Misfortune Quotes

That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

~ Haruki Murakami

Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, So, you're back from Moscow, eh?

~ P.g. Wodehouse

Use fear to become braver, pain to become stronger, trials to become wiser, and misfortune to become better.

~ Matshona Dhliwayo

[W]hen someone finds himself quite unjustly attacked and hated on all sides, there is no need for such a person to feel dismayed by misfortune. See how Fortune, who has harmed many a one, is so inconstant, for God, Who opposes all wrong deeds, raises up those in whom hope dwells.

~ Christine De Pizan

For this reason, it is well said that misfortune is sometimes good for something, for it teaches at the same time that it hurts.

~ Christine De Pizan

Death always knew how to connect vice with misfortune.

~ Jindřich Štyrský

Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

~ Sheri S. Tepper

Don't let the mist of circumstances block your imagination and stop you from making new beginnings.

~ Balroop Singh

I had tried, as best I could, to forget the people who had said they loved me, and I had been able to do so only by replacing their memory with hatred for them and their crimes. Time is no healer. It scabs the wound until the injury is forgotten, but the infection festers, eating away, spreading.

~ Wesley Stace

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune

~ William Faulkner

Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.

~ Bernard Beckett

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

~ Washington Irving

We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It never really ends...Children surviving through the cold winds of neglect, and all kinds of misfortune and vile treatment.We see them everyday, with broken smiles that endure the painful kicking of their malnourished bellies protruded with dreams that may never see the light of conception...But with just a little kind word,A handful of promise,A heart of compassion,A smile full of hope,We would hold hands together in helping them conceive their dreams...Because they are the little bits and pieces that make us whole...

~ Chinonye J. Chidolue

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

~ Ljupka Cvetanova

But then again...perhaps the whole human race is cursed, and I'm simply in the lower echelon and therefore lose everything first.

~ Ondrelique C. Ouellette

For the young, there is nothing unattainable; a good thing desired with the whole force of a passionate will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us, and that, however beautiful may be the things we crave, Fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when misfortune comes, to bear without regretting the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission to power is not only just and right: it is the very gate of wisdom.

~ Bertrand Russell

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

~ Kamand Kojouri

Every misfortune is a fortune.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

When the two become the oneAnd the inside outside, the outside inSo that the male be not male nor the female femaleThen will you see me.

~ Wesley Stace

Dread was always with her, an alarm system in her head, alertto her next disaster.Despite being resigned to a life of misfortune, she becameresourceful.She grudgingly noticed that things always worked out, evenwhen she claimed defeat.An inconvenient truth, yet it was right there, in her face,betraying her self-punishments and assumptions.She kept overcoming things, dammit, aggravating herself.She still felt so much joy, despite her efforts to be miserable.Her life was full of miracles and spectacles that she was afraidto rely on so she didn’t know how to enjoy, how to be thankful,without guilt.She didn’t want to win and she didn’t want to lose.Ambiguity intrigued her and she found passion in the gapsbetween hope and despair.

~ G.g. Renee Hill

When the rush of the weak sweeps over those that strive to be strong, its destruction. The commonplaces of moral judgment become fogged with the lack of perception stained with the sting of longing. The voice of reason is lost in the envious echoes of hearts torn by battle. The song of our children echo the misfortune of their parent's haze---we all started out small and had dreams to become something more than what we were.

~ Shannon L. Alder

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

~ Anthony Liccione

... misfortune and creativity go together.

~ Cirilo F. Bautista

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

~ Agona Apell

Chuang-tzu once told a story about two persons who both lost a sheep. One person got very depressed and lost himself in drinking, sex, and gambling to try to forget this misfortune. The other person decided that this would be an excellent chance for him to study the classics and quietly observe the subtleties of nature. Both men experience the same misfortune, but one man lost himself because he was too attached to the experience of loss, while the other found himself because he was able to let go of gain and loss.

~ Liezi

Friends disappear or they are powerless. This is what misfortune meansan acid test of friendship.I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

~ Anne Carson

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

~ Seneca

Beware! Balance rules the cosmos. It is not concerned with good or bad. You can be struck by misfortune and be buried in grief if that is what it takes to restore the imbalance you have wrought unto the world.

~ Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Horror is a feeling that cannot last long; human nature is incapable of supporting it. Sadness, whether it be from bereavement, or disappointment, or misfortune of any kind may linger on through life

~ James De Mille

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upwardTo what they were before.

~ William Shakespeare

And it was at this time that Sir Myles died of his hurt, for it is often so that death and misfortune befall some, whiles others laugh and sing for hope and joy, as though such grievous things as sorrow and death could never happen in the world wherein they live.

~ Howard Pyle

That would be the greatest misfortune of all! -- To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! -- Do not wish me such an evil.

~ Jane Austen

I beg you, alight and join your sorrow with mine: misfortune wanders everywhere, and settles now upon one and now upon another.

~ Aeschylus

Simplicity, patience, compassion.These three are your greatest treasures.Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.Patient with both friends and enemies,you accord with the way things are.Compassionate toward yourself,you reconcile all beings in the world.…There is no greater misfortunethan underestimating your enemy.Underestimating your enemymeans thinking that he is evil.Thus you destroy your three treasuresand become an enemy yourself.When two great forces oppose each other,the victory will goto the one that knows how to yield.

~ Lao Tzu

Everything would turn out exactly the same, and I would return here for a second time, and then, if I was fool enough, a third time, waiting, as now, for my other to touch the canvas. And it would be progressively worse, because though I would know slightly more each time, I would still be powerless to change my fate. Perhaps I would be unaware of the previous decision, yet choose again to come back. Or worse, I would become aware that I was inadvertently repeating the same mistake for a horrific split second just after I made the decision. Infinity was terrifying. Its abyss makes my skin crawl.

~ Wesley Stace

History is indeed more than the register of crime,folilies and misfortune of mankind.

~ Peter Adejimi