classes ::: verb, noun, difficulties,
children :::
branches ::: Distress

bookmarks: Instances - Definitions - Quotes - Chapters - Wordnet - Webgen


object:Distress
word class:verb
word class:noun
class:difficulties

see also :::

questions, comments, suggestions/feedback, take-down requests, contribute, etc
contact me @ integralyogin@gmail.com or
join the integral discord server (chatrooms)
if the page you visited was empty, it may be noted and I will try to fill it out. cheers



now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Enchiridion_text
Evolution_II
Heart_of_Matter
Modern_Man_in_Search_of_a_Soul
My_Burning_Heart
Process_and_Reality
The_Diamond_Sutra
The_Divine_Companion
The_Divine_Milieu
The_Imitation_of_Christ
The_Odyssey
The_Republic
The_Seals_of_Wisdom
The_Use_and_Abuse_of_History
The_Way_of_Perfection
Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
Toward_the_Future

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.ww_-_Sonnet-_On_seeing_Miss_Helen_Maria_Williams_weep_at_a_tale_of_distress
4.02_-_THE_CRY_OF_DISTRESS

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0_0.01_-_Introduction
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0.03_-_Letters_to_My_little_smile
0.05_-_Letters_to_a_Child
0.07_-_Letters_to_a_Sadhak
01.01_-_Sri_Aurobindo_-_The_Age_of_Sri_Aurobindo
01.06_-_Vivekananda
01.10_-_Nicholas_Berdyaev:_God_Made_Human
0_1961-04-29
0_1963-08-07
0_1967-08-02
0_1967-09-13
0_1968-12-25
0_1969-08-02
0_1972-05-19
0_1972-12-26
0_1973-03-30
03.05_-_The_Spiritual_Genius_of_India
03.14_-_Mater_Dolorosa
05.08_-_True_Charity
05.16_-_A_Modernist_Mentality
100.00_-_Synergy
10.07_-_The_World_is_One
1.00a_-_Introduction
1.00c_-_DIVISION_C_-_THE_ETHERIC_BODY_AND_PRANA
1.00e_-_DIVISION_E_-_MOTION_ON_THE_PHYSICAL_AND_ASTRAL_PLANES
1.01_-_An_Accomplished_Westerner
1.01_-_Economy
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.01_-_Tara_the_Divine
1.01_-_The_Dark_Forest._The_Hill_of_Difficulty._The_Panther,_the_Lion,_and_the_Wolf._Virgil.
1.01_-_To_Watanabe_Sukefusa
1.02_-_BEFORE_THE_CITY-GATE
1.02_-_BOOK_THE_SECOND
1.02_-_Karma_Yoga
1.02_-_MAPS_OF_MEANING_-_THREE_LEVELS_OF_ANALYSIS
1.02_-_The_Eternal_Law
1.02_-_THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES
1.02_-_The_Refusal_of_the_Call
1.037_-_Preventing_the_Fall_in_Yoga
1.03_-_A_Parable
1.03_-_Master_Ma_is_Unwell
1.03_-_Measure_of_time,_Moments_of_Kashthas,_etc.
1.03_-_Self-Surrender_in_Works_-_The_Way_of_The_Gita
1.04_-_Magic_and_Religion
1.04_-_On_Knowledge_of_the_Future_World.
1.04_-_THE_APPEARANCE_OF_ANOMALY_-_CHALLENGE_TO_THE_SHARED_MAP
1.04_-_The_Divine_Mother_-_This_Is_She
1.04_-_THE_STUDY_(The_Compact)
1.05_-_BOOK_THE_FIFTH
1.05_-_THE_HOSTILE_BROTHERS_-_ARCHETYPES_OF_RESPONSE_TO_THE_UNKNOWN
1.05_-_The_Magical_Control_of_the_Weather
1.05_-_War_And_Politics
1.06_-_BOOK_THE_SIXTH
1.06_-_Magicians_as_Kings
1.06_-_MORTIFICATION,_NON-ATTACHMENT,_RIGHT_LIVELIHOOD
1.06_-_On_remembrance_of_death.
1.06_-_Quieting_the_Vital
1.06_-_The_Ascent_of_the_Sacrifice_2_The_Works_of_Love_-_The_Works_of_Life
1.06_-_THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS
1.078_-_Kumbhaka_and_Concentration_of_Mind
1.07_-_BOOK_THE_SEVENTH
1.08_-_BOOK_THE_EIGHTH
1.08_-_The_Gods_of_the_Veda_-_The_Secret_of_the_Veda
1.08_-_The_Supreme_Discovery
1.09_-_BOOK_THE_NINTH
1.09_-_Concentration_-_Its_Spiritual_Uses
1.09_-_SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAY_WITH_THE_AGE
1.09_-_Sleep_and_Death
1.09_-_The_Furies_and_Medusa._The_Angel._The_City_of_Dis._The_Sixth_Circle__Heresiarchs.
1.10_-_The_Yoga_of_the_Intelligent_Will
1.11_-_BOOK_THE_ELEVENTH
1.11_-_Higher_Laws
1.11_-_Legend_of_Dhruva,_the_son_of_Uttanapada
1.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.11_-_Woolly_Pomposities_of_the_Pious_Teacher
1.12_-_Dhruva_commences_a_course_of_religious_austerities
1.12_-_God_Departs
1.12_-_THE_FESTIVAL_AT_PNIHTI
1.12_-_The_Sacred_Marriage
1.1.4_-_The_Physical_Mind_and_Sadhana
1.14_-_The_Victory_Over_Death
1.16_-_The_Season_of_Truth
1.17_-_Legend_of_Prahlada
1.17_-_M._AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.17_-_SUFFERING
1.20_-_HOW_MAY_WE_CONCEIVE_AND_HOPE_THAT_HUMAN_UNANIMIZATION_WILL_BE_REALIZED_ON_EARTH?
1.20_-_RULES_FOR_HOUSEHOLDERS_AND_MONKS
1.2.11_-_Patience_and_Perseverance
1.22_-_On_Prayer
1.22_-_THE_END_OF_THE_SPECIES
1.24_-_Describes_how_vocal_prayer_may_be_practised_with_perfection_and_how_closely_allied_it_is_to_mental_prayer
1.25_-_ADVICE_TO_PUNDIT_SHASHADHAR
1.25_-_DUNGEON
1.26_-_Continues_the_description_of_a_method_for_recollecting_the_thoughts._Describes_means_of_doing_this._This_chapter_is_very_profitable_for_those_who_are_beginning_prayer.
1.26_-_FESTIVAL_AT_ADHARS_HOUSE
1.26_-_On_discernment_of_thoughts,_passions_and_virtues
1.30_-_Describes_the_importance_of_understanding_what_we_ask_for_in_prayer._Treats_of_these_words_in_the_Paternoster:_Sanctificetur_nomen_tuum,_adveniat_regnum_tuum._Applies_them_to_the_Prayer_of_Quiet,_and_begins_the_explanation_of_them.
1.31_-_Continues_the_same_subject._Explains_what_is_meant_by_the_Prayer_of_Quiet._Gives_several_counsels_to_those_who_experience_it._This_chapter_is_very_noteworthy.
1.35_-_Describes_the_recollection_which_should_be_practised_after_Communion._Concludes_this_subject_with_an_exclamatory_prayer_to_the_Eternal_Father.
1.36_-_Treats_of_these_words_in_the_Paternoster__Dimitte_nobis_debita_nostra.
1.38_-_Treats_of_the_great_need_which_we_have_to_beseech_the_Eternal_Father_to_grant_us_what_we_ask_in_these_words:_Et_ne_nos_inducas_in_tentationem,_sed_libera_nos_a_malo._Explains_certain_temptations._This_chapter_is_noteworthy.
1.39_-_Continues_the_same_subject_and_gives_counsels_concerning_different_kinds_of_temptation._Suggests_two_remedies_by_which_we_may_be_freed_from_temptations.135
1.4.01_-_The_Divine_Grace_and_Guidance
1.41_-_Speaks_of_the_fear_of_God_and_of_how_we_must_keep_ourselves_from_venial_sins.
1.47_-_Lityerses
1.52_-_Killing_the_Divine_Animal
1.62_-_The_Fire-Festivals_of_Europe
1.75_-_The_AA_and_the_Planet
19.15_-_On_Happiness
1917_11_25p
1951-03-12_-_Mental_forms_-_learning_difficult_subjects_-_Mental_fortress_-_thought_-_Training_the_mind_-_Helping_the_vital_being_after_death_-_ceremonies_-_Human_stupidities
1969_10_29
1.A_-_ANTHROPOLOGY,_THE_SOUL
1.ac_-_A_Birthday
1.anon_-_But_little_better
1f.lovecraft_-_At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dreams_in_the_Witch_House
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Horror_at_Martins_Beach
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Last_Test
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Lurking_Fear
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Night_Ocean
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Shunned_House
1.fs_-_The_Celebrated_Woman_-_An_Epistle_By_A_Married_Man
1.hs_-_To_Linger_In_A_Garden_Fair
1.jk_-_Calidore_-_A_Fragment
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_IV
1.jk_-_Isabella;_Or,_The_Pot_Of_Basil_-_A_Story_From_Boccaccio
1.jk_-_Sonnet_IX._Keen,_Fitful_Gusts_Are
1.jk_-_Sonnet._On_Peace
1.jk_-_The_Cap_And_Bells;_Or,_The_Jealousies_-_A_Faery_Tale_.._Unfinished
1.jlb_-_The_Golem
1.jwvg_-_Prometheus
1.mm_-_Of_the_voices_of_the_Godhead
1.pbs_-_Adonais_-_An_elegy_on_the_Death_of_John_Keats
1.pbs_-_Lines_Written_Among_The_Euganean_Hills
1.pbs_-_Rosalind_and_Helen_-_a_Modern_Eclogue
1.pbs_-_The_Cenci_-_A_Tragedy_In_Five_Acts
1.pbs_-_The_Mask_Of_Anarchy
1.pbs_-_The_Revolt_Of_Islam_-_Canto_I-XII
1.pbs_-_Verses_On_A_Cat
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_IV_-_Paracelsus_Aspires
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Fifth
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_First
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Third
1.rt_-_Broken_Song
1.rt_-_The_Homecoming
1.rt_-_Unending_Love
1.rwe_-_May-Day
1.stav_-_In_the_Hands_of_God
1.wb_-_The_Divine_Image
1.wby_-_A_Dialogue_Of_Self_And_Soul
1.wby_-_An_Image_From_A_Past_Life
1.wby_-_The_Wanderings_Of_Oisin_-_Book_I
1.wby_-_The_Winding_Stair
1.wby_-_Tom_ORoughley
1.whitman_-_The_Sleepers
1.ww_-_1-_The_White_Doe_Of_Rylstone,_Or,_The_Fate_Of_The_Nortons
1.ww_-_2-_The_White_Doe_Of_Rylstone,_Or,_The_Fate_Of_The_Nortons
1.ww_-_5-_The_White_Doe_Of_Rylstone,_Or,_The_Fate_Of_The_Nortons
1.ww_-_7-_The_White_Doe_Of_Rylstone,_Or,_The_Fate_Of_The_Nortons
1.ww_-_A_Fact,_And_An_Imagination,_Or,_Canute_And_Alfred,_On_The_Seashore
1.ww_-_Alice_Fell,_Or_Poverty
1.ww_-_An_Evening_Walk
1.ww_-_A_Whirl-Blast_From_Behind_The_Hill
1.ww_-_Behold_Vale!_I_Said,_When_I_Shall_Con
1.ww_-_Book_Eighth-_Retrospect--Love_Of_Nature_Leading_To_Love_Of_Man
1.ww_-_Book_Eleventh-_France_[concluded]
1.ww_-_Book_Fifth-Books
1.ww_-_Book_First_[Introduction-Childhood_and_School_Time]
1.ww_-_Book_Seventh_[Residence_in_London]
1.ww_-_Character_Of_The_Happy_Warrior
1.ww_-_Elegiac_Stanzas_Suggested_By_A_Picture_Of_Peele_Castle
1.ww_-_Guilt_And_Sorrow,_Or,_Incidents_Upon_Salisbury_Plain
1.ww_-_Lament_Of_Mary_Queen_Of_Scots
1.ww_-_Laodamia
1.ww_-_Maternal_Grief
1.ww_-_Memory
1.ww_-_Michael-_A_Pastoral_Poem
1.ww_-_Remembrance_Of_Collins
1.ww_-_Resolution_And_Independence
1.ww_-_Song_at_the_Feast_of_Brougham_Castle
1.ww_-_Sonnet-_On_seeing_Miss_Helen_Maria_Williams_weep_at_a_tale_of_distress
1.ww_-_The_Affliction_Of_Margaret
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_II-_Book_First-_The_Wanderer
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_IV-_Book_Third-_Despondency
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_V-_Book_Fouth-_Despondency_Corrected
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_VII-_Book_Sixth-_The_Churchyard_Among_the_Mountains
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_X-_Book_Ninth-_Discourse_of_the_Wanderer,_and_an_Evening_Visit_to_the_Lake
1.ww_-_The_Idiot_Boy
1.ww_-_The_Last_Of_The_Flock
1.ww_-_The_Morning_Of_The_Day_Appointed_For_A_General_Thanksgiving._January_18,_1816
1.ww_-_The_Recluse_-_Book_First
1.ww_-_The_Waggoner_-_Canto_First
1.ww_-_The_Waggoner_-_Canto_Fourth
1.ww_-_To_a_Highland_Girl_(At_Inversneyde,_upon_Loch_Lomond)
1.ww_-_To_B._R._Haydon
2.01_-_The_Yoga_and_Its_Objects
2.01_-_War.
2.02_-_THE_DURGA_PUJA_FESTIVAL
2.03_-_The_Pyx
2.0_-_THE_ANTICHRIST
2.10_-_THE_MASTER_AND_NARENDRA
2.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_IN_CALCUTTA
2.12_-_THE_MASTERS_REMINISCENCES
2.13_-_On_Psychology
2.15_-_CAR_FESTIVAL_AT_BALARMS_HOUSE
22.08_-_The_Golden_Chain
2.22_-_THE_MASTER_AT_COSSIPORE
2.2.3_-_Depression_and_Despondency
2.23_-_THE_MASTER_AND_BUDDHA
2.24_-_The_Message_of_the_Gita
2.3.04_-_The_Mother's_Force
2.3.1_-_Ego_and_Its_Forms
2_-_Other_Hymns_to_Agni
3.00.2_-_Introduction
3.02_-_Mysticism
3.03_-_The_Consummation_of_Mysticism
3.04_-_Folly_Of_The_Fear_Of_Death
3.06_-_Death
3.06_-_UPON_THE_MOUNT_OF_OLIVES
3.08_-_The_Mystery_of_Love
3.1.3_-_Difficulties_of_the_Physical_Being
3.14_-_Of_the_Consecrations
3.16_-_THE_SEVEN_SEALS_OR_THE_YES_AND_AMEN_SONG
3.2.02_-_Yoga_and_Skill_in_Works
32.11_-_Life_and_Self-Control_(A_Letter)
3.2.2_-_Sleep
3.3.1_-_Illness_and_Health
3.4.1_-_The_Subconscient_and_the_Integral_Yoga
38.02_-_Hymns_and_Prayers
3_-_Commentaries_and_Annotated_Translations
4.01_-_Sweetness_in_Prayer
4.02_-_BEYOND_THE_COLLECTIVE_-_THE_HYPER-PERSONAL
4.02_-_THE_CRY_OF_DISTRESS
4.03_-_CONVERSATION_WITH_THE_KINGS
4.03_-_Prayer_of_Quiet
4.03_-_The_Special_Phenomenology_of_the_Child_Archetype
4.04_-_THE_LEECH
4.04_-_The_Perfection_of_the_Mental_Being
4.05_-_THE_MAGICIAN
4.06_-_RETIRED
4.06_-_THE_KING_AS_ANTHROPOS
4.07_-_THE_UGLIEST_MAN
4.08_-_THE_VOLUNTARY_BEGGAR
4.09_-_The_Liberation_of_the_Nature
4.11_-_THE_WELCOME
4.12_-_THE_LAST_SUPPER
4.1.3_-_Imperfections_and_Periods_of_Arrest
4.1.4_-_Resistances,_Sufferings_and_Falls
4.16_-_AMONG_DAUGHTERS_OF_THE_WILDERNESS
4.17_-_THE_AWAKENING
4.19_-_The_Nature_of_the_supermind
4.1_-_Jnana
4.20_-_THE_SIGN
4.2.1_-_The_Right_Attitude_towards_Difficulties
4.2.5.05_-_The_Psychic_and_the_Supermind
4.2.5_-_Dealing_with_Depression_and_Despondency
4.4.5.02_-_Descent_and_Psychic_Experiences
5.05_-_THE_OLD_ADAM
5.06_-_THE_TRANSFORMATION
5.1.02_-_Ahana
5.2.01_-_The_Descent_of_Ahana
5.4.01_-_Notes_on_Root-Sounds
5_-_The_Phenomenology_of_the_Spirit_in_Fairytales
6.04_-_The_Plague_Athens
6.08_-_Intellectual_Visions
6.08_-_THE_CONTENT_AND_MEANING_OF_THE_FIRST_TWO_STAGES
6.09_-_THE_THIRD_STAGE_-_THE_UNUS_MUNDUS
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
6.10_-_THE_SELF_AND_THE_BOUNDS_OF_KNOWLEDGE
7.02_-_Courage
7.04_-_Self-Reliance
7.11_-_Building_and_Destroying
7.15_-_The_Family
7.16_-_Sympathy
Aeneid
Appendix_4_-_Priest_Spells
Book_1_-_The_Council_of_the_Gods
BOOK_I._-_Augustine_censures_the_pagans,_who_attributed_the_calamities_of_the_world,_and_especially_the_sack_of_Rome_by_the_Goths,_to_the_Christian_religion_and_its_prohibition_of_the_worship_of_the_gods
BOOK_III._-_The_external_calamities_of_Rome
BOOK_II._--_PART_I._ANTHROPOGENESIS.
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
BOOK_IX._-_Of_those_who_allege_a_distinction_among_demons,_some_being_good_and_others_evil
Book_of_Genesis
Book_of_Proverbs
Book_of_Psalms
BOOK_XII._-_Of_the_creation_of_angels_and_men,_and_of_the_origin_of_evil
BOOK_XIX._-_A_review_of_the_philosophical_opinions_regarding_the_Supreme_Good,_and_a_comparison_of_these_opinions_with_the_Christian_belief_regarding_happiness
BOOK_X._-_Porphyrys_doctrine_of_redemption
BOOK_XV._-_The_progress_of_the_earthly_and_heavenly_cities_traced_by_the_sacred_history
BOOK_XXI._-_Of_the_eternal_punishment_of_the_wicked_in_hell,_and_of_the_various_objections_urged_against_it
Chapter_III_-_WHEREIN_IS_RELATED_THE_DROLL_WAY_IN_WHICH_DON_QUIXOTE_HAD_HIMSELF_DUBBED_A_KNIGHT
Chapter_II_-_WHICH_TREATS_OF_THE_FIRST_SALLY_THE_INGENIOUS_DON_QUIXOTE_MADE_FROM_HOME
COSA_-_BOOK_XII
COSA_-_BOOK_XIII
Cratylus
Epistle_to_the_Romans
First_Epistle_of_Paul_to_the_Thessalonians
Guru_Granth_Sahib_first_part
Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
Medea_-_A_Vergillian_Cento
Phaedo
Prayers_and_Meditations_by_Baha_u_llah_text
r1912_12_16
r1913_12_31
r1914_01_06
r1914_01_08
r1914_01_09
r1914_01_10
r1914_10_14
r1917_02_22
r1919_07_14
r1919_07_25
r1919_07_27
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Symposium_translated_by_B_Jowett
Tablets_of_Baha_u_llah_text
Talks_026-050
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
Theaetetus
The_Aleph
The_Book_of_the_Prophet_Isaiah
The_Dwellings_of_the_Philosophers
the_Eternal_Wisdom
The_First_Epistle_of_Paul_to_the_Corinthians
The_Gold_Bug
The_Gospel_According_to_Luke
The_Gospel_According_to_Mark
The_Gospel_According_to_Matthew
The_Letter_to_the_Hebrews
The_Logomachy_of_Zos
The_Pilgrims_Progress
Timaeus
Verses_of_Vemana

PRIMARY CLASS

difficulties
SIMILAR TITLES
Distress

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

distressed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Distress

distressedness ::: n. --> A state of being distressed or greatly pained.

distressful ::: a. --> Full of distress; causing, indicating, or attended with, distress; as, a distressful situation.

distressing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Distress ::: a. --> Causing distress; painful; unpleasant. ::: adv.

distress ::: n. --> Extreme pain or suffering; anguish of body or mind; as, to suffer distress from the gout, or from the loss of friends.
That which occasions suffering; painful situation; misfortune; affliction; misery.
A state of danger or necessity; as, a ship in distress, from leaking, loss of spars, want of provisions or water, etc.
The act of distraining; the taking of a personal chattel out of the possession of a wrongdoer, by way of pledge for redress of



TERMS ANYWHERE

Acheron (Greek) [probably from achos pain, distress; Etrusc. Acceruns] The River of Woe, one of five rivers surrounding Hades. The others were Cocytus (river of wailing), Styx (the hateful), Pyriphlegethon (the fiery), and Lethe (forgetfulness).

Ad-Darr ::: The One who afflicts individuals with various distressing situations (sickness, suffering, trouble) in order to make them turn to Himself!

adversity ::: the condition of adverse fortune or fate; a state opposed to well-being or prosperity; misfortune, distress, trial, or affliction.

afflicted ::: distressed with mental or bodily pain; troubled greatly; grievously depressed, oppressed, cast down; tormented.

afflicting ::: 1. Grievously painful, distressing. 2. Distressing with bodily or mental suffering; troubling grievously, tormenting. self-afflicting.

afflicting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Afflict ::: a. --> Grievously painful; distressing; afflictive; as, an afflicting event. -- Af*flict"ing*ly, adv.

affliction ::: n. --> The cause of continued pain of body or mind, as sickness, losses, etc.; an instance of grievous distress; a pain or grief.
The state of being afflicted; a state of pain, distress, or grief.


afflictive ::: a. --> Giving pain; causing continued or repeated pain or grief; distressing.

afflict ::: v. t. --> To strike or cast down; to overthrow.
To inflict some great injury or hurt upon, causing continued pain or mental distress; to trouble grievously; to torment.
To make low or humble. ::: p. p. & a. --> Afflicted.


aggrandize ::: v. t. --> To make great; to enlarge; to increase; as, to aggrandize our conceptions, authority, distress.
To make great or greater in power, rank, honor, or wealth; -- applied to persons, countries, etc.
To make appear great or greater; to exalt. ::: v. i.


agony ::: 1. Anguish of mind, sore trouble or distress, a paroxysm of grief. 2. The convulsive throes, or pangs of death; the death struggle. 3. Extreme bodily suffering, such as to produce writhing or throes of the body. agonies.

ananda ::: the opposite of ananda; pain, distress, discomfort. positive samat samata

anguish ::: excruciating or acute distress, suffering, or pain. anguished.

anguish ::: n. --> Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress. ::: v. t. --> To distress with extreme pain or grief.

anxiety ::: n. --> Concern or solicitude respecting some thing or event, future or uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness.
Eager desire.
A state of restlessness and agitation, often with general indisposition and a distressing sense of oppression at the epigastrium.


anxious ::: full of mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried.

arta ::: [one of the four classes of devotees]: the distressed, who turn to the divine help in the sorrow and suffering of existence. [Gita 7.16]

ashamed ::: feeling shame; distressed or embarrassed by feeling of guilt, foolishness, or disgrace.

assist ::: v. t. --> To give support to in some undertaking or effort, or in time of distress; to help; to aid; to succor. ::: v. i. --> To lend aid; to help.
To be present as a spectator; as, to assist at a public meeting.


avowant ::: n. --> The defendant in replevin, who avows the distress of the goods, and justifies the taking.

bitterness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being bitter, sharp, or acrid, in either a literal or figurative sense; implacableness; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind.
A state of extreme impiety or enmity to God.
Dangerous error, or schism, tending to draw persons to apostasy.


burdensome ::: 1. Oppressively heavy; onerous. 2. Distressing, troublesome.

calamitous ::: a. --> Suffering calamity; wretched; miserable.
Producing, or attended with distress and misery; making wretched; wretched; unhappy.


calamity ::: 1. An event that brings terrible loss, lasting distress, or severe affliction; a disaster. 2. Dire distress resulting from loss or tragedy. calamities.

calamity ::: n. --> Any great misfortune or cause of misery; -- generally applied to events or disasters which produce extensive evil, either to communities or individuals.
A state or time of distress or misfortune; misery.


cardialgy ::: n. --> A burning or gnawing pain, or feeling of distress, referred to the region of the heart, accompanied with cardiac palpitation; heartburn. It is usually a symptom of indigestion.

carking ::: a. --> Distressing; worrying; perplexing; corroding; as, carking cares.

Chenresi (Tibetan) spyan ras gzigs (chen-re-zi, or chen-re-si) [short for spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug (chen-re-zi-wang-chung) from spyan ras penetrating vision (cf Sanskrit avalokita) + gzigs forms (cf Sanskrit rūpa) + dbang phyug lord (cf Sanskrit īśvara)] The Lord who sees forms with his penetrating vision; translation of Sanskrit Avalokitesvara. Exoterically Chenresi is the greatest protector of Asia in general and Tibet in particular, mystically considered to have eleven heads and a thousand arms, each with an eye in the palm of the hand, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays: the thousand eyes representing him as on the outlook to discover distress and to succor the troubled. In this form his name is Chantong (he of the thousand eyes) and Jigtengonpo (protector and savior against evil). “Even the exoteric appearance of Dhyani Chenresi is suggestive of the esoteric teaching. He is evidently, like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, and thus is represented as the culmination of the four primeval races in his eleven-faced form. It is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or heads of different complexions: the three faces for each race being typical of its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white (moon-coloured); the second is yellow, the third, red-brown; the fourth, in which are only two faces — the third face being left a blank — (a reference to the untimely end of the Atlanteans) is brown-black. Padmapani (Daksha) is seated on the column, and forms the apex” (SD 2:178).

Clouding of consciousness is a global impairment in higher central nervous functioning. All aspects of cognitive functioning are affected. On mental status examination it is manifest by disorientation in time, place and person, memory difficulties caused by failure to register and recall, aphasia, dyspraxia, and agnosia. Impaired perception functioning leads to illusions and hallucinations often in the visual sensory modality. This then causes agitation and distress and secondary delusions. The term 'confusion state' is sometimes used to mean clouding of consciousness, but should be avoided if at all possible because it is ambiguous.

comfortable ::: a. --> Strong; vigorous; valiant.
Serviceable; helpful.
Affording or imparting comfort or consolation; able to comfort; cheering; as, a comfortable hope.
In a condition of comfort; having comforts; not suffering or anxious; hence, contented; cheerful; as, to lead a comfortable life.
Free, or comparatively free, from pain or distress; --


comfortless ::: a. --> Without comfort or comforts; in want or distress; cheerless.

commiseration ::: n. --> The act of commiserating; sorrow for the wants, afflictions, or distresses of another; pity; compassion.

compassion ::: n. --> Literally, suffering with another; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. ::: v. t. --> To pity.

consolation ::: n. --> The act of consoling; the state of being consoled; allevation of misery or distress of mind; refreshment of spirit; comfort; that which consoles or comforts the spirit.

console ::: v. t. --> To cheer in distress or depression; to alleviate the grief and raise the spirits of; to relieve; to comfort; to soothe. ::: n. --> A bracket whose projection is not more than half its height.
Any small bracket; also, a console table.


crucified ::: 1. Afflicted with severe pain or distress; tormented. 2. In reference to being put to death by nailing or otherwise fastening to a cross.

cry ::: v. i. --> To make a loud call or cry; to call or exclaim vehemently or earnestly; to shout; to vociferate; to proclaim; to pray; to implore.
To utter lamentations; to lament audibly; to express pain, grief, or distress, by weeping and sobbing; to shed tears; to bawl, as a child.
To utter inarticulate sounds, as animals.
A loud utterance; especially, the inarticulate sound


Cudapanthaka. (P. Culapanthaka/Cullapantha; T. Lam phran bstan; C. Zhutubantuojia; J. Chudahantaka; K. Chudobant'akka 注荼半托迦). An eminent ARHAT declared in PAli sources as foremost among the Buddha's disciples in his ability to create mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA) and to manipulate mind (cittavivatta). Cudapanthaka was the younger of two brothers born to a merchant's daughter from RAJAGṚHA who had eloped with a slave. Each time she became pregnant, she wanted to return home to give birth to her children, but both were born during her journey home. For this reason, the brothers were named "Greater" Roadside (MahApanthaka; see PANTHAKA) and "Lesser" Roadside. The boys were eventually taken to RAjagṛha and raised by their grandparents, who were devoted to the Buddha. The elder brother Panthaka often accompanied his grandfather to listen to the Buddha's sermons and was inspired to be ordained. He proved to be an able monk, skilled in doctrine, and eventually attained arhatship. He later ordained his younger brother Cudapanthaka but was gravely disappointed in his brother's inability to memorize even a single verse of the dharma. Panthaka was so disappointed that he advised his brother to leave the order, much to the latter's distress. Once, the Buddha's physician JĪVAKA invited the Buddha and his monks to a morning meal. Panthaka gathered the monks together on the appointed day to attend the meal but intentionally omitted Cudapanthaka. So hurt was Cudapanthaka by his brother's contempt that he decided to return to lay life. The Buddha, knowing his mental state, comforted the young monk and taught him a simple exercise: he instructed him to sit facing east and, while repeating the phrase "rajoharanaM" ("cleaning off the dirt"), continue to wipe his face with a clean cloth. As Cudapanthaka noticed the cloth getting dirty from wiping off his sweat, he gained insight into the reality of impermanence (ANITYA) and immediately attained arhatship and was equipped with the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), including knowledge of the entire canon (TRIPItAKA). (According to other versions of the story, he came to a similar realization through sweeping.) Thereafter Cudapanthaka became renowned for his vast learning, as well as for his supranormal powers. He was a master of meditative concentration (SAMADHI) and of the subtle-materiality absorptions (RuPAVACARADHYANA). He could simultaneously create a thousand unique mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKAYA), while other meditative specialists in the order could at best produce only two or three. ¶ Cudapanthaka is also traditionally listed as the last of the sixteen arhat elders (sOdAsASTHAVIRA), who were charged by the Buddha with protecting his dispensation until the advent of the next buddha, MAITREYA. In CHANYUE GUANXIU's standard Chinese depiction, Cudapanthaka sits among withered trees, his left hand raised with fingers slightly bent, and his right hand resting on his right thigh, holding a fan.

cumber ::: v. t. --> To rest upon as a troublesome or useless weight or load; to be burdensome or oppressive to; to hinder or embarrass in attaining an object, to obstruct or occupy uselessly; to embarrass; to trouble. ::: v. --> Trouble; embarrassment; distress.

darkness ::: n. --> The absence of light; blackness; obscurity; gloom.
A state of privacy; secrecy.
A state of ignorance or error, especially on moral or religious subjects; hence, wickedness; impurity.
Want of clearness or perspicuity; obscurity; as, the darkness of a subject, or of a discussion.
A state of distress or trouble.


Delirium Tremens (Latin) [from delirare to rave + tremere to tremble] Trembling delirium; the delirium arising from alcoholic poisoning, characterized by constant tremor, insomnia, great exhaustion, distressing illusions, and hallucinations. The abnormal consciousness displayed in this condition is graphic evidence of the existence of the astral realm interpenetrating and influencing the physical world. The characteristic hallucinations are of grotesque, vicious enemies and of various horrible animals and insects actively seeking to terrify and injure the agitated, confused sufferer who is evidently conscious on the low levels of the astral plane. Here, among the dregs in the astral light, all the vile and cruel thoughts and deeds of human life, and the worst animal impulses, are reflected back upon the earth, mankind, and beasts. Here, also, the actively evil elementaries or kama-rupic entities are instinctively drawn to any human victim who unconsciously invades their realm, attracted and vitalized by the fumes of the alcoholic liquors with which the person has saturated his body.

deprecated Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in favour of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for many years. This term appears with distressing frequency in standards documents when the committees writing the documents realise that large amounts of extant (and presumably happily working) code depend on the feature(s) that have passed out of favour. See also {dusty deck}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-19)

dictator ::: n. --> One who dictates; one who prescribes rules and maxims authoritatively for the direction of others.
One invested with absolute authority; especially, a magistrate created in times of exigence and distress, and invested with unlimited power.


disaster ::: an occurrence that causes great distress or destruction. disasters".

disastrous ::: causing great distress or injury; ruinous; very unfortunate; calamitous.

discomfort ::: v. t. --> To discourage; to deject.
To destroy or disturb the comfort of; to deprive o/ quiet enjoyment; to make uneasy; to pain; as, a smoky chimney discomforts a family.
Discouragement.
Want of comfort; uneasiness, mental or physical; disturbance of peace; inquietude; pain; distress; sorrow.


distraint ::: n. --> The act or proceeding of seizing personal property by distress.

distrain ::: v. t. --> To press heavily upon; to bear down upon with violence; hence, to constrain or compel; to bind; to distress, torment, or afflict.
To rend; to tear.
To seize, as a pledge or indemnification; to take possession of as security for nonpayment of rent, the reparation of an injury done, etc.; to take by distress; as, to distrain goods for rent, or of an amercement.


distressed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Distress

distressedness ::: n. --> A state of being distressed or greatly pained.

distressful ::: a. --> Full of distress; causing, indicating, or attended with, distress; as, a distressful situation.

distressing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Distress ::: a. --> Causing distress; painful; unpleasant. ::: adv.

distress ::: n. --> Extreme pain or suffering; anguish of body or mind; as, to suffer distress from the gout, or from the loss of friends.
That which occasions suffering; painful situation; misfortune; affliction; misery.
A state of danger or necessity; as, a ship in distress, from leaking, loss of spars, want of provisions or water, etc.
The act of distraining; the taking of a personal chattel out of the possession of a wrongdoer, by way of pledge for redress of


dole ::: grief, sorrow, mental distress.

dolor ::: n. --> Pain; grief; distress; anguish.

dreary ::: superl. --> Sorrowful; distressful.
Exciting cheerless sensations, feelings, or associations; comfortless; dismal; gloomy.


dukha&

easiness ::: n. --> The state or condition of being easy; freedom from distress; rest.
Freedom from difficulty; ease; as the easiness of a task.
Freedom from emotion; compliance; disposition to yield without opposition; unconcernedness.
Freedom from effort, constraint, or formality; -- said of style, manner, etc.
Freedom from jolting, jerking, or straining.


easy ::: v. t. --> At ease; free from pain, trouble, or constraint
Free from pain, distress, toil, exertion, and the like; quiet; as, the patient is easy.
Free from care, responsibility, discontent, and the like; not anxious; tranquil; as, an easy mind.
Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth; as, easy manners; an easy style.
Not causing, or attended with, pain or disquiet, or much


eloign ::: v. t. --> To remove afar off; to withdraw.
To convey to a distance, or beyond the jurisdiction, or to conceal, as goods liable to distress.


endurance ::: n. --> A state or quality of lasting or duration; lastingness; continuance.
The act of bearing or suffering; a continuing under pain or distress without resistance, or without being overcome; sufferance; patience.


enlargement ::: n. --> The act of increasing in size or bulk, real or apparent; the state of being increased; augmentation; further extension; expansion.
Expansion or extension, as of the powers of the mind; ennoblement, as of the feelings and character; as, an enlargement of views, of knowledge, of affection.
A setting at large, or being set at large; release from confinement, servitude, or distress; liberty.


entrap ::: v. t. --> To catch in a trap; to insnare; hence, to catch, as in a trap, by artifices; to involve in difficulties or distresses; to catch or involve in contradictions; as, to be entrapped by the devices of evil men.

evil ::: a. --> Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil beast; and evil plant; an evil crop.
Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like.
Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or


exigency ::: n. --> The state of being exigent; urgent or exacting want; pressing necessity or distress; need; a case demanding immediate action, supply, or remedy; as, an unforeseen exigency.

familiarize ::: v. t. --> To make familiar or intimate; to habituate; to accustom; to make well known by practice or converse; as, to familiarize one&

famish ::: v. t. --> To starve, kill, or destroy with hunger.
To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to distress with hanger.
To kill, or to cause to suffer extremity, by deprivation or denial of anything necessary.
To force or constrain by famine. ::: v. i.


fear ::: n. 1. A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. v. 2. To regard with fear; be afraid of. 3. To have reverential awe of.** fear"s, fears, feared, fearing, fear-filled.

FOD /fod/ [Abbreviation for "Finger of Death", originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. From {MUDs} where the wizard command "FOD "player"" results in the immediate and total death of "player", usually as punishment for obnoxious behaviour. This usage migrated to other circumstances, such as "I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the cycles." Compare {gun}. In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g. what happens when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of what this generally does to the engine. [{Jargon File}]

FOD ::: /fod/ [Abbreviation for Finger of Death, originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. usage migrated to other circumstances, such as I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the cycles. Compare gun.In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g. what happens when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of what this generally does to the engine.[Jargon File]

forhall ::: v. t. --> To harass; to torment; to distress.

