Relative Suffering Quotes

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.

What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?

I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.

My wife deals with real problems. My problems aren't problems - they're inconveniences.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.

If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.

To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.

There are worse things than poverty, though I can't for the moment remember what they are.

We pick our own sorrows out of the joys of other men, and from their sorrows likewise we derive our joys.

My problems are so miniscule compared to what's going on in the world. In that sense, I feel liberated.

Well, I've cleaned bathrooms in a warehouse. That was pretty terrible. But I can't complain because I'm sure other people have done worse.

I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.

Nothing's new since Genesis. And so everybody in their life thinks history began when they were born. Most people's historical perspective happened when they were born in the sense that nothing has ever been this bad. "We've never gone before this before," and of course we have. Things have been worse in many ways in the country.

The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harass him if he does not know how much he escapes.

I come from a world where the word 'trauma' doesn't exist, because we are too poor. I didn't have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn't all that bad.

I always believed that I had to pretend to be happy. But what I've learned is that it doesn't matter what race or class or demographic you come from. I truly believe that sadness is relative.

It's easy when you've had difficulty or strife in your life to look at other people who seem like they've had it easier. But the thing we forget is that it is all relative, and each person's experience is uniquely their own, so that the worst thing they may be going through is truly the worst thing for them... it's just about having compassion.

[...] and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side. It wasn't easy, and I'm still not sure that I managed it properly, but it's just something I like to do when things aren't going well. Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying that the second car is much better off than the first.

Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.

And, if I were so low that I accounted myself the worst of all, yet some would account themselves in worse case.

What has happened to us has happened to everyone or only to us; if to everyone, then it's no novelty, and if only to us, then it won't be understood.