Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.
Men are slower to recognize blessings than misfortunes.
Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to pecuniary [monetary] matters. Want of attention to these matters has impeded the progress of science and of genius itself.
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.
Is demum miser est, cuius nobilitas miserias nobilitat. (Indeed, wretched the man whose fame makes his misfortunes famous.)