Future shock - physical and psychological distress or disorientation caused by a person's inability to cope with very rapid social and technological change.

grief ::: 1. Deep or intense sorrow or distress, esp. at the death of someone. 2. Something that causes great unhappiness. grief"s, griefs, griefless.

grief ::: a. --> Pain of mind on account of something in the past; mental suffering arising from any cause, as misfortune, loss of friends, misconduct of one&

gripe ::: n. --> A vulture; the griffin.
Grasp; seizure; fast hold; clutch.
That on which the grasp is put; a handle; a grip; as, the gripe of a sword.
A device for grasping or holding anything; a brake to stop a wheel.
Oppression; cruel exaction; affiction; pinching distress; as, the gripe of poverty.


heartrending ::: a. --> Causing intense grief; overpowering with anguish; very distressing.

help ::: v. t. --> To furnish with strength or means for the successful performance of any action or the attainment of any object; to aid; to assist; as, to help a man in his work; to help one to remember; -- the following infinitive is commonly used without to; as, "Help me scale yon balcony."
To furnish with the means of deliverance from trouble; as, to help one in distress; to help one out of prison.
To furnish with relief, as in pain or disease; to be of


hideous ::: a. --> Frightful, shocking, or offensive to the eyes; dreadful to behold; as, a hideous monster; hideous looks.
Distressing or offensive to the ear; exciting terror or dismay; as, a hideous noise.
Hateful; shocking.


howl ::: v. i. --> To utter a loud, protraced, mournful sound or cry, as dogs and wolves often do.
To utter a sound expressive of distress; to cry aloud and mournfully; to lament; to wail.
To make a noise resembling the cry of a wild beast. ::: v. t.


humanity ::: n. --> The quality of being human; the peculiar nature of man, by which he is distinguished from other beings.
Mankind collectively; the human race.
The quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; especially, a disposition to relieve persons or animals in distress, and to treat all creatures with kindness and tenderness.
Mental cultivation; liberal education; instruction in


hungry ::: superl. --> Feeling hunger; having a keen appetite; feeling uneasiness or distress from want of food; hence, having an eager desire.
Showing hunger or a craving desire; voracious.
Not rich or fertile; poor; barren; starved; as, a hungry soil.


imbitter ::: v. t. --> To make bitter; hence, to make distressing or more distressing; to make sad, morose, sour, or malignant.

imminence ::: n. --> The condition or quality of being imminent; a threatening, as of something about to happen. The imminence of any danger or distress.
That which is imminent; impending evil or danger.


indigestible ::: a. --> Not digestible; not readily soluble in the digestive juices; not easily convertible into products fitted for absorption.
Not digestible in the mind; distressful; intolerable; as, an indigestible simile.


Kānheri. The most extensive Buddhist monastic cave site in India, located six miles southeast of Borivili, a suburb of present-day Mumbai (Bombay), in the modern Indian state of Maharashtra. The name derives from the Sanskrit Kṛsnagiri, or "Black Mountain," probably because of the dark basalt from which many of the caves were excavated. Over 304 caves were excavated in the hills of the site between the first and tenth centuries CE. During the fifth and sixth centuries, older caves were modified and refurbished, while new caves were added, presumably initiated under the patronage of the Traikutakas (388-456 CE). While many of the new caves are architecturally rather plain, a number of important images were produced. The most extraordinary images are found in caves 90 and 41. The walls of cave 90 are abundantly, but haphazardly, carved with a myriad of images, suggesting that this hall was not intended for congregational purposes but rather as a place where believers could fund carvings as a way of making merit (PUnYA). On the left side wall of cave 90 is an especially complex iconographic arrangement. It shows VAIROCANA Buddha in the center, making the gesture of turning the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRAMUDRĀ) and seated in the so-called European pose (PRALAMBAPĀDĀSANA); accompanying Vairocana are four smaller images at the four corners of the composition. Together, these comprise the five buddhas (PANCATATHĀGATA or PANCAJINA). At each side of the composition is a vertical row of four buddhas, who together represent the eight buddhas of the past. By the sixth century, female images had emerged as a common part of Buddhist iconographic conceptions in South Asia, and Kānheri is no exception. Flanking the central Buddha in this same arrangement is a pair of BODHISATTVAs, each accompanied by a female consort. Depicted next to the stalk upon which rests the central Buddha's lotus pedestal are several subordinate figures: INDRA and BRAHMĀ, with female consorts, as well as male and female NĀGA. Kānheri was also a crucial site for both transoceanic and overland trade and pilgrimage networks, which probably accounts for the presence of images of AVALOKITEsVARA, a bodhisattva who could be called upon by seafarers and merchants who were in distress. Avalokitesvara's image in cave 90 shows him in the center, flanked by his attendants, and surrounded by scenes of the eight dangers, including shipwreck. In the bottom right-hand corner, seafarers are depicted praying to him. In cave 41, the unusual form of an Eleven-Headed Avalokitesvara (EKĀDAsAMUKHĀVALOKITEsVARA), which is dated to the late fifth or early sixth century, indicates advanced and esoteric Buddhist practices at Kānheri. While frequently found in later Buddhist art in Tibet, Nepal, and East Asia, this image is the only extant artistic evidence that this iconographic type is of Indian provenance. A sixteenth-century Portuguese traveler reported that the Kānheri caves were the palace built by Prince Josaphat's father to shield him from knowledge of the sufferings of the world. (cf. BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT). See also AJAntĀ.

karmāvarana. (P. kammāvarana; T. las kyi sgrib pa; C. yezhang; J. gosho/gossho; K. opchang 業障). In Sanskrit, "karmic obstruction," or "hindered by KARMAN." The term is used in the VISUDDHIMAGGA with reference to meditators who are incapable of making any progress in concentration (SAMĀDHI) exercises, specifically involving the KASInA visualization devices. The text notes that a practitioner who has engaged in any of the five types of unwholesome "acts that are of immediate effect" (P. ānantariyakamma; S. ĀNANTARYAKARMAN), such as patricide or causing schism in the community of monks (SAMGHBHEDA), is "obstructed by his acts" and will therefore never be able to develop a viable meditation practice. ¶ The relation of karmāvarana to meditation practice continues in Korean Buddhism, where the term opchang is colloquially used to refer to any kind of persistent physical, mental, or emotional obstacle to meditation practice, whether that be, for example, constant pain in one's legs that makes it difficult to sit in meditation for long periods, an inability to concentrate, or emotional distress caused by being apart from one's family. Anything that continually inhibits one's ability to practice effectively may be termed an opchang (karmāvarana). In the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA, obstacles to meditation practice are referred to as vimoksāvarana, obstruction to the production of the eight VIMOKsAs, that is, physical and mental inflexibility (akarmanyatā). The ARHAT who is free in both ways (ubhayatobhāgavimukta) is free from this as well as from the KLEsĀVARAnA.

kludge ::: (jargon) /kluhj/ (From the old Scots kludgie meaning an outside toilet) A Scottish engineering term for anything added in an ad hoc (and possibly engineers met Americans and the meaning, spelling and pronunciation of kludge became confused with that of kluge.The spelling kludge was apparently popularised by the Datamation cited below which defined it as An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.The result of this tangled history is a mess; in 1993, many (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word /klooj/ but spell it kludge (compare the pronunciation drift of mung). Some observers consider this appropriate in view of its meaning.[How to Design a Kludge, Jackson Granholme, Datamation, February 1962, pp. 30-31].[Jargon File] (1998-12-09)

kludge "jargon" /kluhj/ (From the old Scots "kludgie" meaning an outside toilet) A Scottish engineering term for anything added in an ad hoc (and possibly unhygenic!) manner. At some point during the Second World War, Scottish engineers met Americans and the meaning, spelling and pronunciation of kludge became confused with that of "{kluge}". The spelling "kludge" was apparently popularised by the "Datamation" cited below which defined it as "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole." The result of this tangled history is a mess; in 1993, many (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word /klooj/ but spell it "kludge" (compare the pronunciation drift of {mung}). Some observers consider this appropriate in view of its meaning. ["How to Design a Kludge", Jackson Granholme, Datamation, February 1962, pp. 30-31]. [{Jargon File}] (1998-12-09)

knight ::: n. --> A young servant or follower; a military attendant.
In feudal times, a man-at-arms serving on horseback and admitted to a certain military rank with special ceremonies, including an oath to protect the distressed, maintain the right, and live a stainless life.
One on whom knighthood, a dignity next below that of baronet, is conferred by the sovereign, entitling him to be addressed as Sir; as, Sir John.


lacerated ::: 1. *Lit. Torn; mangled. 2. Fig.* Torn with deep emotional pain; distress.

lampoon ::: n. --> A personal satire in writing; usually, malicious and abusive censure written only to reproach and distress. ::: v. t. --> To subject to abusive ridicule expressed in writing; to make the subject of a lampoon.

malignant ::: a. --> Disposed to do harm, inflict suffering, or cause distress; actuated by extreme malevolence or enmity; virulently inimical; bent on evil; malicious.
Characterized or caused by evil intentions; pernicious.
Tending to produce death; threatening a fatal issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria. ::: n.


misery ::: 1. Severe mental or emotional unhappiness or distress. 2. The state of suffering and want as a result of physical circumstances or extreme poverty. 3. A cause or source of suffering. misery"s, miseries.

misery ::: n. --> Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
Covetousness; niggardliness; avarice.


namation ::: n. --> A distraining or levying of a distress; an impounding.

needful ::: a. --> Full of need; in need or want; needy; distressing.
Necessary for supply or relief; requisite.


needy ::: superl. --> Distressed by want of the means of living; very por; indigent; necessitous.
Necessary; requiste.


nibhr.s.t.a-tavis.i (nibhrishta-tavishi) ::: distressed by its force. [Cf. R nibhrsta-tavisi .g Veda 2.25.4]

nightmare ::: 1. A demon or spirit once thought to plague sleeping people. 2. A dream arousing feelings of intense fear, horror, and distress.

outcry ::: n. --> A vehement or loud cry; a cry of distress, alarm, opposition, or detestation; clamor.
Sale at public auction.


painful ::: a. --> Full of pain; causing uneasiness or distress, either physical or mental; afflictive; disquieting; distressing.
Requiring labor or toil; difficult; executed with laborious effort; as a painful service; a painful march.
Painstaking; careful; industrious.


pain ::: n. --> Punishment suffered or denounced; suffering or evil inflicted as a punishment for crime, or connected with the commission of a crime; penalty.
Any uneasy sensation in animal bodies, from slight uneasiness to extreme distress or torture, proceeding from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; bodily distress; bodily suffering; an ache; a smart.
Specifically, the throes or travail of childbirth.


pang ::: 1. A sudden sharp spasm of pain. 2. Fig. A sudden sharp feeling of emotional distress. pangs, sense-pangs.

passion ::: n. --> A suffering or enduring of imposed or inflicted pain; any suffering or distress (as, a cardiac passion); specifically, the suffering of Christ between the time of the last supper and his death, esp. in the garden upon the cross.
The state of being acted upon; subjection to an external agent or influence; a passive condition; -- opposed to action.
Capacity of being affected by external agents; susceptibility of impressions from external agents.


personality disorder: a group of disorders characterised by pathological trends in personality structure. It may show itself by lack of good judgment or poor relationships with others, accompanied by little anxiety and no personal sense of distress.

pinch ::: v. t. --> To press hard or squeeze between the ends of the fingers, between teeth or claws, or between the jaws of an instrument; to squeeze or compress, as between any two hard bodies.
o seize; to grip; to bite; -- said of animals.
To plait.
Figuratively: To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve; to distress; as, to be pinched for money.
To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a


pity ::: n. --> Piety.
A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration.
A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted. ::: v. t.


poignant ::: 1. Piercing; incisive. 2. Agreeably intense or stimulating. 3. Sharply distressing or painful to the feelings. poignancy.

presentiment ::: n. --> Previous sentiment, conception, or opinion; previous apprehension; especially, an antecedent impression or conviction of something unpleasant, distressing, or calamitous, about to happen; anticipation of evil; foreboding.

pressure ::: n. --> The act of pressing, or the condition of being pressed; compression; a squeezing; a crushing; as, a pressure of the hand.
A contrasting force or impulse of any kind; as, the pressure of poverty; the pressure of taxes; the pressure of motives on the mind; the pressure of civilization.
Affliction; distress; grievance.
Urgency; as, the pressure of business.
Impression; stamp; character impressed.


Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress or to the manifestation of behaviours and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment.

rajas ::: (etymologically) "the shining"; (in the Veda) the antariks.a,"the middle world, the vital or dynamic plane" between heaven (the mental plane) and earth (the physical); "luminous power" established in this intermediate realm; (post-Vedic) the second of the three modes (trigun.a) of the energy of the lower prakr.ti, the gun.a that is "the seed of force and action" and "creates the workings of energy"; it is a deformation of tapas or pravr.tti, the corresponding quality in the higher prakr.ti, and is converted back into pure tapas or pravr.tti in the process of traigun.yasiddhi. This kinetic force "has its strongest hold on the vital nature", where it "turns always to action and desire", but "finding itself in a world of matter which starts from the principle of inconscience and a mechanical driven inertia, has to work against an immense contrary force; therefore its whole action takes on the nature of an effort, a struggle, a besieged and an impeded conflict for possession which is distressed in its every step by a limiting incapacity, disappointment and suffering".

REAPING, THE LAW OF The law of reaping says that all the good and evil we have initiated in thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds are returned to us with the same effect. Every consciousness manifestation has an effect in manifold ways and entails either good or bad sowing which will ripen and be reaped some time. K 1.41.13

If man lives in accordance with the laws of life, his development will progress as rapidly as possibly, without friction, harmoniously, with the greatest possible degree of happiness. But every mistake as to the laws of life (known or unknown ones) entails consequences calculated eventually (the number of incarnations is up to him) to teach the individual to discover the laws and apply them correctly. If he has caused suffering to other beings, he is himself to experience the same measure of suffering. This is the law of uncompromising justice which no arbitrary grace can free him from.

It is part of man&


recoil ::: v. i. --> To start, roll, bound, spring, or fall back; to take a reverse motion; to be driven or forced backward; to return.
To draw back, as from anything repugnant, distressing, alarming, or the like; to shrink.
To turn or go back; to withdraw one&


refuge ::: n. --> Shelter or protection from danger or distress.
That which shelters or protects from danger, or from distress or calamity; a stronghold which protects by its strength, or a sanctuary which secures safety by its sacredness; a place inaccessible to an enemy.
An expedient to secure protection or defense; a device or contrivance.


relentless ::: a. --> Unmoved by appeals for sympathy or forgiveness; insensible to the distresses of others; destitute of tenderness; unrelenting; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism.

relief ::: alleviation, ease, or deliverance through the removal of pain, distress, oppression, etc.

remorseless ::: a. --> Being without remorse; having no pity; hence, destitute of sensibility; cruel; insensible to distress; merciless.

rend ::: 1. To tear apart; split; divide. Also fig. 2. To cause pain or distress to; esp. the heart.** rends, rent, rending.**

replevin ::: n. --> A personal action which lies to recover possession of goods and chattle wrongfully taken or detained. Originally, it was a remedy peculiar to cases for wrongful distress, but it may generally now be brought in all cases of wrongful taking or detention.
The writ by which goods and chattels are replevied. ::: v. t.


respite ::: a delay or cessation for a time, esp. of anything distressing or trying; an interval of relief.

roaring ::: p. pr. & vvb. n. --> of Roar ::: n. --> A loud, deep, prolonged sound, as of a large beast, or of a person in distress, anger, mirth, etc., or of a noisy congregation.
An affection of the windpipe of a horse, causing a loud, peculiar noise in breathing under exertion; the making of the noise so


roar ::: v. i. --> To cry with a full, loud, continued sound.
To bellow, or utter a deep, loud cry, as a lion or other beast.
To cry loudly, as in pain, distress, or anger.
To make a loud, confused sound, as winds, waves, passing vehicles, a crowd of persons when shouting together, or the like.
To be boisterous; to be disorderly.
To laugh out loudly and continuously; as, the hearers


ruth ::: v. --> Sorrow for the misery of another; pity; tenderness.
That which causes pity or compassion; misery; distress; a pitiful sight.


sackcloth ::: n. --> Linen or cotton cloth such as sacks are made of; coarse cloth; anciently, a cloth or garment worn in mourning, distress, mortification, or penitence.

secure attachment: an attachment bond between the mother (or primary caregiver) and infant, whereby the mother is sensitive and responsive to the childs needs, who will not experience significant distress at separation from the caregiver, but who seek comfort from caregiver when frightened. Secure attachment is related to healthy subsequent cognitive and emotional development as adults, including high self-esteem and the ability to maintain loving, trusting relationships.

Separation Anxiety ::: Distress caused by the absence of an infant&

severity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being severe.
Gravity or austerity; extreme strictness; rigor; harshness; as, the severity of a reprimand or a reproof; severity of discipline or government; severity of penalties.
The quality or power of distressing or paining; extreme degree; extremity; intensity; inclemency; as, the severity of pain or anguish; the severity of cold or heat; the severity of the winter.
Harshness; cruel treatment; sharpness of punishment; as,


shrink ::: v. i. --> To wrinkle, bend, or curl; to shrivel; hence, to contract into a less extent or compass; to gather together; to become compacted.
To withdraw or retire, as from danger; to decline action from fear; to recoil, as in fear, horror, or distress.
To express fear, horror, or pain by contracting the body, or part of it; to shudder; to quake.


solace ::: n. 1. Comfort in sorrow, misfortune, or distress; consolation. v. **2. To comfort, cheer, or console, as in trouble or sorrow. 3. To allay, alleviate, assuage, soothe. solaced.**

solace ::: v. t. --> Comfort in grief; alleviation of grief or anxiety; also, that which relieves in distress; that which cheers or consoles; relief.
Rest; relaxation; ease. ::: n. --> To cheer in grief or under calamity; to comfort; to relieve in affliction, solitude, or discomfort; to console; -- applied to


sorrowful ::: a. --> Full of sorrow; exhibiting sorrow; sad; dejected; distressed.
Producing sorrow; exciting grief; mournful; lamentable; grievous; as, a sorrowful accident.


squall ::: n. --> A sudden violent gust of wind often attended with rain or snow.
A loud scream; a harsh cry. ::: v. i. --> To cry out; to scream or cry violently, as a woman frightened, or a child in anger or distress; as, the infant squalled.


stock character: A type of characterthat emerges frequently in a specific literary genre. Stock characters in western films might include the noble sheriff, the whorehouse madam, the town drunkard. Another example: Stock characters in medieval romances include the damsel in distress, handsome young knight, and the senex amans (the ugly old man married to a younger girl).

straiten ::: v. t. --> To make strait; to make narrow; hence, to contract; to confine.
To make tense, or tight; to tighten.
To restrict; to distress or embarrass in respect of means or conditions of life; -- used chiefly in the past participle; -- as, a man straitened in his circumstances.


stress ::: n. --> Distress.
Pressure, strain; -- used chiefly of immaterial things; except in mechanics; hence, urgency; importance; weight; significance.
The force, or combination of forces, which produces a strain; force exerted in any direction or manner between contiguous bodies, or parts of bodies, and taking specific names according to its direction, or mode of action, as thrust or pressure, pull or tension, shear or tangential stress.


struggle ::: v. i. --> To strive, or to make efforts, with a twisting, or with contortions of the body.
To use great efforts; to labor hard; to strive; to contend forcibly; as, to struggle to save one&


sudurjayā. (T. sbyang dka' ba; C. nansheng di; J. nanshoji; K. nansŭng chi 難勝地). In Sanskrit, "unconquerable," the name of the fifth of the ten bodhisattva stages (BHuMI). A list of ten stages (DAsABHuMI) is most commonly enumerated, deriving from the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA ("Sutra on the Ten Bhumis"), a sutra that is later subsumed into the massive scriptural compilation, the AVATAMSAKASuTRA. The first bhumi coincides with the attainment of the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA) and the remaining nine to the path of cultivation (BHĀVANĀMĀRGA). This bhumi is called "unconquerable" because, from this point on the path, the bodhisattva cannot be overcome by demons. On this bhumi, the bodhisattva practices the perfection of meditative absorption (DHYĀNAPĀRAMITĀ), the fifth of the ten perfections (PĀRAMITĀ), achieving myriad forms of SAMĀDHI. Here, the bodhisattva also gains understanding of the subtle nature of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. The bodhisattva remains on his stage as long as his distress deriving from his analysis of SAMSĀRA prevents him entering into meditative equipoise (SAMĀHITA) on the signless (ĀNIMITTA).

suffer ::: 1. To undergo or sustain (something painful, injurious, or unpleasant). distress, grief, etc. 2. To tolerate or allow. 3. To undergo or experience (any action, process, or condition). 4. To submit to endure or to be something. suffers, suffered.

suffering ::: n. 1. The condition of one who suffers; the bearing of pain or distress. 2. Pain, misery, or loss experienced by a person who suffers. adj. 3. Troubled by pain or loss. suffering"s, sufferings.

Tathāgatagarbhasutra. (T. De bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po'i mdo; C. Dafangdeng rulaizang jing; J. Daihodo nyoraizokyo; K. Taebangdŭng yoraejang kyong 大方等如來藏經). In Sanskrit, "Discourse on the Embryo of the TATHĀGATAS"; also known by the longer title of Tathāgatagarbhanāmavaipulyasutra, an influential Mahāyāna sutra, and the earliest to set forth the doctrine of the womb or embryo of buddhahood (TATHĀGATAGARBHA). The sutra, which is preserved only in Chinese and later Tibetan translations, was probably composed in the second half of the third century CE. The sutra, set ten years after the Buddha's enlightenment, opens with the Buddha seated on Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA) surrounded by one hundred thousand monks and bodhisattvas equal in number to the sands of the Ganges (GAnGĀNADĪVĀLUKĀ). The Buddha causes myriad closed lotuses to fill the sky, each enclosing a buddha who is emitting rays of light. The petals of the lotuses open and then became wilted and finally rotten, but the buddhas seated upon them remain pristine. The bodhisattva Vajramati then asks the Buddha to explain what has occurred. In the most famous section of the sutra, the Buddha then sets forth nine similes of the tathāgatagarbha. (1) Just as there was a buddha seated cross-legged within decaying lotus petals, so in each sentient being, there is a buddha encased in the sheaths of the afflictions. (2) Just as a honeycomb is surrounded by bees, so the buddhahood within each being is surrounded by afflictions and impurities; just as the beekeeper removes the bees, so the Buddha removes the afflictions and impurities of sentient beings. (3) Just as a kernel is encased in a husk, so buddhahood is encased by the afflictions. (4) Just as a piece of gold covered with excrement would be hidden until its presence was revealed by a god, so the buddha within each being, covered as he is by the filth of the afflictions, remains unknown until a buddha reveals his presence. (5) Just as a treasure buried deep beneath the house of a poor man would be unknown to him, leaving him to presume he was poor, so is the buddha-nature hidden deeply within all beings unknown to them, causing them to wander in SAMSĀRA. The Buddha sees the body of a buddha within all beings and teaches them how to become treasures of the dharma. (6) Just as hidden within a fruit is a seed and sprout that will produce a tree, so the Buddha sees the body of a buddha within the sheaths of the afflictions. (7) Just as a jeweled image of the Buddha wrapped in putrid rags would lie unnoticed by the side of the road until its presence was revealed by a god, so the body of a buddha wrapped in afflictions inside even an animal is seen only by the Buddha. (8) Just as a poor and ugly woman who carried the embryo of a universal emperor (CAKRAVARTIN) in her womb would remain discouraged by her lot, so sentient beings who carry a buddha within them continue to be distressed by saMsāra. (9) Just as a golden statue remains hidden within a blackened clay mold until the goldsmith breaks the mold with a hammer, so the knowledge of a buddha remains invisible within the afflictions until the Buddha uses the dharma to remove the afflictions.

tenesmus ::: n. --> An urgent and distressing sensation, as if a discharge from the intestines must take place, although none can be effected; -- always referred to the lower extremity of the rectum.

The gunas affect every part of our natural being. They have indeed their strongest relative hold in the three different members of it, mind, life and body. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is strongest in material nature and in our physical being. The action of this principle is of two kinds, inertia of force and inertia of knowledge. Whatever is predominantly governed by Tamas, tends in its force to a sluggish inaction and immobility or else to a mechanical action which it does not possess, but is possessed by obscure forces which drive it in a mechanical round of energy; equally in its consciousness it turns to an inconscience or enveloped subconscience or to a reluctant, sluggish or in some way mechanical conscious action which does not possess the idea of its own energy, but is guided by an idea which seems external to it or at least concealed from its active awareness. Thus the principle of our body is in its nature inert, subconscient, incapable of anything but a mechanical and habitual self-guidance and action: though it has like everything else a principle of kinesis and a principle of equilibrium of its state and action, an inherent principle of response and a secret consciousness, the greatest portion of its rajasic motions are contributed by the lifepower and all the overt consciousness by the mental being. The principle of rajas has its strongest hold on the vital nature. It is the Life within us that is the strongest kinetic motor power, but the life-power in earthly beings is possessed by the force of desire, th
   refore rajas turns always to action and desire; desire is the strongest human and animal initiator of most kinesis and action, predominant to such an extent that many consider it the father of all action and even the originator of our being. Moreover, rajas finding itself in a world of matter which starts from the principle of inconscience and a mechanical driven inertia, has to work against an immense contrary force; th
   refore its whole action takes on the nature of an effort, a struggle, a besieged and an impeded conflict for possession which is distressed in its every step by a limiting incapacity, disappointment and suffering: even its gains are precarious and limited and marred by the reaction of the effort and an aftertaste of insufficiency and transience. The principle of sattwa has its strongest hold in the mind; not so much in the lower parts of the mind which are dominated by the rajasic life-power, but mostly in the intelligence and the will of the reason. Intelligence, reason, rational will are moved by the nature of their predominant principle towards a constant effort of assimilation, assimilation by knowledge, assimilation by a power of understanding will, a constant effort towards equilibrium, some stability, rule, harmony of the conflicting elements of natural happening and experience. This satisfaction it gets in various ways and in various degrees of acquisition. The attainment of assimilation, equilibrium and harmony brings with it always a relative but more or less intense and satisfying sense of ease, happiness, mastery, security, which is other than the troubled and vehement pleasures insecurely bestowed by the satisfaction of rajasic desire and passion. Light and happiness are the characteristics of the sattwic guna. The whole nature of the embodied living mental being is determined by these three gunas.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 684-685


The principle of rajas has its strongest hold on the vital nature. It is the Life within us that is the strongest kinetic motor power, but the life-power in earthly beings is possessed by the force of desire, th
   refore rajas turns always to action and desire; desire is the strongest human and animal initiator of most kinesis and action, predominant to such an extent that many consider it the father of all action and even the originator of our being. Moreover, rajas finding itself in a world of matter which starts from the principle of inconscience and a mechanical driven inertia, has to work against an immense contrary force; th
   refore its whole action takes on the nature of an effort, a struggle, a besieged and an impeded conflict for possession which is distressed in its every step by a limiting incapacity, disappointment and suffering: even its gains are precarious and limited and marred by the reaction of the effort and an aftertaste of insufficiency and transience.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 684-85


thirsty ::: n. --> Feeling thirst; having a painful or distressing sensation from want of drink; hence, having an eager desire.
Deficient in moisture; dry; parched.


tine ::: n. --> Trouble; distress; teen.
A tooth, or spike, as of a fork; a prong, as of an antler. ::: v. t. --> To kindle; to set on fire.
To shut in, or inclose.


tragedy ::: 1. The tragic element of drama, or literature generally, or of life. 2. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life. tragedies.

tribulation ::: n. --> That which occasions distress, trouble, or vexation; severe affliction.

trouble ::: v. t. --> To put into confused motion; to disturb; to agitate.
To disturb; to perplex; to afflict; to distress; to grieve; to fret; to annoy; to vex.
To give occasion for labor to; -- used in polite phraseology; as, I will not trouble you to deliver the letter.
The state of being troubled; disturbance; agitation; uneasiness; vexation; calamity.
That which gives disturbance, annoyance, or vexation;


tweague ::: n. --> A pinching condition; perplexity; trouble; distress.

tweak ::: v. t. --> To pinch and pull with a sudden jerk and twist; to twitch; as, to tweak the nose. ::: n. --> A sharp pinch or jerk; a twist or twitch; as, a tweak of the nose.
Trouble; distress; tweag.


Vessantara. (S. Visvantara/VisvaMtara; T. Thams cad sgrol; C. Xudana; J. Shudainu/Shudaina; K. Sudaena 須大拏). Pāli name of a prince who is the subject of the most famous of all JĀTAKA tales; he was the BODHISATTVA's final existence before he took rebirth in TUsITA heaven, where he awaited the moment when he would descend into Queen MĀYĀ's womb to be born as Prince SIDDHĀRTHA and eventually become GAUTAMA Buddha. During his lifetime as Prince Vessantara, the bodhisattva (P. bodhisatta) fulfilled the perfection (P. pāramī; S. PĀRAMITĀ) of generosity (DĀNA; see also DĀNAPĀRAMITĀ). The story is found in Sanskrit in Āryasura's JĀTAKAMĀLĀ and Ksemendra's Avadānakalpalatā, with the same main features as in the Pāli version. The story enjoys its greatest popularity in Southeast Asia, so the Pāli version is described here. ¶ The bodhisattva was born as the crown prince of Sivirattha, the son of King SaNjaya and Queen Phusatī of the kingdom of Jetuttara. On the day of his birth, a white elephant named Paccaya was also born, who had the power to make rain. When Vessantara was sixteen, he married a maiden named Maddī, with whom he had a son and a daughter, Jāli and Kanhajinā. Once, when Kalinga was suffering a severe drought, brāhmanas from that kingdom requested that Vessantara give them his white elephant to alleviate their plight. Vessantara complied, handing over to them his elephant along with its accessories. The citizens of Jetuttara were outraged that he should deprive his own kingdom of such a treasure and demanded his banishment to the distant mountain of Vankagiri. His father, King SaNjaya, consented and ordered Vessantara to leave via the road frequented by highwaymen. Before his departure, Vessantara held a great almsgiving, in which he distributed seven hundred of every type of thing. Maddī insisted that she and her children accompany the prince, and they were transported out of the city on a grand carriage pulled by four horses. Four brāhmanas begged for his horses, which he gave. Gods then pulled his carriage until a brāhmana begged for his carriage. Thereafter, they traveled on foot. Along the way crowds gathered, some even offering their kingdoms for him to rule, so famous was he for his generosity. At Vankagiri, they lived in two hermitages, one for Vessantara and the other for his wife and children. These had been constructed for them by Vissakamma, architect of the gods. There, they passed four months until one day an old brāhmana named Jujaka arrived and asked for Jāli and Kanhajinā as slaves. Vessantara expected this to occur, so he sent his wife on an errand so that she would not be distressed at the sight of him giving their children away. Jujaka was cruel, and the children ran away to their father, only to be returned so that Vessantara's generosity could be perfected. When Maddī returned, she fainted at the news. Then, Sakka (sAKRA), king of the gods, assumed the form of a brāhmana and asked for Maddī; Vessantara gave his wife to the brāhmana. The earth quaked at the gift. Sakka immediately revealed his identity and returned Maddī, granting Vessantara eight boons. In the meantime, Jujaka, the cruel brāhmana, traveled to Jetuttara, where King SaNjaya bought the children for a great amount of treasure, including a seven-storied palace. Jujaka, however, died of overeating and left no heirs, so the treasure was returned to the king. Meanwhile, the white elephant was returned because the kingdom of Kalinga could not maintain him. A grand entourage was sent to Vankagiri to fetch Vessantara and Maddī, and when they returned amid great celebration they were crowned king and queen of Sivirattha. In order that Vessantara would be able to satisfy all who came for gifts, Sakka rained down jewels waist deep on the palace. When Vessantara died, he was born as a god in tusita heaven, where he awaited his last rebirth as Siddhattha Gotama, when he would become a buddha. ¶ As a depiction of the virtue of dāna, the story of Vessantara is one of the most important Buddhist tales in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia and is depicted on murals throughout the region. Thai retellings of the Vessantara-Jātaka, known also as the Mahāchat, or "Great Jātaka," are found in the many Thai dialects and consist of thirteen chapters. The story is popular in Thailand's north and especially in the northeast, where virtually every monastery (excluding forest monasteries) holds a festival known as the Bun Phra Wet, usually in February or March, at which the entire story is recited in one day and one night. Laypeople assist in decorating their local monastery with trunks and branches of banana trees to represent the forest to which Vessantara was banished after giving away his kingdom's auspicious elephant. They also present offerings of flowers, hanging decorations, balls of glutinous rice, and money. The festival includes, among other things, a procession to the monastery that includes local women carrying long horizontal cloth banners on which the Vessantara story is painted. The merit earned by participating in the festival is linked to two beliefs: (1) that the participant will be reborn at the time of the future buddha, MAITREYA, known in Thai as Phra Si Ariya Mettrai (P. Ariya Metteyya), and (2) that the community, which remains primarily agricultural, will be blessed with sufficient rainfall.

vexing ::: tormenting; troubling; distressing; plaguing.

Visākhā. (P. Visākhā; T. Sa ga ma; C. Pishequmu/Luzimu; J. Bishakyamo/Rokushimo; K. Pisagomo/Nokchamo 舍佉母/鹿子母). Prominent female lay disciple of the Buddha (and to be distinguished from the Buddhist layman VIsĀKHA); in the AnGUTTARANIKĀYA, the Buddha declares her to be foremost among laywomen who minister to the order. According to the Pāli account, Visākhā was born into a wealthy family and was converted by the Buddha at the age of seven, when he visited her native city of Bhaddiya. Visākhā had been dispatched by her grandfather, Mendaka, with five hundred chariots, five hundred companions, and five hundred slaves to approach the Buddha and listen to him preach. Upon hearing his sermon, Visākhā became a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA). Later, Visākhā was married to the son of a wealthy merchant named Migāra, who dwelt in the city of Sāvatthi (sRĀVASTĪ) and was a follower of the Niganthas (S. NIRGRANTHA; see JAINA). Although she was a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law, Visākhā was offended by the nakedness of the Nigantha ascetics and refused to show them respect. When criticized for her attitude, she threatened to return to her parents' house. Although sorely distressed by his daughter-in-law's behavior, Migāra consented to listen to a sermon by the Buddha if she would consent to remain in his family. Upon hearing the Buddha preach, Migāra became a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA), and remained forever grateful to Visākhā, even giving her the sobriquet Migāramātā, "Migāra's Mother." Visākhā fed five hundred monks in her home daily, and was constant in her attentions to the monastic community in Sāvatthi. She fulfilled a long-held wish when she had a grand monastery built to the east of the city named Migāramātupāsāda (S. MṚGĀRAMṚTUPRĀSĀDA), which she visited with her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. The Buddha related how, in previous lives, Visākhā had ministered to the needs of the Buddhas Padumuttara (S. Padmottara) and Kassapa (S. KĀsYAPA). Visākhā was said to have died at the age of 120, although she always looked to be a maiden of sixteen. She was endowed with phenomenal strength, and the people of Sāvatthi believed that she brought good fortune to their city. Visākhā is upheld by the tradition as the ideal laywoman.

whine ::: v. i. --> To utter a plaintive cry, as some animals; to moan with a childish noise; to complain, or to tell of sorrow, distress, or the like, in a plaintive, nasal tone; hence, to complain or to beg in a mean, unmanly way; to moan basely. ::: v. t. --> To utter or express plaintively, or in a mean, unmanly

withernam ::: n. --> A second or reciprocal distress of other goods in lieu of goods which were taken by a first distress and have been eloigned; a taking by way of reprisal; -- chiefly used in the expression capias in withernam, which is the name of a writ used in connection with the action of replevin (sometimes called a writ of reprisal), which issues to a defendant in replevin when he has obtained judgment for a return of the chattels replevied, and fails to obtain them on the writ of return.

woful ::: a. --> Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity; afflicted; wretched; unhappy; sad.
Bringing calamity, distress, or affliction; as, a woeful event; woeful want.
Wretched; paltry; miserable; poor.


wretched ::: a. --> Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.
Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable; as, a wretched poem; a wretched cabin.
Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.


wring ::: v. t. --> To twist and compress; to turn and strain with violence; to writhe; to squeeze hard; to pinch; as, to wring clothes in washing.
Hence, to pain; to distress; to torment; to torture.
To distort; to pervert; to wrest.
To extract or obtain by twisting and compressing; to squeeze or press (out); hence, to extort; to draw forth by violence, or against resistance or repugnance; -- usually with out or form.
To subject to extortion; to afflict, or oppress, in order


Yasas. (P. Yasa; T. Grags pa; C. Yeshe; J. Yasha; K. Yasa 耶舍). An early ARHAT disciple of the Buddha. The son of a wealthy merchant of Vārānasī, Yasas was brought up in luxury. He had three mansions, one for the winter, one for the rainy season, and one for the summer, and was attended by a troupe of female musicians. Once, he happened to awake in the middle of the night and witnessed his attendants sleeping in an indecorous manner. Greatly disturbed, he put on a pair of golden sandals and wandered in the direction of the Deer Park (MṚGADĀVA) where the Buddha was dwelling, exclaiming, "Alas, what distress, what danger." The Buddha saw him approach and, knowing what he was experiencing, called out to him, "Yasas, come. Here there is neither distress nor danger." Yasas approached the Buddha, took off his golden sandals, and sat down beside him. The Buddha preached a graduated discourse (ANUPUBBIKATHĀ) to him, at the conclusion of which Yasas became a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA). He thus became the Buddha's sixth disciple and the first who had not known him prior to his achievement of enlightenment (as had his first five disciples, the bhadravargīya or PANCAVARGIKA). Yasas was also the first person to become an enlightened lay disciple (UPĀSAKA), although he ordained a few minutes later. Later, Yasas's father, who had come searching for his son, arrived at the Buddha's residence. The Buddha used his magical powers to make Yasas invisible and, inviting his father to sit, preached a discourse to him. Yasas's father also became a stream-enterer, while Yasas, who overheard the sermon from his invisible state, became an arhat. When the Buddha made Yasas visible to his father, he informed him that, since his son was now an arhat, it would be impossible for him to return home to a householder's life and he would have to become a monk. Yasas thus became the sixth member of the Buddha's monastic order. Yasas accompanied the Buddha to his father's house the next day to receive the morning meal. After the meal, the Buddha preached a sermon. Yasas's mother, SUJĀTĀ, and other members of the household became stream-enterers, his mother thus becoming the first female disciple (UPĀSIKĀ) of the Buddha and the first woman to become a stream-enterer. At that time, fifty-four of Yasas's friends also were converted and entered the order of monks, swelling its ranks to sixty members. It was at this time that the Buddha directed his disciples to go forth separately and preach the dharma they had realized for the welfare and benefit of the world. ¶ There was a later monk, also named Yasas, whose protest led to the second Buddhist council (COUNCIL, SECOND), held at VAIsĀLĪ. Some one hundred years after the Buddha's death, Yasas was traveling in Vaisālī when he observed the monks there receiving gold and silver as alms directly from the laity, in violation of the VINAYA prohibition against monks touching gold and silver. He also found that the monks had identified ten points in the vinaya that were identified as violations but that they felt were sufficiently minor to be ignored. The ten violations in question were: (1) carrying salt in an animal horn; (2) eating when the shadow of the sundial was two fingerbreadths past noon; (3) after eating, traveling to another village to eat another meal on the same day; (4) holding several assemblies within the same boundary (SĪMĀ) during the same fortnight; (5) making a monastic decision with an incomplete assembly and subsequently receiving the approval of the absent monks; (6) citing precedent as a justification to violate monastic procedures; (7) drinking milk whey after mealtime; (8) drinking unfermented wine; (9) using mats with a fringe; and (10) accepting gold and silver. Yasas told the monks that these were indeed violations, at which point the monks are said to have offered him a share of the gold and silver they had collected. When he refused the bribe, they expelled him from the order. Yasas sought the support of several respected monks in the west, including Sambhuta, sĀnAKAVĀSIN, and REVATA. Together with other monks, they went to Vaisālī, where they convened a council (SAMGĪTI) at which Revata submitted questions about each of the disputed points to Sarvagāmin, the eldest monk of the day, who is said to have been a disciple of ĀNANDA. In each case, he said that the practice in question was a violation of the vinaya. Seven hundred monks then gathered to recite the vinaya. Those who did not accept the decision of the council held their own convocation, which they called the MAHĀSĀMGHIKA or "Great Assembly," the rival group coming to be called the STHAVIRANIKĀYA, or "School of the Elders." This event is sometimes referred to as "the great schism," since it marks the first permanent schism in the order (SAMGHABHEDA).

yaup ::: v. i. --> To cry out like a child; to yelp. ::: n. --> A cry of distress, rage, or the like, as the cry of a sickly bird, or of a child in pain.
The blue titmouse.


yearn ::: v. t. --> To pain; to grieve; to vex. ::: v. i. --> To be pained or distressed; to grieve; to mourn.
To be filled with longing desire; to be harassed or rendered uneasy with longing, or feeling the want of a thing; to strain with emotions of affection or tenderness; to long; to be eager.




