Top 200 Suffering Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”

— Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Moving On Quotes, Depression Quotes, Letting Go Quotes

2. “I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Christian Quotes, Christian Motivational Quotes, Sorrow Quotes

3. “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Sad Quotes, Existentialism Quotes, Meaning of Life Quotes

4. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Also featured in: Life Quotes, Life Philosophy Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Quality Quotes

5. “A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Happiness Quotes, Discipline Quotes, Reflection Quotes, Inspirational Life Quotes

6. “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

Also featured in: Scripture Quotes, Faith Quotes, Adversity Quotes

7. “Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.”

— Ajahn Chah

Also featured in: Enlightenment Quotes, Practice Quotes, Teacher Quotes

8. “It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.”

— Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Inner Peace Quotes, Acceptance Quotes, Enlightenment Quotes, Wisdom Quotes

9. “The root of suffering is attachment.”

— Buddha

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Spiritual Growth Quotes, Deep Quotes, Life Philosophy Quotes

10. “All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Buddhist Quotes

11. “Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Buddhist Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Peace Quotes

12. “Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.”

— Eckhart Tolle

Also featured in: Enlightenment Quotes, Purpose Quotes, Ego Quotes

13. “I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.”

— Franz Kafka

Also featured in: Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes, Existentialism Quotes, Depression Quotes

14. “Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”

— James Anthony Froude

Also featured in: Depressing Quotes, Sports Quotes, Honesty Quotes, Quotes About Veganism

15. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

— Khalil Gibran

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Hurt Quotes, Understanding Quotes

16. “This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in the world.”

— John Piper

Also featured in: Faith Quotes, Contentment Quotes

17. “The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian; it benefits you; it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for heaven.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

Also featured in: Scripture Quotes, Life is Hard Quotes, Heaven Quotes

18. “It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Demotivational Quotes

19. “But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Sad Quotes About Life

20. “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Also featured in: Life Philosophy Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Struggle Quotes

21. “There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

Also featured in: Christian Quotes, Adversity Quotes

22. “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Peace of Mind Quotes, Buddhist Quotes

23. “Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.”

— Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Care Quotes, Mindfulness Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Peace Quotes

24. “Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it – likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Also featured in: Strong Quotes, Stay Strong Quotes

25. “Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

— C. S. Lewis

26. “Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor ”

— Alexis Carrel

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes

27. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

— Seneca

Also featured in: Deep Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Stoic Philosophy Quotes

28. “To avoid pain, they avoid pleasure. To avoid death, they avoid life.”

— Osho

Also featured in: Short Deep Quotes

29. “He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”

— Seneca

Also featured in: Short Quotes

30. “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Perseverance Quotes, Quotes About Strength, Failure Quotes

31. “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”

— Alan Watts

Also featured in: Perspective Quotes, Buddhist Quotes, Fun Quotes

32. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

— Bertrand Russell

Also featured in: Strong Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Empathy Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Quotes About Humanity

33. “Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging.”

— Marsha M. Linehan

Also featured in: Psychology Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Helping Quotes, Healing Quotes

34. “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”

— John Green

Also featured in: Feel Better Quotes, Sorrow Quotes, Forgiveness Quotes

35. “The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”

— C.G. Jung

Also featured in: Psychology Quotes, Mindfulness Quotes, Struggle Quotes

36. “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”

— Blaise Pascal

Also featured in: Silence Quotes, Loneliness Quotes, Solitude Quotes

37. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”

— Washington Irving

Also featured in: Loss Quotes, Quotes About Feelings, Sorrow Quotes, Sadness Quotes

38. “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”

— Paul McCartney

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Compassion Quotes, Health Quotes

39. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Sad Quotes, Meaning of Life Quotes

40. “Write hard and clear about what hurts. ”

— Ernest Hemingway

Also featured in: Emotional Quotes, Quotes About Writing, Struggle Quotes

41. “There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Mental Strength Quotes, Wellness Wednesday Quotes, Quotes About Hope

42. “We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

— Charles Bukowski

Also featured in: Sad Quotes, Life Is Short Quotes, Quotes About Reality

43. “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Also featured in: Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes, Sad Quotes About Life

44. “The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, ‘O God, forgive me,’ or ‘Help me.’”

— Billy Graham

Also featured in: Christian Quotes, Spiritual Growth Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Depression Quotes

45. “The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it.”

— Jordan B. Peterson

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Responsibility Quotes

46. “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

— Alan Moore

Also featured in: Sad Quotes, Crazy Quotes, Bad Day Quotes

47. “Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away. Before sorrow befalls you.”

— Buddha

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Deep Quotes, Sorrow Quotes

48. “The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Compassion Quotes

49. “You don’t want to lose your old friend, the misery. You have invested too much into false. Hence the fear to be exposed, to be true, to be naked as you are.”

— Osho

50. “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Spiritual Growth Quotes, Life is Hard Quotes, Faith Quotes, Struggle Quotes