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"One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary."
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"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."
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Personal Development
"Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Also, I'm angry. I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why does it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?"
Author Name
Personal Development
"One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary."
Author Name
Personal Development
"He panted over me, winded by his own absurd lecture. The stench of his alcoholic breath stung my nose. Again I didn't answer. I hoped he'd tire out and end his speech and hobble back to the living room without touching me. Such hopes were unlikely, as was the case this time. "Answer me, you good-for-nuthin' wench! The pain bit instantly as his hand connected with my cheek. I shook my head in answer to his crazy questions, feeling a rise of warm tears."
Author Name
Personal Development
"This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain..."
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Personal Development
"Life has existential suffering, we become happy by caring."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Oddly, the burned hand didn't seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Waiting Hurts. Forgetting Hurts. But not knowing which decision to take is the worst of suffering."
Author Name
Personal Development
"And I'm hoping there's some larger truth about suffering here, or at least my understanding of it - although I've come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don't, and can't, understand. What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy."
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Personal Development
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"Chastity - the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions."
Morality
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
History
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Music
"It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'"
Life
"Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work."
Work
"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."
People
"It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous."
Beauty
"Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive, even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy."
Science
"The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not."
Education
"With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar's long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. "What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness. I believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little expense or trouble..."
Kindness
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