QUOTES [20 / 20 - 1500 / 1693]


KEYS (10k)

   2 Marcus Aurelius
   1 Wikipedia
   1 Sri Sarada Devi
   1 Sayyiduna Uthman
   1 Sannyutta Nikaya
   1 Saint Maximus
   1 Saint John Bosco profecias
   1 John of the Cross
   1 John Damascene
   1 Fo-tho-hing-tsang-king
   1 Fa-khe-pi-
   1 Buddhist Texts
   1 Baha-ullah
   1 Anonymous
   1 and yet
   1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   1 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Confucius
   1 A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   60 Anonymous
   17 Samuel Johnson
   16 Jane Austen
   14 Thomas Paine
   14 Charles Haddon Spurgeon
   12 Charles Dickens
   11 Victor Hugo
   11 Mother Teresa
   8 Friedrich Nietzsche
   8 Cassandra Clare
   7 Thomas Jefferson
   7 Marcus Aurelius
   7 Confucius
   7 Charlotte Bront
   7 Alice Miller
   6 Viktor E Frankl
   6 Susan Ee
   6 Marissa Meyer
   6 H G Wells
   6 George Washington

1:Happiness and distress are only modes of the mind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
2:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God.
   ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita, As It Is PURPORT,
3:I am the mother of the wicked, as I am the mother of the virtuous. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, just say to yourself 'I have a mother.' ~ Sri Sarada Devi,
4:Confidence in help from outside brings with it distress. Only self-confidence gives force and joy. ~ Fo-tho-hing-tsang-king, the Eternal Wisdom
5:GRIEF is a pain which makes one speechless; DISTRESS is one which oppresses; ENVY is one arising from another's good fortune; and COMPASSION is one arising from another's misfortune. ~ John Damascene,
6:There are four types of oceans; passions are oceans of sins, the self (nafs) is the ocean of lust, death is the ocean of life, and the grave is the ocean of distress. ~ Sayyiduna Uthman, @Sufi_Path
7:The spirit constructs its own abode; directed falsely from the beginning it thinks in erroneous ways and engenders its own distress. Thought creates for itself its own suffering. ~ Fa-khe-pi-, the Eternal Wisdom
8:The person who truly wishes to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world. ~ Saint Maximus,
9:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.
   ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad Gita,
10:The light of God which illumines an Angel enlightens him, and sets him on fire with love, for he is a spirit already prepared for the infusion of that light; but man, being impure and weak, is ordinarily enlightened in darkness, in distress and pain. ~ John of the Cross,
11:... the Holy Father began the march. The farther he went the greater did the procession behind increase. Then finally he set foot in the Holy City, he wept bitter tears for the distress in which he found the people and the large number now missing." ~ Saint John Bosco profecias,
12:t is thus that for a very long time you have undergone suffering, affliction and distress and have augmented the harvests of death, long enough in very truth to have recognised suffering, long enough to have turned away from suffering, long enough to have enfranchised yourselves from suffering. ~ Sannyutta Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom
13:Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it ~ and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you ~ for only the truth that builds up is truth for you. ~ Søren Kierkegaard,
14:O son of earth, be blind and thou shalt see My beauty; be deaf and thou shalt hear My sweet song, My pleasant melody; be ignorant and thou shalt partake My knowledge; be in distress and thou shalt have an eternal portion of the infinite ocean of My riches:-blind to all that is not My beauty, deaf to all that is not My word, ignorant of all that is not My knowledge. Thus with a gaze that is pure, a spirit without stain, an understanding refined, thou shalt enter into my sacred presence. ~ Baha-ullah, "The Hidden Words in Persian.", the Eternal Wisdom
15:Because I have called, and ye refused . . . I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you." "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem: "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."

The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure. King Minos retained the divine bull, when the sacrifice would have signified submission to the will of the god of his society; for he preferred what he conceived to be his economic advantage. Thus he failed to advance into the liferole that he had assumed-and we have seen with what calamitous effect. The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
16:He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our battles for us or under whose shield we fight, the charioteer, the pilot of our ways. And here we come at once to a closer intimacy; he is the comrade and eternal companion, the playmate of the game of living. But still there is so far a certain division, however pleasant, and friendship is too much limited by the appearance of beneficence. The lover can wound, abandon, be wroth with us, seem to betray, yet our love endures and even grows by these oppositions; they increase the joy of reunion and the joy of possession; through them the lover remains the friend, and all that he does, we find in the end, has been done by the lover and helper of our being for our souls perfection as well as for his joy in us. These contradictions lead to a greater intimacy. He is the father and mother too of our being, its source and protector and its indulgent cherisher and giver of our desires. He is the child born to our desire whom we cherish and rear. All these things the lover takes up; his love in its intimacy and oneness keeps in it the paternal and maternal care and lends itself to our demands upon it. All is unified in that deepest many-sided relation.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,
17:When a corner of Maya, the illusion of individual life, is lifted before the eyes of a man in such sort that he no longer makes any egoistic difference between his own person and other men, that he takes as much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own and that he becomes succourable to the point of devotion, ready to sacrifice himself for the salvation of others, then that man is able to recognise himself in all beings, considers as his own the infinite sufferings of all that lives and must thus appropriate to himself the sorrow of the world. No distress is alien to him. All the torments which he sees and can so rarely soften, all the torments of which he hears, those even which it is impossible for him to conceive, strike his spirit as if he were himself the victim. Insensible to the alternations of weal and woe which succeed each other in his destiny, delivered from all egoism, he penetrates the veils of the individual illusion : all that lives, all that suffers is equally near to his heart. He conceives the totality of things, their essence, their eternal flux, the vain efforts, the internal struggles and sufferings without end ; he sees to whatever side he turns his gaze man who suffers, the animal who suffers and a world that is eternally passing away. He unites himself henceforth to the sorrows of the world as closely as the egoist to his own person. How can he having such a knowledge of the world affirm by incessant desires his will to live, attach himself more and more to life and clutch it to him always more closely ? The man seduced by the illusion of individual life, a slave of his egoism, sees only the things that touch him personally and draws from them incessantly renewed motives to desire and to will : on the contrary one who penetrates the essence of things and dominates their totality, elevates himself to a state of voluntary renunciation, resignation and true tranquillity. ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom
18:So then let the Adept set this sigil upon all the Words he hath writ in the book of the Works of his Will. And let him then end all, saying: Such are the Words!2 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose. Let the Adept perform this ritual right, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons; next thrice, noon added, for three moons; afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in constant ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.3 For know that the true Formula4 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:

INVOKE OFTEN

So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth The Beast, and prayeth his own Angel that this Book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.

1. There is an alternative spelling, TzBA-F, where the Root, "an Host," has the value of 93. The Practicus should revise this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will, and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
2. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word," add (Hebrew values) to 93 [reading the Sigma as Samekh = 60; reading it as Shin = 300 gives 333], and ΕΠΗ, "Words" (whence "Epic") has also that value; ΕΙ∆Ε ΤΑ ΕΠΗ might be the phrase here intended; its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX, III, 75.
3. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's phyiscal or mental health on à priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh,
19:Countless books on divination, astrology, medicine and other subjects
Describe ways to read signs. They do add to your learning,
But they generate new thoughts and your stable attention breaks up.
Cut down on this kind of knowledge - that's my sincere advice.

You stop arranging your usual living space,
But make everything just right for your retreat.
This makes little sense and just wastes time.
Forget all this - that's my sincere advice.

You make an effort at practice and become a good and knowledgeable person.
You may even master some particular capabilities.
But whatever you attach to will tie you up.
Be unbiased and know how to let things be - that's my sincere advice.

You may think awakened activity means to subdue skeptics
By using sorcery, directing or warding off hail or lightning, for example.
But to burn the minds of others will lead you to lower states.
Keep a low profile - that's my sincere advice.

Maybe you collect a lot of important writings,
Major texts, personal instructions, private notes, whatever.
If you haven't practiced, books won't help you when you die.
Look at the mind - that's my sincere advice.

When you focus on practice, to compare understandings and experience,
Write books or poetry, to compose songs about your experience
Are all expressions of your creativity. But they just give rise to thinking.
Keep yourself free from intellectualization - that's my sincere advice.

In these difficult times you may feel that it is helpful
To be sharp and critical with aggressive people around you.
This approach will just be a source of distress and confusion for you.
Speak calmly - that's my sincere advice.

Intending to be helpful and without personal investment,
You tell your friends what is really wrong with them.
You may have been honest but your words gnaw at their heart.
Speak pleasantly - that's my sincere advice.

You engage in discussions, defending your views and refuting others'
Thinking that you are clarifying the teachings.
But this just gives rise to emotional posturing.
Keep quiet - that's my sincere advice.

You feel that you are being loyal
By being partial to your teacher, lineage or philosophical tradition.
Boosting yourself and putting down others just causes hard feelings.
Have nothing to do with all this - that's my sincere advice.
~ Longchenpa, excerpts from 30 Pieces of Sincere Advice
,
20:The Supreme Discovery
   IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
   Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
   This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
   The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
   The ancient traditions rightly said:
   "Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
   And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
   Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
   For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
   It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
   That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
   This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
   That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
   Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
   The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
   In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
   But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
   On this a sage has said:
   "I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
   Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
   This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
   What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
   For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
   How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
   And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
   To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
   Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
   You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
   But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
   You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
   And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
   Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
   Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
   If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
   You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
   You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
   You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
   Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
   And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
   Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
   Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
   Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
   That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
   In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Let me feel now what sharp distress I may. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
2:Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove
3:People in distress never think that you feel enough. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
4:The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
5:When people fall in deep distress, their native sense departs. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove
6:To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love / All pray in their distress. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove
7:Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove
8:Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove
9:The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
10:Presence of mind and courage in distress, Are more than arrives to procure success? ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove
11:The desire for pleasure, the fear of pain, both are states of distress. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove
12:Regret is distress over a desire unfulfilled or an action performed or not performed. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove
13:Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove
14:The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
15:I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
16:My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove
17:The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove
18:Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat? ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
19:Then every man of every clime,That prays in his distress,Prays to the human form divine,Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove
20:To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove
21:Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove
22:The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity, peace, and poise, to free it from confusion and distress. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove
23:At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove
24:Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove
25:If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove
26:A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove
27:Too frequent rewards indicate that the general is at the end of his resources; too frequent punishments that he is in acute distress. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove
28:If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
29:You shouldn't own common stocks if a 50 per cent decrease in their value in a short period of time would cause you acute distress. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
30:Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove
31:Don't let circumstances distress you. Rather, look for the will of God for your life to be revealed in and through those circumstances. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove
32:I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
33:The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
34:Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
35:&
36:I hide my distress, just likethe blessed birds hide themselveswhen they are preparing to die. Wine! Wine, roses, music and yourindifference to my sadness, my loved-one! ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove
37:Deal first with whatever is causing you the greatest emotional distress. Often this will break the logjam in your work and free you up mentally to complete (the) other tasks. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove
38:He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
39:Nakedness, hunger, distress of all kinds, death itself have been cheerfully suffered, when the heart was right. It is the feeling of injustice that is insupportable to all men. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
40:Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death&
41:It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainment. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
42:There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
43:But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
44:And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove
45:Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove
46:Prosperity has this property; it puffs up narrow souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty, and leads them to look down upon the world with contempt; but a truly noble spirit appears greatest in distress; ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove
47:In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts. ~ jean-vanier, @wisdomtrove
48:Painting and sculpture, labour and good faith, have been my ruin and I continually go from bad to worse. Better it would have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth. I should not be in such distress of mind. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove
49:Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
50:The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove
51:So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar. ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove
52:Make others truly happy as you strive to make yourself happy. Speak a helpful word. Give a cheering smile. Do a kind act. Serve a little. Wipe the tears of one who is in distress. Render smooth a rough place in another's path. You will feel great joy. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove
53:The saying goes, &
54:A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
55:How can we prevent ourselves being overwhelmed by the unloved self? The clue is in the name. We need to love it. We need to care for our own wounded self as compassionately as we would care for someone else in great distress. We need to heal the pain of the past. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove
56:We cannot rely on ourselves, for we have learned by bitter experience the folly of self-confidence. We are compelled to look to the Lord alone. Blessed is the wind that drives the ship into the harbor. Blessed is the distress that forces us to rest in our God. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
57:Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thief s. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove
58:Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove
59:I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. &
60:Ready-to-Halt, Poor Fearing, and thou, Mrs. Despondency, and Much-afraid, go often there [the empty tomb]; let it be your favorite haunt. There build a tabernacle, there abide. And often say to your heart, when you are in distress and sorrow, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
61:Who looks at me, beholdeth sorrows all, All pain, all torture, woe and all distress; I have no need on other harms to call, As anguish, languor, cruel bitterness, Discomfort, dread, and madness more and less; Methinks from heaven above the tears must rain In pity for my harsh and cruel pain. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove
62:One whose troops repeatedly congregate in small groups here and there, whispering together, has lost the masses. One who frequently grants rewards is in deep distress. One who frequently imposes punishments is in great difficulty. One who is at first excessively brutal and then fears the masses is the pinnacle of stupidity. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove
63:Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove
64:When we believe that God hears us, it is but natural that we should be eager to hear Him. Only from Him can come the word which can speak peace to troubled spirits; the voices of men are feeble in such a case, a plaster far too narrow for the sore; but God's voice is power, He speaks and it is done, and hence when we hear Him our distress is ended. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
65:Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove
66:When your weapons are dulled and ardour damped, your strength exhausted and treasure spent, neighboring rulers will take advantage of your distress to act. And even though you have wise counsellors, none will be able to lay good plans for the future. Thus, while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove
67:But when we borrow trouble, and look forward into the future to see what storms are coming, and distress ourselves before they come as to how we shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our proper trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves with imaginary dangers, or trials, or reverses, we have already parted with that perfect love which casteth out fear. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
68:I was taught growing up that a “yes” attitude is the right attitude. The truth is that a “yes” attitude is a wonderful attitude only if you also say yes to our own needs. Even on an airplane in distress, you must first fit your own oxygen mask before you can effectively help others in need. It is not selfish to put your own needs first. In fact, it is doing others a service. ~ aimee-davies, @wisdomtrove
69:It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight's sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove
70:When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, there may that country boast its Constitution and its Government ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove
71:Reckon then that to acquire soul-winning power, you will have to go through mental torment and soul distress. You must go into the fire if you are going to pull others out of it, and you will have to dive into the floods if you are going to draw others out of the water. You cannot work a fire escape without feeling the scorch of the conflagration, nor man a lifeboat without being covered with the waves. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
72:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove
73:When Berkshire Hathaway laid out three billion dollars for GE today, we didn't spend it, we invested it. When the Federal government buys the mortgages, they're not spending it, they're investing it. Now, they're investing it in distress type assets but they're buying them at distress prices if they buy them at market. It's the kind of stuff I love to do. I just don't have 700 million. Maybe we could go in it together. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
74:Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or &
75:Of the seven days God gave to us in a week, He said to take six, and use them for our business. Yet we think that we must have the seventh as well. It is like someone who, while traveling, comes upon a poor man in distress. Having but seven shillings, the generous person gives the poor man six, but when the wretch scrambles to his feet, he follows his benefactor to knock him down and steal the seventh shilling from him. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
76:The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. &
77:To Mercy Pity Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is God our father dear. And Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is Man his child and care. Then every man of every clime That prays in his distress Prays to the human form divine: Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove
78:If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove
79:The Master said, "Wealth and honor are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will not abide them. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them. If the gentleman abandons ren, how can he be worthy of that name? The gentleman does not violate ren even for the amount of time required to eat a meal. Even in times of urgency or distress, he does not depart from it." ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove
80:Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts of former travellers, overwhelmed by the snow, haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
81:What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
82:Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove
83:How we delight to build our recollections upon some basis of reality,&
84:Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it - and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you - for only the truth that builds up is truth for you. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove
85:Even though you may want to push God the Mother aside, She will never leave you. Are you not her offspring? A mother does what is good and beneficial for her child. She gives to her scion exactly what is needed, not more and not less. Her forgiveness knows no limits, this is why she is called MOTHER. If with deep faith, devotion and love you can exclaim: &

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:existential distress ~ Michael Pollan,
2:her distress tore straight ~ J S Scott,
3:Fortitude is a great help in distress. ~ Plautus,
4:Let's cause some senators distress. ~ Peggy Noonan,
5:Distress does not permit man to think.... ~ Various,
6:I have a fetish for damsels in distress. ~ SebastiAn,
7:Religion gives a dignity to distress. ~ James Hervey,
8:Presence of mind and courage in distress, ~ John Dryden,
9:I distress you; I draw fast to an end. ~ Charles Dickens,
10:I’m not a damsel and there is no distress ~ Carrie Jones,
11:A deep distress has humanised my soul. ~ William Wordsworth,
12:I do not stare at a gentleman in distress. ~ Arthur Balfour,
13:Let me feel now what sharp distress I may. ~ Charles Dickens,
14:Every damsel in distress deserves a hero... ~ Tracy Anne Warren,
15:In times of distress strengthen your heart. ~ Samuel ibn Naghrillah,
16:Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. ~ Edmund Burke,
17:Ludens was continually aware of his father's distress. ~ Iris Murdoch,
18:People in distress never think that you feel enough. ~ Samuel Johnson,
19:To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike. ~ Horace Mann,
20:when distress comes your way, pause and ponder ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
21:Happiness and distress are only modes of the mind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
22:when distress comes your ways, pause and ponder ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
23:The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
24:Alana, we are soldiers, not fucking damsels in distress. ~ Brian K Vaughan,
25:Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. ~ Charles Lamb,
26:When people fall in deep distress, their native sense departs. ~ Sophocles,
27:Little things comfort us because little things distress us. ~ Blaise Pascal,
28:Much dearer be the things which come through hard distress. ~ Herbert Spencer,
29:You know, Benji, I am definitely experiencing severe distress. ~ Ian McDonald,
30:19LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, ~ Anonymous,
31:Offering to help me implies I'm in distress. I'm not currently. ~ Myra McEntire,
32:Prayer is a cry of distress, a demand for help, a hymn of love. ~ Alexis Carrel,
33:Tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones. ~ Charles Dickens,
34:Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind. ~ John Dryden,
35:The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. ~ Al Gore,
36:Happiness can never hope to command so much interest as distress. ~ Stella Gibbons,
37:I'd never been a good damsel in distress. I was a "hands-on" damsel. ~ Jenny Trout,
38:I don't damsel well. Distress, I can do. Damseling? Not so much. ~ James Patterson,
39:I've never known any distress that an hour's reading didn't relieve. ~ Montesquieu,
40:Leave it to the woman to save the day—and the mansel in distress. ~ Gena Showalter,
41:When you see a man in distress, recognize him as a fellow man. ~ Seneca the Younger,
42:I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve ~ Montesquieu,
43:I'm done being the damsel in distress. I don't need anyone to save me. ~ C J Roberts,
44:Isn't that what a gentleman does? Rescues a damsel in distress? ~ Julianne Donaldson,
45:I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve. ~ Montesquieu,
46:I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve. ~ Montesquieu,
47:Never let it be said I failed to take advantage of a lady in distress. ~ Stephen King,
48:Single ladies, we are not Damsels in Distress…we are Divas that Impress! ~ Mandy Hale,
49:Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. ~ Ambrose Bierce,
50:I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve. ~ James K Morrow,
51:I want to live in a place where strangers rush to help someone in distress. ~ Ian Mcewan,
52:He’s utterly breathtaking. A dark prince come to save his princess in distress ~ Ker Dukey,
53:Hedonistic distress come when experience fails to live up to expectations. ~ Barry Schwartz,
54:Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold! ~ Sue Johnson,
55:The reason for great distress is the body. Without it, what distress could there be? ~ Laozi,
56:Returning from distress by gradual degrees gives sense to affliction itself. ~ Andrew Solomon,
57:We have no right to distress any of God's creatures without a very good reason. ~ Anna Sewell,
58:A young woman in distress, and they hadn’t even slowed? Curse the French! ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
59:I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve. ~ Baron de Montesquieu,
60:Whoever is in the distress can call me. I will come running wherever they are. ~ Princess Diana,
61:I don't do damsel in distress very well. It's hard for me to play a victim. ~ Scarlett Johansson,
62:The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress. ~ Confucius,
63:To distress is to weaken, and weakening the children weakens the whole family. ~ Walter Isaacson,
64:Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man. ~ Seneca the Younger,
65:I’m not a damsel in distress, so you can come down off Neanderthal mountain there. ~ Lisa Kessler,
66:A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption. ~ Samuel Johnson,
67:Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distress, no less than in theirs ~ Jane Austen,
68:No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress. ~ Henry Fielding,
69:Oh God," I groaned, with mock distress. "Now I guess I'll have to get a boyfriend. ~ Gail Caldwell,
70:Saving damsels in distress is all in a day’s work for your friendly local vampire. ~ Tiffany Allee,
71:It is pleasant, when the sea runs high, to view from land the great distress of another. ~ Lucretius,
72:To mourn was distressing, but to endeavor to mourn and fail was worse than distress. ~ Ellen Glasgow,
73:But you’re a prisoner,” said Thorne. “I prefer damsel in distress,” she murmured. One ~ Marissa Meyer,
74:Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty. ~ Vernon Howard,
75:Nanak, the whole world is in distress. He, who believes in the Name, becomes victorious. ~ Guru Nanak,
76:Through the years, I have helped thousands of children who were ill or in distress. ~ Michael Jackson,
77:It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life. ~ Bernie Siegel,
78:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God. ~ Anonymous,
79:[He] prepared to forget his distress by flinging himself...into 'the vortex of pleasure. ~ Gaston Leroux,
80:The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. ~ Anthony Burgess,
81:Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! ~ Robert Burns,
82:There was no sense in adding to her distress by not taking care of the things she valued. ~ Cameron Dokey,
83:When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow? ~ William Cowper,
84:TV-based politics is to political action as watching ER is to saving someone in distress. ~ Robert D Putnam,
85:Very few things in life are worthy of the kind of emotional distress we put ourselves through. ~ John Mayer,
86:1May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. ~ Anonymous,
87:I had trained my whole life as a warrior. But in that moment I was the damsel-in-distress. ~ Rachel E Carter,
88:...the Colonel hadn't raised a damsel in distress. He'd raised a damsel who caused distress. ~ Melinda Leigh,
89:People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not. ~ Neil Postman,
90:The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. ~ Thomas Paine,
91:Hate causes distress, potentially leading to mental and physical health problems. Adolescents ~ Graeme Simsion,
92:suc·cor (BRIT.suc·cour)   n. assistance and support in times of hardship and distress. ~ Oxford University Press,
93:Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely create widespread disaster. ~ Josiah Strong,
94:I am a wicked woman"
"how could you do anything wicked? tell me what it is that so distress you ~ Tessa Harris,
95:I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
96:I fear no man’s displeasure,” said Theodore, “when a woman in distress puts herself under my protection. ~ Anonymous,
97:Rescuing damsels in distress is right up our alley. We’re supposed to rescue at least one a week. ~ Jennifer Bernard,
98:This isn't a romance. You're not a damsel in distress and I'm not the handsome prince come to save you. ~ C J Roberts,
99:it wasn’t just any shout, it was only shouts of distress or pain that brought him like a moth to fire. ~ Wendy C Fries,
100:Should we try to account for all the gifts of life there would be no time for distress and uneasiness. ~ Bryant McGill,
101:So, they don’t see me as a threat, do they? Then this damsel should be able to cause some serious distress… ~ K M Shea,
102:I accepted being a damn damsel in distress for you. You can be the hunky archangel in distress for once. ~ Nalini Singh,
103:Martin concluded that man was born to live in either the convulsions of distress or the lethargy of boredom. ~ Voltaire,
104:The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. ~ W Somerset Maugham,
105:mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
106:My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
107:There is definitely openness to others' suffering that is dealt not with distress but with compassion. ~ Matthieu Ricard,
108:The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor. ~ Thomas Malthus,
109:A damsel in complete distress was a burden to her protectors; one familiar with self defence, not as much. ~ Grace Draven,
110:Anxiety and distress, interrupted occasionally by pleasure, is the normal course of man's existence. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch,
111:I mean, what is the point of being a damsel in distress if your knight goes off and just does his own thing? ~ Angie Sage,
112:We're roughage," Tyger said. "If we don't cause a little intestinal distress, no one knows we're there. ~ Neal Shusterman,
113:It seems to me more important actually to share someones distress than to use smooth words about it. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
114:Confidence in help from outside brings with it distress. Only self-confidence gives force and joy. ~ Fo-tho-hing-tsang-king,
115:Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. ~ Edward Gibbon,
116:I love the man that smiles at trouble: that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ~ Thomas Paine,
117:The criterion for what is good is based on whether it relieves someone, brings joy, or soothes a distress. ~ Bert Hellinger,
118:love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ~ Thomas Paine,
119:Let Valten go save his own damsel in distress. I'm sure there are other maidens he can fall in love with. ~ Melanie Dickerson,
120:Seven years? By yourself?... you're a prisoner," said Thorne.
"I prefer damsel in distress," she murmured. ~ Marissa Meyer,
121:As your distress is occasioned by my company," said Eve, "it is fortunately in my power to relieve it. ~ James Fenimore Cooper,
122:Don't talk. You'll just spoil my fantasy of rescuing an innocent damsel in distress as soon as you open your mouth. ~ Susan Ee,
123:Don’t talk. You’ll just spoil my fantasy of rescuing an innocent damsel in distress as soon as you open your mouth. ~ Susan Ee,
124:If your mental health is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly recover. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
125:In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me. ~ Robert Herrick,
126:We’re trained to help damsels in distress.” “If you ever call me that again, I’ll kick you in the soft parts. ~ Kristan Higgins,
127:One in three all friends are:
Brothers in distress,
equals facing rivals,
free men - facing death! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
128:Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress. ~ Alan Hirsch,
129:Incessant falls teach men to reform, and distress rouses their strength. Life springs from calamity, and death from ease. ~ Mencius,
130:Journey over, sorrowless, freed in every way, and with all bonds broken - for such a man there is no more distress. ~ Gautama Buddha,
131:We don’t advise Internet research. In our experience, it generates misinformation and unnecessary distress. ~ Barbara Claypole White,
132:Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It's an equal opportunity fetish." (Sebastian) ~ Cassandra Clare,
133:To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. ~ William Blake,
134:Your distress about life might mean you have been living for the wrong reason, not that you have no reason for living. ~ Tom O Connor,
135:Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'. ~ Plutarch,
136:Such words he utters, and sick with deep distress he feigns hope on his face, and keeps his anguish hidden deep in his breast. ~ Virgil,
137:The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity, peace, and poise, to free it from confusion and distress. ~ B K S Iyengar,
138:At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good. ~ Victor Hugo,
139:At what point does querying diagnostic criteria tip over into mocking the unusual symptoms of people in very real distress? ~ Jon Ronson,
140:'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening. ~ Junot Diaz,
141:Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse. ~ George Washington,
142:Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. ~ Milan Kundera,
143:12When ahe was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and bhumbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,
144:In his distress and indecision he began to cry without being aware of it. The wind rushed around him, on its way to wherever. ~ Stephen King,
145:could happen in twenty minutes, and the Colonel hadn’t raised a damsel in distress. He’d raised a damsel who caused distress. ~ Melinda Leigh,
146:If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer,
147:I just don't want to be the damsel in distress. I'll scream on the balcony, but you've got to let me do a little action here. ~ Kirsten Dunst,
148:I promise to love you without reservation. Comfort you in times of distress. Encourage you to achieve all of your goals. ~ Brittainy C Cherry,
149:One of these days I’ll learn how to say no to a beautiful woman in distress. If I live that long,” he added pointedly. ~ Jennifer Blackstream,
150:All by yourself, unable to express the pain of your distress with your deeper inside. You alienate yourself and everybody else. ~ Henry Rollins,
151:Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you. ~ Edwin A Abbott,
152:Integrity Intention Doing Better Moral Distress The Moral Demands of Compassionate Health Care Authenticity What Is Our Work? ~ Sharon Salzberg,
153:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God.
   ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita, As It Is PURPORT,
154:The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost. ~ Samuel Chadwick,
155:Too frequent rewards indicate that the general is at the end of his resources; too frequent punishments that he is in acute distress. ~ Sun Tzu,
156:Brave, stupid girl,” Thorne muttered. He sank back down to the floor, his expression torn between relief and increased distress. ~ Marissa Meyer,
157:Don’t cause distress, she said. Don’t remind people of a loss. “Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain. ~ E Lockhart,
158:A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
159:A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
160:He did his work at the University as he did his work on the farm—thoroughly, conscientiously, with neither pleasure nor distress. ~ John Williams,
161:If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
162:I want my boys to have an understanding of people's emotions, their insecurities, people's distress, and their hopes and dreams. ~ Princess Diana,
163:My parents gave me a strict upbringing, which at times has caused me to suffer distress but today I am grateful to them for it. ~ Brigitte Bardot,
164:There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths. ~ Victor Hugo,
165:We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. ~ Samuel Johnson,
166:A lot could happen in twenty minutes, and the Colonel hadn’t raised a damsel in distress. He’d raised a damsel who caused distress. ~ Melinda Leigh,
167:Eating disorders are like a gun that's formed by genetics, loaded by a culture and family ideals, and triggered by unbearable distress. ~ Aimee Liu,
168:Just a glance at the ragged mess around her fingernails communicated more than the lenghiest essays on the nature of distress. ~ Mark Z Danielewski,
169:You shouldn't own common stocks if a 50 per cent decrease in their value in a short period of time would cause you acute distress. ~ Warren Buffett,
170:That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain. ~ William Butler Yeats,
171:The return to solid values is always hard... Distress, panic, and hard times have marked our pathway in returning to solid values. ~ James A Garfield,
172:You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. ~ Khalil Gibran,
173:Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself. ~ Alain de Botton,
174:Don't let circumstances distress you. Rather, look for the will of God for your life to be revealed in and through those circumstances. ~ Billy Graham,
175:Turn and look at me – in affectionate childhood distress, the last in the asylum, by a frosty Manchester fire. Could there be hope? Animal ~ Morrissey,
176:Struck down by the kind of nervous distress known only to the most modern of artists and then only those with a private income
Pg 51 ~ Stella Duffy,
177:We can save ourselves a lot of distress and accusation by knowing when, where, to whom, and how to talk about spiritually mature things. ~ Richard Rohr,
178:If, like the prophet Noah, you have patience in the distress of the flood, Calamity turns aside, and the desire of a thousand years comes forth. ~ Hafez,
179:Those that cast off the duties of religion in their prosperity cannot expect the comforts of it when they come to be in distress. Justly ~ Matthew Henry,
180:How could pain that wasn’t inflicted by a physical assault hurt so much? How could emotional distress turn into this agonising emptiness? ~ Rachel Abbott,
181:Laintal Ay, you also have an inwardness to your nature. I feel it. That inwardness will distress you, yet it gives you life, it is life. ~ Brian W Aldiss,
182:So are you going to be my knight in shining armor or what?'

