The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.

suffering awarenss

About May Sarton

Eleanore Marie Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995), known by the pen name May Sarton, was a Belgian and American novelist, poet, and memoirist. Notably, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her writing in 1965, a time when it was highly unusual to do so.

More quotations from May Sarton

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow cycles of nature, is a help.

patience nature

Why is it that people who cannot show feeling presume that that is a strength and not a weakness?

My home is not a place, it is people.

There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.

More quotations tagged with “suffering”

No man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is.

—Isaac Rosenfeld

justice learning suffering

Jews and blacks come from the same history. . . . We've just expressed our suffering differently as people. Blacks developed the blues. Jews complain; we just never thought of putting it to music.

history suffering complaining jewishness blackness

It is the people who have no say in making wars who suffer most from the consequences of them.

—Philippa Carr

war power poverty suffering consequences control

Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind. . . . In the process of discovering our true nature, the journey goes down, not up. . . . Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. . . . We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we will let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of compassion. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

—Pema Chödrön

Even for our enemies in misery, there should be tears in our eyes.

—Charan Singh

enemies suffering misery tears