Misfortune Quotes

See also Core English Vocabulary (M) Quotes

This is the age of insincerity. The movies had the misfortune to come along in the twentieth century, and because they appeal to the masses there can be no sincerity in them. Hollywood is tied hand and foot to the demands for artificiality of the masses all over the world.

- Lionel Barrymore

Unless some misfortune has made it impossible, everyone can have good posture.

- Loretta Young

I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth. (1985)

- Rock Hudson

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock in a thunderstorm.

- Robert Stevenson

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

- Aristotle

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what bring you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn`t just a fiction, it`s part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like teeth in our mouth. It can`t be forever violated with impunity.

- Boris Pasternak

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ``This is a misfortune`` but ``To bear this worthily is good fortune.``

- Marcus Aurelius

Physical deformity, calls forth our charity. But the infinite misfortune of moral deformity calls forth nothing but hatred and vengeance.

- Clarence Darrow

I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.

- Arthur Rimbaud

Misfortune was my god.

- Arthur Rimbaud

Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world.

- Stefan Zweig

Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don`t be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn`t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.

- A.D. Muller

A bad neighbor is a misfortune, as much as a good one is a great blessing.

- Abigail Caplovitz

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

- Adam Stegeman

Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.

- Adrian Fryxell

One should go invited to a friend in good fortune, and uninvited in misfortune.

- Adrian Warren

No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.

- Aimee Litka

I gather from a lawyer that there was a rehearsal yesterday. We haven`t a hope. I know the presiding judge too: I`ve had the misfortune to sleep with his wife. He was specially picked.

- Ajibike Akinkoye

Knowledge is that possession that no misfortune can destroy, no authority can revoke, and no enemy can control. This makes knowledge the greatest of all freedoms.

- Alan Adler

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

- Alan Cropsey

The swift wind of compromise is a lot more devastating than the sudden jolt of misfortune.

- Alan Gell

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?

- Alberto Lozano

We interest others by the misfortune we spread around us.

- Alderman Dana McLendon

It`s the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.

- Alex Cunningham

Your dear baby has died innocent and blameless, and has been called away by an all wise and merciful Creator, most probably from a life to misery and misfortune, and most certainly to one of happiness and bliss.

- Alex Maskey

The government`s War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.

- Alexander Kendrick

In the same proportion Russia is the misfortune of Europe and the Israelites.

- Alexis Waggoner

It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.

- Alfred Kugal

I believe that the confidence of Hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators.

- Allison Baker

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

- Alvina Tan

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

- Andreu Guarneri

I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power

- Angela Bono

This past weekend encompassed all of us in a cloud of misfortune and sadness that is not easy to explain, especially to those who are not familiar with the great sport of quail hunting. My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week.

- Angelo LaMantia

Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, may be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.

- Dorothy Parker

A bad neighbor is a misfortune, as much as a good one is a great blessing

- Hesiod

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

- Honore de Balzac

A man convinced of his own merit will accept misfortune as an honor, for thus can he persuade others, as well as himself, that he is a worthy target for the arrows of fate.

- Janet Watson

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel`s face.

- Lydia M. Child

Man`s great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to

- Paul Valery

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

- Plato

It has been my misfortune to be engaged in more battles than any other general on the other side of the Atlantic; but there was never a time during my command when I would not have chosen some settlement by reason rather than the sword.

- Ulysses S. Grant

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

- William James