Kent does a little bow. 'You know I can't resist a damsel in distress. ~ Lauren Oliver,
183:Yet I had invested nothing up front. It was just a matter of recognizing that one person’s distress is another person’s opportunity.   When ~ Jay Abraham,
184:before sharing interesting information that has not been solicited, think carefully about whether it has the potential to cause distress. ~ Graeme Simsion,
185:Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?”
“Limited,” I say. “Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of distress. ~ A M Homes,
186:I went to fetch my gear, feeling a warm glow of satisfaction at Chase’s obvious distress. As I said, sometimes I am not a very nice person. ~ Jeff Lindsay,
187:The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the distress of the cross; therefore it is invincible and irrefutable. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
188:we use TV as we use tranquilizers- to even things out, to blot out unpleasantness, to dilute confusion, distress, unhappiness, loneliness. ~ Bill McKibben,
189:Apple smiled. She could play the damsel-in-distress like a cow could jump over a moon. The male species couldn’t resist wanting to help her. ~ Shannon Hale,
190:Help someone in distress and you lighten your own burden; the very joy of alleviating the sorrow of another is the lessening of one's own. ~ Fulton J Sheen,
191:I have a disturbing problem with losing things. My vulnerability to loss-distress could properly be labeled not only inordinate, but neurotic. ~ Dick Cavett,
192:Nothing that has happened is your fault,” he said, obviously sensing her distress. “You know that, don’t you?” “Logically, yes. Emotionally, no. ~ T R Ragan,
193:he wouldn't mention, now or then, the illegal nine-millimeter automatic he had in his pocket. Why distress the woman you loved with minor details? ~ J D Robb,
194:I am the mother of the wicked, as I am the mother of the virtuous. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, say to yourself, ‘I have a mother. ~ Sarada Devi,
195:[...] [T]here was no quota on misery for people, no quantifiable threshold that once reached, got you miraculously taken out of the distress pool. ~ J R Ward,
196:Gossip about the feelings of others when we cannot fully understand them, and they may not understand them themselves, can be a cause of distress. ~ P D James,
197:A literary mystery, a damsel in distress, and his rival deposed. If that doesn't get him here then he's not much of a knight in shining armor. ~ Charlie Lovett,
198:A man, who can, in cold blood, hunt and torture a poor, innocent animal, cannot feel much compassion for the distress of his own species. ~ Frederick The Great,
199:I’m not afraid of the dark I know. It’s the dark I don’t that terrifies me. Especially when it’s filled with noises like that distress call. ~ Alan Dean Foster,
200:ROM8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ~ Anonymous,
201:What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood. ~ Alice Miller,
202:What makes you think I'm giving you a ride?” “Because I'm a damsel in distress,” she said. “And you are a knight in whatever. A really dirty car. ~ Neil Gaiman,
203:What makes you think I’m giving you a ride?” “Because I’m a damsel in distress,” she said, “and you are a knight in whatever. A really dirty car. ~ Neil Gaiman,
204:You think I’m the victim here, but I’m not. As much as you might wish it, I’m not the damsel in distress in your story, Bash — I’m the villain. ~ Julie Johnson,
205:I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved. ~ C S Lewis,
206:ROM8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  ~ Anonymous,
207:Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,
208:The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow. ~ Thomas Paine,
209:Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
210:Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
211:I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress. ~ Robert Kennedy,
212:Ordinary human concern for human distress does not manifest itself ordinarily in the form of a gun aimed at the wallets and earnings of one's neighbors. ~ Ayn Rand,
213:That man indeed lives in a zone where no multiplicity can distress him and which is nevertheless the most active workshop of universal fulfillment. ~ Philip K Dick,
214:Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness – to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
215:Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!         You have given me relief when I was in distress.         Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! ~ Anonymous,
216:It was in my nature to absorb large volumes of information during times of distress, like I could master the distress through intellectual dominance. ~ Sally Rooney,
217:Upon arrival, I identified myself as Seattle PD. I attempted to pull Ms. Griffin off the teddy bear, which appeared to be causing her acute distress. ~ Maria Semple,
218:distress that dispersed into the room. “You will find him, won’t you, Inspector?” “We’ll do our best,” I said. The headmaster’s office was cramped. ~ Gilly Macmillan,
219:I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress. ~ Robert F Kennedy,
220:It is heartbreaking to see so many animals in distress through the Gulf Coast region. Many of them are frightened, confused, hungry, dehydrated and lost. ~ Doris Day,
221:Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. ~ Anonymous,
222:Tell her about it,” he whispered to the doctor. “I can’t.”
“Need we distress—”
“Now. Get it over with.” His voice cracked and croaked. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,
223:Lily lit up. “Do I want to come on a bro road trip with you, rushing to the aid of gorgeous damsel in distress, Jem I’d-love-to-climb-’em Carstairs? ~ Cassandra Clare,
224:The more you move toward what makes you feel good, and move away from those things which bring you distress and pain, the healthier you will be. ~ Christiane Northrup,
225:Because if there was one thing Cress knew about heroes, it was that they could not resist a damsel in distress. And she was nothing if not in distress. ~ Marissa Meyer,
226:Have charity towards all beings. Pity those who are in distress. Love all creatures. Do not be jealous of anyone. Look not to the faults of others. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
227:In the conventional storyline, I’m supposed to be the one slaying dragons to save you, the princess in distress. So, you see, I feel odd being the rescued. ~ E Journey,
228:When I look around the world, I don't see too many damsels in distress. If they're a damsel in distress, they're manipulating some guy to help them. ~ Sigourney Weaver,
229:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. ~ Anonymous,
230:I'm not really what you'd call a damsel in distress."
"I hate fucking damsels. Always in such distress. Who wants a high-maintenance girl like that? ~ Juliette Cross,
231:People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind. ~ Giambattista Vico,
232:Somebody has to keep score and I decided I was going to do it. I'm a born score-keeper and I realize, like an umpire, that my decisions may cause distress. ~ Gore Vidal,
233:Someone who has a disability is not necessarily in distress. You may be embarrassing and inconveniencing someone by butting in and making assumptions. ~ Mallory Ortberg,
234:The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress. ~ Steven Pinker,
235:You make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. ~ Winston S Churchill,
236:Because if there was one thing Cress knew about heroes, it was that they could not resist a damsel in distress.
And she was nothing if not in distress. ~ Marissa Meyer,
237:Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress. ~ Thorstein Veblen,
238:Don't you think that this world is ever perfect for anyone . There is no one on the face of this earth who gets all what he wants or is free from all kinds of distress . ~,
239:Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. ~ Anonymous,
240:I am concentrating docilely on the question why U.S. restrooms always appear to us as infirmaries for public distress, the place to reagain control. ~ David Foster Wallace,
241:I have learned there is no joy without hardship. There is no pleasure without pain. Would we know the comfort of peace without the distress of war? ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross,
242:Jesus also said, …In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer…For I have overcome the world… (John 16:33). ~ Joyce Meyer,
243:The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and distress is for a fresh vision of God. Seeing Him, all else takes on proper perspective and proportion. ~ G Campbell Morgan,
244:Beware the build-up of an inward wound,
For it will at last burst forth;
Avoid, while you can, distress to one heart,
For a single moan can quake the Earth. ~ Saadi,
245:Now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
246:The crisis of the community, its dislocation, the distress of most of its members, went hand in hand with technological progress and social differentiation. ~ Henri Lefebvre,
247:"There is no deception now, Mr. Weller. Tears," said Job, with a look of momentary slyness, "tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones." ~ Charles Dickens,
248:Countless people...will hate the New World Order...and will die protesting against it...we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents. ~ H G Wells,
249:Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority. ~ Greg Mortenson,
250:Phew. I thought I was going to have to slay a few dragons for you while I was here.”
“I’m no damsel in distress, Your Highness. I can take care of myself. ~ Robin Bielman,
251:Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at every moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief from its distress and agony. ~ Frederick Douglass,
252:As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide. ~ Richard Matheson,
253:What great good, then, we are to expect and hope from participating in his divinity, when even his distress calms us and his weakness strengthens us. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,
254:By poeticizing love, we imagine in those we love virtues that they often do not possess; this then becomes the source of constant mistakes and constant distress. ~ Anton Chekhov,
255:The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system ~ Thomas Jefferson,
256:It is vitally important for me, both personally and for my writing, to be able to return to China freely, so being barred entry has caused me deep concern and distress. ~ Ma Jian,
257:Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity. ~ Emile Zola,
258:Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity. ~ mile Zola,
259:People in distress behave in a stressful way. They aren't all sweetness and light. They don't behave well when they are unhappy. That's just what I've observed. ~ Penelope Wilton,
260:PSALM 4 Answer me when I call, O God of my  f righteousness!         You have  g given me relief when I was in distress.         Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! ~ Anonymous,
261:Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor. And perhaps they should understand the role of a community organizer is to help people in distress. ~ Donna Brazile,
262:I miss your silent stature, your avoided days of disaster, your present state of distress.
I’m cinnamon, cloves and fire, you are the rested cedarwood of desire. ~ Coco J Ginger,
263:She made an inarticulate sound of distress at the sight that met her eyes. It was a fire, and it was the bookstore on the far side of the square that was burning. ~ Kaitlyn Dunnett,
264:But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of suffering : that is great, that belongs to greatness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
265:Can wealth give happiness? look around and see, what gay distress! what splendid misery! Whatever fortunes lavishly can pour, the mind annihilates and calls for more. ~ Andrew Young,
266:On his chiseled actor’s face, Naberius’ expression of confusion looked like it had come off of a classical painting: Portrait of a Hero in Distress, perhaps. Distantly, ~ Will Wight,
267:Should I be in distress? In a meadow? You mean if the cows organize some sort of attack? I have extensive experience with cows. They almost never do that.” “Forget ~ Deanna Raybourn,
268:Transformation occurs only when we remember, breath by breath, year after year, to move toward our emotional distress without condemning or justifying our experience. ~ Pema Ch dr n,
269:We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being, gradually becoming more aware of what causes happiness as well as what causes distress. ~ Pema Ch dr n,
270:What made a girl a damsel in distress? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws, they would spend a lot less time in distress. ~ Frances Hardinge,
271:Added to my distress was the realization that many of the “independent” investigative reports clearly laid the blame for the abuses at the feet of senior officers ~ Philip G Zimbardo,
272:have a dim half remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing, darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant. ~ Bram Stoker,
273:I have a fetish for damsels in distress.” “Don’t be sexist.” “Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It’s an equal opportunity fetish, ~ Cassandra Clare,
274:I have a fetish for damsels in distress.” “Don’t be sexist.” “Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It’s an equal opportunity fetish. ~ Cassandra Clare,
275:Our dependence upon God ought to be so entire and absolute that we should never think it necessary, in any kind of distress, to have recourse to human consolations. ~ Thomas a Kempis,
276:Self-harm is not an uncommon experience, nor is it a shameful defect or personal failure, it happended to me because I wasn't able to manage intense emotional distress. ~ Ruby Elliot,
277:I hide my distress, just likethe blessed birds hide themselveswhen they are preparing to die. Wine! Wine, roses, music and yourindifference to my sadness, my loved-one! ~ Omar Khayyam,
278:It is a shame for anyone
to be well-known for righteousness.
It is a great disgrace to feel
distress at the injustice of
the turning of the wheels of fate. ~ Omar Khayy m,
279:Arriving at the scene of a suicide or domestic dispute made him feel a little less alien, as though seeing others in the throes of suffering dissipated his own distress. ~ Ania Ahlborn,
280:But really, why should you distress yourself? Whoever stirs up the past — out with his eye! Who is not a sinner before God and to blame before the Tsar, as the saying is? ~ Leo Tolstoy,
281:Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ Anonymous,
282:You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. —WINSTON CHURCHILL ~ Anonymous,
283:Its composure thoroughly disrupted, the little treelet, the picture of arboreal distress, let its branches droop a little, and its green birch leaves fluttered anxiously. ~ Lev Grossman,
284:You did not cause his despair. Had you treated him with distrust, you would have achieved nothing but the confirmation of his distress. Distrust—vindicates itself. ~ Stephen R Donaldson,
285:bane n. [usu. in sing.] a cause of great distress or annoyance: the bane of the decorator is the long, narrow hall; the depressions that were the the bane of her existence. ~ Erin McKean,
286:Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after† orphans and widows† in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ Anonymous,
287:Fishing poles. The weapon of choice for the traveler in distress. We also had lots and lots of marshmallows. Maybe we could immobilize these guys with sticky gooey goodness. ~ Jeff Strand,
288:Sometimes the tide is just out. But it always comes back in again. In times of severe distress, we tend to get tunnel vision and think this feeling will last forever. It will not. ~ Jewel,
289:Trouble sharpens the vision. In our moments of distress we can see clearly that what is wrong with this world of ours is the fact that Misery loves company and seldom gets it. ~ Anonymous,
290:Economic distress, political pressure, and social obloquy already drive us from our homes and from our graves. The Jews are already constantly shifting from place to place. ~ Theodor Herzl,
291:I have a fetish for damsels in distress.”
“Don’t be sexist.”
“Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It’s an equal opportunity fetish. ~ Cassandra Clare,
292:My patriotism is not an exclusive thing. It is all-embracing and I should reject that patriotism which sought to mount the distress or exploitation of other nationalities. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
293:At any time, people suffering severe psychological distress that is not of organic or other biological origin "choose" from socially available and clinically reinforced modes. ~ Ian Hacking,
294:Aunt Syl must have conveniently stopped reading the childhood fairy tales when the knight left the damsel in distress to pursue a better damsel out of my bedtime routine. ~ Rachel Higginson,
295:The palindromeis anold tradition: the first thing that man ever said was, probably, “Madam, I'm Adam.” And it has caused terrible distress to even the greatest literary minds ~ Mark Forsyth,
296:Charity, till then, had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood. ~ Edith Wharton,
297:Innovation requires resources to invest, and you can see many companies pulling back and going into an intense protective mode in a major extended period of financial distress. ~ Peter Senge,
298:All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from want of honor or virtue, but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. ~ John Adams,
299:She’s going to rescue him.” Lena stared from Asenka to Yeva, spluttering. “R-rescue? Yeva! You’re no knight from an old story, and he’s certainly no maiden in distress.” “No, ~ Meagan Spooner,
300:The basis of successful relief in national distress is to mobilize and organize the infinite number of agencies of self help in the community. That has been the American way. ~ Herbert Hoover,
301:Times of calamity and distress have always been producers of the greatest men. The hardest steel is produced from the hottest fire; the brightest star shreds the darkest night. ~ Andy Andrews,
302:27 ‡ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after† orphans and widows† in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.† ~ Anonymous,
303:But the truth is, sometimes kids—and adults—seem to wait until their relatives are out of the room to go. It’s like they don’t want to distress them more than they have to. ~ Diane Chamberlain,
304:He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. ~ Thomas Paine,
305:In my experience flying search-and-rescue missions, the greatest single variable contributing to successful rescues was the preparedness and expertise of the person(s) in distress. ~ Tom Gross,
306:The loss or the absence of meaning in life is perhaps the most common denominator of all forms of emotional distress; it is especially the much-commented-on "modern" illness. ~ Paul Watzlawick,
307:The spirit constructs its own abode; directed falsely from the beginning it thinks in erroneous ways and engenders its own distress. Thought creates for itself its own suffering. ~ Fa-khe-pi-ŭ,
308:Nakedness, hunger, distress of all kinds, death itself have been cheerfully suffered, when the heart was right. It is the feeling of injustice that is insupportable to all men. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
309:Or as Gabe had done, to rescue your betrothed from some evil force. That appealed to him. But he'd yet to find a damsel in distress, oppressed by evil and in need of rescue. ~ Melanie Dickerson,
310:Empathy is indeed needed to trigger the arising of compassion, but the space of that compassion should be vast enough so that empathy does not turn into uncontainable distress. ~ Matthieu Ricard,
311:God, I seriously need to get a handle on my sweets consumption during moments of distress. Or, at least eat them discreetly. I publicly tore up that cheesecake like it owed me money. ~ J Daniels,
312:Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side; of the face can smile while the other is pinched. ~ Thomas Fuller,
313:What are we going to do with the body?" She had visions of dragging it into the swamp, whispering, "Here, gator, gator," and she made a little sound of distress at the thought. ~ Jennifer Crusie,
314:But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength; Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning, For You have been my stronghold And a refuge in the day of my distress. ~ Anonymous,
315:if we hope for more significant therapeutic change, we must encourage our patients to assume responsibility—that is, to apprehend how they themselves contribute to their distress. ~ Irvin D Yalom,
316:I hide my distress, just like
the blessed birds hide themselves
when they are preparing to die. Wine! Wine, roses, music and your
indifference to my sadness, my loved-one! ~ Omar Khayy m,
317:I’m not usually a girl who hopes for a damsel-in-distress rescue but no matter the odds against it, this would be a freakin’ fantastic time for Raffe to come and sweep me into the sky. ~ Susan Ee,
318:ship. 3) The signal SOS was chosen as an international distress call because of the simplicity of the three letters in Morse code: three dots, three dashes, and three dots. 4) ~ Mary Pope Osborne,
319:If today He deigns to bless us  With a sense of pardon’d sin,  He tomorrow may distress us,  Make us feel the plague within, All to make us Sick of self, and fond of Him. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
320:I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future. Turing believes machines think Turing lies with men Therefore machines do not think Yours in distress, Alan ~ Alan Turing,
321:Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away. ~ Henri Nouwen,
322:THE MISCONCEPTION: When someone is hurt, people rush to their aid. THE TRUTH: The more people who witness a person in distress, the less likely it is that any one person will help. ~ David McRaney,
323:I don’t need saving –
I’m not your damsel in distress
And you’re not my knight in tarnished armor.
.....
Don’t spare me,
Certainly don’t protect me,
I won’t break. ~ Jenn Waterman,
324:It was right then and there that she'd realized there was no quota on misery for people, no quantifiable threshold that once reached, got you miraculously taken out of the distress pool. ~ J R Ward,
325:It was important, she said; it was kind; it was best. Don’t cause distress, she said. Don’t remind people of a loss. “Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain. ~ E Lockhart,
326:Pain in all its forms is also a message, a kind of distress signal to our hearts and minds. There are times when it's really important to tune into that message and just listen to it. ~ Karyn Kusama,
327:6In my distress [when I seemed surrounded] I called upon the LORD And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry for help came before Him, into His very ears. ~ Anonymous,
328:Like all men is distress,Gideon decided to do what Napoleon, what Shakespeare, what Alexander the Great would have done. There remained only the minor question, what is that? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
329:Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. ~ Samuel Johnson,
330:of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress. ~ Anonymous,
331:People are never helped in their suffering by what they think for themselves, but only by revelation of a wisdom greater than their own. It is this which lifts them out of their distress. ~ Carl Jung,
332:To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit; Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through. ~ Lucy Larcom,
333:a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set we were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. ~ Cary Elwes,
334:Every time you see someone in distress, you have the opportunity to work as a team with Heaven's angels. You become the channel for your angels to provide loving care to those in need. ~ Doreen Virtue,
335:Watch yourself as you go about your daily business and later reflect on what you saw, trying to identify the sources of distress in your life and thinking about how to avoid that distress. ~ Epictetus,
336:The reversion of Windows to a CLI when it was in distress proved to Mac partisans that Windows was nothing more than a cheap facade, like a garish afghan flung over a rotted-out sofa. ~ Neal Stephenson,
337:You would not easily guess All the modes of distress Which torture the tenants of earth; And the various evils, Which like so many devils, Attend the poor souls from their birth. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,
338:I look up to say something but he puts his finger to my lips and whispers, ‘Don’t talk. You’ll just spoil my fantasy of rescuing an innocent damsel in distress as soon as you open your mouth. ~ Susan Ee,
339:I look up to say something but he puts his finger to my lips and whispers, “Don’t talk. You’ll just spoil my fantasy of rescuing an innocent damsel in distress as soon as you open your mouth. ~ Susan Ee,
340:I strike the ground with the soles of my feet and life rises up my legs, spreads up my skeleton, takes possession of me, drives away distress and sweetens my memory. The world trembles. ~ Isabel Allende,
341:Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it. ~ Sharon Salzberg,
342:I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a word of inspiration. It is the badge of poverty, the signal of distress. Cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean a cheap country. ~ William McKinley,
343:It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainment. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
344:There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. ~ Charles Dickens,
345:It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
346:People believe a man is in distress because his loved one dies in one day. But his real pain is less futile: it is that he finds out that sadness too does not last. Even pain has no meaning. ~ Albert Camus,
347:Raise your daughter so she is not a damsel in distress. Raise her so she can be the one saving herself. - Raising A Strong Daughter: What Fathers Should Know by Finlay Gow JD and Kailin Gow MA ~ Kailin Gow,
348:The Poet, gentle creature as he is, Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times; His fits when he is neither sick nor well, Though no distress be near him but his own Unmanageable thoughts. ~ William Wordsworth,
349:Ultimately, these remedies are ineffectual because they don’t address the source of relationship distress: the fear that emotional connection—the font of all comfort and respite—is vanishing. ~ Sue Johnson,
350:And what if there are no damsels in distress?
What if I knew that, and I called your bluff?
Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down,
whether or not you ever show up? ~ Ani DiFranco,
351:She seems distracted, the way Joan feels when Harry is away on a school trip and part of her tries to follow him clairvoyantly through his day, probing the ether for any sign of distress. ~ Maggie Shipstead,
352:Apparently we always think we want choice, but when we actually get it, we may not like it. Meanwhile, the need to chose in ever more aspects of life causes us more distress than we realize. ~ Barry Schwartz,
353:As a general principle, if we would exercise our memories more wisely, we might, in our very darkest distress, strike a match which would instantaneously kindle the lamp of comfort. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
354:At the edge of his dreams, there was often a sound like the faint, distant cry of someone in distress, and for minutes after waking, he would feel the anxiety of some duty unfulfilled. ~ William Peter Blatty,
355:There he stood, pretending to pant, feigning physical distress, making himself a hero at the expense of innocent victims. Jackstraws for a giant. There was no triumph in that. He could not go on. ~ Anonymous,
356:Transformation occurs only when we remember, breath by breath, year after year, to move toward our emotional distress without condemning or justifying our experience. ~ Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You,
357:16Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. 18Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. ~ Anonymous,
358:But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. ~ Charles Dickens,
359:Thinking and planning, wonderful and useful as they are, are at the heart of our daily emotional distress because, unlike other tools, we can’t seem to put these down when we don’t need them. ~ Ronald D Siegel,
360:He who, when he hath the power, doeth not good, when he loses the means will suffer distress. There is not a more unfortunate wretch than the oppressor; for in the day of adversity nobody is his friend. ~ Saadi,
361:Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it. ~ Sharon Salzberg,
362:Oftentimes, what we experience as mental fatigue or emotional distress is simply a signal from our body that we’re not getting enough of something we physically need: nutrients, exercise, or rest. ~ Josh Kaufman,
363:The author, at the time a Carter speechwriter in the 1980 campaign, showed visible distress at his boss's performance and was warned by a friend in the traveling press, lest he become the story. ~ Chris Matthews,
364:The slighted person may or may not get angry, but he is more likely to get angry if he is in distress – for example, in poverty or in love – or if he feels insecure about the subject of the slight. ~ Neel Burton,
365:Water deficit is the primary cause of many other disease symptoms too. Chronic pain, digestive distress, migraines, depression—all may be attributed at least partly to a lack of cellular hydration. ~ Darin Olien,
366:You think you’re the first type-A, gun-toting, danger-loving, alpha dog to fall ass-over-end in love with the damsel in distress?” Trojanowski actually laughed out loud. “Don’t flatter yourself. ~ Kerrigan Byrne,
367:For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. ~ Anonymous,
368:If we want to make a statement about a man's nature on the basis of his physiognomy, we must take everything into account; it is in his distress that a man is tested, for then his nature is revealed. ~ Paracelsus,
369:It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy. ~ Oswald Chambers,
370:The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress. ~ June Jordan,
371:When you are in psychological distress and someone really hears you without passing judgement on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good! ~ Carl R Rogers,
372:I hate the way, once you start to know someone, care about them, their behavior can distress you, even when it's unreasonable and not your fault, even if you were really trying to be careful, tactful. ~ Tanith Lee,
373:Science is history arranged according to the superstition and taste of the moment. The vocabulary of scholars has no wit, no salt. These heavy tomes have no soul, they are filled with distress... ~ Blaise Cendrars,
374:But we, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor even sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, VERY free spirits—we have it still, all the distress of spirit and all the tension of its bow! ~ Anonymous,
375:How wonderful it must be, to be unable to remember things that once caused us distress. Yet we should embrace all our memories, whether joyful or painful. They're all we ever really own in this life. ~ Isabel Wolff,
376:If you suffer distress because of some external cause, it is not the thing itself that troubles you but your judgement about it, and it is within your power to cancel that judgement at any moment. ~ Marcus Aurelius,
377:We wouldn't pay to rent and watch the same painful movie two hundred fifty times, but somehow we let our mind replay a bad memory over and over, each time experiencing the same distress and shame. ~ Jan Chozen Bays,
378:And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
379:Existential frustration is in itself neither pathologi- cal nor pathogenic. A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. ~ Anonymous,
380:extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction. ~ Christopher McDougall,
381:A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress. ~ Henry Hazlitt,
382:Beatrix,” her brother asked, “what did you do to Hector?”
“He’s a flower mule,” she said reasonably.
“I hope it won’t distress you to learn that he’s eating his hat.”
Beatrix stifled a giggle. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
383:Let others, worn with living / And living's aftermath, / Take Sleep to heal the heart's distress, / Take Love to be their comfortress, / Take Song or Food or Fancy Dress, / But I shall take a Bath. ~ Phyllis McGinley,
384:When some people were in distress, you wanted to enfold them and say there-there as you patted them on the back. With others you wanted to slap them a hard one across the chops and tell them to man up. ~ Stephen King,
385:Yes, [my texts] deal with distress. Some people object to this in my writing. At a party an English intellectual—so-called—asked me why I write always about distress. As if it were perverse to do so! ~ Samuel Beckett,
386:All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man. ... God wants us to help animals, if they need help. Every creature in distress has the same right to be protected. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi,
387:Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,
388:So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore. ~ Walter Wangerin,
389:You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth. ~ Winston S Churchill,
390:During my first few weeks in Italy, all my Protestant synapses were zinging in distress, looking for a task. I wanted to take on pleasure like a homework assignment, or a giant science fair project. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
391:If any external thing causes you distress, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgment about it. And this you have the power to eliminate now. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47 ~ Ward Farnsworth,
392:Sister Walburga ate some of the sausage she was taking upriver for the anchorites, but you'd think from her distress that she was a Horseman of the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon rolled into one. ~ Ariana Franklin,
393:if I did not love death
my suffering
my desire for you
would kill me

your absence
your distress
make me nauseous
it's time for me to love death
it's time to bite its hands ~ Georges Bataille,
394:It's a fine wake I'll be wanting, with the best if everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of me in my great days. ~ Neil Gaiman,
395:I've got to drink: my mind keeps on working hard and fast to the point of suffering. I have to slow it down and rest it at times.. when I don't drink, I can't sleep, and the distress stupefies me. ~ Mustafa Kemal Atat rk,
396:Men generally don't recognize the authority of women", Levi said very gently. "It's the way of the world, Amelia. I'm sorry it distress you."
"The world", Amelia said, "is wrong about so many things. ~ Christina Henry,
397:My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom. ~ Maya Angelou,
398:So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore. ~ Walter Wangerin Jr,
399:the plague was not the kind of calamity that inspired mutual help. Its loathsomeness and deadliness did not herd people together in mutual distress, but only prompted their desire to escape each other. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,
400:turns out that, whether it’s heat or cold, hunger or thirst, or muscles screaming with the supposed poison of “lactic acid,” what matters in many cases is how the brain interprets these distress signals. ~ Alex Hutchinson,
401:You’re supposed to be the damsel in distress. We’re supposed to save you.” She snorted and pulled her hand away. “Times have changed.” “But what does that make us? Two dudes in distress? Pathetic. ~ Jennifer Foehner Wells,
402:Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction ~ William James,
403:... our production of the world, our interpretation of it, what we've been told to experience and what we've been told we have to do, both worry and distress me. I don't want to live in someone else's dream. ~ Alice Notley,
404:And it’s a fine wake I’ll be wanting, with the best of everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of me in my great days. ~ Neil Gaiman,
405:I cannot, I cannot,' cried Marianne; 'leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! But do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of extertion! ~ Jane Austen,
406:Mairi stared at Parlabane with an expression he had seen too often down the years: that look of distress at having discovered precisely how deep the rabbit hole goes, and what darkness lay at its end. ~ Christopher Brookmyre,
407:Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. ~ Bren Brown,
408:Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. ~ Charles Darwin,
409:I think we all feel it, to varying degrees. Perhaps in some other language there is a word for the world is terribly wrong. That feeling of stun and unbelief and abandonment and shock and horror and distress. ~ David Levithan,
410:Every hand and every hour should be devoted to rescue the world from its insanity of guilt, and to assuage the pangs of human hearts with balm and anodyne. To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike. ~ Horace Mann,
411:shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? ~ Thomas Jefferson,
412:Would you say the shapeshifter was in distress?”
“Hell yeah, he was in distress. His tail was on fire.”
“He ran like his tail was on fire?”
“No, his tail was on fire. Like a big, furry candle on his ass. ~ Ilona Andrews,
413:Then Tink screamed and struggled with something at his feet. Janner scrambled over fallen limbs to his brother before anyone else had time to react. When he saw the source of Tink’s distress, Janner screamed too. ~ Andrew Peterson,
414:Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction. ~ Christopher McDougall,
415:She let out a small choked sound that might have been a laugh or genuine distress. “Café…Nirvana?” He didn’t try to hold back his amusement at her shock. “That’s right.” “Café Nirvana, in the town of Little Paradise? ~ Jill Shalvis,
416:No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best. ~ Franz Schubert,
417:Tren couldn’t be in that much medical distress if he had a hard-on of that healthy size going on. Then again, maybe it took so much blood to fill that beast that he’d passed out due to lack of circulation to his brain. ~ Ann Mayburn,
418:we have no right to distress any of God's creatures without a very good reason; we call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words. ~ Anna Sewell,
419:And when the angel orders the resurrection of Christ to be announced to the disciples, he wants it to be made known to Peter in particular, because he was in the greatest distress. Peter knew how to decline the word ! ~ Martin Luther,
420:Nobody speaks to me. People fall in love with me, and annoy me and distress me and flatter me and excite me and—and all that sort of thing. But no one speaks to me. I sometimes think that no one can. Can you? ~ Edna St Vincent Millay,
421:Beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction ~ William James,
422:It is not a look of horror, consternation, or even distress. More often than not, the last visage of a murdered man resembles that of a flustered schoolchild to whom the logic of a simple equation has just been revealed. ~ David Simon,
423:Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.” As ~ Christopher McDougall,
424:If we do not work on all three levels -- body, feeling, mind -- the symptoms of our distress will keep returning, as the body goes on repeating the story stored in its cells until it is finally listened to and understood. ~ Alice Miller,
425:No one understands another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy. . . . My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best. ~ Franz Schubert,
426:Well, sorry pet, I don't want to be fixed. Whatever your little schoolgirl brain told you about men is absurdly wrong. This isn't a romance. You're not a damsel-in-distress and I'm not the handsome prince come to save you. ~ C J Roberts,
427:He crooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted until she met his gaze. Her skin was just as soft as he remembered, and her lips just as full. Only the distress in her eyes was new. At least that was something he could fix ~ Leah Braemel,
428:I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine,
429:I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line,
430:The only thing true about what you just said was the storybook damsel part—and that’s only because you’re pretty enough to be one. Not the distress thing. Everything else you just said was ridiculous. You’re not helpless. ~ Richelle Mead,
431:When you are in something that you're proud of and it's funny and it's a good night out and all of those things, there's nothing quite like it. The rewards are proportionate to the amount of alarm and distress it causes you. ~ Bill Nighy,
432:In the first weeks of October, Citadel fought a two-front war against these enemies. It jettisoned assets that were not part of its main strategies, thus raising capital without telegraphing its distress too obviously. ~ Sebastian Mallaby,
433:you don’t need orders when there’s a distress call in space. I served in the navy before I was forced groundside. If anyone hails for help, you help them. None of us could survive out here without a system like this in place. ~ Hugh Howey,
434:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada,
435:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhup da,
436:Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that nature has implanted in your mind. ~ Fanny Burney,
437:I find that the whole weight of relieving human misery and distress falls on the shoulders of those Heretics and Infidels; and though great part of this distress has been occasioned by those ravening wolves' hopeful converts. ~ Anne Royall,
438:Life is best spent in alleviating pain, assuaging distress, and promoting peace and joy. The service of man is more valuable than what you call “service to God.” God has no need of your service. Pleas man, you please God. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,
439:By degrees, however, they began to hope again. Such are our insubmergable mirages of the soul! There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths. ~ Victor Hugo,
440:Emotions are raised in us, not only by the qualities and actions of others, but also by their feelings. I cannot behold a man in distress, without partaking of his pain; nor in joy, without partaking of his pleasure. ~ Henry Home Lord Kames,
441:I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out. ~ G K Chesterton,
442:... there are two types of happiness and I have chosen that of the murderers. For I am happy. There was a time when I thought I had reached the limit of distress. Beyond that limit, there is a sterile and magnificent happiness. ~ Albert Camus,
443:Depend on it, that from every condition of distress or evil there is a great reaction, and the greater the evil or distress, the greater the reaction. If we do not get a reaction quick, we will get it long when it does come. ~ Theodore Dreiser,
444:In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts. ~ Jean Vanier,
445:The only possible recourse a baby has when his screams are ignored is to repress his distress, which is tantamount to mutilating his soul, for the result is an interference with his ability to feel, to be aware, and to remember. ~ Alice Miller,
446:So if the world were a simple place, where the only dilemmas one had to deal with involved a single person in some sort of immediate distress, and where helping that person had positive effects, the case for empathy would be solid. ~ Paul Bloom,
447:We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
448:Pain is a warning,” said Anaander Mianaai. “What would happen if you removed all discomfort from your life? No,” Mianaai continued, ignoring Seivarden’s obvious distress at her words, “I value that moral indignation. I encourage it. ~ Ann Leckie,
449:Painting and sculpture, labour and good faith, have been my ruin and I continually go from bad to worse. Better it would have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth. I should not be in such distress of mind. ~ Michelangelo,
450:Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
451:As ever, Sue was on the phone, and I could tell by her posture - she was half laying on the desk - that she was crying. I knew this was no distress but joy: She always cried when her boyfriend admitted that he was a complete idiot. ~ Melissa Bank,
452:Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into. ~ Christopher McDougall,
453:People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God's kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. ~ Francis Chan,
454:People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. ~ Francis Chan,
455:The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope. ~ Jane Austen,
456:God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness -- to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
457:I tell you, my friends, it's a sin to pray for the USA. And nobody that's intelligent, and that fears God, will fly the American flag any way but upside-down, the international signal of distress... It's too late to pray for the USA. ~ Fred Phelps,
458:Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls. ~ Victor Hugo,
459:Any method or process that alleviates human misery, pain, and distress is good. Many churches practice the laying on of hands; others make novenas and visit shrines; all are benefitted according to their mental acceptance or belief. ~ Joseph Murphy,
460:God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness -- to glory? ~ Charlotte Bronte,
461:Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed the distress of "that creature" who, "thanks to her," had been "put back in her proper place," and congratulated herself. The happiness of the evil-minded is black. ~ Victor Hugo,
462:All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. ~ Adolf Hitler,
463:"Historically, it is chiefly in times of physical, political, economic and spiritual distress that men’s eyes turn with anxious hope to the future, and when anticipations, utopias and apocalyptic visions multiply." ~ Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self,
464:I was not at ease that night. I was a prey to an immense distress. I sat as if I had fallen into my chair. As on the first day I looked at my reflection in the glass, and all I could do was just what I had done then, simply cry, "I! ~ Henri Barbusse,
465:The conservative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
466:Poor Eddison. With the exception of Vic, he’s doomed to spend his life surrounded by strong, prickly, opinionated women, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve never really been sure what he did to deserve such glorious distress. ~ Dot Hutchison,
467:Need someone to rescue?” She interrupted him again, spitting her words out with all the rage, contempt, and anger she had bottled up inside. “I’m not a damsel in distress, and you sir, are no knight in shining double breasted, JC Penny! ~ Dennis Sharpe,
468:All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation. ~ John Adams,
469:Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. ~ Jane Austen,
470:Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny. Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are. ~ Princess Diana,
471:The right honorable gentleman [Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke] is the first of the new party who has retired into his political cave of Adullam and he has called about him everyone that was in distress and everyone that was discontented. ~ John Bright,
472:Your body is a wonderland of terror and fear-inducing proportions. Forget the strictures of the male gaze. Dress to impress or cause extreme distress. If other people’s bodies are temples, yours is a war machine with built-in booby traps, baby. ~ Amerie,
473:The duke contents himself mainly with attempting to rule the world and other suchlike nonsense. When one is guiding the patterns of the social universe, a single spinster preternatural is unlikely to cause one undue distress. ~ Gail Carriger,
474:For each of the four hundred and four bodily ailments celebrated physicians have produced infallible remedies, but the malady which brings the greatest distress to mankind - to even the wisest and cleverest of us - is the plague of poverty. ~ Ihara Saikaku,
475:I hope someday she meets just the right man and has babies - a whole passel of babies, more than I could have - so she understands how it kills me now that she won't let me hug her when she's in obvious distress. (The Life You've Imagined) ~ Kristina Riggle,
476:O look, look in the mirror
O look in your distress
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless

