Misfortune Quotes (13 quotes)
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1998), 54.
Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to [money management]; for. ... want of attention to pecuniary matters … has impeded the progress of science and of genius itself.
Advice to Young Men (1833), 50.
Before his [Sir Astley Cooper’s] time, operations were too often frightful alternatives or hazardous compromises; and they were not seldom considered rather as the resource of despair than as a means of remedy; he always made them follow, as it were, in the natural course of treatment; he gave them a scientific character; and he moreover, succeeded, in a great degree, in divesting them of their terrors, by performing them unostentatiously, simply, confidently, and cheerfully, and thereby inspiring the patient with hope of relief, where previously resignation under misfortune had too often been all that could be expected from the sufferer.
In John Forbes (ed.), British and Foreign Medical Review (Jul 1840), 10, No. 19, 104. In Bransby Blake Cooper, The Life of Sir Astley Cooper (1843), Vol. 2, 37.
Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.
In Lothair (1879), Chap. 29, 137.
He who contemplates nature finds an inexhaustible source of wonder and pleasure in considering, among the class of insects, their forms, their colours, the different offensive and defensive weapons with which they are provided, their curious habitudes, the bond of union which is shewn in some kinds, and the prudence and industry which they employ, less indeed for their individual preservation than with a view to secure the perpetuity of the species, while yielding to the soft and powerful impulse of nature. But if this innumerable family of little animals furnishes ample matter for the curious researches of the naturalist, it affords also a subject of meditation for public economy, since some kinds of these beings cause even national calamities, while on the contrary other species greatly contribute to the prosperity of states and individuals.
As translated (by uncredited trans.) in Chap. 1, 'Of Caterpillars Generally, Amongst Which is Comprised the Silk-Worm', The Art of Rearing Silk-Worms (1825), 1. Originally published in Italian as, Dell'arte di governare i bachi da seta (1815). Above quote from the original Italian, “Una sorgente inesausta di meraviglia e di piacere trova il contemplatore della natura nella classe degli insetti allorquando si fa a considerare l’abito esterno di çodesto iminenso popolo di esseri viventi, le tante differenti armi di offesa e di difesa loro prestate dalla provvida natura, le curiosissime loro abitudini, lo spirito di famiglia eminentissimo, che sì bene si mamifesta in alcune spezie, e la somma loro previdenza ed insdustria rispetto non tanto a’ mezzi che impiegano per la loro individuale conservazione, quanto a quelli cui, seguendo il dolce e possente invito della natura, mettono in opera, onde meglio assicurare la perpetuazione della spezie. Ma se questa innumerevole famiglia di animali fornisce ampia materia alle curiose indagini del naturalista, offre pur auco un soggetto di grande studio al pubblico economista, per la ragione che come alcune spezie di cotali esseri esercitano talvolta una influenza la più diretta sulle disgrazie dei popoli, così altre spezie per lo contrario l’hanno grandissima sulla prosperità degli Statie di quanti individui li compongono.” [Note: Whereas the printed translation gives “cause even national calamities”, the original Italian reads, “disgrazie dei popoli”—which might be translated less dramatically as, “misfortunes of the peoples.” —Webmaster
It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood.
In Letter to Thomas Pennant (4 Aug 1767), in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), 27.
It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry; the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places; happily they are men of robust faith.
From La Science et l’Hypothèse (1901, 1908), 211-212, as translated in Henri Poincaré and William John Greenstreet (trans.), Science and Hypothesis (1902, 1905), 181. From the original French, “C’est un malheur pour une science de prendre naissance trop tard, quand les moyens d’observation sont devenus trop parfaits. C’est ce qui arrive aujourd’hui à la physico-chimie; ses fondateurs sont gènés dans leurs aperçus par la troisième et la quatrième décimales; heureusement, ce sont des hommes d’une foi robuste.”
It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 183.
It is our great collective misfortune that the scientific community made its decisive diagnosis of the climate threat at the precise moment when an elite minority was enjoying more unfettered political, cultural, and intellectual power than at any point since the 1920s.
From This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014), 18.
Our papers have been making a great deal of American “know-how” ever since we had the misfortune to discover the atomic bomb. There is one quality more important than know-how” and we cannot accuse the United States of any undue amount of it. This is “know-what,” by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be.
In The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950), 210.
Philosophy may teach us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of our neighbours, and science resolve the moral sense into a secretion of sugar, but art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament.
In Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (2007), 48.
The privilege is not allowed even to genius in this world to inspect its own elements, and read its own destiny, and it is perhaps well for mankid that it is so. Could we lift the curtain which hides our future lives, and glance hastily at the misfortunes, the vexations, and the disappointments which await us, we should be discouraged from attempting the performance of even of such deeds as are destined eventually to crown us with honor.
In a book of his reminiscenses, Oliver Hampton Smith, years after his first meeting with Morse, described the inventor - who had by then overcome the initial scepticism over his invention, but instead needed to vigorously defend his exclusive right of property in the magnetic telegraph.
In a book of his reminiscenses, Oliver Hampton Smith, years after his first meeting with Morse, described the inventor - who had by then overcome the initial scepticism over his invention, but instead needed to vigorously defend his exclusive right of property in the magnetic telegraph.
Early Indiana Trials and Sketches (1858), 414.
There are some arts which to those that possess them are painful, but to those that use them are helpful, a common good to laymen, but to those that practise them grievous. Of such arts there is one which the Greeks call medicine. For the medical man sees terrible sights, touches unpleasant things, and the misfortunes of others bring a harvest of sorrows that are peculiarly his; but the sick by means of the art rid themselves of the worst of evils, disease, suffering, pain and death.
Breaths, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 2, 227.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
