings surface only when the society is really suffering. When India was under the oppression of British rulers, how many wonderful people stood up? Where are they now? They have just fallen back into their comforts, that's all. All those Ghandis, Patels, Tilaks are still there, but they're dormant. When pain came, they all became alive. They left everything behind and stood up as giants. Where are they now? This is the human misfortune that still there's not enough intelligence in the world that human beings will rise to their peaks when everything is well. They wait for calamities.

It is a property of works of genius that, even when they represent vividly the nothingness of things, even when they clearly show and make you feel the inevitable unhappiness of life, even when they express the most terrible despair, nevertheless to a great soul that finds itself in a state of extreme dejection, disenchantment, nothingness, boredom and discouragement about life, or in the most bitter and deathly misfortune, such works always bring consolation, and rekindle enthusiasm, and, though they treat and represent nothing but death, they restore, albeit momentarily, the life that it had lost.

It is necessary to accept all the terrible things and not be crushed by them.

It's fictitious to believe that we can intuitively navigate misfortune with the inherent skills we've come into the world with.

It would be ridiculous to hold your breath and blame others for your inability to breathe. In the same sense, it is ridiculous to live an unaligned life and blame God for your misfortune.

I’ve found I still serve a purpose. I remind people to pray, to calculate the odds, to thank the fates, the gods, good karma, whatever it was that made this happen to me and not them. I’m in the worst sort of club. The one no one else wants to be in.

Maybe when we face a tragedy, someone, somewhere is preventing a bigger tragedy from happening.

Misfortune never comes alone. It's surrounded by bodyguards.

Misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror.

Neither the state guards nor the municipal police stopped me. What they saw going by was no longer a man but the curious product of misfortune, something to which laws could not be applied. I had exceeded the bounds of indecency.

No matter what life throws at you, don't become jaded or cynical. Love is worth the risk.

Opportunity...it often comes disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat.

People overwhelmed with trouble do not look behind; they know only too well that misfortune follows them.

People who are overwhelmed with troubles never do look back. They know only too well that misfortune follows in their wake.

Inspiration gives us courage to keep going in the face of illness, misfortune, and loss.

... in the life of every man there was one great good fortune and one misfortune of equal force.

It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

It's with a heavy heart that I assure you that regardless of how lasting your fortune feels, it can be taken from you before you can even think to try to hold on.

I was breathing life into the book through my hand, and the book was breathing back out through me into the world. And what was a book but leather? And what was leather but animal skin? And what was paper but a tree, and vellum but lamb? And what was I but an idea?

Little by little they all gathered around him, entering through the cracks like moonbeams...[b]ut once the wind of misfortune blows, people disperse like little clouds around the moon when the wind blows off the mountains.

Many people are the cause of their own misfortune in life, and they either blame the devil for it or hang it on God.

... misfortune and creativity go together.

Misfortune may pave the path to fortune, with Faith.

Misfortune never comes singly. It's surrounded by bodyguards.

Nesreća je za čoveka što ostavlja iza sebe noć kojoj je on dao oblik.

No one is adequate to comprehending the misery of my lot! Fate obliges me to be constantly in movement: I am not permitted to pass more than a fortnight in the same place. I have no Friend in the world, and from the restlessness of my destiny I never can acquire one. Fain would I lay down my miserable life, for I envy those who enjoy the quiet of the Grave: But Death eludes me, and flies from my embrace. In vain do I throw myself in the way of danger. I plunge into the Ocean; The Waves throw me back with abhorrence upon the shore: I rush into fire; The flames recoil at my approach: I oppose myself to the fury of Banditti; Their swords become blunted, and break against my breast: The hungry Tiger shudders at my approach, and the Alligator flies from a Monster more horrible than itself. God has set his seal upon me, and all his Creatures respect this fatal mark!

Of course I'm trying to trick you!" Olaf cried. "That's the way of the world, Baudelaires. Everybody runs around with their secrets and their schemes, trying to outwit everyone else. Ishmael outwitted me, and put me in this cage. But I know how to outwit him and all his islander friends. If you let me out. I can be king of Olaf-land, and you three can be my new henchfolk." "We don't want to be your henchfolk," Klaus said. "We just want to be safe." "Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said.

Pico Mundo is a prosperous town. But no degree of prosperity can be sufficient to eliminate all misfortune, and sloth is impervious to opportunity.

Pray for God's mercy in the moment of misfortune.

Rather blessings, after counting my misfortunes, I realized how the more blessed I am.

Sad was the Hour, and luckless was the Day. - Eclogue the Second: Hassan; or the Camel-driver

She couldn’t help but wonder at the events of recent days, and at how—even in the face of such misfortune, there was so much good,

So let those people go on weeping and wailing whose self-indulgent minds have been weakened by long prosperity, let them collapse at the threat of the most trivial injuries; but let those who have spent all their years suffering disasters endure the worst afflictions with a brave and resolute staunchness. Everlasting misfortune does have one blessing, that it ends up by toughening those whom it constantly afflicts.

Sometimes misfortune brings opportunity

Sometimes you think you have all of tomorrow ahead of you,’ Mama often said. ‘When the sun is shinning, think of the time it won’t be, because even when you’re sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above.

Sooner or later a piece of the sky falls on everyone.

Sooner or later, everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two--a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set.

The Bible, after all, repeatedly speaks of God as the special protector of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, without raising the question of how it happened that they became poor, widowed, or orphaned in the first place.

The main reason of fear of failure lies in people’s being unaware of the impact of misfortune on achieving success

The old adage--humor is the best way to make the unbearable bearable--may be true.

There are misfortunes one can overcome only through indifference

There is no reason why an individual, who has the misfortune to become insane, should, on that account, be deprived of any comfort or even luxury...

There is something beautiful in every person that never dies, no matter their misfortunes.

The skies give no warning when they fall.

...the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress.

Often when you think the worst is over it has just begun.

The exquisite sorrows with which they had been afflicted, made them think lightly of every succeeding woe. They had felt the sharpest darts in misfortune's quiver; Those which remained appeared blunt in comparison. Having weathered Fate's heaviest Storms, they looked calmly upon its terrors: or if ever they felt Afflictions casual gales, they seemed to them gentle as Zephyrs, which breathe over summer-seas.

The fortune that you feel you don't deserve is heaven's compensation for the misfortunes she feels you didn't deserve