O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart ~ W H Auden,
477:Whenever distress or displeasure arises in your mind, remind yourself, “This is only my interpretation, not reality itself.” Then ask whether it falls within or outside your sphere of power. And, if it is beyond your power to control, let it go. ~ Epictetus,
478:I remind myself that I'm no longer a damsel in distress. I can think this through. What I can't do? Base my decision on fear. Because, while I might be free to make my choice right now, I'll never be free from the consequences of that choice ~ Gena Showalter,
479:Though Steve has stated that he lied to “get cred” in anarchist circles and because of distress, the real reasons behind his campaign of lies and manipulation is unknown. It is also unknown whether he was ever actually a target of the grand jury. ~ Anonymous,
480:… for there are times when disobedience heals a very ailing part of the self. It relieves the human spirit’s distress at being forced into narrow boundaries. For the nearly powerless, defying authority is often the only power available. ~ Malidoma Patrice Som,
481:To have faith in Christ means more than simply despising the delights of this life. It means we should bear all our daily trials that may bring us sorrow, distress, or unhappiness, and bear them patiently for as long as God wishes. ~ Symeon the New Theologian,
482:Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. Blushing has little less power; and modesty in general, which is a tacit allowance of imperfection, is itself considered as an amiable quality, and certainly heightens every other that is so. ~ Edmund Burke,
483:The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it. People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not. ~ Neil Postman,
484:Yet I also recognize this: Even if everyone in the world were to accept me and my illness and validate my pain, unless I can abide myself and be compassionate toward my own distress, I will probably always feel alone and neglected by others. ~ Kiera Van Gelder,
485:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.
   ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad Gita,
486:Distress, whether psychic, physical, or intellectual, need not at all produce nihilism (that is, the radical rejection of value, meaning and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations. Nietzsche wrote those words. ~ Jordan Peterson,
487:If we take shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master, we can become free from illusion, fear and distress. If we wholeheartedly beg for his mercy without any deceit then the spiritual master bestows all auspiciousness upon us. ~ Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati,
488:Today, in the face of abjection and solitude, his heart said: 'No'. And in the great distress that washed over him, Mersault realised that his rebellion was the only authentic thing in him, and that everything elsewhere was misery and submission". ~ Albert Camus,
489:want you to know love someday. Another love. Your love is too beautiful not to share.” He said it with ease, not a trace of distress or ambivalence. As if it were the most natural thing for a husband to say to a wife. “I want you to live your life. ~ Tembi Locke,
490:10Teach me to do your will,        for you are my God.    May your gracious Spirit lead me forward        on a firm footing.    11For the glory of your name, O LORD, preserve my life.        Because of your faithfulness, bring me out of this distress. ~ Anonymous,
491:Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. ~ Eugene H Peterson,
492:Distress, whether psychic, physical, or intellectual, need not at all produce nihilism (that is, the radical rejection of value, meaning and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations. Nietzsche wrote those words. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
493:For at times it happens that some trifle will cause as much suffering to one as a great trial will to another; little things can bring much distress to persons who have sensitive natures. If you are not like them, do not fail to be compassionate. ~ Teresa of vila,
494:Make others truly happy as you strive to make yourself happy. Speak a helpful word. Give a cheering smile. Do a kind act. Serve a little. Wipe the tears of one who is in distress. Render smooth a rough place in another's path. You will feel great joy. ~ Sivananda,
495:The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow. ~ Thomas Paine,
496:The thing that started me painting originally was seeing Bambi when I was about nine. I was incredibly disturbed by the forest fire that killed Bambi's mother, and that distress gave me the impulse to create something, as a way of dealing with it. ~ Joni Mitchell,
497:Think not that thou canst fail of entering into rest. If He hath called thee, nothing can divide thee from His love. Distress cannot sever the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link; the hammer of hell cannot break the chain. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
498:To see a Woman you love in Distress; to be unable to relieve her, and at the same Time to reflect that you have brought her into this Situation, is, perhaps, a Curse of which no Imagination can represent the Horrors to those who have not felt it. ~ Henry Fielding,
499:It is not a race that can be won, a truth the brain-aware manic knows somewhere in his being and a truth that brings with it additional sadness even at the height of the racing, as the manic races but knows that he can't outrace existential distress. ~ Eric Maisel,
500:Notice how broadly Mill set his harm principle. It is not enough to say that people who hate the idea of homosexuality suffer mental distress at the knowledge that it is legal. They must suffer actual harm, and as they do not, they cannot prohibit it. ~ Nick Cohen,
501:Vladimir Putin rose to lead Russia to victory over the Wharton School of Economics’ plan to bleed Russia dry. As we shall see elsewhere, the Sachs model called for selling Russia’s vast State owned industries to private companies at distress prices. ~ John Coleman,
502:...your God is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, 'Lord, have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy hands.' Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these, you will do well. ~ Elizabeth Goudge,
503:As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals
to come to grips with the problems leading to emotional distress
and to gain a broader perspective on their reliance on drugs for
pleasure and/or relief from discomfort. ~ Aaron T Beck,
504:Return now to these studies and they will keep you safe. They will comfort you, they will delight you; and if they will genuinely penetrate your mind, never again will grief enter there, or anxiety, or the distress caused by futile and pointless suffering. ~ Seneca,
505:since it is assumed that the dramatic depiction of emotions excites the same emotions in the audience, tragic drama presents a bit of a puzzle. It seems odd that we should enjoy the experience, and even enjoy it in proportion to the distress it invokes. ~ Anonymous,
506:Carter, not to be unkind," I said, "but the last few months you've been seeing messages about Zia everywhere. Two weeks ago, you thought she was sending you a distress call in your mashed potatoes."
"It was a Z! Carved right in the potatoes! ~ Rick Riordan,
507:They have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought a crisis of unparalleled distress on forty millions of people, who have natural resources to feed, clothe and shelter the whole human race. ~ Denis Kearney,
508:And he is an ever-present Comforter. You will never have to send for him. Your God is always near you. When you are in distress and need comfort, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” God is “a very present help in trouble. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
509:Certainly Louise was not worrying. She had discovered that if by any chance she happened to ‘get stuck’ there were always people ready to help her. People of the male sex, young or old, welcomed the opportunity to rescue a beautiful damsel in distress. ~ D E Stevenson,
510:If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago, her father used to say, 'she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett,
511:In summer darkness, stars in her south-facing window, she makes - or accepts - a decision in her heart. There is fear again with it, and sorrow, but also a kind of easing of disquiet and distress, which is what acceptance is said to bring, is it not? ~ Guy Gavriel Kay,
512:Recent studies of hoarding put the prevalence rate at somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the population. That means that six million to fifteen million Americans suffer from hoarding that causes them distress or interferes with their ability to live. ~ Randy O Frost,
513:The feeling she has is most unexpected. The oddest thing. She feels no distress or worry. Instead, she senses a dim, faint feeling that rises from some unknown place in her heart, rising slowly and blossoming into something that she might call relief. ~ Janice Y K Lee,
514:Professors have a lot of power.”
I almost smiled. “Even medieval history professors?”
“Especially medieval history professors,” he assured me.
“Knights on horseback and all that?”
A responding smile tugged at his mouth. “And damsels in distress. ~ Nina Lane,
515:We have to help our girls and teach them to be confident.' Well, guess what, young girls. You aren't damsels in distress. You aren't hostages to words of your peers. You aren't the victims that even your well-meaning teachers and advocates think you are. ~ Mindy Kaling,
516:We. Us. Our little family. With our problems and our routines. Fucking bitch. She’s a cuckoo, laying her egg in my nest. She has taken everything from me. She has taken everything and now she calls me to tell me that my distress is inconvenient for her? ~ Paula Hawkins,
517:Doom is nigh. I am in acute distress, desperately trying to coax sleep, opening my eyes every few seconds to check their faded gleam, and imagining paradise as a place where a sleepless neighbor reads an endless book by the light of an eternal candle. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
518:The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons.They arise from sense perception,and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. ~ Anonymous,
519:When people get sick after eating sushi or sashimi, they often blame the rawness for their stomach distress, saying something like, “I must have had bad tuna.” It’s more likely their problems were caused by the fact that they never had tuna at all. While ~ Larry Olmsted,
520:I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,
521:Maybe he got tired of waiting and he'd gone without me though I doubted that was the case and decided he was probably doing something Max-ish. Chopping wood. Building a barn. Saving a child in distress or climbing a tree to rescue a cat. Stuff like that. ~ Kristen Ashley,
522:Prosperity has this property, it puffs up narrow Souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty, and look down upon the World with Contempt; but a truly noble and resolved Spirit appears greatest in Distress, and then becomes more bright and conspicuous. ~ Plutarch,
523:SPEND A DAY in an emergency room, and chances are you’ll be struck by two things: the organizational chaos and the emotional detachment as nurses, doctors, and administrators bustle in and out, barely registering the human distress it is their job to address. ~ Anonymous,
524:Goo'-by, ole Bill, by-by. There you go, an' the signal o' distress roun' you, H. B. 'I'm in need of assistance.' Lord, here comes the sharks--look! look! look at um fight! look at um takin' ole Bill! I'm in need of assistance. I sh'd say you were, ole Bill. ~ Frank Norris,
525:He saw that women, the tenderest and mosy fragile of all God's creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. ~ Charles Dickens,
526:The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by a simple elevation of level. ~ Victor Hugo,
527:Always receive with equal contentment from God's hand either consolations or sufferings, peace or distress, health or illness. Ask nothing, refuse nothing, but always be ready to do and to suffer anything that comes from His Providence. ~ Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart,
528:Even so, Miss Whitmore . . . We should have a signal.” “A signal?” “A word to shout if you’re in distress. Like ‘Tangiers,’ or . . . or perhaps ‘muscadine.’ ” Clio gave her an amused look. “Is something wrong with the word ‘help’?” “I . . . well, I suppose not. ~ Tessa Dare,
529:Gary nips my finger and starts clawing his way up my shoulder, hissing like an angry kettle. It's just not natural for something so cute and fluffy to be so nasty.

I look at Nick in distress. "Why is he spitting at me?"
"Maybe he thinks he's a llama. ~ Holly Smale,
530:A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin. ~ Thomas Paine,
531:beyond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own,—sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points. ~ William James,
532:I believe there are steps we can take to mitigate—even eliminate—many of these sources of distress, but they aren’t easy. They require practice, discipline, and perhaps a new way of thinking. On the other hand, each of these steps will bring its own rewards. ~ Barry Schwartz,
533:The soul-stirring image of death is no bugbear to the sage, and is looked on without despair by the pious. It teaches the former to live, and it strengthens the hopes of the latter in salvation in the midst of distress. Death is new life to both. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
534:Your ears are not simply for hearing tuneful sounds, mellow and sweetly played in harmony: you should also listen to laughter and weeping, to words flattering and acrimonious, to merriment and distress, to the language of men and to the roars and barking of animals. ~ Seneca,
535:I felt as if we were fighting something worse than Anne, some demon that possessed her, that possessed all of us Boleyns: ambition - the devil that had brought us to this little room and brought my sister to this insane distress and us to this savage battle. ~ Philippa Gregory,
536:It felt as if we were fighting something worse than Anne, some demon that possessed her, that possessed all of us Boleyns: ambition—the devil that had brought us to this little room and brought my sister to this insane distress, and us to this savage battle. ~ Philippa Gregory,
537:A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body. ~ Mark Twain,
538:a) she didn’t molest passed out people and b) Tren couldn’t be in that much medical distress if he had a hard-on of that healthy size going on. Then again, maybe it took so much blood to fill that beast that he’d passed out due to lack of circulation to his brain. ~ Ann Mayburn,
539:For if the will has nothing to employ it and love has no present object with which to busy itself, the soul finds itself without either support or occupation, its solitude and aridity cause it great distress and its thoughts involve it in the severest conflict. ~ Teresa of vila,
540:We can choose peace or trouble. We can choose to stay calm or to calm down if we start becoming agitated. Jesus also said, …In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer…For I have overcome the world… (John 16:33). ~ Joyce Meyer,
541:I suppose I could have helped them see how their life histories deepened their distress or given them some more grownup ways of conceiving of God, but few were interested in that. We were engaged in a more ancient drama, wrestling far more primitive fears. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,
542:It felt as if we were fighting something worse than Anne, some demon that possessed her, that possessed all of us Boleyns: ambition - the devil that had brought us to this little room and brought my sister to this insane distress, and us to this savage battle. ~ Philippa Gregory,
543:love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. ~ Thomas Paine,
544:No event is so terribly well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress, as is burial before death… . What I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge—of my own positive and personal experience. —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Premature Burial ~ Sanjay Gupta,
545:There are many kinds of adult adversities that can provoke severe psychological distress, including debt and unemployment, dysfunctional marital relationships and occupational stress. The reality is that the social causes of mental ill-health are all around us. ~ Richard Bentall,
546:The redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans. ~ Thomas Malthus,
547:They will forget times of distress. Rough garments will become brilliant while silks and satins lose their sheen. The humble cottage will be more desirable than a palatial home. Patience will be more honorable than power. Obedience will count more than knowledge. ~ Thomas Kempis,
548:We cannot rely on ourselves, for we have learned by bitter experience the folly of self-confidence. We are compelled to look to the Lord alone. Blessed is the wind that drives the ship into the harbor. Blessed is the distress that forces us to rest in our God. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
549:Or perhaps it's "activist," but on environmental and economic problems, without understanding that pressuring women to have too many children is the biggest cause of environmental distress, and economic courses should start with reproduction, not just production. ~ Gloria Steinem,
550:O that we would so love the gospel and have so much compassion for lost people that tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword and gun and terrorist would turn us not into fearful complainers, but bold heralds of good news. ~ John Piper,
551:To escape the distress caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace. ~ Jean Pierre de Caussade,
552:I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. ~ Thomas Paine,
553:Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She was the youngest of the two ~ Anonymous,
554:fingers together now in her distress. “I care about you so much. But I’m scared. I can’t be all those things you need. I can’t be more than this. I can’t trust someone else to take care of me. It would be stupid, don’t you see? It just isn’t safe. And I can’t do it. ~ Rosalind James,
555:Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. ~ Anthony Burgess,
556:The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest orders of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed. ~ Fanny Kemble,
557:When people are uncertain about what is right and what is wrong, and anxious about being considered old-fashioned, it seems to be worse than folly that Christians are still arguing about doctrinal matters which can only bring needless distress to a number of people. ~ Prince Charles,
558:Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance. ~ Pema Ch dr n,
559:Then we realized that your Kind like to make laws. Like to decree what's what, and whether it's good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute. ~ Clive Barker,
560:We believe that Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, a powerful leader of a powerful nation who can order missiles fired at another nation because of his (or a family member’s) personal distress at seeing sad scenes of people having been gassed to death. ~ Bandy X Lee,
561:I cannot think of a single word to describe what we feel. I think we all feel it, to varying degrees. Perhaps in some other language there is a word for 'the world is terribly wrong.' That feeling of stun and unbelief and abandonment and shock and horror and distress. ~ David Levithan,
562:Once upon a time...
...as a fair maiden lay weeping upon a cold tombstone, her heartfelt desire was suddenly made real before her: tall, broad of shoulder, attired in gleaming silver and gold, her knight in shining armor had come to rescue his damsel in distress.... ~ Jude Deveraux,
563:To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something which must be abolished is the greatest nonsense on earth; having the most disastrous consequences, fatally stupid- almost as stupid as a wish to abolish bad weather - out of pity for the poor. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
564:When we learn to embrace trials, anguish, and distress as friends (James 1:2–4; Romans 5:3–5) and as reminders of our own weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10), we become more dependent on the power of God and therefore more effective as leaders and witnesses for Him. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,
565:Establishing a relationship with grief, developing practices that keep us steady in times of distress, & staying present in our adult selves are among the central tasks in our apprenticeship with sorrow. This is the hard work of maturation. ~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow,
566:I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I suffer. ~ Jane Austen,
567:She could not do distress. Anger was so much easier. And quicker and harder and better. If I start crying, I’ll never stop –you hear people say that; Kiki heard people say it all the time in the hospital. A backlog of sadness for which there would never be sufficient time ~ Zadie Smith,
568:White ceiling tiles. Low-energy bulbs in cylindrical down-lighters. Walls and chairs in Hospital Yellow. A colour so blatantly designed to soothe those in medical distress that it makes me want to bubble blood from the corners of my mouth, just to show it who’s boss. ‘I ~ Harry Bingham,
569:...as your father, my instinct is to protect you ... Other people will want to protect you too. But remember that you are not a damsel in distress, waiting for some prince to rescue you. Forget the prince. With your brain and your resourcefulness, you can rescue yourself. ~ Brad Meltzer,
570:I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death ~ Leonardo da Vinci,
571:Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine! ~ Samuel Johnson,
572:I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. ~ Leonardo da Vinci,
573:Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thief s. ~ William Blake,
574:Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact. ~ Robert A Heinlein,
575:She never indulged my outrage, but she took my frustration seriously. If my mother were somebody different, she might have done the polite thing and said, “Just go and do your best.” But she knew the difference. She knew the difference between whining and actual distress. ~ Michelle Obama,
576:The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. ~ Judith Lewis Herman,
577:Yet despite all these things we know to be true- despite the preponderance of evidence showing the mental and emotional distress people demonstrate in violent and harassing environments- we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them. ~ Jessica Valenti,
578:Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. ~ Samuel Johnson,
579:When human hearts break and human hearts despair, then from the twilight of the past the great conquerors of distress and care, of disgrace and misery, of spiritual slavery and physical compulsion, look down on them and hold out their eternal hands to the despairing mortals. ~ Adolf Hitler,
580:Her mother would be appalled, but she wouldn't say anything. She would just telegraph her distress with tightened lips and raised brows. She was good at that. Clemmie's mother's brows were better than sign language, complicated concepts conveyed with the minimum of movement. ~ Lauren Willig,
581:I am no party man in this matter in any degree; and if I have any objection to the motion it is this, that whereas it is a motion to inquire into the manufacturing distress of the country, it should have been a motion to inquire into manufacturing and agricultural distress. ~ Richard Cobden,
582:I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die. ~ Edmund Hillary,
583:The noun eleos (mercy)… always deals with what we see of pain, misery and distress, these results of sin; and charis (grace) always deals with the sin and guilt itself. The one extends relief, the other pardon; the one cures, heals, helps, the other cleanses and reinstates. ~ John R W Stott,
584:If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, then his religion is useless and he deceives himself. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the •world. ~ Anonymous,
585:Thousands die everywhere always. The world don’t care much, it just don’t mind much. That’s what I notice about it. There is that great wailing and distress and then the pacifying waters close over everything, old Father Time washes his hands. On he plods to the next place. ~ Sebastian Barry,
586:Religious distress is at the same time the expression of the real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of the spiritless condition. It is the opium of the people. ~ Karl Marx,
587:Sometimes...I lose myself in looking back upon the ocean which I have passed, and now and then find myself surprised by a tear in reflecting upon the friends I have lost, and the scenes of distress that I have witnessed, and which I was unable to relieve.

—Dr. Benjamin Rush ~ Jim Murphy,
588:As I head back up the stairs, I hear the dryer make a sound of great mechanical distress, nnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and I pause for only a moment before I decide that if I leave, I will no longer intimidate the machine, and it will then do its job very well without me. ~ Marya Hornbacher,
589:It is with great regret that we must announce that so great was Miss Budget Jones's distress at not being able to accept the kind invitation of Mr. Mark Darcy that she has offed herself and will therefore, more certainly than ever, now, be unable to accept Mr. Mark Darcy's kind. ~ Helen Fielding,
590:To speak of the Blessed Sacrament is to speak of what is most sacred. How often, when we are in a state of distress, those to whom we look for help leave us; or what is worse, add to our affliction by heaping fresh troubles upon us. He is ever there waiting to help us. ~ Mary Euphrasia Pelletier,
591:Events are temporary. Bad things happen, but usually we do not feel their effects on us forever. It’s really true that time heals wounds. Your disappointments are important and serious, but your distress will pass and your life will take you in new directions. Give yourself some time. ~ David Niven,
592:The Church's foundation is unshakable and firm against the assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly batter and crash against her, she offers the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan,
593:Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress. ~ Albert Camus,
594:To act honestly- even at the risk of saying the unpleasant truth, or of saying no and causing distress to others- if done with intelligence and tact, is the kindest thing to do because it respects our own integrity and acknowledges in others the capacity to be competent and mature. ~ Piero Ferrucci,
595:I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
596:Not only do such parents subconsciously minimize their child’s distress, they also inadvertently burden him with a maturity of which he is not really capable. They often need and expect their healthy child to be as compassionate, as selfless and as patient as they themselves need to be. ~ Jonice Webb,
597:Ready-to-Halt, Poor Fearing, and thou, Mrs. Despondency, and Much-afraid, go often there [the empty tomb]; let it be your favorite haunt. There build a tabernacle, there abide. And often say to your heart, when you are in distress and sorrow, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
598:She wanted him to know his children and grandchildren were still around him, strong and merry as ever. It was important, she said; it was kind; it was best. Don’t cause distress, she said. Don’t remind people of a loss. “Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain. ~ E Lockhart,
599:You have dwelt overmuch upon pain. Pain is a swift distress; it ends and is forgotten. Without memory and fear pain is nothing, a contradiction to be heeded, a warning to be taken. Without pain what would life become? Pain is the master only of craven men. It is in man's power to rule it. ~ H G Wells,
600:Ironically, while we ignore our physical distress signals, we simultaneously make it a point to stay connected to the digital world so we don’t miss any electronic messages. On we go, cramming as much productivity as we can into every day, just hoping that the bucket doesn’t overflow. ~ Michelle Segar,
601:Labor came to humanity with the fall from grace and was at best a penitential sacrifice enabling purity through humiliation. Laborwas toil, distress, trouble, fatigue--an exertion both painful and compulsory. Labor was our animal condition, struggling to survive in dirt and darkness. ~ Shoshana Zuboff,
602:A camel in distress isn’t a shy creature. It doesn’t hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn’t phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn’t mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn’t know what angst is. ~ Terry Pratchett,
603:I call it the indescribable charm of life. It was a feeling of ecstasy that was almost distress when it came, because it came so bound up and clogged by our own stupid feeling- the stupid ache of never being able to equal it or match it with anything like itself when it came. ~ Katharine Butler Hathaway,
604:Ivy waved the wet handkerchief, as much as to say, words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, "Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress. ~ Gail Carriger,
605:If it is said men oppress women, the husband reacts indigntantly; he feels oppressed: he is; but in fact, it is the masculine code, the society developed by males and in their interest, that has defined the feminine condition in a form that is now for both sexes a source of distress. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,
606:The creditors’ objective is to replace the customary right of citizens to self-support by its opposite principle: the right of creditors to foreclose on the property and means of livelihood pledged as collateral (or to buy it at distress prices), and to make these transfers irreversible. ~ Michael Hudson,
607:music has, quite literally, saved my life and, I believe, the lives of countless others. It provides company when there is none, understanding where there is confusion, comfort where there is distress, and sheer, unpolluted energy where there is a hollow shell of brokenness and fatigue. And ~ James Rhodes,
608:Jim Warner, reminded me recently of a guard who was caught in flagrante with a dog. Afterwards Jim and his cellmates would occasionally make the sounds of a dog in distress, knowing that the guard would frantically run toward the noise. He became known as Sniffles the Pooch Puncher. However ~ Leo Thorsness,
609:They greyhound whine with her, distressed by her distress. Sometimes, in a traitorous fugue, the dog forgot to be unhappy and ran off to chase purple butterflies or murder shrew-mice, or to piss a joyful stream onto the topiaries. But generally, if her mistress was crying, so was the puppy. ~ Karen Russell,
610:When God is about to bestow some great blessing on His church, it is often His manner, in the first place, so to order things in His providence as to show His church their great need of it, and to bring them into distress for want of it, and so put them upon crying earnestly to Him for it. ~ Jonathan Edwards,
611:It seems both outrageous and irresponsible that so few mental health clinicians connect the epidemics of mental distress in industrial societies with the devastating impact of our suicidal destruction of our own habitat and ecocidal elimination of whole species. — Linda Buzzel and Craig Chalquist ~ Joanna Macy,
612:The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revivial, but finally giving up in the final collapse. ~ Charles P Kindleberger,
613:Who looks at me, beholdeth sorrows all, All pain, all torture, woe and all distress; I have no need on other harms to call, As anguish, languor, cruel bitterness, Discomfort, dread, and madness more and less; Methinks from heaven above the tears must rain In pity for my harsh and cruel pain. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,
614:I swore I wasn't going to rescue any more damsels in distress," Day muttered.
To his surprise, Barbara gave him a lopsided grin, banging on the side of the trailer to make it produce a door. "What makes you think she isn't rescuing you?" she asked, and stomped inside without a backward look. ~ Deborah Blake,
615:It is easy to speak God’s name and to record his glory on paper and walls; but to praise God with an upright heart, to bless him for his benevolence, to call upon him in every distress, and to seek consolation from him—those are truly the greatest works, though rarely seen, alongside faith. When ~ Martin Luther,
616:When we are in times of difficulty and distress, the important thing is not that we get out of it but what we get out of it. “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work” (James 1:2–4). If ~ Warren W Wiersbe,
617:Believer, come near the cross this morning, and humbly adore the King of glory as having once been brought far lower, in mental distress and inward anguish, than anyone among us; and mark his fitness to become a faithful High Priest, who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
618:Everything that is loved, if it is not loved for His sake then this love is nothing but distress and punishment. Every action that is not performed for His sake then it is wasted and severed. Every heart that does not reach Him is wretched; veiled from achieving its success and happiness. ~ Ibn Qayyim Al Jawziyya,
619:only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. ~ Joan Didion,
620:She managed a smile. "You're kind of pushy, you know."
He shrugged. "I have a fetish for damsels in distress."
"Don't be sexist."
"Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It's an equal opportunity fetish," he said, and with a flourish, offered his arm again. ~ Cassandra Clare,
621:It is thus that for a very long time you have undergone suffering, affliction and distress and have augmented the harvests of death, long enough in very truth to have recognised suffering, long enough to have turned away from suffering, long enough to have enfranchised yourselves from suffering. ~ Sannyutta Nikaya,
622:We should all realize that no matter where or how a man dies, if he is in the state of mortal sin and does not repent, when he could have done so and did not, the Devil tears his soul from his body with such anguish and distress that only a person who has experienced it can appreciate it. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi,
623:It would distress the girls if they were to realize how much you dislike me.”
“I disapprove of you,” she replied gravely, walking out to the grand staircase with him. “That’s not the same as dislike.”
“Lady Trenear, I disapprove of me.” He grinned at her. “So we have something in common. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
624:The blessings and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger,” he assured his men, hoping “that every officer and man will endeavor so to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country. ~ Ron Chernow,
625:Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. ~ Joan Didion,
626:Such a beginning presaged nothing good. However, I lost neither courage nor hope. I turned to the consolation of all those in distress, and for the first time tasted the sweetness of prayer, poured forth from a pure but riven heart. I fell asleep serenely, unworried as to what was to become of me. ~ Alexander Pushkin,
627:It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. ~ Thomas Paine,
628:Suave molecules of Mocha stir up your blood, without causing excess heat; the organ of thought receives from it a feeling of sympathy; work becomes easier and you will sit down without distress to your principal repast which will restore your body and afford you a calm, delicious night. ~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand,
629:We believe in the Three Rs - reducing the consumption of meat and other animal-based foods; refining the diet by eating products only from methods of production, transport, and slaughter that minimize pain and distress; and replacing meat and other animal-based foods in the diet with plant-based foods. ~ Wayne Pacelle,
630:I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
631:Speaking Mandarin with a Russian accent is extremely difficult. Of all the languages I have learned, Mandarin took me the longest, and having to replicate the suitable tones while simultaneously presenting myself as a rather bumbling Soviet scholar was an exercise that caused me considerable distress. In ~ Claire North,
632:An active propaganda machinery controlled bv the world's largest corporations constantly reassures us that consumerism is the path to happiness, governmental restraint of market excess is the cause our distress, and economic globalization is both a historical inevitability and a boon to the human species. ~ David Korten,
633:He removes his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders, holding onto my arm as he walks me across the street. I feel a little pathetic with him assisting me—I can walk on my own. I don’t object though, and I feel like a hypocrite to the entire feminist movement. I’ve regressed to the damsel in distress. ~ Colleen Hoover,
634:The person who truly wishes to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world or what he will gain from them when he departs this life. ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor,
635:It is a widespread and firm belief among guests that their departure is always a matter of distress to their hosts, and that in order to indicate that they have been pleasantly entertained, they must demonstrate an extreme unwillingness to allow the entertainment to conclude. This is not necessarily true. ~ Judith Martin,
636:As the eldest of the three Nemesio boys, worrying was his job. Tayver and Calisto had given up enough of their childhood due to their impoverished and unfortunate circumstances. Protecting them from the distress of adult responsibility was the very least Gib could do—for as long as he could manage anyway. ~ Shiriluna Nott,
637:It becomes somewhat absurd when some claim that the sight of a Bible or a cross causes them so much psychological distress that it impinges upon their freedom. It is important that we learn to be reasonable and tolerant of everyone's beliefs without going to such extremes that we compromise everyone's rights. ~ Ben Carson,
638:For it was inevitable that something a person was fond of, something he felt bound and conjoined to, would cause him distress as well: he would have to struggle with it, there would be much about it that displeased him, and at times he would even hate it because he had always felt so powerfully drawn to it. ~ Robert Walser,
639:I now knew that there are lots of different kinds of meditation. [This compassionate] school of meditation is the opposite of the individualistic meditation that disturbed me. It's not about dealing with the distress and strain of disconnection [in a better way]. It's about finding a way back to reconnection. ~ Johann Hari,
640:Our Navy was very largely sunk. And we were at war in no time at all. I share, in retrospect, the distress we all share at the internment of the Japanese American citizens of the United States. It was not our finest hour. But the Supreme Court had it before it at the time, and justified it and upheld it. ~ William A Rusher,
641:She shocks the hell out of me when she asks, "Did you get engaged, Jade? She looks at me seriously. It's really hard for me not to just laugh hysterically in her face, but I refrain from doing so because I'm a good friend, and I realize that she's in distress. But her next question very nearly blows me away. ~ Jillian Dodd,
642:As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
643:No one would deny that all wars and battles are regrettable acts of human folly, causing unjustifiable agony and distress to combatants and non-combatants alike-but these considerations should not preclude their serious study, if only to avoid the mistakes of the past which make such tragedies inevitable. ~ David G Chandler,
644:Listen to your body's wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort. When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, "How do you feel about this?" If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed. ~ Deepak Chopra,
645:One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing. ~ Jean Vanier,
646:Do not distress yourself on account of any distaste or dryness you experience in God's service. He wills that you should serve Him fervently and constantly it is true, but without any other help than simple faith, and thus your love will be more disinterested, and your service the more pleasing to Him. ~ Margaret Mary Alacoque,
647:In the hours of distress and misery, the eyes of every mortal turn to friendship; in the hours of gladness and conviviality, what is our want? It is friendship. When the heart overflows with gratitude, or with any other sweet or sacred sentiment, what is the word to which it would give utterance? A friend. ~ Walter Savage Landor,
648:So welcome 'Damsels in Distress,' an exhilarating gift of a comedy about college, the female intellect, the limitless male ego, inventing a new dance, and suicide prevention... This is the world as Stillman sees it, and to luxuriate for two hours in that retro bubble of sparkling wit is a pleasure not to be missed. ~ Peter Travers,
649:O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhup da,
650:...a great part of what unmanned me was distress at the destruction of my own body. It was odd to realise that I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing. ~ Robin Hobb,
651:It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable ~ Jane Austen,
652:Remorse, predictably, was the form taken by her distress, the merciless whipping that is self-condemnation, as if in times as bizarre as these there were a right way and a wrong way that would have been clear to somebody else, as if in confronting such predicaments the hand of stupidity is ever far from guiding anyone. ~ Philip Roth,
653:In times of economic distress, it's only natural for people - and Americans have done this for many years - to look for a scapegoat. Depending on where you live in this country, the scapegoats are either, frankly, Mexicans or Muslims. So, you know, God save you if you happened to be a Mexican Muslim in America right now. ~ Reza Aslan,
654:One whose troops repeatedly congregate in small groups here and there, whispering together, has lost the masses. One who frequently grants rewards is in deep distress. One who frequently imposes punishments is in great difficulty. One who is at first excessively brutal and then fears the masses is the pinnacle of stupidity. ~ Sun Tzu,
655:She managed a smile. “You’re kind of pushy, you know.” He shrugged. “I have a fetish for damsels in distress.” “Don’t be sexist.” “Not at all. My services are also available to gentlemen in distress. It’s an equal opportunity fetish,” he said, and, with a flourish, offered his arm again. This time, she took it. Alec ~ Cassandra Clare,
656:She was, in short, melted by his distress, as so often happens with the female sex. Poets have frequently commented on this. You are probably familiar with the one who said, "Oh, woman in our hours of ease tum tumty tiddly something please, when something something something brow, a something something something thou. ~ P G Wodehouse,
657:When any distress or terror surprises us in the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
658:You should allow yourself to indulge in this remembrance. When you face the past, all you will see is that which has gone before. So I have some advice: Let this be your turning point. Have done with it, and turn to face the future. Only then will the future rise up to meet you. Only then will the distress pass. ~ Jacqueline Winspear,
659:At the same time, the thought of Gisela suffering at Ruexner's hands sent ice water through his veins, along with a stab of guilt. If Gisela should suffer pain or distress at Ruexner's hands, it would be his fault. Ruexner had only taken her because of his hatred for Valten. " God, I must save her. I must not fail. ~ Melanie Dickerson,
660:we have a bit of self-interest in relieving the misery of others. One school of modern economic theory, following Hobbes, argues that people give to charities in part because of the pleasure they get from imagining either the relief of those they benefit or their own relief from alleviating their sympathetic distress. ~ Daniel Goleman,
661:There’s something primal, something instinctive, about being with a man like him. Like he could catch a fish if I were hungry or fix my car if I were stranded. I’m no damsel in distress, my father ensured I’d always have the tools to take care of myself, but I can’t deny how much I adore the feeling of being . . . safe. ~ Adriana Locke,
662:Would you like some advice on tactics?” “You’re going to tell me to ignore him, right?” That’s what my mother would have said: He’s only doing it because you react. Just ignore him. I knew it wouldn’t work. In my case, being poked caused me considerable distress and the poker zero. It was obvious who would crack first. ~ Graeme Simsion,
663:As regards the celebrated struggle for life, it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
664:If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world. ~ Steven Curtis Chapman,
665:National Socialist Germany wishes for peace because it recognises the simple fact that no war would be likely to substantially to ameliorate the state of distress in Europe. The distress would probably be made the greater thereby. If only the leaders and rulers had wanted peace, the people would never have wished for war. ~ Adolf Hitler,
666:Go and learn what this [Scripture] means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION [for those in distress], AND NOT [animal] SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call [to repentance] the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to change], but sinners [those who recognize their sin and actively seek forgiveness].” [Hos 6:6; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32] ~ Anonymous,
667:This is not a romance. Romances are filled with valiant men and simpering damsels in distress. Romances have heroes worthy of the title. They slay dragons and climb towers to rescue beautiful princesses they immediately marry and impregnate. Romances end with a happily ever after. This is not a romance. This is a love story. ~ C J Roberts,
668:If haunted by an emotional upheaval in your life, try writing about it or sharing the experience with others. However, if you catch yourself telling exactly the same story over and over in order to get past your distress, rethink your strategy. Try writing or talking about your trauma in a completely different way. How ~ James W Pennebaker,
669:Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been especially aggressive in pursuing regulations that specifically target coal power plants. These regulations have already put hundreds of Pennsylvanians out of work and will continue to cause economic distress while yielding negligible benefits for our environment. ~ Pat Toomey,
670:A joy it is, when the strong winds of storm
Sir up the waters of a mighty sea,
To watch from the shore the troubles of another.
No pleasure this in any man’s distress,
But joy to see the ills from which you are spared,
And joy to see great armies locked in conflict
Across the plains, yourself free from the danger ~ Lucretius,
671:How does our self-sufficiency ruin safety? Primarily by preventing us from experiencing our impoverishment. People who “have it together” are not hungry, or thirsty, for others. They do not feel a lack within when they’re alone or in distress. They do not connect with other people, because they do not experience any need for it. ~ Henry Cloud,
672:I don’t know about heaven, but I know hell exists. I’ve spent most of my life there.” He ignored her soft sound of distress. “But through all that. Through everything that’s been done to me, I’ve only ever believed in one thing.” “What’s that?” she whispered. “That the sun would set in the west, and that I would come for you. ~ Kerrigan Byrne,
673:Universal ratification of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict will establish an international moral consensus that no child should take part in hostilities or be involuntarily recruited and that former child soldiers should be assisted by their governments after a life of violence and distress. ~ Ban Ki moon,
674:Everything on this earth can be made into something better. Every defeat may be made the foundation of a future victory. Every lost war may be the cause of a later resurgence. Every visitation of distress can give a new impetus to human energy. And out of every oppression those forces can develop which bring about a new rebirth. ~ Adolf Hitler,
675:Ihave come to believe that people must not stand by in the face of human distress and broken systems. And if these two predicaments are intertwined—if human suffering is the result of others abdicating their responsibilities, or showing a lack of respect for another person—it becomes what can only be described as an injustice. ~ Howard Schultz,
676:I loved you; even now I may confess, Some embers of my love their fire retain; But do not let it cause you more distress, I do not want to sadden you again. Hopeless and tongue tied, yet I loved you dearly With pangs the jealous and the timid know; So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely, I pray God grant another love you so. ~ Alexander Pushkin,
677:Similarly, if your mental health is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly recover. If your mental health is not good, then small disturbances, small problems will cause you much pain and suffering. You will have much fear and worry, much sadness and despair, and much anger and aggravation. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
678:Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all ~ Pope John Paul II,
679:As believers, how can we fail to see that abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are a terrible rejection of God's gift of life and love? And as believers, how can we fail to feel the duty to surround the sick and those in distress with the warmth of our affection and the support that will help them always to embrace life? ~ Pope John Paul II,
680:When the front door was closed behind her, Erika walked back to her car, away from the homely warmth of Marsh’s life. She bent her head and bit her lip, determined not to cry. That life, with the cosy husband and kids, had been within her grasp. She’d even delayed it a few times, much to Mark’s distress. Now it was gone forever. ~ Robert Bryndza,
681:That you could fix me? What’s more, that I could fix you? Well, sorry pet, I don’t want to be fixed. Whatever your little school-girl brain told you about men is absurdly wrong. This isn’t a romance. You’re not a damsel in distress and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you. You ran. I went to collect my property. End of story ~ C J Roberts,
682:The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ~ Corrie ten Boom,
683:we must absolutely deepen our understanding of male development—and alter the limited paradigms we use—right away. To keep saying that “masculinity” causes violence is to specifically not study epidemiological and toxicological causation for violence, and thus, perpetuate a cycle of violence and distress into the next generation. ~ Michael Gurian,
684:E"OOKBROUGHTTOYOUBY Emma #REATEVIEWANDEDIT0$&$OWNLOADTHEFREETRIALVERSIONChapter I Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She was the ~ Anonymous,
685:No one really faces death any differently. No one is ready when it comes, not really. You can go in your sleep, I suppose, and it won’t distress you like the other kind does—in your face, obvious, looming. But if you’re awake?” He held up his hands. “I’ve never seen anyone go gracefully awake. Not if they know it’s coming, anyway. ~ Robert J Crane,
686:You must think I’m stupid Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella waiting for her prince to rescue her.” “Celine...” “You are wrong. Yes, I believe in fairy tales. But I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m Mulan. I don’t need rescuing. It’s you who needs to be rescued. And I’m going to be your knight, Dare. I’m going to save you from yourself. ~ Eve Montelibano,
687:If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice... in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress. ~ Thucydides,
688:16As for me, I call to God, and the LORD saves me. 17Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice. 18He rescues me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. 19God, who is enthroned from of old, who does not change – he will hear them and humble them, because they have no fear of God. ~ Anonymous,
689:Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment. ~ W Somerset Maugham,
690:Please,” he begs, his tears overwhelming his emotional nanites’ attempt to ease his distress. “Please give me a sign. That’s all I ask. Just a sign that you haven’t abandoned me.”

