It’s not fun to think about, but misery is part of the human condition.

Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. ~ Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Passion takes no count of time; peril marks no hours or minutes; wrong makes its own calendar; and misery has solar systems peculiar to itself. ~ The True Story of Guenever by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known. ~ A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true. ~ Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

More Quotes from Literature about Misery