Quotes & Sayings About Misfortunes Of Others

Turning oneself to the misfortunes of others is the best way to dispense with personal troubles. Hadn't Lord Byron himself said, "The busy have no time for tears"? — Martha Hall Kelly

Happy will be those who take a lesson and warning from the mistakes and misfortunes of others and seek, nevertheless, to adopt the good they offer. Wisdom, wherever he finds it, it's a believer's goal, because he is more worthy of it than anyone else. — Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others. — Aesop

Pride thinks it's own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of others. — Thomas More

Am I old-fashioned? I think I might be. I am a lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift ... the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others. — Barry Humphries

Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others' children. — Sam Levenson

The twisty nature of psychic attack - are you being attacked, or did you bring this attack on yourself? - speaks to me of an American cultural paradox we all grapple with. There's the rampant litigiousness of our society, and the desire to blame others for our misfortunes. — Heidi Julavits

We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others. — Alexander Smith

See me, how calm I am.
Ay, people are generally calm at the misfortunes of others. — Oliver Goldsmith

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God's plan for us.
What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings. — Barack Obama

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things. Thus death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible. When, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own views. It is the action of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own misfortunes; of one entering upon instruction, to reproach himself; and of one perfectly instructed, to reproach neither others or himself. — Epictetus

Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes. — Marquis De Sade

19. - We have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end. — Thomas Jefferson

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe. — Samuel Johnson

Consider the misfortunes of others, and you will be the better able to bear your own. — Ovid

As a rule, I don't like to laugh at the misfortune of others. The exception to that rule is if it's really, really funny. — Scott Adams

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. — Robert F. Kennedy

It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others. — Marquis De Sade

If pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the misery of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. — Thomas More

You have no idea how much of the inefficiency of mankind comes from thinking about the wrong-doings of others, and of ourselves. There is nothing more miserable than to feel that by some mistake in life you have not amounted to what you might have, and that your misfortunes all hinge on that mistake. — Emma Curtis Hopkins

There are two types of compassion. One - is faint-hearted and sentimental. Actually, it is nothing more than impatience of the heart, that is hurrying to get rid of that hard feeling when you see other peoples' sufferings; this is not a compassion, but just an instinct will to defence yourself from misfortunes of others. But there is another compassion - real one, that demands for actions, not sentiments, it knows what it wants, and it is full of determination to do everything, what is in human power and even beyond it. — Stefan Zweig

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hitler may have lost the war on the battlefield, but he ended up winning something too," says Marek Halter, "because man in the twentieth century created the concentration camp and revived torture and taught his fellow men that it is possible to close their eyes to the misfortunes of others." Perhaps he is right: There are abandoned children, massacred civilians, innocent people imprisoned, lonely old people, drunks in the gutter, madmen in power. But perhaps he isn't right at all, for there are also Warriors of the Light. And Warriors of the Light never accept what is unacceptable. — Paulo Coelho

The bird alighteth not on the spread net when it beholds another bird in the snare. Take warning by the misfortunes of others, that others may not take example from you. — Saadi

Hope, tell me how could it be possible that grief and happiness are scattered all over the world so unevenly? Why do some people get all the troubles and misfortunes while the others are intoxicated with the abundance of material belongings, fat bellies and money? Why is there such injustice? Or, maybe, we are mistaken it's unfair!? — Igor Eliseev

Good luck in most cases comes through the misfortune of others. — Jackie Stewart

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. — Thomas S. Monson

Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion. — Henry Fielding

Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity. — Samuel Johnson

We never expect that any evil will befall ourselves before it comes, we will not be taught by seeing the misfortunes of others that they are the common inheritance of all men, but imagine that the path which we have begun to tread is free from them and less beset by dangers than that of other people. How many funerals pass our houses? Yet we do not think of death. — Seneca.

Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others. — Oscar Wilde

Even to smile at the misfortunes of others is to do an injury. — Publilius Syrus

We can profit only by our own misfortunes and those of others. The former, though they may be the more beneficial, are also the more painful; let us turn, then, to the latter. — Polybius

Moreover, people invariably take a greater interest in the suffering of others than in their well-being. Hence writers must constantly fight against the most tempting of all tempatations-to advertise their misfortunes. Indeed, the greatest misfortune that can happen to a writer is to work in an environment where touting one's misfortunes passes for literature. — Minae Mizumura

Let others be afraid, but the soul is not afraid of anything. It lives according to its own laws. It is bigger than space and older than time. It gives courage against all the misfortunes of life. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON — Leo Tolstoy

How we love to blame others for our misfortunes! Almost every individual who has lost money in stock speculation has on the tip of his tongue an explanation which he trots out to show that it wasn't his own fault at all ... Hardly one loser has the manliness to say frankly, I was wrong. — B.C. Forbes

In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line what lesser minds might have taken pages to express. We delight in complexity to which genius has lent an appearance of simplicity. (p 207) — Alain De Botton

This is an illustrious example which reminds us that good and saintly men sometimes run into the greatest of misfortunes and dangers not through their own but by someone else's fault. To the others, indeed, who are involved in the same danger no way of salvation or liberation appears, but they think that all is lost. But because there are some godly men, or only one godly man, in the same ship, the ship must reach port safe and sound, however much it has been tossed about by a heavy storm, even though a thousand devils have been fighting in opposition and causing tumult in the same ship. — Martin Luther

We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Lack of wisdom does not make a fool. A fool, in the truest sense, is the man who regards his own misfortunes or those of others as a source of doubt or criticism of the infinite mercy of the Gohonzon.-Josei Toda — Daisaku Ikeda

Too much stress cannot be laid ... upon the admonition that we seek so far as possible to live in the lives of other people. By sharing in the misfortunes of others, and rejoicing in their happiness, you add to your own emotional serenity and stability. — Ralph Alfred Habas

It is a good thing to learn caution from the misfortunes of others. — Publilius Syrus

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? — Thomas Jefferson

There are some arts which to those that possess them are painful, but to those that use them are helpful, a common good to laymen, but to those that practise them grievous. Of such arts there is one which the Greeks call medicine. For the medical man sees terrible sights, touches unpleasant things, and the misfortunes of others bring a harvest of sorrows that are peculiarly his; but the sick by means of the art rid themselves of the worst of evils, disease, suffering, pain and death. — Hippocrates

I wasn't raised to celebrate the misfortune of others. — Nikki Gil

I will live this day as if it is my last. ... I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday's misfortunes, Yesterday's defeats, yesterday's aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?
I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday's sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today's hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be? — Og Mandino

Economic development is not a zero-sum game; the world does not need poor countries in order to have rich countries, nor must some people be poor in order for others to be rich. Families who live in public housing on the South Side of Chicago are not poor because Bill Gates lives in a big house. They are poor despite the fact that Bill Gates lives in a big house. For a complex array of reasons, America's poor have not shared in the productivity gains spawned by Microsoft Windows. Bill Gates did not take their pie away; he did not stand in the way of their success or benefit from their misfortunes. — Charles Wheelan

We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others. — Michel De Montaigne

We all feel the urge to condemn ourselves out of guilt, to blame others for our misfortunes and to fantasize about total disaster. — Deepak Chopra

It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's all tied in with the desire to blame others for misfortunes and to get some form of compensation into the bargain. — Alexander McCall Smith

Pity is a sense of our own misfortunes in those of another man; it is a sort of foresight of the disasters which may befall ourselves. We assist others,, in order that they may assist us on like occasions; so that the services we offer to the unfortunate are in reality so many anticipated kindnesses to ourselves. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others — Edmund Burke

Contemplating the misfortunes of others does not lighten one's own trouble but instead adds to it. — Mignon G. Eberhart

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others. — Ambrose Bierce

My beloved boat is broken on the rocks of daily life. I've paid my debts and no longer need to count pains I've suffered at the hands of others. The misfortunes and the insults. Good luck to those who remain. — Jennifer Niven

A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest. — Henry Fielding

Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality. — Eric Hoffer

It made sense, Amanda decided. People thrived on the misfortunes of others: her mother was the perfect example of that. Can't see a car accident, she thought, for wanting to climb inside and join in. — Danika Stone

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own. — Aesop