And then I realize that, although there is a law against my direct communication with an unsavory, I do not have a law against signs and wonders. ~ Neal Shusterman,
691:Princess Diana talking to Prince William about the loss of her title Her Royal Highness: She turned to William in her distress. She (Princess Diana) told me how he had sat with her one night when she was upset over the loss of HRH, put his arms around her and said: Don't worry, Mummy. I will give it back to you one day when I am king. ~ Paul Burrell,
692:While well, and happy, and properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. ~ Jane Austen,
693:It is hopeless for older people to tell younger ones – particularly their own children – that they have been through the same thing. Such information is no use at all! It bounces off one’s own grief – or jealousy or distress. If we are all born the same we are also all born unique – we all go through torments nobody else has ever had. ~ Winston Graham,
694:Unfortunately, few adults arrive at maturity without experiencing considerable distress. The degree of regression that occurs and its longevity are a function of many variables. The most significant predisposing factor is the amount of emotional deprivation and unnecessary frustration caused by inadequate or insensitive mothering. ~ Robert W Firestone,
695:A Friend [2]
A friend is one who takes your hand
And talks a speech you understand
he's partly kindness, partly mirth
And Faith unfaltering in your worths
he's first to cheer you on success,
And last to leave you in distress
A friend is constant, honest, true
In short, old pal, he's just like you.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
696:Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. ~ W H Auden,
697:The priest invents and encourages every kind of suffering and distress so that man may not have the opportunity to become scientific, which requires a considerable degree of free time, health, and an outlook of confident positivism. Thus, the religious authorities work hard to make and keep people feeling sinful, unworthy, and unhappy. ~ Robert Sheaffer,
698:It turns out, she says, that there is something that reliably reduces pain, distress and the risk of complications and interventions during labor. But it isn’t a drug, a scan or a surgical procedure. It isn’t a fancy birthing position, or even a state-of-the-art hospital wing. It’s having the same caregiver stay with you throughout a birth. ~ Jo Marchant,
699:At times of crisis or distress, it's poems that people turn to. (Poetry) still has a power to speak to people's feelings, maybe in a way that fiction, because it works in a longer way, can't. There's a little bit of your brain that mourns and grieves that you're not writing poetry, but actually as long as I'm writing something, I'm happy. ~ Blake Morrison,
700:Contrary to all we hear about women and their empty-nest problem, it may be fathers more often than mothers who are pained by thechildren's imminent or actual departure--fathers who want to hold back the clock, to keep the children in the home for just a little longer. Repeatedly women compare their own relief to their husband's distress ~ Lillian B Rubin,
701:Psychopaths can assume the burden of mental accounting without any obvious distress. That is no accident: They are psychopaths. They do not care about others and are quite happy to sever relationships whenever the need arises. Some people are monsters of egocentricity. But lying unquestionably comes at a psychological cost for the rest of us. ~ Sam Harris,
702:When children are hurt and in pain psychologically, they don't want to be in distress, so when the situation becomes intolerable, they cease to identify with themselves. When they feel the most threatened, they will choose to identify with the person who is the source of their suffering in an attempt to possess that person's strength. ~ Robert W Firestone,
703:....Angels see our tortures, recognize our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge...) and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
704:White women have been shielded from culpability all their lives and through history and have been able to move in the system of oppression without getting blame when they have been active participants in the denigration of people of color and marginalized people. They have been the Damsel in Distress even as they’ve been the source of chaos. ~ Luvvie Ajayi,
705:Sometimes, don’t you look at the world and wonder what kind of madhouse you’re living in? Have you ever felt, deep down, somewhere so hidden that you overlook it time and again, a pulse that taps out faint coded messages of distress? Don’t you hear a tiny, desperate voice pleading for salvation, for mercy, air to breathe, freedom, space to move? ~ Anonymous,
706:Nationalist Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe. The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation. Germany needs peace and desires peace! ~ Adolf Hitler,
707:A disruption of the circadian cycle—the metabolic and glandular rhythms that are central to our workaday life—seems to be involved in many, if not most, cases of depression; this is why brutal insomnia so often occurs and is most likely why each day’s pattern of distress exhibits fairly predictable alternating periods of intensity and relief. ~ William Styron,
708:Being human, we would expel from our lives physical pain and mental anguish and assure ourselves of continual ease and comfort, but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress, we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors. Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering, and self-mastery. ~ Spencer W Kimball,
709:Honest James, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from him, flew to his assistance, and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again, but, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his life to save, and who took not the least notice of him in this distress. ~ Voltaire,
710:If we live by the principles of the gospel, we must be good people, for we will be generous and kind, thoughtful and tolerant, helpful and outreaching to those in distress. We can either subdue the divine nature and hide it so that it finds no expression in our lives, or we can bring it to the front and let it shine through all that we do. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
711:Jesper swung first. Kaz dodged right and then they were grappling. They slammed into the wall, knocked heads, drew apart in a flurry of punches and grabs. Wylan turned to Inej, expecting her to object, for Matthias to separate them, for someone to do something, but the others just backed up, making room. Only Kuwei showed any kind of distress. ~ Leigh Bardugo,
712:One of the patients at Kellogg’s Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium was C. W. Post, who got the idea there for Grape Nuts, which made him rich. Among Grape Nuts’ advertised health benefits was curing appendicitis. As it happened, Post later had an apparent appendicitis attack, and when surgery didn’t end his distress, he shot and killed himself. ~ Kurt Andersen,
713:the cup from which he shrank was something different. It symbolized neither the physical pain of being flogged and crucified, nor the mental distress of being despised and rejected even by his own people, but rather the spiritual agony of bearing the sins of the world, in other words, of enduring the divine judgment which those sins deserved. ~ John R W Stott,
714:I look through the spaces between the iron steps at the colorless flow of the river down below, transporting chunks of ice like white clouds. In a distress that lasts an instant, I seem to be feeling what she feels: that every void continues in the void, every gap, even a short one opens another gap, every chasm empties into the infinite abyss. ~ Italo Calvino,
715:sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.” Tightness in the throat. ~ Joan Didion,
716:Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it. Disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed. ~ John Cage,
717:I was aware that I was taking inordinate pleasure in small, technological events and objects, and that this was probably a semiconscious tactic meant to evade confronting certain agonizing life events which were probably not resolvable and were destined to cause unrelenting pain and distress; yet the pleasure was real, and I took it greedily. ~ David Cronenberg,
718:The spectator and historian of [Belisarius's] exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war, he was daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid according to the exigencies of the moment; that in the deepest distress he was animated by real or apparent hope, but that he was modest and humble in the most prosperous fortune. ~ Edward Gibbon,
719:And nevertheless, no, I have nothing to say to them, to my parents. Nothing. Nothing and everything, as always. If I tried – out of boldness, through luck, or in distress – to share with them some of the violence that causes me to be so totally on my own, they would not know where I am, who I am, what it is, in others, that rubs me the wrong way. ~ Julia Kristeva,
720:Be careful of your friends. They can make you or break you. Be generous in helping the unfortunate and those in distress. But bind to you friends of your own kind. Friends who will encourage you. Stand with you. Live as you desire to live; who will enjoy the same kind of entertainment; and who will resist the evil that you determine to resist. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
721:Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terror; in spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty: in winter, compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailing of hunger and the cries of the creation in distress ~ Samuel Johnson,
722:have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.] —JOHN 16:33 AMP ~ Sarah Young,
723:I loved you; even now I must confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tongue-tied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I love you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so. ~ Alexander Pushkin,
724:When we believe that God hears us, it is but natural that we should be eager to hear Him. Only from Him can come the word which can speak peace to troubled spirits; the voices of men are feeble in such a case, a plaster far too narrow for the sore; but God's voice is power, He speaks and it is done, and hence when we hear Him our distress is ended. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
725:But you're a prisoner," said Thorne.
"I prefer damsel in distress," she murmured.
One side of Thorne's mouth quirked up, into that perfect half smile he'd had in his graduation photo. A look that was a little bit devious, and all sorts of charming.
Cress's heart stopped, but if they noticed her melting into her chair, they didn't say anything. ~ Marissa Meyer,
726:When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance. ~ Pema Chodron,
727:Ere thou sleepest, gently lay Every troubled thought away; Put off worry and distress As thou puttest off thy dress; Drop thy burden and thy care In the quiet arms of prayer. Lord thou knowest how I live, All I'VE DONE AMISS FORGIVE; ALL OF GOOD I'VE TRIED TO DO STRENGTHEN, bless and carry through; All I love in safety keep While in Thee I fall asleep. ~ Henry Van Dyke,
728:Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones; Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For that they will not intercept my tale: When I do weep, they humbly at my feet Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; And, were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribune like to these. ~ William Shakespeare,
729:Once we begin to flee the things that threaten and burden us, there is no end to fleeing. God's solution is surprising. He offers rest. But it's a unique form of rest. It's to rest in him in the midst of our threats and our burdens. It's discovering, as David did in seasons of distress, that God is our rock and refuge right in the thick of our situation. ~ Mark Buchanan,
730:When you resolve to become pious, the devil in your nature cries out at you, "Tread not those paths, O confused one; distress and poverty will overcome you. You will be despised, let down by friends, you will regret it." Dread of the devil has bound their souls; the cries of the devil are the drover of the damned; the call of the Lord is a guardian of the saints. ~ Rumi,
731:I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]” JOHN 16 : 3 3 (AMP) ~ Sarah Young,
732:Being a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the "London once-over" - a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling. ~ Ben Aaronovitch,
733:The odds always appeared so stacked against us and the outcomes so poor that over time I became deeply pessimistic about crash calls. I remember a registrar, seeing my distress at the end of yet another failed resuscitation, putting a comforting arm around me. “It’s not really resuscitation, you know,” he said. “It’s just a funny dance we do around the dying. ~ Kevin Fong,
734:Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat?Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending. ~ Plotinus,
735:Winning has nothing to do with topping universities or reaching the moon. Winning is building a lovable family, brooding love and emotions, knowledge and conscience, thoughts and wisdom in times of turbulence and peace, in times of exultation and melancholy, in times of distress and excitement. Winning is never flashy. Winning is a personal win-win innings! ~ Vandana Yadav,
736:Ultra god Scott Jurek summed up the Young Guns’ unofficial creed with a quote from William James he stuck on the end of every e-mail he sent: “Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.” As ~ Christopher McDougall,
737:When your weapons are dulled and ardour damped, your strength exhausted and treasure spent, neighboring rulers will take advantage of your distress to act. And even though you have wise counsellors, none will be able to lay good plans for the future. Thus, while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged. ~ Sun Tzu,
738:You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room door--"The Lord Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits. It's all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a park bench must learn a more militant creed than that. ~ Jean Webster,
739:He set his whisky tumbler on the table, but kept his fingers around it. "What do you see in my eyes?"...
"Tell me, lass," he urged softly.
She suddenly understood the term 'old soul,' because one sat before her now. And, as if opening a book, she caught a glimpse of Asher. The words then tumbled out of her mouth. "Endlessness. Sorrow. Agony. Distress. Rage. ~ Donna Grant,
740:Historians tell a story about Abraham Lincoln, that while returning to Washington from Springfield, he forced his entire party to stop to help some small birds he saw in distress. When chided by the others, he responded, quite plainly, “I could not have slept to-night if I had left those poor creatures on the ground and not restored them to their mother. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,
741:On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice, would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. ~ Ian McEwan,
742:'The long-suffering man abounds in understanding' (Prov. 14:29), because he endures everything to the end and, while awaiting that end, patiently bears his distress. The end, as St. Paul says, is everlasting life (cf. Rom. 6:22). 'And this is eternal life, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent' (Jn. 17:3). ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor,
743:The Man I Like
I like the man who stands right up
And takes his share of praise or blame,
And then, unchanged by loss or gain,
Treats all his neighbors just the same!
The man, who, if he liked you once,
Still likes you, though he's gained success;
Who plays a man's part all the time,
And blames no friend for his distress.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
744:I think we need to consider Rags was the probable victim here. Maybe you need to give us your contact information so our attorney can serve papers.” “That’s absurd!” The man shook his head. “What grounds do you have for suing us?” “Rape. Emotional distress and trauma. Rags recently lost his owners. The last thing he needed was a swollen vulva shoved into his snout. ~ Jewel E Ann,
745:Before the Prince can save the damsel in distress, he has to slay the dragons that surround her castle. So do we all. Those dragons are our demons, our wounds, our egos, our brilliant ways of denying love to ourselves and others. The ego’s patterns have to be rooted out, detoxed from our system, before the pure love within us can have a chance to come forth. ~ Marianne Williamson,
746:But it seemed to him that there should be a difference in his attitude. All the distress that he had ever known, the sorrow and the pain, had been because of women. It was something that in different ways they did to him, unconsciously, almost casually—perhaps finding him tender-minded and afraid, they killed the things in him that menaced their absolute sway. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,
747:Elephant altruism on the Kenyan plains. With her tusks, Grace (right) lifted the fallen three-ton Eleanor to her feet, then tried to get her to walk by pushing her. But Eleanor fell again and eventually died, leaving Grace vocalizing with streaming temporal glands—a sign of deep distress. Being matriarchs of different herds, these two elephants were likely unrelated. ~ Frans de Waal,
748:They had no idea what it was like to live in a place that boasted one of the most sophisticated digital policing systems in the world, but no proper mail service. Emirates with princes in silver-plated cars and districts with no running water. An Internet where every blog, every chat room, every forum is monitored for illegal expressions of distress and discontent. ~ G Willow Wilson,
749:A teacher of meditation once told the story of a man who wanted nothing to do with the stress of life, so he retreated to a cave to meditate day and night for the rest of his life. But soon he came out again, driven to overwhelming distress by the sound of the dripping of water in his cave. The moral is that, at least to some extent, the stresses will always be there, ~ Elaine N Aron,
750:After the Titanic hit the iceberg at 11:40 P.M., the ship’s radio operator sent out an SOS. An SOS is the international distress signal in Morse code. Unfortunately, the only ship near the Titanic had turned off its radio for the night. All the other ships who received the message were too far away to help. When the Titanic sank around 2:20 A.M., she was all alone. ~ Mary Pope Osborne,
751:What a glorious season is this time of Christmas. Hearts are softened. Voices are raised in worship. Kindness and mercy are reenthroned as elements in our lives. There is an accelerated reaching out to those in distress. There is an aura of peace that comes into our homes. There is a measure of love that is not felt to the same extent at any other time of the year. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
752:Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it that is great, that belongs to greatness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
753:Because I am your constant Companion, there should be a lightness to your step that is observable to others. Do not be weighed down with problems and unresolved issues, for I am your burden-bearer. In the world you have trials and distress, but don’t let them get you down. I have conquered the world and deprived it of power to harm you. In Me you may have confident Peace. ~ Sarah Young,
754:But when we borrow trouble, and look forward into the future to see what storms are coming, and distress ourselves before they come as to how we shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our proper trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves with imaginary dangers, or trials, or reverses, we have already parted with that perfect love which casteth out fear. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
755:It’s all right if this part of your journey is not pleasant. Part of your repatterning is learning to be with unpleasantness in a healthy way. The mature and sober person knows that on some days things simply feel rotten, and that is okay. You are learning to move through distress by simply being with it, without the need to overeat or to act out in any other way. ~ Marianne Williamson,
756:But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa­tions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them. ~ Samuel Johnson,
757:Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
758:I grew up in the town that received the first distress signal saying the Titanic was going down. It was the only thing we were ever renowned for. In fact, we prided ourselves on our failure to save the sinking, which is maybe part of the reason I prided myself on drinking my first fifth of whiskey at twelve years old. It's cold where I come from. I learned to drown young. ~ Andrea Gibson,
759:On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal. ~ Jeffrey R Holland,
760:Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. ~ Charles Lamb,
761:And woe betide the person with the 'double abnormality' of a false self and 'a fine intellect' that they find they can use to escape their pain.

'The world may observe academic success of a high degree, and may find it hard to believe in the very real distress of the individual concerned, who feels 'phoney' the more he or she is successful. [as quoted by Winnicott] ~ Alison Bechdel,
762:But we are curious about the result, just as we are curious about the way a book turns out. We do not want to know anything about the anxiety, the distress, the paradox. We carry on an esthetic flirtation with the result. It arrives just as unexpectedly but also just as effortlessly as a prize in a lottery, and when we have heard the result, we have built ourselves up. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
763:I can’t do it,” he rasped, hissing out a great heaving breath from his lungs. “You were right. I can’t shut it off. I can’t stop loving you.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Cupping both my palms around his face, I wiped more tears off his cheeks with my thumbs.
He sobbed out his distress as he leaned down onto me fully and pressed his forehead to mine. “I missed you so much. ~ Linda Kage,
764:Some other memories of the funeral have stuck in my mind. The old boy’s face, for instance, when he caught up with us for the last time, just outside the village. His eyes were streaming with tears, of exhaustion or distress, or both together. But because of the wrinkles they couldn’t flow down. They spread out, crisscrossed, and formed a smooth gloss on the old, worn face. ~ Albert Camus,
765:Spiritual character is only made by standing loyal to God's character, no matter what distress the trial of faith brings. The distress and agony the prophets experienced was the agony of believing God when everything that was happening contradicted what they proclaimed Him to be; there was nothing to prove that God was just and true, but everything to prove the opposite. ~ Oswald Chambers,
766:The third point is that some of our efforts to treat psychopaths may be misplaced. The term treatment implies that there is something to treat: illness, subjective distress, maladaprive behaviors, and so forth. But, as far as we can determine, psychopaths are perfectly happy with themselves, and they see no need for treatment, at least in the traditional sense of the term. ~ Robert D Hare,
767:Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;
Who, though they cannot answer my distress,
Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,
For that they will not intercept my tale:
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears and seem to weep with me;
And, were they but attired in grave weeds,
Rome could afford no tribune like to these. ~ William Shakespeare,
768:You press your internal mute button, power off your schemas, and take a full, unexasperated breath. If appropriate, you masterfully hold the narcissist accountable, or you move on. Where, formerly, your “noisy” mind would have had you feeling flustered, furious, full of self-doubt, or helpless, your distress now slides away like a fluffy omelet departs a well-prepared pan. ~ Wendy T Behary,
769:Blanket compassion will shift the distribution decisively towards the manipulative end of the spectrum, and may paradoxically decrease the compassion with which the genuinely despairing are treated: for they are apt to get lost in the great mass of pseudo-distress and manipulation, and often their conduct draws less attention precisely because it is less attention-seeking. ~ Anthony Daniels,
770:What is addiction really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood. The drug business would not nourish if there were not so many people who, in refusing to acknowledge their wounds, are in a permanent state of self-betrayal. Thus, people work to get rid of symptoms instead of searching out the cause. ~ Alice Miller,
771:Everyone take his revenge on the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish enclosed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone. If I see someone suffer I give him my sympathy, console him as best I can, and listen to him calmly when he assures me that I am fortunate. If only I can keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
772:Language used truly, not mere talk, neither propaganda, nor chatter, has real power. Its words are allowed to be themselves, to bless or curse, wound or heal. They have the power of a 'word made flesh,' of ordinary speech that suddenly takes hold, causing listeners to pay close attention, and even to release bodily sighs--whether of recognition, delight, grief, or distress. ~ Kathleen Norris,
773:Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise. ~ W H Auden,
774:From doing to listening

in the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts. . . . The promise of Jesus is to help us discover that the poor are a source of life and not just objects of our charity. ~ Jean Vanier,
775:I’ve spied on his emails that he writes back and forth with Tyler each day, but I can’t connect that Torin with the Torin I know. My Torin doesn’t like to make eye contact. My Torin is abrupt. My Torin makes sounds of distress when the movies get too loud. My Torin behaves erratically and doesn’t seem to give me the time of day aside from the trails of pennies he leaves everywhere. ~ K Webster,
776:Maybe we're brokenhearted, but why isn't it rational to have a broken heart? It is utter shit out there, the things you can't control. The world is full of wrongs, and mess and distress and horror. Who can really be blamed for wanting to dig their way down and live in a hole, or disappear into a cave and never be around humans again? If all people do is hurt each other? ~ Maria Dahvana Headley,
777:Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done--now I'm stressing."
"You can't! You're the stable one!"
Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest.
"Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy."
"Okay."
"That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor. ~ Alexandra Adornetto,
778:When coming up with Wonder Woman cover designs, sometimes people will pitch ideas to me, either the writer or the editor. And it's interesting, because I know they're not trying to, but they end up pitching things that end up feeling like damsel-in-distress covers, where the tension comes from her needing to be rescued somehow. And it's something I immediately push back against. ~ Cliff Chiang,
779:Elaine turned to her father in her distress. ‘Father will you give me permission to ride after Sir Lancelot? I must reach him. Otherwise I will go out of my mind with grief.’
‘Go, good daughter. Rescue him, if you can.’
So she made herself ready for the journey, weeping all the time. Gawain himself rode back to the court of the king in London”
–The Fair Maid of Astolat ~ Peter Ackroyd,
780:Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress. "Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say. "It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks. "Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say. "Not if I keep looking at you," he says. ~ Suzanne Collins,
781:So many substances in woodland pharmacies that no one has yet identified. Powerful molecules in bark, pith, and leaves whose effects have yet to be discovered. One family of distress hormones used by her trees—jasmonate—supplies the punch to all those feminine perfumes that play on mystery and intrigue. Sniff me, love me, I’m in trouble. And they are in trouble, all these trees. ~ Richard Powers,
782:"The pattern established at the outset has remained to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly." According to Las Casas, atrocities continued unabated in the Americas, even half a century after the discovery. ~ Bartolome de las Casas,
783:If a person's basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering from depression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring. ~ Dalai Lama,
784:First, it must be a pleasure to study the human body the most miraculous masterpiece of nature and to learn about the smallest vessel and the smallest fiber. But second and most important, the medical profession gives the opportunity to alleviate the troubles of the body, to ease the pain, to console a person who is in distress, and to lighten the hour of death of many a sufferer. ~ Rudolf Virchow,
785:It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight's sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds. ~ Miguel de Cervantes,
786:Because I have called and you refused, 24 I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, 25 And would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; 26 I will mock when your terror comes, When your terror comes like a storm, 27 And your destruction comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you. Proverbs 1:23-27 ~ Joseph Campbell,
787:9 Rescue me from my enemies, LORD;       I run to you to hide me. 10 Teach me to do your will,       for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward       on a firm footing. 11 For the glory of your name, O LORD, preserve my life.       Because of your faithfulness, bring me out of this distress. 12 In your unfailing love, silence all my enemies       and destroy all my foes, ~ Anonymous,
788:And did the distress I was feeling derive from some internal sickness of the soul, or was it imposed on me by the sickness of society? That someone besides me had suffered from these ambiguities and had seen light on their far side... that I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf—felt akin to an instance of religious grace. ~ Jonathan Franzen,
789:Suzanne’s perennial response to her husband’s distress was to restore order so he could find peace again, or at least launch himself forward, always forward. Now she resisted the impulse to smooth his path so he could move through this difficult terrain. Her path mattered, too. She didn’t know what it looked like or where to find it, but nevertheless, at this moment, hers mattered more. ~ Sonja Yoerg,
790:If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity … you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. —Arthur Schopenhauer ~ Robert Greene,
791:In one way or other I was going to have to confront every one of the things I had deemed worth keeping--or, at least, not worth the distress of deciding about--and reevaluate it. Over and over again. Although I have yet to figure out what drives my compulsion to save, I know this much: it is the thought of making a bad decision, one that I will some day regret, that keeps me up at night. ~ Eve O Schaub,
792:The distress and discord that permeate the lives of millions are clear messages meant to tell us something. Just as a searing physical pain says something is wrong, so, too, does the psychic pain that floats through the world. Whatever form it takes, it is a sign that people have forgotten what is real and what is not, what is pretend and what is not, who they are and who they are not. ~ Patricia Evans,
793:The families of the missing are doubly burdened: first by the pain of their ordeal, and then by our expectations of them, expectations of a standard of behavior higher than we require of ourselves. As humans, we seek naturally to help fellow creatures in distress. But most of us, whether we are conscious of it or not, expect something back—the flattery of helplessness and of need. ~ Richard Lloyd Parry,
794:I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received. ~ Samuel Johnson,
795:Married women are far more depressed than married men - in unhappy marriages, three times more; and - interestingly - in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in marriage, now as always, and who show symptoms of psychological and physical distress outside it. Not only their emotional well-being but their very lives, some studies say, depend on being married! ~ Dalma Heyn,
796:Disease and distress need to be healed. Yet over a lifetime, the key to well-being is a person's coping skills. With poor coping skills, you become prey to every accident, setback, or disaster. with strong coping skills, you become resilient in the face of misfortune, and resilience has been shown repeatedly to be present in people who survive to great old age with a sense of fulfillment. ~ Deepak Chopra,
797:Especially in entertainment geared toward young people, the women are much stronger than they used to be. There's not really the damsel in distress anymore. I think the stereotype still possibly lives in different genre pictures but, in entertainment for the younger generation, they're used to women being equal and being strong. I think if you don't portray that, it would be kind of weird. ~ Jessica Alba,
798:It was that she hadn't asked for a person whom she trusted, whom she would do so much for, whom she would give herself over to. She hadn't asked for a person whose absence, if she woke in the middle of the night, would distress her- not because of the protection he would then fail to give, but simply because she wished his company. She hadn't asked for a person whose company she wished. ~ Kristin Cashore,
799:Mosca said nothing. The word ‘damsel’ rankled with her. She suddenly thought of the clawed girl from the night before, jumping the filch on an icy street. Much the same age and build as Beamabeth, and far more beleaguered. What made a girl a ‘damsel in distress’? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time ‘in distress’. ~ Frances Hardinge,
800:Genuine faith is not some weapon that shields us from the storms of life while pronouncing judgement upon others, but neither is it wholly self-destructive. Rather, it is a weapon that both shields and lacerates the one who wields it, offering comfort to the distressed and distress to the comforted. To advocate this kingdom of love, mercy and truth involves self-sacrifice and self-critique. ~ Peter Rollins,
801:If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity . . . you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. —Arthur Schopenhauer ~ Robert Greene,
802:Married women are far more depressed than married men -- in unhappy marriages, three times more; and -- interestingly -- in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in marriage, now as always, and who show symptoms of psychological and physical distress outside it. Not only their emotional well-being but their very lives, some studies say, depend on being married! ~ Dalma Heyn,
803:The mighty sturgeon has his pool; The stork upon the dam makes his habitation. Fish in scaly armour, Birds in serried plumes, find protection. In my distress I question that inscrutable expanse: O bowels of earth! O boundless sky! Will ye not hearken to my cry? Above, the twinkling Milky Way; The air cold, Slanting moonlight, The water-clock sunk past midnight. My restless heart grieves still; ~ Cao Xueqin,
804:If contemplation of other people's pain just increases distress, then I think we should see it in another way. If we don't center too much on ourselves, then [we] increase our courage and our determination to remedy the pain, not our distress. If we have unconditional compassion, then it increases our courage. So that's the difference, self-centered motivation versus altruistic motivation. ~ Matthieu Ricard,
805:Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress.
"Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.
"It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.
"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say.
"Not if I keep looking at you," he says. ~ Suzanne Collins,
806:As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me. The world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work! ~ Noam Chomsky,
807:Christian mothers, if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you should be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm done the little ones whom heaven entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture. ~ Pope Pius XII,
808:A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather , to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
809:Guinevere has been done quite a few times, especially as a mature young woman, who either is the damsel in distress or the warrior, strong-willed woman. Chris wanted a variety of things in this Guinevere. He predominately wanted her to be real and natural, and make mistakes and be passionate, and be the feisty young girl, but then also completely naive, innocent and ignorant, at the same time. ~ Tamsin Egerton,
810:He stood there a moment longer, fantasizing once again of rescuing Lori Love. She’d turned out to be a damsel in distress after all, but not the innocent, helpless kind. No, she was a damsel of a different sort. The brave kind who fought and lied and stole and did really dirty things with the knight in shining armor. Just before she sent him on his way with a pat on the back. And that was that. ~ Victoria Dahl,
811:if you’re like most other humans on the planet, you’ve already spent a lot of time and effort trying to have ‘good’ feelings instead of ‘bad’ ones—and you’ve probably found that as long as you’re not too distressed, you can, to some degree, pull it off. But you’ve probably also discovered that as your level of distress increases, your ability to control your feelings progressively lessens. Sadly, ~ Russ Harris,
812:The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you're having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I'm fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I'm not falling apart. I'm just lazy. Why it's better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I'm not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital. ~ Tara Westover,
813:The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I’m fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I’m not falling apart. I’m just lazy. Why it’s better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I’m not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital. ~ Tara Westover,
814:the harmful strategies used to avoid and escape those uncomfortable sensations vary depending on the content of the deceptive brain messages and the patterns you have developed to attempt to deal with distress. The range of possible responses is endless and includes feeding an addiction, getting into an argument, avoiding a situation, shutting out the world, or endlessly checking something. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz,
815:We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls.... We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people. ~ Adolf Hitler,
816:Our Savior was a suffering Savior. He went before us into the uncharted land of agony and death. He went where no man is called to go. His Father gave Him a cup to drink that will never touch our lips. God will not ask us to endure anything comparable to the distress Christ took on Himself. 'Wherever God calls us to go, whatever He summons us to endure, will fall far short of what Jesus experienced. ~ R C Sproul,
817:But then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word, - or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle with 'Ran away from the subscriber' under it. The magic of the real presence of distress, -- the imploring human eye, frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony, -- these he had never tried. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
818:It must be extremely unsettling for you not having any memory of the past," Anna said with a soft note of curiosity in her voice.
"Frightening is a better word." Victoria's expression grew somber as she bit her lip in a display of distress. Suddenly her face lightened and a smile curved her lips. "Although I think my reputation for having a very unpleasant personality is much more intimidating. ~ Monica Burns,
819:The mighty sturgeon has his pool; The stork upon the dam makes his habitation. Fish in scaly armour, Birds in serried plumes, find protection. In my distress I question that inscrutable expanse: O bowels of earth! O boundless sky! Will ye not hearken to my cry?

