Sunday, March 22, 2020 – These Troubles
Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still. ~ Calvin Coolidge
If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted. ~ Abraham Lincoln
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles. ~ Benjamin Franklin
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. ~ Plato
In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests. ~ John James Audubon
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar. ~ Michel de Montaigne
Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry. ~ J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Everything that is tearing us down today will become a memory, and this memory will be shared as an anecdote or a story or a poem or a play or a warning. It will be shared with another human being, who will then understand that he is not alone in his sadness. This is why we show up for others and tell our tales and listen to others. The great congregation meets daily, and you are someone’s angel today. ~ Tennessee Williams
A bitter man needs to place his troubles on the front of his tongue so that they taste sweeter. ~ Jay Wickre, Dubious Musings of a Peculiar Man
A little coffee. A little sunlight. Your troubles will get smaller. ~ Richard Webber
There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while. ~ Nick Hornby, About a Boy
Sometimes blessings come in ugly wrapping paper ~ Richie Norton
For all the hard times and tough challenges I faced during different periods of my life, I think I was lucky or blessed or both. When things looked bleak, a good guide would appear to set me straight. Someone once asked me about the villains who got in my way, the bad guys who wanted to trip me up or take me out. I don’t remember any. Maybe it’s my nature to remember the good and forget the bad, or maybe it’s my destiny to lock onto the righteous for help. ~ B. B. King, Blues All Around Me
There’s nothing written in the Bible, Old or New Testament, that says, ‘If you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.’ ~ Ray Charles
Maybe it’s because you see people differently than you saw them before your trouble started. Maybe you wonder about them more, but in a different way, and this makes them very strange to you. Maybe you get scared and numb, because you don’t know if you can depend on people for anything, anymore. ~ James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative. ~ Francis Bacon
Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives, so much in need of ornament, or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you. ~ Charles Dickens
While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful. ~ H. G. Wells
Affliction is a good man’s shining time. ~ Edward Young
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ~ Dr. Seuss
When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’ ~ Sydney J. Harris
It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones. ~ Dorothy Dix
No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. ~ Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
You start with a darkness to move through but sometimes the darkness moves through you. ~ Dean Young
I was a fool, alone, preparing to do what every fool did at such times – I was going to a bar to drink myself smart. ~ Genna Rulon
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ~ P. J. O’Rourke
Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. ~ Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side
Poverty is apt to strike suddenly like influenza; it is well to have a few memories of extravagance in store for bad times. ~ Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt
But these are small troubles, people will say. Yes, but they are drops which wear hollows in the rock. ~ Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? ~ John Keats
Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation; not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant. ~ Lucretius
The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale. ~ A. E. Housman
It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life. ~ Victor Hugo
Just Above Sunset 