I was in misery, and misery is the state of every soul overcome by friendship with mortal things and lacerated when they are lost. Then the soul becomes aware of the misery which is its actual condition even before it loses them.

Misery is a vacuum. A space without air, a suffocated dead place, the abode of the miserable. Misery is a tenement block, rooms like battery cages, sit over your own droppings, lie on your own filth. Misery is a no U-turns, no stopping road. Travel down it pushed by those behind, tripped by those in front. Travel down it at furious speed though the days are mummified in lead. It happens so fast once you get started, there's no anchor from the real world to slow you down, nothing to hold on to. Misery pulls away the brackets of life leaving you to free fall. Whatever your private hell, you'll find millions like it in Misery. This is the town where everyone's nightmares come true.

There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.

Misery is an indication that you are in conflict.

The sort of misery that brings no moral reward, misery that is of no value to the mind and soul, that is the true misery, it is hopeless, bestial and nothing else.

What causes misery is always trying to get away from the facts of life, always trying to avoid pain and seek happiness — this sense of ours that there could be lasting security and happiness available to us if we could only do the right thing.

What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

Only misery is for free.

After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains — one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Atman is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

For of all creatures that breathe and creep about on the earth, there is none so miserable as man.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Immorality and surliness makes the human's life miserable and bitter.

The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.