Above, the twinkling Milky Way; The air cold, Slanting moonlight, The water-clock sunk past midnight. My restless heart grieves still; ~ Cao Xueqin,
820:For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun's bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?" his answer. ~ Max Beerbohm,
821:if they had had another neighbor who was less chimerical and more attentive, any ordinary and charitable man, evidently their indigence would have been noticed, their signals of distress would have been perceived, and they would have been taken hold of and rescued! They appeared very corrupt and very depraved, no doubt, very vile, very odious even; but those who fall without becoming degraded are rare; ~ Victor Hugo,
822:When I engaged in meditation on altruistic love and compassion, Tania noted that the cerebral networks activated were very different. In particular, the network linked to negative emotions and distress was not activated during meditation on compassion, while certain cerebral areas traditionally associated with positive emotions, with the feeling of affiliation and maternal love, for instance, were. ~ Matthieu Ricard,
823:The only real, true, permanent way to destroy your mind control is to work through the memories. It's unfortunate because it's unpleasant. It hurts to work through your memories; they have pain. Memories are not just made up of ideas, and thoughts and storylines, they are also made up of physical pain and emotional pain and sadness and distress and despair and all of those things are part of memories. ~ Alison Miller,
824:When you’re going through a breakdown, a good question to ask is what is actually breaking down. We usually think it’s our self. But what’s typically happening is that our struggle to deny our emotional truth is breaking down. Emotional distress is a signal that it’s getting harder to remain emotionally unconscious. It means we’re about to discover our true selves underneath all that story business. ~ Lindsay C Gibson,
825:When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, there may that country boast its Constitution and its Government ~ Thomas Paine,
826:A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development. Logotherapy ~ Viktor E Frankl,
827:As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise... The destiny of man, of all men and of each man, is that he is condemned to invent what he will be - condemned if he is fearful but blessed if he welcomes the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress. ~ Paul Kurtz,
828:If one fourth of the capital of a country were suddenly destroyed, or entirely transferred to a different part of the world, without any other cause occurring of a diminished demand for commodities, this scantiness of capital would certainly occasion great inconvenience to consumers, and great distress among the working classes; but it would be attended with great advantages to the remaining capitalists. ~ Thomas Malthus,
829:And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt,
830:It is generally allowed, that no man ever found the happiness of possession proportionate to that expectation which incited his desire, and invigorated his pursuit; nor has any man found the evils of life so formidable in reality, as they were described to him by his own imagination; every species of distress brings with it some peculiar supports, some unforeseen means of resisting, or powers of enduring. ~ Samuel Johnson,
831:Reckon then that to acquire soul-winning power, you will have to go through mental torment and soul distress. You must go into the fire if you are going to pull others out of it, and you will have to dive into the floods if you are going to draw others out of the water. You cannot work a fire escape without feeling the scorch of the conflagration, nor man a lifeboat without being covered with the waves. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
832:The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion. ~ Gorgias,
833:There is a subtle danger that leads people away from religion, prevents them from submitting to God as their Lord, and ultimately, brings numerous other forms of trouble and distress upon them. This danger is ROMANTICISM, which leads people to live, not according to their reason, but according to their emotions; that is, according to their desires, hatreds, their susceptibility to temptations and their whims. ~ Harun Yahya,
834:Our cruellest adversaries are not those who contradict and try to convince us, but those who exaggerate or invent things that are liable to distress us, taking care not to present them in a justifiable light, which would diminish our distress and perhaps lead us to entertain some slight respect for an attitude they are anxious to display to us, to complete our torment, as being both hideous and unassailable. ~ Marcel Proust,
835:Unrequited love is not fatal, it's just a temporary digestive disorder that leaves no visible marks, only a newly acquired but permanent inability to ever eat certain specific, unnecessary things again without having terrible digestive distress. Shrimp gives me gas, so I don't eat shrimp. I don't sit up nights crying about shrimp, right? All right then. Have two aspirin and a full glass of water, remember? ~ Arthur Phillips,
836:In her book The Places That Scare You, Chödrön writes, “When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience the fear of our pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance. ~ Bren Brown,
837:It will comfort us when we must wait in distress for the Savior's promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us. The Book of Mormon gives us the certain assurance of His power to comfort. And faith in that power will give us patience as we pray and work and wait for help. He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience. ~ Henry B Eyring,
838:The physical distress was over, but something else still remained, some sort of free-floating disquiet, at first hard to comprehend, but which he came quickly to understand for what it was: the splendor of the tunnels had kindled in him at first a sense of admiration verging on awe, but that had gone moving swiftly onward through his soul to become a crushing, devastating sensation of personal inadequacy. ~ Robert Silverberg,
839:You had to see Catherine six years ago, when they first met. A little too thin, hollow-eyed, in a threadbare dress. She was not only beautiful, she was tragic, a regular damsel in distress. She told Jimmy he was the only chance at happiness she'd ever had, and Jimmy ate it up, hook, line and sinker. In a matter of months they were engaged, then married. Catherine Gagnon came, she saw, and she conquered. ~ Lisa Gardner,
840:Faith's way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities. Like Gideon's men, she does not fret over the broken pitcher, but rejoices that the lamp blazes forth the more. Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honor, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
841:Oh, upon my word and honour,” cried Mr. Toots, whose tender heart was moved by the Captain’s unexpected distress, “this is a most wretched sort of affair this world is! Somebody’s always dying, or going and doing something uncomfortable in it. I’m sure I never should have looked forward so much, to coming into my property, if I had known this. I never saw such a world. It’s a great deal worse than Blimber’s. ~ Charles Dickens,
842:You can't just pick up a gun and become a gunfighter, or go off and explore for a new world, or pull a sword out of a stone, or rescue a damsel in distress, or-- so we play games and we read books because the world isn't the world we thought we were supposed to get, the world we thought we'd been promised by somebody. Because things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. So we go someplace else. ~ J Michael Straczynski,
843:But nothing delights the mind so much as fond and loyal friendship. What a blessing it is to have hearts that are ready and willing to receive all your secretes in safety, with whom you are less afraid to share knowledge of something than keep it to yourself, whose conversation soothes your distress, whose advice helps you make up your mind, whose cheerfulness dissolves your sorrow, whose very appearance cheers you up! ~ Seneca,
844:If I hope in anything or anyone less than One who has power over suffering and, ultimately, death, I am doomed to final disappointment. Suffering will drive me to hopelessness. What character I have will disintegrate.
It is the hope of Christ that makes it possible for us to persevere in times of tribulation and distress. We have an anchor for our souls that rests in the One who has gone before us and conquered. ~ R C Sproul,
845:Physical symptoms such as muscle tension, back problems, stomach distress, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, obesity or maybe even hypertension can be caused by suppressing your emotions. Suppressed anger may also cause you to overreact to people and situations or to act inappropriately. Unexpressed anger can cause you to become irritable, irrational, and prone to emotional outbursts and episodes of depression. ~ Beverly Engel,
846:The book the man is reading is the Word of God, the Bible. It has become both the focus of and the reason for his current state of perplexity and distress. The heavy burden on his back is his awakened knowledge and sense of his own sin. The man discovers the frightful condition of his heart, which provokes genuine and constant fears of damnation. These fears are an ever-present weight upon his entire person.
4. ~ John Bunyan,
847:I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
848:Even the best-conducted women [...] have an aversion for the impotent,” [...] so one should conceal one’s wounds and hide the crippling deficiencies of life – poverty, misfortune, sickness, ill-success. People begin by being touched and moved to tenderness by their friends’ distress; presently this changes to pity, which has something humiliating about it; then to a masterful giving of advice; and then to scorn. ~ Patrick O Brian,
849:The merciful man is as a harbour to those who are in need; and the harbour receives all who are escaping shipwreck, and frees them from danger, whether they be evil or good; whatsoever kind of men they be that are in peril, it receives them into its shelter. You also, when you see a man suffering shipwreck on land through poverty, do not sit in judgment on him, nor require explanations, but relieve his distress. ~ John Chrysostom,
850:THE REMINDER I While I watch the Christmas blaze
Paint the room with ruddy rays,
Something makes my vision glide
To the frosty scene outside. There, to reach a rotting berry,
Toils a thrush, — constrained to very
Dregs of food by sharp distress,
Taking such with thankfulness. Why, O starving bird, when I
One day’s joy would justify,
And put misery out of view,
Do you make me notice you! ~ Charles Dickens,
851:We face so many challenges in life: poverty, distress, humiliation, the struggle for justice, persecutions, the difficulty of daily conversion, the effort to remain faithful to our call to holiness, and many others. But if we open the door to Jesus and allow him to be part of our lives, if we share our joys and sorrows with him, then we will experience the peace and joy that only God, who is infinite love, can give. ~ Pope Francis,
852:29But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. 31For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath. ~ Anonymous,
853:But besides that, however painful the mother’s fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the distress at seeing signs of bad inclinations in her children, the children themselves repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
854:The comprehensive organization of the church, with its solid roots and the manifold forms of charitable help to the many who were poor and in distress; • Christian monotheism, which commended itself as the progressive and enlightened position in the face of polytheism, with its wealth of myths; • The lofty ethic, which, tested by ascetics and martyrs to the point of death, showed itself to be superior to pagan morality; ~ Hans K ng,
855:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
856:Want to talk third-wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn’t an act of personal empowerment. It’s you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what’s best for yourself. A damsel too dumb to even know she’s in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
857:Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or 'too bad' if we don't use the gifts that we've been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don't use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighted down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. ~ Brene Brown,
858:Him an’ me’s friends,” she said. “Well?” She did not speak for a time. “Garrick an’ me’s done everything together. I couldn’t leave ’im to starve.” “Well?” “I couldn’t, mister. I couldn’t—” In distress she began to slip off the mare. He suddenly found that the thing he had set out to prove had proved something quite different. Human nature had outmaneuvered him. For if she would not desert a friend, neither could he. ~ Winston Graham,
859:If we cease looking, searching, what are we left with? We’re left with what’s been right there at the center all the time. Underneath all that searching there is distress. There is unease. The minute that we realize that, we see that the point isn’t the search, but rather the distress and unease which motivate the search. That’s the magic moment—when we realize that searching outside of ourselves is not the way. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck,
860:Nadya, who had spotted the three of them, was waving her arms frantically over her head, signaling her distress. In case this wasn’t enough, she shouted, “Over here! Next to the naked lady!” “A cake’s a cake, whether or not it’s been frosted,” said the stranger primly. “You are not a cake, you are a human being, and I can see your vagina,” snapped Nadya. The stranger shrugged. “It’s a nice one. I’m not ashamed of it. ~ Seanan McGuire,
861:When it shall be said in any country in the world, ‘My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness—when these things can be said,” wrote Paine, “then may that country boast of its constitution and its government. ~ Chris Hedges,
862:The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. ~ Thomas Paine,
863:The Mill on the Floss was first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood and Sons of Edinburgh and London, while the first American edition was published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co, of New York. The work is considered to be Eliot’s most autobiographical novel and her long time partner George Lewes reported that the process of writing the conclusion to such a personal tale caused her great emotional distress. ~ George Eliot,
864:Want to talk third wave feminism, you could cite Ariel Levy and the idea that women have internalized male oppression. Going to spring break at Fort Lauderdale, getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself.
A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
865:Yet hypotaxis (along with reason) has been declining for a century or more. Gone are those heady and incomprehensible sentences of Johnson, Dickens, and Austen, replaced with the cruel, brutalist parataxes of writers whose aim is to agitate and distress. The long sentence is now a ridiculed rarity, usually hidden away in the Terms and Conditions, its commas and colons, clauses and caveats languishing unread and unloved. ~ Mark Forsyth,
866:The merciful man is as a harbour to those who are in need; and the harbour receives all who are escaping shipwreck, and frees them from danger, whether they be evil or good; whatsoever kind of men they be that are in peril, it receives them into its shelter. You also, when you see a man suffering shipwreck on land through poverty, do not sit in judgment on him, nor require explanations, but relieve his distress. ~ Saint John Chrysostom,
867:When Berkshire Hathaway laid out three billion dollars for GE today, we didn't spend it, we invested it. When the Federal government buys the mortgages, they're not spending it, they're investing it. Now, they're investing it in distress type assets but they're buying them at distress prices if they buy them at market. It's the kind of stuff I love to do. I just don't have 700 million. Maybe we could go in it together. ~ Warren Buffett,
868:We do, then, most solemnly before God and the world declare that regardless of every consequence, at the risk of every distress, the arms we have been compelled to assume we will use with perseverance, exerting to their utmost energies all those powers which our Creator hath given us to preserve that liberty which he committed to us in sacred deposit and to protect from every hostile hand our lives and our properties. ~ Thomas Jefferson,
869:Of the seven days God gave to us in a week, He said to take six, and use them for our business. Yet we think that we must have the seventh as well. It is like someone who, while traveling, comes upon a poor man in distress. Having but seven shillings, the generous person gives the poor man six, but when the wretch scrambles to his feet, he follows his benefactor to knock him down and steal the seventh shilling from him. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
870:People who are burdened by acute misgivings about their coping capabilities suffer much distress and expend much effort in defensive action... they cannot get themselves to do things they find subjectively threatening even though they are objectively safe. They may even shun easily manageable activities because they see them as leading to more threatening events over which they will be unable to exercise adequate control. ~ Albert Bandura,
871:One can delineate the domain of philosophy however one likes, but in its search for truth, philosophy is always concerned with human existence. Authentic philosophizing refuses to remain at the stage of knowledge […]. Care for human existence and its truth makes philosophy a 'practical science' in the deepest sense, and it also leads philosophy—and this is the crucial point—into the concrete distress of human existence. ~ Herbert Marcuse,
872:29But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. ~ Anonymous,
873:In consequence of this perversion of the word Being, philosophers looking about for something to supply its place, laid their hands upon the word Entity, a piece of barbarous Latin, invented by the schoolmen to be used as an abstract name, in which class its grammatical form would seem to place it: but being seized by logicians in distress to stop a leak in their terminology, it has ever since been used as a concrete name. ~ John Stuart Mill,
874:Every woman has known the torment of getting up to speak. Her heart racing, at times entirely lost for words, ground and language slipping away - that's how daring a feat, how great a transgression it is for a woman to speak - even just open her mouth - in public. A double distress, for even if she transgresses, her words fall almost always upon the deaf male ear, which hears in language only that which speaks in the masculine. ~ H l ne Cixous,
875:Can barely look in the mirror. I've been way too uncomfortable to try and shave and I've grown a thin, scraggy ginger beard which looks redder and thicker than it is, cause of the spots on my face. The yellowheads are repulsive enough, but it's two big boil-like fuckers on my cheek and forehead that cause the distress. They throb under the surface of my skin like a Peter Hook bassline, hurting my face every time I try to move it. ~ Irvine Welsh,
876:I emerge from my three-week-long ECT treatment to discover that I am not only this Princess Leia creature but also several-sized dolls, various T-shirts and posters, some cleansing items, and a bunch of other merchandise. It turns out I was even a kind of pin-up—a fantasy that geeky teenage boys across the globe jerked off to me with some frequency. How’s that for a newborn-how-do-you-do damsel in very little cinematic distress? ~ Carrie Fisher,
877:Their bodies will be raised from the dead as vessels for the soul-vessels of wrath. The soul will breathe hell-fire, and smoke and coal will seem to hang upon its burning lips, yea the face, eyes, and ears will seem to be chimneys and vents for the flame, and the smoke of the burning , which God, by His breath, hath kindled therein, and upon, them, which will be held one in another, to the great torment and distress of each other. ~ John Bunyan,
878:But in the end one also has to understand that the needs that religion has satisfied and philosophy is now supposed to satisfy are not immutable; they can be weakened and exterminated. Consider, for example, that Christian distress of mind that comes from sighing over ones inner depravity and care for ones salvation - all concepts originating in nothing but errors of reason and deserving, not satisfaction, but obliteration. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
879:Fixating on the outcome or needing to know all the details of an upcoming event, such as a trip, causes people to be upset when things don't go their way, overly focused on the future, and unable to bounce back easily. Inflexible people are susceptible to anger, distress, and depression. Surrendered people go with the flow, shrug it off when an unplanned situation happens, and tend to be happier, more lighthearted, and resilient. ~ Judith Orloff,
880:Of the seven days God gave to us in a week, He said to take six, and use them for our business. Yet we think that we must have the seventh as well. It is like someone who, while traveling, comes upon a poor man in distress. Having but seven shillings, the generous person gives the poor man six, but when the wretch scrambles to his feet, he follows his benefactor to knock him down and steal the seventh shilling from him. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
881:Action is being truly observant of your own thoughts, good or bad,
looking into the true nature of whatever thoughts may arise, neither
tracing the past nor inviting the future, neither allowing any
clinging to experiences of joy, nor being overcome by sad situations.
In so doing, you try to reach and remain in the state of great equilibrium, where all good and bad, peace and distress, are
devoid of true identity. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche,
882:Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal. 'For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we should not be condemned with the world.' (1 Cor. 11:31-32). ~ Gregory of Nazianzus,
883:Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal. ‘For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we should not be condemned with the world.’ (1 Cor. 11:31-32). ~ Gregory of Nazianzus,
884:I just could not stand the idea of eating meat - I really do think that it has made me calmer.... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us cannot really be right, and if you have seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it cannot understand why its calf isn't by, it can make you think a lot. ~ Kate Bush,
885:Enter upon your inheritance, accept your responsibilities...Don’t take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations. ~ Winston S Churchill,
886:The old men used to say that we should each of us look upon our neighbor's experiences as if they were our own. We should suffer with our neighbor in everything and weep with him, and should behave as if we were inside his body; and if any trouble befalls him, we should feel as much distress as we would for ourselves”21 (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers). All this is true, precisely because man is made in the image of God the Trinity. ~ Kallistos Ware,
887:IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE: (1) HAVE WE NOT opened up thy heart,5247 (2) and lifted from thee the burden (3) that had weighed so heavily on thy back?5248 (4) And [have We not] raised thee high in dignity?5249 (5) And, behold, with every hardship comes ease: (6) verily, with every hardship comes ease! (7) Hence, when thou art freed [from distress], remain steadfast, (8) and unto thy Sustainer turn with love. ~ Anonymous,
888:Today, we know that AIDS and cancer involve a drastic collapse of the body's immune system, and that this physical "resignation" precedes the sick person's loss of hope. Incredibly, hardly anyone has taken the step that these discoveries suggests: that we can regain our hope, if our distress signals are finally heard. If our repressed, hidden story is at last perceived with full consciousness, even our immune system can regenerate itself. ~ Alice Miller,
889:Shu required that “all day and every day” we looked into our own hearts, discovered what caused us pain, and then refrained, under all circumstances, from inflicting that distress upon other people. It demanded that people no longer put themselves into a special, separate category but constantly related their own experience to that of others. Confucius was the first to promulgate the Golden Rule. For Confucius it had transcendent value. ~ Karen Armstrong,
890:Your emotions are your inner guidance system. They alone will let you know whether you are living in an environment of biochemical health or in an environment of biochemical distress. Understanding how your thoughts and your emotions affect every single hormone and cell in your body, and knowing how to change them in a way that is health-enhancing, gives you access to the most powerful and empowering health-creating secret on earth. ~ Christiane Northrup,
891:A series of studies by Marian Radke-Yarrow and Carolyn Zahn-Waxler at the National Institute of Mental Health showed that a large part of this difference in empathic concern had to do with how parents disciplined their children. Children, they found, were more empathic when the discipline included calling strong attention to the distress their misbehavior caused someone else: “Look how sad you’ve made her feel” instead of “That was naughty. ~ Daniel Goleman,
892:The quality of our love relationships is also a big factor in how mentally and emotionally healthy we are. We have an epidemic of anxiety and depression in our most affluent societies. Conflict with and hostile criticism from loved ones increase our self-doubts and create a sense of helplessness, classic triggers for depression. We need validation from our loved ones. Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold! ~ Sue Johnson,
893:Pain - physical, emotional and spiritual pain - is more than just a condition that needs to be silenced, numbed or "fixed." Pain in all its forms is also a message, a kind of distress signal to our hearts and minds. There are times when it's really important to tune into that message and just listen to it. When we don't listen, our understanding of the world gets more and more distorted, and we become capable of doing things we very often regret. ~ Karyn Kusama,
894:babies wake up between their sleep cycles, which last about two hours. It’s normal for them to cry a bit when they’re first learning to connect these cycles. If a parent automatically interprets this cry as a demand for food or a sign of distress and rushes in to soothe the baby, the baby will have a hard time learning to connect the cycles on his own. That is, he’ll need an adult to come in and soothe him back to sleep at the end of each cycle. ~ Pamela Druckerman,
895:It is hard enough to recognize lies for what they are if only one person, from whom we anticipate help, insists on maintaining the lie. Inbred tact and our own distress hamper us in contradicting that person. How much more difficult is it, then, to see through lies when everyone around us takes them for the truth, simply because they themselves are victims of such lies. Thus, yesterday's victims become the opinion-makers and power-brokers of tomorrow. ~ Alice Miller,
896:I am, myself, three selves at least. To begin with, there is the child I was. Certainly I am not that child anymore! Yet, distantly, or sometimes not so distantly, I can hear that child’s voice—I can feel its hope, or its distress. It has not vanished. Powerful, egotistical, insinuating—its presence rises, in memory, or from the steamy river of dreams. It is not gone, not by a long shot. It is with me in the present hour. It will be with me in the grave. ~ Mary Oliver,
897:To Mercy Pity Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is God our father dear. And Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is Man his child and care. Then every man of every clime That prays in his distress Prays to the human form divine: Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. ~ William Blake,
898:I have to get back there." I said to Adrian. "Into that door." He arched an eyebrow. "What, like sneaking in? How very black ops of you. And oh, you know— dangerous and foolish." "I know." I said, surprised at how calm I sounded as I admitted that. "But I have to know something, and this may be my only chance." "Then I'll go with you in case that guy comes back," he said with a sigh. "Never let it be said Adrian Ivashkov doesn't help damsels in distress. ~ Richelle Mead,
899:It is an irony of medical history that even as Freud's later work would make him the progenitor of modern psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is generally premised on the idea that mental illness arises from unconscious psychological conflicts, his papers on cocaine make him one of the fathers of biological psychiatry, which is governed by the notion that mental distress is partly caused by a physical or chemical malfunction that can be treated with drugs. ~ Scott Stossel,
900:I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
901:... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the New World Order and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people. ~ H G Wells,
902:When you spend significant amounts of time with someone they offer constant feedback, becoming part of the patterning of your brain. In other words, part of you. But I take your point -- constant feedback is not always deep feedback. A good measure of how much of you they've become is your level of distress when they're gone. If they form a large measure of your patterning, then you'll experience a major culling of the self. That's what's known as grief. ~ Scott Hutchins,
903:I am, myself, three selves at least. To begin with, there is the child I was. Certainly I am not that child anymore! Yet, distantly, or sometimes not so distantly, I can hear that child’s voice—I can feel its hope, or its distress. It has not vanished. Powerful, egotistical, insinuating—its presence rises, in memory, or from the steamy river of dreams. It is not gone, not by a long shot. It is with me in the present hour. It will be with me in the grave. And ~ Mary Oliver,
904:She leaned over and gingerly gave Betsy a hug. Fitz leaned against the door to the bathroom, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He was an old-fashioned kind of guy, didn’t like to see ladies in distress. Betsy picked up on it immediately. Her voice croaked as she spoke, still rough from the anesthesia. “Fitz, I see that your chivalrous sense of justice is piqued. Why don’t you take Brian here and get him a cup of coffee. He’s been mothering the hell out of me. ~ J T Ellison,
905:The couple bubble is an agreement to put the relationship before anything and everything else. It means putting your partner's well-being, self-esteem and distress relief first. And it means your partner does the same for you. You both agree to do it for each other. Therefore, you say to each other, "We come first." In this way, you cement your relationship. It is like making a pact or taking a vow, or like reinforcing a vow you already took with one another. ~ Stan Tatkin,
906:It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable -- whether by her imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy -- whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character, or turning her out of doors. ~ Jane Austen,
907:A teacher of meditation once told the story of a man who wanted nothing to do with the stress of life, so he retreated to a cave to meditate day and night for the rest of his life. But soon he came out again, driven to overwhelming distress by the sound of the dripping of water in his cave. The moral is that, at least to some extent, the stresses will always be there, for we bring our sensitivity with us. What we need is a new way of living with the stressors. ~ Elaine N Aron,
908:Her power was sinking; everything must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain. ~ Jane Austen,
909:The child of the lower or lower middle class is urged in both overt and subtle ways to surpass his background, his well-meaning parents and friends never anticipating that if their dream of upward mobility is realized, the child may adopt the prejudices of the class to which he's lifted and, with a touch of neurotic distress, may permanently scorn his former life and also, to a certain extent, himself, since the class he's invaded is unlikely to accept him fully. ~ John Gardner,
910:I have to get back there." I said to Adrian. "Into that door."
He arched an eyebrow. "What, like sneaking in? How very black ops of you. And oh, you know— dangerous and foolish."
"I know." I said, surprised at how calm I sounded as I admitted that. "But I have to know something, and this may be my only chance."
"Then I'll go with you in case that guy comes back," he said with a sigh. "Never let it be said Adrian Ivashkov doesn't help damsels in distress. ~ Richelle Mead,
911:When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

(Ophelia) ~ William Shakespeare,
912:23. Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted. 24. ~ Marcus Aurelius,
913:I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems. We have both known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. ~ Daphne du Maurier,
914:[Meditation] trains us to be with a painful experience in the moment, without adding imagined distress and difficulty. If we look closely at it, the pain is bound to change, and that's as true of a headache as it is of a heartache: the discomfort oscillates; there are beats of rest between moments of unpleasantness. When we discover firsthand that pain isn't static, that it's a living, changing system, it doesn't seem as solid or insurmountable as it did at first. ~ Sharon Salzberg,
915:That advice should be taken wherever example has failed, or precept be regarded where warning is ridiculed, is like a picture of hope resting on despair; but when time shall stamp with universal currency the facts you have long encountered with a laugh, and the irresistible evidence of accumulated losses, like the handwriting on the wall, shall ad terror to distress, you will then, in a conflict of suffering, learn to sympathize with others by feeling for yourselves. ~ Thomas Paine,
916:Arguably the first female detective in comics, Sally the Sleuth has a strange history, evolving from a nudie girl in distress to a business-suit-wearing power detective a decade later.
(...)
Sally’s tales don’t end with the era of pre-comic-book pulps. She was brought back in the 1950s in Crime Smashers, a rough-and-tumble crime comic anthology series published by Culture’s sister company, Trojan. New creators handled her adventures, now in bold, full color. ~ Hope Nicholson,
917:Fixating on the outcome or needing to know all the details of an upcoming event, such as a trip, causes people to be upset when things don’t go their way, overly focused on the future, and unable to bounce back easily. Inflexible people are susceptible to anger, distress, and depression. Surrendered people go with the flow, shrug it off when an unplanned situation happens, and tend to be happier, more lighthearted, and resilient. They remember to exhale during stress. ~ Judith Orloff,
918:If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most Ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer,
919:It was strange to find that love does not spring from abundance and richness of the ego, but is a way out of inner distress and poverty. We were surprised to discover that our first love is not directed either to another person or to ourselves, but to an imaginary ideal ego, to an image of ourselves as we would like to be. There are stranger discoveries awaiting us the more deeply we grope in the dark and the further we intrude into the secret places of the human heart. ~ Theodor Reik,
920:Only a man can see in the face of a woman the girl she was. It is a secret which can be revealed only to a particular man, and, then, only at his insistence. But men have no secrets, except from women, and never grow up in the way that women do. It is very much harder, and it takes much longer, for a man to grow up, and he could never do it at all without women. This is a mystery which can terrify and immobilize a woman, and it is always the key to her deepest distress. ~ James Baldwin,
921:So tired am I, so weary of to-day,
So unrefreshed from foregone weariness,
So overburdened by foreseen distress,
So lagging and so stumbling on my way,
I scarce can rouse myself to watch or pray,
To hope, or aim, or toil for more or less,--
Ah, always less and less, even while I press
Forward and toil and aim as best I may.
Half-starved of soul and heartsick utterly,
Yet lift I up my heart and soul and eyes
Which fail in looking upward ~ Christina Rossetti,
922:When I say that all men have the mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others, my meaning is illustrated this way: when two men suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they all have a feeling of alarm and distress, not to gain friendship with the child's parents, nor to seek the praise of their neighbors and friends. From such a case, we see that a man without the feeling of commiseration is not a man. The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity. ~ Mencius,
923:Fine, I’m going to beat you like a toddler in a wolverine fight.” “You will feel more distress than if you were trapped on an airplane during its landing approach and suddenly suffered an unstoppable bowel movement.” “Explain,” Angela demanded. “During a landing approach, one is not allowed to leave their seat for any reason. Not even sudden bowel movements that won’t be stopped.” Angela had to admit, that scenario probably would fill her with a noticeable amount of distress. ~ Drew Hayes,
924:WELCOME, ONCE AGAIN, to the beautiful Sinclair family. We believe in outdoor exercise. We believe that time heals. We believe, although we will not say so explicitly, in prescription drugs and the cocktail hour. We do not discuss our problems in restaurants. We do not believe in displays of distress. Our upper lips are stiff, and it is possible people are curious about us because we do not show them our hearts. It is possible that we enjoy the way people are curious about us. ~ E Lockhart,
925:Heroes aren’t perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they’re perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into. ~ Christopher McDougall,
926:But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress; they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward ~ Jane Austen,
927:Imagine the last time you felt really sad or angry or upset. How would it have felt if someone you love told you, “You need to calm down,” or “It’s not that big a deal”? Or what if you were told to “go be by yourself until you’re calm and ready to be nice and happy”? These responses would feel awful, wouldn’t they? Yet these are the kinds of things we tell our kids all the time. When we do, we actually increase their internal distress, leading to more acting out, not less. ~ Daniel J Siegel,
928:Other examples of human-sourced pharmaceuticals surely causing more distress than they relieved include strips of cadaver skin tied around the calves to prevent cramping, “old liquified placenta” to “quieten a patient whose hair stands up without cause” (I’m quoting Li Shih-chen on this one and the next), “clear liquid feces” for worms (“the smell will induce insects to crawl out of any of the body orifices and relieve irritation”), fresh blood injected into the face for eczema ~ Mary Roach,
929:This young world desires that there should arrive or appear from the outside-not happiness-but misfortune; and their imagination is already busy beforehand to form a monster out of it, so that they may afterwards be able to fight with a monster. If these distress-seekers felt the power to benefit themselves, to do something for themselves from internal sources, they would also understand how to create a distress of their own, specially their own, from internal sources. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
930:There is a marvelous story of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. "Dear God." he cried out, "look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in your world. Why don't you send help?" God responded,"I did send help. I sent you." When we tell our children that story, we must tell them that each one of them was sent to help repair the broken world-and that it is not the task of an instant or of a year, but of a lifetime. ~ David Wolpe,
931:I almost feel like there's some kind of connection that I'm having trouble putting in to words, in the same sense that I'm learning things from my children still. I think, just like any relationship, if I choose to become twisted and bitter it can be a source of distress or discomfort. But I think I've come to terms with the fact that I would prefer to see it as a gift. And I would prefer to see it as something that empowers me rather than something that diminishes me in some way. ~ DJ Shadow,
932:Patricia had seen creatures in distress before. Her big sister, Roberta, liked to collect wild animals and play with them. Roberta put frogs into a rusty Cuisinart that their mom had tossed out, and stuck mice into her homemade rocket launcher, to see how far she could shoot them. But this was the first time Patricia looked at a living creature in pain and really saw it, and every time she looked into the bird’s eye she swore harder that this bird was under her protection. ~ Charlie Jane Anders,
933:I think if terrorists had nuclear materials and found people to put a bomb together - both of which are possible - we would already have seen a nuclear explosion. But we have literally thousands of people around the world working their tails off and making a lot of sacrifices to contain nuclear materials. I particularly would like to compliment the Russians on this. In times of great economic distress, many of them could have made an awful lot of money if they had sold their expertise. ~ Sam Nunn,
934:By honour and dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. "We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom." Learn, then, even to "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
935:If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us. ~ Franz Kafka,
936:Mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate between the two extremities of distress and boredom." ~ Viktor E FranklSchopenhauer. In actual fact, boredom is now causing more problems to solve that distress. And these problems are growing increasingly crucial, for progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in the leisure hours available to the average worker. The pity of it is that many of these will not know what to do with all their newly acquired free time. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
937:Why do people report themselves to be as happy as they were back when we all had less? Well, for one thing, we are comparing two societies that are both majestically wealthy in comparison to almost all societies throughout history. Neither the surveyed Americans of the 1950s nor those of the 2000s were struggling with endemic distress- hunger, pain, humiliation. And average people who are not in such distress are statistically more likely to call themselves happy than not. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht,
938:The Master said, "Wealth and honor are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will not abide them. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them. If the gentleman abandons ren, how can he be worthy of that name? The gentleman does not violate ren even for the amount of time required to eat a meal. Even in times of urgency or distress, he does not depart from it." ~ Confucius,
939:[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty. ~ Immanuel Kant,
940:When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good. ~ Thomas Paine,
941:I had often heard Mentor say, that the voluptuous were never brave, and I now found by experience that it was true; for the Cyprians whose jollity had been so extravagant and tumultuous, now sunk under a sense of their danger and wept like women. I heard nothing but the screams of terror and the wailings of hopeless distress. Some lamented the loss of pleasures that were never to return; but none had presence of mind either to undertake or direct the navigation of the menaced vessel. ~ Francois Fenelon,
942:A cold grin flashed across his face. "I'm not guilty of half the things I'm accused of. But I encourage the rumors, and I never deny even the worst of them. I want people to regard me with fear and respect. Good for business."
"Are you saying that you haven't stolen from people, and framed and betrayed and blackmailed-"
Gentry interrupted her with a sound that expressed pure annoyance. "I'm not a saint."
Despite Sophia's distress, she almost wanted to laugh at the understatement. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
943:New Heavens and a New Earth     17 “For behold,  k I create new heavens         and a new earth,     and the former things shall not be remembered         or come into mind. 18    But be glad and rejoice forever         in that which I create;     for behold,  l I create Jerusalem to be a joy,         and her people to be a gladness. 19     m I will rejoice in Jerusalem         and be glad in my people;      n no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping         and the cry of distress. ~ Anonymous,
944:The economic distress of America's inner cities may be the most pressing issue facing the nation. The lack of businesses and jobs in disadvantaged urban areas fuels not only a crushing cycle of poverty but also crippling social problems such as drug abuse and crime… A sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city, but only as it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage. ~ Michael Porter,
945:You, man, who read these lines, they are written to you by a brother who has suffered much. My thoughts are wrung from the deepest distress, yet still they try to find expression. O, that you could and would understand me! Some people are capable of deep, heartfelt, self-sacrificing love, yet the only possible object of their love is a person of their own sex. There are said to be such women, and I know that such men exist. I myself am such a man. These confessions contain a life of anguish. ~ Graham Robb,
946:In all Thénardier's outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture of bravado and abjectness, arrogance, pettiness, rage, absurdity; the hodgepodge of genuine distress, and lying sentiment, the shamelessness of a vicious man rejoicing in viciousness, the bare crudity of an ugly soul -- in this eruption of all suffering and hatred there was something which was hideous as evil itself and still as poignant as truth. ~ Victor Hugo,
947:[On Female Attraction to Men in Uniform] That male military persona feeds a subconscious, passive-aggressive female desire to dominate the warrior as he is perceived an iconic example of masculinity (particularly amongst traditionally warlike cultures). The damsel in distress theme always struck me as embodying this: the hapless, innocently beautiful woman unwittingly enraptures the heroic male so completely that he would risk all to submit to her at his own peril, and quite in spite of it. ~ Tiffany Madison,
948:When we ignore the prostituted child, we actually lend our hand to their abuse. When we ignore the widow and the orphan in their distress, we actually add to their pain. When we ignore the slave who remains captive, it's us who is entrapping them. When we forget the refugee, it's actually us who is displacing them. When we choose not to help the poor and the needy, we actually rob them. Perhaps the only fair thing to say is that when we forsake the lives of others, we actually forsake our own. ~ Joel Houston,
949:Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts of former travellers, overwhelmed by the snow, haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down. ~ Charles Dickens,
950:if you want to be comforted when your conscience plagues you or when you are in dire distress, then you must do nothing but grasp Christ in faith and say, “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who suffered, was crucified, and died for me. In his wounds and death, I see my sin. In his resurrection, I see the victory over sin, death, and the devil. I see righteousness and eternal life as well. I want to see and hear nothing except him.” This is true faith in Christ and the right way to believe. ~ Martin Luther,
951:O God, I confess I am not worthy to rock that little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of a child and its mother. How is it that I without any merit have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? Oh, how gladly will I do so. Though the duty should be even more insignificant and despised, neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor will distress me for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. ~ Elisabeth Elliot,
952:General Wavell feared that the policy of strict blockade of Jibuti favoured by Generals de Gaulle and Le Gentilhomme would merely stiffen its resistance. He proposed instead making an offer to admit sufficient supplies, such as milk for children, to prevent distress, to allow any troops wishing to join the Free French to do so and to evacuate the rest to some other French colony, and to negotiate for the use of the railway for supplying his own forces. But at home we took a different view. ~ Winston S Churchill,
953:At some point Ewan had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were bulging with muscle, and his shoulders appeared likely to rip through the thin linen of his shirt. Annabelle swallowed, thinking of Ewan without his shirt at their picnic. He wasn't even breathing hard.

"Where do you get all these muscles?" she asked.

"Lifting damsels in distress." He grinned at her, and there was a slight lurch as he leaped off the carriage and landed with a splash in the ditch. ~ Eloisa James,
954:In The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), the novelist Milan Kundera wrote: ‘Without realising it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.’ And maybe that is what internet memes accomplish. They take the confusing pieces of the world and order them into a mosaic (or news feed) that makes sense to us. And instead of curing us of our myth-making, the internet has made this practice even easier, no matter what pain it might cause to others. ~ Anonymous,
955:Suppressing our inner cries for help does not stop our stress hormones from mobilizing the body. Even though Sandy had learned to ignore her relationship problems and block out her physical distress signals, they showed up in symptoms that demanded her attention. Her therapy focused on identifying the link between her physical sensations and her emotions, and I also encouraged her to enroll in a kickboxing program. She had no emergency room visits during the three years she was my patient. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk,
956:While each of these may be convenient at the time (and easier choices, culturally, than choosing menstrual retreat, natural birth, breastfeeding, mother-baby dependency, and unmedicated menopause), there is a downside. Each time we deny our female functions, each time we deviate from our bodies’ natural path, we move farther away from our feminine roots. This can create distress within our bodies and can set the scene for further problems, physically and emotionally, for ourselves and our families. ~ Tami Lynn Kent,
957:He stumbled forward, "Can I mix my baby batter with your eggs?" he slurred trying to reach up and kiss me.
I pushed him off me, yelling, "Get away!"
"Don't touch her," he commanded. His eyes were wide, angry, his voice deep and threatening. He, too, smelled like alcohol, but I didn't care in this moment. He was here getting this creep away from me. His hands held me tightly, pressing my body into his. My breath quickened being so close to Cade. He sensed my distress, giving me a slight squeeze. ~ Felicia Tatum,
958:People are surprised by how upset they get in this theater of distress. And then they get upset that they are upset. They often try to reassure themselves, saying things like, “Chill, chill, it’s only a toy!” They are experiencing something new: you can feel bad about yourself for how you behave with a computer program. Adults come to the upside-down test knowing two things: the Furby is a machine and they are not torturers. By the end, with a whimpering Furby in tow, they are on new ethical terrain. ~ Sherry Turkle,
959:The poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion. ~ Aristotle,
960:Why are we weighed upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!" Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? ~ James Baldwin,
961:Think not that thou canst fail of entering into rest. If he hath called thee, nothing can divide thee from his love. Distress cannot sever the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link; the hammer of hell cannot break the chain. Thou art secure; that voice which called thee at first, shall call thee yet again from earth to heaven, from death's dark gloom to immortality's unuttered splendours. Rest assured, the heart of him who has justified thee beats with infinite love towards thee. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
962:Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, “There is no joy but calm!” Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? ~ Alfred Tennyson,
963:What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. ~ Charles Dickens,
964:Think not that thou canst fail of entering into rest. If he hath called thee, nothing can divide thee from his love. Distress cannot sever the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link; the hammer of hell cannot break the chain. Thou art secure; that voice which called thee at first, shall call thee yet again from earth to heaven, from death's dark gloom to immortality's unuttered splendours. Rest assured, the heart of him who has justified thee beats with infinite love towards thee. Thou ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
965:A few patients do bleed to death, Rollin said, but “they don’t explode, and they don’t melt.” In fact, he said, the conventional term then in use, “Ebola hemorrhagic fever,” was itself a misnomer, because more than half the patients don’t bleed at all. They die of other causes, such as respiratory distress and shutdown (but not dissolution) of internal organs. It’s for just these reasons, as cited by Rollin, that the WHO has switched its own terminology from “Ebola hemorrhagic fever” to “Ebola virus disease. ~ David Quammen,
966:And then she says, “I feel all these footsteps come loose from the stairs and move forward in the void, then plunge… a crowd falling…” And she digs in her heels. I look through the spaces between the iron steps at the colorless flow of the river down below, transporting chunks of ice like white clouds. In a distress that lasts an instant, I seem to be feeling what she feels: that every void continues in the void, every gap, even a short one, opens into another gap, every chasm empties into the infinite abyss. ~ Italo Calvino,
967:The Master said, “Wealth and honor are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will not abide them. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them.

