Sorrow

"Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths."

"Thanks to globalization, new technologies and social networks, we know that what makes us laugh or saddens us, causes exactly the same reaction on the other side of the world."

"Where does that sad moment begin/that drowned the dance of my spirit"

"For my errors loom over my head;"

"Mes malheurs sont comblés, mais ma vertu me reste."

"Sorrow is better than laughter; when the face is sad, the heart grows wise."

"I am destined to pass through this world, wandering like an invisible meteor. Precisely because I am superior, I will have to empty the entire cup of sorrow and distress with no joy to cheer me. But the harsh intoxication of drinking from the chalice of sorrow is a superb pleasure that only one who tears his soul to shreds by himself, with his own hands, is given to taste."

"There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it."

"Every joy that some experience is paid for by the sorrow of others."

"O, sorrow! Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?"

"To Sorrow I bade good-morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind; But cheerly, cheerly, She loves me dearly: She is so constant to me, and so kind."

"How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self."

"The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it... the Cause of Sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires, if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene.... Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that he does not allow himself to be disturbed... the Noble Eightfold Path... can be taken at all levels. The man in the world, even the uneducated man, can take it in its lowest aspects and find a way to peace and comfort through it. And yet the highest philosopher may also take it and interpret it at his level and learn very much from it."

"How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of sadness, jealousy and much other ill-feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural; undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot be returned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to be caused by the unsatisfied desire."

"In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once."

"Sorrow, the great idealizer."

"Buddhism’s famed Four Truths are called noble because they liberate us from suffering."

"What is the light that can dispel this ignorance of ours and remove all sorrows? A. The knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, as the Buddha called them... How can we escape the sufferings which result from unsatisfied desires and ignorant cravings? A. By complete conquest over, and destruction of, this eager thirst for life and its pleasures, which causes sorrow.... By following the Noble Eight-fold Path which the Buddha discovered and pointed out...The man who keeps these... in mind and follows them will be free from sorrow and ultimately reach salvation."

"Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy."

"Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing."

"In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."

"That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

"O sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, Be sometimes lovely, like a bride, And put thy harsher moods aside, If thou wilt have me wise and good."

"The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind. p. 26"

"Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space. Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind has created around the situation and that serves no purpose whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self. Recognizing its futility is important. Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation. In fact, in most cases it keeps you stuck in it, blocking real change. Anything that is done with negative energy will become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more unhappiness. Furthermore, any negative inner state is contagious: Unhappiness spreads more easily than a physical disease. Through the law of resonance, it triggers and feeds latent negativity in others, unless they are immune - that is, highly conscious. Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is... p. 53"

"How can we drop negativity, as you suggest? By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don't want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it."

"Deep unconsciousness, such as the pain-body, or other deep pain, such as the loss of a loved one, usually needs to be transmuted through acceptance combined with the light of your presence - your sustained attention. Many patterns in ordinary unconsciousness, on the other hand, can simply be dropped once you know that you don't want them and don't need them anymore, once you realize that you have a choice, that you are not just a bundle of conditioned reflexes. All this implies that you are able to access the power of Now. Without it, you have no choice."

"Past sorrows, let us moderately lament them; For those to come, seek wisely to prevent them."

"Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin."

"Wherever sorrow is, relief would be: If you do sorrow at my grief in love, By giving love, your sorrow and my grief were both extermin'd."

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions."

"'Tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow."

"I will instruct my sorrows to be proud."

"Here I and sorrows sit: Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it."

"Down, thou climbing sorrow."

"Each new morn, New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out Like syllable of dolour."

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."

"Your cause of sorrow Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then It hath no end."

"This sorrow's heavenly; It strikes where it doth love."

"One sorrow never comes but brings an heir, That may succeed as his inheritor."

"Sorrow ends not when it seemeth done."

"Joy, being altogether wanting, It doth remember me the more of sorrow."

"Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night."

"Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen, And each hour's joy wrecked with a week of teen."

"If sorrow can admit society, Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine."

"To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal; But sorrow flouted at is double death."

"I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness."

"Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow Be a sufficient ransom for offence, I tender 't here: I do as truly suffer, As e'er I did commit."

"The pain shown by others and later understood doesn’t hurt as deeply as the pain one feels firsthand and then witnesses."

"Ah, nothing comes to us too soon but sorrow."