“If the gentleman abandons ren, how can he be worthy of that name? The gentleman does not violate ren even for the amount of time required to eat a meal. Even in times of urgency or distress, he does not depart from it.”
(Analects 4.5) ~ Confucius,
968:The child feels this clearly and very soon forgoes the expression of his own distress. Later, when these feelings of being deserted begin to emerge in the therapy of the adult, they are accompanied by intense pain and despair. It is clear that these people could not have survived so much pain as children. That would have been possible only in an empathic, attentive environment, which was lacking. Thus all feelings had to be warded off. But to say that they were absent would be a denial of the empirical evidence. ~ Alice Miller,
969:The man who boldly transgresses, amassing a great heap unjustly--by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble seizes him as the yardarm is splintered. He calls on those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters. The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen. ~ Aeschylus,
970:O son of earth, be blind and thou shalt see My beauty; be deaf and thou shalt hear My sweet song, My pleasant melody; be ignorant and thou shalt partake My knowledge; be in distress and thou shalt have an eternal portion of the infinite ocean of My riches:—blind to all that is not My beauty, deaf to all that is not My word, ignorant of all that is not My knowledge. Thus with a gaze that is pure, a spirit without stain, an understanding refined, thou shalt enter into my sacred presence. ~ Baha-ullah, “The Hidden Words in Persian.”,
971:As a Stoic novice, you will want, as part of becoming proficient in applying the trichotomy of control, to practice internalizing your goals. Instead of having winning a tennis match as your goal, for example, make it your goal to prepare for the match as best you can and to try your hardest in the match. By routinely internalizing your goals, you can reduce (but probably not eliminate) what would otherwise be a significant source of distress in your life: the feeling that you have failed to accomplish some goal. ~ William B Irvine,
972:Those who really can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,
973:A cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him. He must always tell the truth. He must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals. He must be free from racial and religious prejudices. He must help people in distress. He must be a good worker. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits. He must respect women, parents and his nation’s laws. The Cowboy is a patriot.” – GENE AUTRY’S “COWBOY CODE ~ Art Williams,
974:My mother picked me up in her arms, touching my checks comforting my distress. I stared into her eyes and held her hair in my small hands, for the first time realizing what a moment in time meant. I touched her cheek and then looked away, knowing this was the truth to life, and there was nothing I could do about it. The truth that her death would one day occur made me realize that I never wanted her to leave my side. It was something I could not control, something no one could ever stop no matter how strong they were. ~ Joseph McGinnis,
975:But, as I know that strength arising from obedience has a way of simplifying things which seem impossible, my will very gladly resolves to attempt this task although the prospect seems to cause my physical nature great distress; for the Lord has not given me strength enough to enable me to wrestle continually both with sickness and with occupations of many kinds without feeling a great physical strain. May He Who has helped me by doing other and more difficult things for me help also in this: in His mercy I put my trust. ~ Teresa of vila,
976:I think what you need to understand, Miss Plum, is that Mr. Haverstein is one of those rare gentlemen, a throwback, if you will, to the days of knights in shining armor. One only has to look at that staff of his, or take a trip to one of his many barns filled to the brim with the oddest assortment of animals I’ve ever seen, to know he possesses a strong sense of chivalry and honor. You, my dear, can’t blame him for offering to marry you, especially not after you presented him with a classic damsel-in-distress scenario.” With ~ Jen Turano,
977:Said one oyster to a neighboring oyster, "I have a very great pain within me. It is heavy and round and I am in distress." And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, "Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain within me. I am well and whole both within and without." At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without, "Yes, you are well and whole; but the pain that your neighbor bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty." ~ Khalil Gibran,
978:Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it. Such an admission will make the consequences easier for the victim to bear, and the guilty man himself, by plainly showing his distress at former transgressions, will find good grounds of hope for avoiding similar transgressions in the future. ~ Arrian,
979:Cot-death is no longer a problem of clinical medicine, but is one of medical politics. We have long had the knowledge and experience as to how these unnecessary deaths can be avoided. In the meantime.. to prevent your offspring from becoming a SIDS statistic just make sure that its daily intake of ascorbate from conception on is sufficient. Under this regime the neonate is so robust and healthy that there has never been a case of SIDS among these ascorbate corrected infants, not even a case of respiratory distress during birth. ~ Irwin Stone,
980:Her mother sought to see the flaw in everyone, the blemishes, the scars. Mma sought perfection, she saw beauty in everyone. Her mother laughed at the girls who came to see her and Mma was filled with distress, a loathing for her mother who did not seem at all to notice, No. A mother who appeared to delight in her distress.A mother who lived by the rule that men were dispensable. Mma thought them indispensable and was not going to live as her mother lived. Her mother thought she was a fool. 'You fool-fool; men are not worth it. ~ Chika Unigwe,
981:On the contrary, your thankful attitude will lift you up into heavenly places with Me. From this perspective, your difficulty can be seen as a slight, temporary distress that is producing for you a transcendent Glory never to cease! Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ISAIAH 30 : 20 – 21 ~ Sarah Young,
982:Miss Prideaux had a curious kind of fascination for me. The words ‘distressed gentlewoman’ always came into my mind when I thought of her, though the expression was not really accurate. She was undoubtedly a gentlewoman, but perhaps reduced circumstances described her position better than any phrase suggesting distress or decay. Indeed, I felt that the word ‘reduced’, with its culinary associations hinting at something that has been concentrated and enriched by the boiling away of unnecessary elements, gave a much truer picture. ~ Barbara Pym,
983:Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow. ~ David Hume,
984:Everything in the world bears witness of the use or misuse of man's inner talking. Negative inner talking, particularly evil and envious inner talking, are the breeding ground of the future battlefields and penitentiaries of the world. Through habit man has developed the secret affection for these negative inner conversations. Through them he justifies failure, criticizes his neighbors, gloats over the distress of others, and in general pours out his venom on all. Such misuse of the Word perpetuates the violence of the world. ~ Neville Goddard,
985:Oh, so that's why you're up here. For a pity party." "This isn't a joke. I'm serious." I could tell Lissa was getting angry. It was trumping her earlier distress. He shrugged and leaned casually against the sloping wall. "So am I. I love pity parties. I wish I'd brought the hats. What do you want to mope about first? How it's going to take you a whole day to be popular and loved again? How you'll have to wait a couple weeks before Hollister can ship out some new clothes? If you spring for rush shipping, it might not be so long. ~ Richelle Mead,
986:So long as men must toss in weary fancies all the dark night, crying, "Would God it were morning," to find, it may be, when it arrives, but little comfort in the grey dawn, so long must we regard God as one to be seen or believed in--cried unto at least--across all the dreary flats of distress or dark mountains of pain, and therefore those who would help their fellows must sometimes look for him, as it were, through the eyes of those who suffer, and try to help them to think, not from ours, but from their own point of vision. ~ George MacDonald,
987:Somatize: how the body defends itself against too much stress, manifesting psychological distress as physical symptoms in the stomach or nerves or uterus or vagina... women who had suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse tended to somatize more. It turns out that somatization is related to hysteria, which stems from the Greek cognate of uterus... Uterus = hysteria. Hysteria -- a word to make women feel insane for knowing what they know. Hysteria is caused by suffering from a huge traume where there is an underlying conflict. ~ Eve Ensler,
988:How we delight to build our recollections upon some basis of reality,--a place, a country, a local habitation! how the events of life, as we look back upon them, have grown into the well-remembered background of the places where they fell upon us! Here is some sunny garden or summer lane, beautified and canonized forever, with the flood of a great joy; and here are dim and silent places,--rooms always shadowed and dark to us, whatever they may be to others,--where distress or death came once, and since then dwells forevermore. ~ Washington Irving,
989:In my investigations of the connections between morality and the body, I encountered two further aspects that, unlike the problem of forgiveness, were new to me. One question I asked myself concerned the true nature of the feeling that we, as adults, persist in calling love for our parents. The other aspect that struck me was the realization that throughout our lives the body craves the nourishment that it needed so badly in childhood but was never given. I believe that this is a source of suffering and distress for many people. Part ~ Alice Miller,
990:Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book. ~ Samuel Johnson,
991:Yet anything less ecstatic than the singing of today’s widows in Vrindavan would be hard to imagine. At the back, the madwomen are shrieking. In the foreground, the exhausted old widows struggle to keep up with the cantor’s pitch, many nodding asleep until given a poke by one of the ashram managers walking up and down the aisles with a stick. It is difficult to think of a sorrier or more pathetic sight. Vrindavan, Krishna’s earthly paradise, is today a place of such profound sadness and distress that it almost defies description. ~ William Dalrymple,
992:Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? The ‘mental health plague’ in capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work is very high. The ~ Mark Fisher,
993:As a newborn baby breathes and cries, so the signs of life in a newborn Christian are faith and repentance, inhaling the love of God and exhaling an initial cry of distress. And at that point what God provides, exactly as for a newborn infant, is the comfort, protection, and nurturing promise of a mother. "If God is our father, the church is our mother." The words are those of the Swiss Reformer John Calvin ... it is as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself as it is to be a newborn baby all by yourself. ~ N T Wright,
994:Even convicts, with whom I have spent some time, are not won over in any other way. Whenever I happened to speak sharply to them, I spoiled everything; on the contrary, when I praised them for their resignation and sympathized with them in their sufferings; when I told them they were fortunate to have their purgatory in this world, when I kissed their chains, showed compassion for their distress, and expressed sorrow for their misfortune, it was then that they listened to me, gave glory to God, and opened themselves to salvation. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul,
995:I saw one of them fellers she hangs out with, the shapeshifters, run like hell through the Scratches. Right below me. There was a big dog chasin’ him.” “How big was the dog?” Teddy Jo mulled it over. “I’d say as big as a house. A one-story. Maybe a bit bigger. Not as big as one of them colonials, you understand. A regular-person house.” “Would you say the shapeshifter was in distress?” “Hell yeah, he was in distress. His tail was on fire.” “He ran like his tail was on fire?” “No, his tail was on fire. Like a big, furry candle on his ass. ~ Ilona Andrews,
996:Nor had the cities of Sicily any trust in him, as they were in great distress, and greatly exasperated against those who pretended to lead armies to their succour, on account of the treachery of Kallippus and Pharax; who, one an Athenian and the other a Lacedaemonian, but both giving out that they were come to fight for freedom and to put down despotism, did so tyrannise themselves, that the reign of the despots in Sicily seemed to have been a golden age, and those who died in slavery were thought more happy than those who lived to see liberty. ~ Plutarch,
997:Oh, so that's why you're up here. For a pity party."

"This isn't a joke. I'm serious." I could tell Lissa was getting angry. It was trumping her earlier distress.

He shrugged and leaned casually against the sloping wall. "So am I. I love pity parties. I wish I'd brought the hats. What do you want to mope about first? How it's going to take you a whole day to be popular and loved again? How you'll have to wait a couple weeks before Hollister can ship out some new clothes? If you spring for rush shipping, it might not be so long. ~ Richelle Mead,
998:They ended every speech with the word hiro, which means: like I said. Thus each man took responsibility for intruding into the inarticulate murmur of the spheres. To hiro they added the word koue, a cry of joy or distress, according to whether it was sung or howled. Thus they essayed to piece the mysterious curtain which hangs between all talking men: at the end of every utterance a man stepped back, so to speak, and attempted to interpret his words to the listener, attempted to subvert the beguiling intellect with the noise of true emotion. ~ Leonard Cohen,
999:But, don’t you see, since we happened to have M. de Cambremer here, and he is a Marquis, while you are only a Baron. . . . ” “Pardon me,” M. de Charlus replied with an arrogant air to the astonished Verdurin, “I am also Duc de Brabant, Damoiseau de Montargis, Prince d’Oloron, de Carency, de Viareggio and des Dunes. However, it is not of the slightest importance. Please do not distress yourself,” he concluded, resuming his subtle smile which spread itself over these final words: “I could see at a glance that you were not accustomed to society. ~ Marcel Proust,
1000:Unfortunately, the sort of individual who is programmed to ignore personal distress and keep pushing for the top is frequently programmed to disregard signs of grave and imminent danger as well. This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you’re too driven you’re likely to die. Above 26,000 feet, moreover, the line between appropriate zeal and reckless summit fever becomes grievously thin. Thus the slopes of Everest are littered with corpses. ~ Jon Krakauer,
1001:Wear whatever is comfortable and practical, my lady,” he said in a low voice. “We’re likely to be walking through some dark and dirty areas and the entire planet is polluted.” “Got it.” Kat sighed. “Wading through polluted muck. So I guess my favorite pair of kitten heels is out.” Lock gave her a wan smile. “I wouldn’t recommend them. Unless you want me to carry you the whole way. I wouldn’t mind.” Kat straightened up and lifted her chin. “Thank you, Lock, but I think I’ve had enough of the damsel in distress routine for a little while. ~ Evangeline Anderson,
1002:What couples and therapists too often do not see is that most fights are really protests over emotional disconnection. Underneath all the distress, partners are asking each other: Can I count on you, depend on you? Are you there for me? Will you respond to me when I need, when I call? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you? Do you need me, rely on me? The anger, the criticism, the demands, are really cries to their lovers, calls to stir their hearts, to draw their mates back in emotionally and reestablish a sense of safe connection. ~ Sue Johnson,
1003:It is hard to believe we feel pain for the world if we assume we’re separate from it. The individualistic bias of Western culture supports that assumption. Feelings of fear, anger or despair about the world tend to be interpreted in terms of personal pathology. Our distress over the state of the world is seen as stemming from some neurosis, rooted perhaps in early trauma or unresolved issues with a parental figure that we’re projecting on society at large. Thus we are tempted to discredit feelings that arise from solidarity with our fellow-beings. ~ Joanna Macy,
1004:next-day fatigue and sleepiness can still occur because you are suffering from an undiagnosed sleep disorder, of which there are now more than a hundred. The most common is insomnia, followed by sleep-disordered breathing, or sleep apnea, which includes heavy snoring. Should you suspect your sleep or that of anyone else to be disordered, resulting in daytime fatigue, impairment, or distress, speak to your doctor immediately and seek a referral to a sleep specialist. Most important in this regard: do not seek sleeping pills as your first option. ~ Matthew Walker,
1005:The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them - through faith or unbelief - that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good.

Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy. ~ Brother Lawrence,
1006:Come in," he said gently. And inwardly raged at this portion of his being that rendered him helpless; that
he could not control; that lay coiled within him like a length of rope, always ready to fling itself unbidden
at the cry of someone else's need. It gave him -no peace. Not even in sleep. At the edge of his dreams,
there was often a sound like a faint, brief cry of someone in distress. It was almost inaudible in the
distance. Always the same. And for minutes after waking, he would feel the anxiety of some duty
unfulfilled. ~ William Peter Blatty,
1007:What I didn’t know back then was that everyone has a subtle energy field surrounding their body, a subtle radiant light that penetrates and extends beyond it a distance of inches or even feet. These fields communicate information such as emotions and physical well-being or distress. When we are in crowded places, the energy fields of others overlap with ours. I picked up all of these intense sensations, but I had absolutely no idea what they were or how to interpret them. I just felt anxious and tired in crowds. And most of all, I wanted to escape. ~ Judith Orloff,
1008:Unfortunately, the sort of individual who is programmed to ignore personal distress and keep pushing for the top is frequently programmed to disregard signs of grave and imminent danger as well. This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you’re too driven you’re likely to die. Above 26,000 feet, moreover, the line between appropriate zeal and reckless summit fever becomes grievously thin. Thus the slopes of Everest are littered with corpses. Taske, ~ Jon Krakauer,
1009:focusing blame, painting pictures of the better life possible, stirring the pot to the boiling point. Their hope is to turn distress and frustration into anger, to turn anger into action, then to provide the plans and leadership to divert and direct that angry action, with a view to taking ultimate control. We have seen this pattern used effectively and often in recent history. Unfortunately, Wat Tyler was cut down before his demands were made clear, so we may never be able to clearly pinpoint the goals of the Great Society, or its true leadership. ~ John J Robinson,
1010:The day shall usher in a new era of liberty when a large number of men and women, taking courage from the idea of serving humanity and liberating them from sufferings and distress, decide that there is no alternative before them except devoting their lives for this cause. They will wage a war against their oppressors, tyrants or exploiters, not to become kings, or to gain any reward here or in the next birth or after death in paradise; but to cast off the yoke of slavery, to establish liberty and peace they will tread this perilous, but glorious path. ~ Bhagat Singh,
1011:I seek counsel of the Mother of Life, she who protects and nurtures us all.” “It is good you have come, for I can tell you are much troubled. Tell me your pain.” “Though I took a vow before the Mother to never call a bride, my blood burns within me for one I can never have,” Sylvan admitted, filled with shame. “Why may you not have her?” the priestess asked. “Does she belong to another?” “No.” Sylvan shook his head. “But…she does not want me. She is afraid of me and I fear I have done little to allay her distress and much to make it grow.” “Then ~ Evangeline Anderson,
1012:From the beginnings of Israelite religion the belief that God had chosen this particular people to carry out His mission has been both a cornerstone of Hebrew faith and a refuge in moments of distress. And yet, the prophets felt that to many of their contemporaries this cornerstone was a stumbling block; this refuge, an escape. They had to remind the people that chosenness must not be mistaken as divine favoritism or immunity from chastisement, but, on the contrary, that it meant being more seriously exposed to divine judgment and chastisement. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,
1013:Lines I die but when the grave shall press The heart so long endeared to thee When earthy cares no more distress And earthy joys are nought to me. Weep not, but think that I have past Before thee o'er the sea of gloom. Have anchored safe and rest at last Where tears and mouring can not come. 'Tis I should weep to leave thee here On that dark ocean sailing drear With storms around and fears before And no kind light to point the shore. But long or short though life may be 'Tis nothing to eternity. We part below to meet on high Where blissful ages never die. ~ Emily Bronte,
1014:Now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. In actual fact, boredom is now causing, and certainly bringing to psychiatrists, more problems to solve than distress. And these problems are growing increasingly crucial, for progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in the leisure hours available to the average worker. The pity of it is that many of these will not know what to do with all their newly acquired free time. Let ~ Viktor E Frankl,
1015:This was among Johnson’s most early attainments, for his was not that mere “lip-wisdom which wants experience.”  He was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways, but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with distress in the lower walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of mixed character. ~ Samuel Johnson,
1016:Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day.… —GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary ~ Lena Dunham,
1017:Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day…. —GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary ~ Lena Dunham,
1018:We all have gifts and talents. When we cultivate those gifts and share them with the world, we create a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. ~ Bren Brown,
1019:My husband was sleeping in the other room, in our bed.I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress—what would be the point? He'd already been watching me fall apart for months now, watching me behave like a madwoman (we both agreed on that word), and I only exhausted him. We both knew there was something wrong with me, and he'd been losing patience with it. We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in that way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1020:Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance. ~ Walter Scott,
1021:A Spectral Vision
Chorus from The Libation Bearers
A spectral vision clear
Thrills every hair with fear,
In haunted sleep,
Breathing of dire distress,
From innermost recess
Its watch doth keep,
Breaking with cry of fright
The still deep hush of night:
All through the queenly bower
Sharp cry was heard that hour,
And they to whom 'twas given
To read decrees of Heaven,
In dream o'ertrue,
By solemn pledges bound,
Declared that underground
The dead were wrathful found
'Gainst those that slew.
~ Aeschylus,
1022:I reassured my mother that it didn’t matter to me if my face was not symmetrical. Me, who had always cared about my appearance, how my hair looked! But when you see death, things change. “It doesn’t matter if I can’t smile or blink properly,” I told her. “I’m still me, Malala. The important thing is God has given me my life.” Yet every time they came to the hospital and I laughed or tried to smile, my mother’s face would darken as if a shadow had crossed it. It was like a reverse mirror—when there was laughter on my face there was distress on my mother’s. ~ Malala Yousafzai,
1023:It is with enormous distress that France has just learned of the monstrous attacks there is no other word for it that have just struck the United States of America. In these horrifying circumstances, the entire people of France, and I want to emphasize this, stand by the people of America. They express their friendship and solidarity in this tragedy. Naturally, I want to assure President Bush of my total support. France, as you know, has always condemned and unreservedly condemns terrorism, and considers that terrorism must be combated by all possible means. ~ Jacques Chirac,
1024:Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it - and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you - for only the truth that builds up is truth for you. ~ Soren Kierkegaard,
1025:The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech. All great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses; they are not the lemonade-like outpourings of the literary aesthetes and drawing-room heroes.55 ~ William L Shirer,
1026:how easily a man who has never been in any great distress, may pass through life without knowing, in his own person at least, anything of the possible goodness of the human heart - or, as I must add with a sigh, of its possible vileness. So a thick curtain of manners is drawn over the features and expression of men's natures, that to the ordinary observer, the two extremities, and the infinite field of varieties which lie between them, are all confounded - the vast and multitudinous line of differences expressed in the gamut or alphabet of elementary sounds. ~ Thomas de Quincey,
1027:In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,

And yon twelve-winded sky,

The stuff of life to knit me

Blew hither: here am I'

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow. ~ E M Forster,
1028:I think the commercial culture, and also science and technology after all, which gives us greater ease but also makes it harder for us to sit with the small amounts of distress that come just by living itself. It isn't that we're chasing happiness; I think we have the wrong model of happiness. I mean, defined as eudaimonia, defined as a values-based life of integrity and fidelity to yourself and what you most deeply want to stand for, that definition of happiness - man, that's the kind of life I want to live and I think that will support people and sustain people. ~ Steven C Hayes,
1029:It can be set down as a broad, general principle that we cannot indulge in idleness and abundance during both the first and second half of our life. Study, application, industry, enthusiasm while we are young usually enable us to enjoy life when we grow older. But unless we toil and strive and earn all we can in the first half, the second half of our life is liable to bring disappointment, discomfort, distress. The time to put forth effort is when we are most able to do it, namely, in the years of our greatest strength. The law of compensation hasn't ceased to function. ~ B C Forbes,
1030:It has been said by a distinguished philosopher that England is "usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind." The author of the remark probably meant to assert that a man or a system may have become famous on the continent, while we are almost ignorant of the name of the man and the claims of his system. Perhaps, however, a wider range might be given to the assertion. An exploded theory or a disadvantageous practice, like a rebel or a patriot in distress, seeks refuge on our shores to spend its last days in comfort if not in splendour. ~ Isaac Todhunter,
1031:Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. . . . We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but given a change to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with he help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate ~ Herbert Hoover,
1032:The Blessed Day

Try , when you pray Fajr to set in a humble manner and face the Qiblah for ten to fifteen minutes , remembering Allah a great deal and calling upon Him . Ask Allah for a good day m a blessed day , a happy day , a day of success and achievement with no calmaties , crises or problems , a day with bountiful provision , goodness and care . A day with no distress and worry - because from Allah one can ask for happiness and all that is good . If you sit like this and pray , this will by Allah's leave be guranteed to prepare you for a good , blessed and useful day . ~,
1033:Despite the wishful thinking of evangelicals impatient for the Rapture or deep ecologists who believe that Gaia would be happiest with a thin sprinkling of hunter-gatherers, megacities like Los Angeles will never simply collapse and disappear. Rather, they will stagger on, with higher body counts and greater distress, through a chain of more frequent and destructive encounters with disasters of all sorts; while vital parts of the region’s high-tech and tourist economies eventually emigrate to safer ground, together with hundreds of thousands of its more affluent residents. ~ Mike Davis,
1034:Ewan felt a searing stab of guilt. He'd taken an exquisite, laughing young woman away from the London ballrooms that were her natural milieu and reduced her to a tearful, freezing damsel in distress. What's more, he'd taken her virginity, and given her only potatoes to eat. And for what? Due to a quixotic idea that he would alleviate her fear of poverty?

No. Annabel had accused him of not being honest with himself. The truth of it was that he'd sent his carriages away out of pure, unadulterated lust, no matter how much he would like to dress it up in fancy ideas. ~ Eloisa James,
1035:Each role is a way to handle the family distress and shame. Each role is a way for each member to feel like he has some control. As one plays the role more and more rigidity sets in. As one becomes more and more unconscious of one’s true self, one’s self-rupture increases. The shame that promotes the role is intensified by the role. What a paradox! The roles are necessitated by the family system’s shame as ways to overcome the shame, and they in fact freeze and enhance the shame. The old French proverb applies here: The more you try to change, the more it stays the same. ~ John Bradshaw,
1036:Once upon a time there was a Scottish SAS soldier in Kabul. He met a Soviet Spetsnaz soldier. They were enemies first, then shagged for nine years, fell in love at some stage. Dragons, battles, and damsels in distress in between, until an evil wizard took the Spetsnaz away. The Scot and the damsel battled the vile foes, until the Russian returned, but the evil spell still hat him in its claws. More dragons, battles, knights in not-so shiny armour later, the spell got broken, the Princes got reunited, and our Russian and Scotsman kind of lived happily ever after." (Dan) ~ Aleksandr Voinov,
1037:Those who believe in the unconditional benefits of past experience should consider this pearl of wisdom allegedly voiced by a famous ship’s captain: But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident… of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. E. J. Smith, 1907, Captain, RMS Titanic Captain Smith’s ship sank in 1912 in what became the most talked-about shipwreck in history.* ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
1038:Hard and cruel though it may seem," said the Cardinal, "yet we, who hold our high office as keepers and watchmen to the story, may tell you, verily, that to its human characters there is salvation in nothing else in the universe. If you tell them -- you compassionate and accommodating human readers -- that they may bring their distress and anguish before any other authority, you will be cruelly deceiving and mocking them. For within our whole universe the story only has authority to answer that cry of heart of its characters, that one cry of heart of each of them: 'Who am I? ~ Karen Blixen,
1039:That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain. I lay gazing up at the ceiling , feeling the sleek stiffness of the well-starched sheets against my skin. My distress was a seed that would grow into an understanding of what it meant to say goodbye. In contrast to the heavy ache I would come to know later on in life, this was tiny and fresh – a green bud of pain with a bright halo of light rimming its edges. ~ Banana Yoshimoto,
1040:distress and anguish cometh upon you. 1:28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 1:29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: 1:30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. 1:31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. 1:32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 1:33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. ~ Anonymous,
1041:Jesper swung first. Kaz dodged right and then they were grappling. They slammed into the wall, knocked heads, drew apart in a flurry of punches and grabs. Wylan turned to Inej, expecting her to object, for Matthias to separate them, for someone to do something, but the others just backed up, making room. Only Kuwei showed any kind of distress.
Jesper and Kaz swung around, crashed into the mechanism of the clock, righted themselves. It wasn't a fight, it was a brawl--graceless, a tangle of elbows and fists.
"Ghezen and his works, someone stop them!" Wylan said desperately. ~ Leigh Bardugo,
1042:That's unfortunately common - to blame immigrants, to blame the African-Americans who are being helped by federal programs, to blame anyone available, to direct attention away from the roots of the distress which you're suffering. This combines with xenophobia, white supremacy, racism, misogyny, and other quite unpleasant phenomena which are far from being eradicated. All of this makes for a pretty dangerous brew. But economic issues are right in the center of it. And you can see this in the fact that so many former Obama voters now voted for Trump, or just didn't bother voting. ~ Noam Chomsky,
1043:Rear your children in light and truth. Teach them to pray while they are young. Read to them from the scriptures even though they may not understand all that you read. Teach them to pay their tithes and offerings on the first money they ever receive. Let this practice become a habit in their lives. Teach your sons to honor womanhood. Teach your daughters to walk in virtue. Accept responsibility in the Church, and trust in the Lord to make you equal to any call you may receive. Your example will set a pattern for your children. Reach out in love to those in distress and need. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
1044:Virtue does not consist in whether you face towards the East or the West; virtue means believing in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book and the prophets; the virtuous are those who, despite their love for it, give away their wealth to their relatives and to orphans and the very poor, and to travellers and those who ask [for charity], and to set slaves free, and who attend to their prayers and pay the alms, and who keep their pledges when they make them, and show patience in hardship and adversity, and in times of distress. Such are the true believers; and such are the God-fearing. ~ Anonymous,
1045:In me there is darkness, But with You there is light; I am lonely, but You do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help; I am restless, but with You there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience; I do not understand Your ways, But You know the way for me.” “Lord Jesus Christ, You were poor And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am. You know all man’s troubles; You abide with me When all men fail me; You remember and seek me; It is Your will that I should know You And turn to You. Lord, I hear Your call and follow; Help me. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1046:prepare a little hot tea or broth and it should be brought to them . . . without their being asked if they would care for it. Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it ' ... There was something arresting about the matter-of-fact wisdom here, the instinctive understanding of the physiological disruptions... I will not forget the instinctive wisdom of the friend who, every day for those first few weeks, brought me a quart container of scallion-and-ginger congee from Chinatown. Congee I could eat. Congee was all I could eat. ~ Joan Didion,
1047:Today the word "hope" had grown meaningless. Today we were tramping simply because we were tramping. Probably oxen work for the same reason. Yesterday I had dreamed of a paradise of orange-trees. Today I would not give a button for paradise; I did not believe oranges existed. When I thought about myself I found in me nothing but a heart squeezed dry. I was tottering but emotionless. I felt no distress whatever, and in a way I regretted it: misery would have seemed to me as sweet as water. I might then have felt sorry for myself and commiserated with myself as with a friend. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,
1048:35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long;    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous,
1049:Now they all felt the need to relieve themselves, especially the poor boy who could not hold it in any longer, in fact, however reluctant we might be to admit it, these distasteful realities of life also have to be considered, when the bowels function normally, anyone can have ideas, debate, for example, whether there exists a direct relationship between the eyes and feelings, or whether the sense of responsibility if the natural consequence of clear vision, but when we are in great distress and plagued by pain and anguish that is when the animal side of our nature becomes most apparent. ~ Jos Saramago,
1050:When we hit a nail with a hammer the whole of the shock received by the large head of the nail passes into a point without any of it being lost, although it is only a point. If the hammer and head of the nail were infinitely big, if would be just the same; the point of the nail would transmit this infinite shock at the point to which it was applied. Extreme affliction, which means physical pain, distress of the soul, and social degradation all at the same time, is a nail whose point is applied at the very center of the soul, whose head is all necessity, spreading throughout space and time ~ Simone Weil,
1051:He slept once again in the small tent by his side, even though he thought Temeraire was well over his distress, and was rewarded in the morning by being woken early, Temeraire peering into the tent with one great eye and inquiring if perhaps Laurence would like to go to Dover and arrange for the concert today.

“I would like to sleep until a civilized hour, but as that is evidently not to be, perhaps I will ask leave of Lenton to go,” Laurence said, yawning as he crawled from the tent. “May I have my breakfast first?”

“Oh, certainly,” Temeraire said, with an air of generosity. ~ Naomi Novik,
1052:Christ is already in that place of peace, which is all in all. He is on the right hand of God. He is hidden in the brightness of the radiance which issues from the everlasting throne. He is in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep stillness--stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy; that most perfect of joys, the utter profound, ineffable tranquillity of the Divine Essence. He has entered into His rest. That is our home; here we are on a pilgrimage, and Christ calls us to His many mansions which He has prepared. ~ John Henry Newman,
1053:That’s disappointing,” she says with exaggerated distress. “But at least it’s progress.” “Goodness, I’m so sorry you’re so sad about this.” “Did you just say ‘goodness’?” “Apparently. I don’t know why.” “How quaint of you. Perhaps I shall start exclaiming ‘Goodness!’ from now on. It has an old-fashioned ring to it. There’s no reason to get a bee in your bonnet, missy! Egad and fiddlesticks and dang it all! God save the queen!” “God save the queen? Really? How does that fit in here?” “I think it’s a nice substitution for swearing. I’m going to start using it, like, all the time, so get ready. ~ Jessica Park,
1054:We drove on in silence, Dad shaking his head in disgust every few minutes. I stared at him, wondering how it was we got to this place. How the same man who held his infant daughter and kissed her tiny face could one day be so determined to shut her out of his life, out of his heart. How, even when she reacyhed out to him in distress - Please, Dad, come get me, come save me - all he could do was accuse her. How that same daughter could look at him and feel nothing but contempt and blame and resentment, because that's all that radiated off of him for so many years and it had become contagious. ~ Jennifer Brown,
1055:In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. ~ Abraham Lincoln,
1056:Christ is already in that place of peace, which is all in all. He is on the right hand of God. He is hidden in the brightness of the radiance which issues from the everlasting throne. He is in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep stillness--stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy; that most perfect of joys, the utter profound, ineffable tranquillity of the Divine Essence. He has entered into His rest. That is our home; here we are on a pilgrimage, and Christ calls us to His many mansions which He has prepared. ~ Saint John Henry Newman,
1057:I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there is a terrible emptiness. All at once I find myself in the quarter where I once resided. I recall the life I used to live: meeting friends in the evening, reciting poetry, making love, spending sleepless nights pining for beautiful women and writing verses on their long tresses which held me captive. That was life! What is there left of it? Nothing. ~ Khushwant Singh,
1058:As a Buddhist Sutra hears the voice of the Bodhisattva of compassion: The wondrous voice, the voice of the onewho attends to the cries of the world The noble voice, the voice of the risingtide surpassing all the sounds of the world Let our mind be attuned to that voice. Put aside all doubt and meditate on thepure and holy nature of the regarderof the cries of the world Because that is our reliance in situationsof pain, distress, calamity, death. Perfect in all merits, beholding all sentientbeings with compassionate eyes, making the ocean of blessings limitless, Before this one, we should incline. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,
1059:I Long For You, This Is So, What Can I Do
I long for you, this is so, what can I do?
I cannot live, I cannot die.
I long for you.
Listen to my plea.
Night or day, I have no peace.
Not another moment can I exist without you.
I long for you, this is so, what can I do?
This separation-torment is unending!
Can somebody stop this pain?
If I do not see him, how will I live?
I long for you, this is so, what can I do?
Says Bulla, I am in dire distress,
O please find a remedy.
How can I endure such pain?
I long for you, this is so, what can I do?
~ Bulleh Shah,
1060:Policy makers respond to economic distress by pursuing polices designed to improve the data. After a while, the data themselves may come to reflect not fundamental economic reality but a cosmetically induced policy result. If these data then guide the next dose of policy, the central banker has entered a wilderness of mirrors in which false signals induce policy, which induces more false signals and more policy manipulation and so on, in a feedback loop that diverges further from reality until it crashes against a steel wall of data that cannot easily be manipulated, such as real income and output. ~ James Rickards,
1061:We must always remember that the healing will happen in the way that God knows is best for us. Sometimes we may not recognize that healing has occurred as it may not have been the healing we asked for—it may be emotional or spiritual healing rather than physical. We need to watch out for healing and recognize when it has been granted. Often healing can seem small—perhaps somebody who has been depressed for a long time smiles or laughs; maybe someone who was in a lot of physical distress feels a lot better; or maybe a mother who has been stressed out and unable to cope suddenly feels happiness and joy. ~ Lorna Byrne,
1062:When we hit a nail with a hammer, the whole of the shock received by the large head of the nail passes into the point without any of it being lost, although it is only a point. If the hammer and the head of the nail were infinitely big it would be just the same. The point of the nail would transmit this infinite shock at the point to which it was applied. Extreme affliction, which means physical pain, distress of soul and social degradation, all at the same time, constitutes the nail. The point is applied at the very center of the soul, whose head is all necessity, spreading throughout space and time. ~ Simone Weil,
1063:Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’” And she answered, “All is well.” 27And when she came  r to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.” 28Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son?  s Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’” 29He said to Gehazi,  t “Tie up your garment and  u take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone,  v do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do ~ Anonymous,
1064:"THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
"And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
"If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What's dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?'
Or something of that sort he said,
"And if my dearest friend were dead
I'd dance a measure on his grave.'

~ William Butler Yeats, Tom ORoughley
,
1065:So that when man can be in great distress having been betrayed and deserted by all friends he may find consolation in the idea that an ever true friend was still there to help him, to support him and that He was Almighty and could do anything. The idea of God is helpful to man in distress.
Society has to fight out this belief as well as was fought the idol worship and the narrow conception of religion. Similarly, when man tries to stand on his own legs, and become a realist he shall have to throw the faith aside, and to face manfully all the distress, trouble, in which the circumstances may throw him. ~ Bhagat Singh,
1066:Harriet was lean and graceful in a white summer dress that demonstrated her legs to good effect. An elegant lady; mildly effervescent in the manner Norma Jean had been in her time, with a curled blonde bob and Nordic blue eyes. Twenty years my senior, her smoldering sex appeal hit like a punch to the sternum. That appeal wasn’t ornamental; she deployed it like a weapon. At point-blank range, the strength of her personality crackled even more so than the charm she’d radiated in a score of thriller and crime flicks. A consummate performer, she’d switched between damsel in distress and femme fatale with ease. ~ Laird Barron,
1067:I figured you for a hooker."

Lily blinked at him.

Neither of them moved.

Even Elvis quit singing...

"A hooker?...What a dilemma for you, Detective Ross. Here you are, the quintessential defender against evil--"

"Knock it off, Lily."

"The epitome of all that's good--"

Growling, he said, "You're asking for it."

"A regular White Knight, and you thought the damsel in distress was a soiled dove."...Taking him by surprise, Lily drew up short, pulled him around, and threw herself into his arms. "You're precious, Parker, you really are."

-Lily and Parker ~ Lori Foster,
1068:By its largely rhetorical devotion to the free market and its actual policies of constructing a permanent war economy, conservatism helps to perpetuate the myth that it is the policies of free markets rather than those of planning that have been obstructing peace, and that it is an existing market economy rather than an established system of noncomprehensive planning which is responsible for our current economic distress. In fact, Reagan’s rapid militarization of the American economy, in spite of the rosy pictures of free-market economies that fill his speeches, is the very essence of national economic planning. ~ Anonymous,
1069:I learned that everything is right where we are. No matter our pain or distress, all of life is in whatever moment we wake to. I could clearly see and feel how our fear of death makes us run, though there is nowhere to go. Yet mysteriously, I learned that there's a ring of peace at the center of every fear, if we can only get to it. Every time I shower now, I try to remember that we can-not live fully until we can first accept our eventual death. Otherwise, we will always be running to or running from. Only when we can accept that we are fragile guests on this Earth, only then will we be at home wherever we are. ~ Mark Nepo,
1070:Her family’s distress increased in the late 1890s as the U.S. government intensified its push for the culmination of its assimilation campaign: allotment. Under the policy, the Osage reservation would be divvied up into 160-acre parcels, into real estate, with each tribal member receiving one allotment, while the rest of the territory would be opened to settlers. The allotment system, which had already been imposed on many tribes, was designed to end the old communal way of life and turn American Indians into private-property owners—a situation that would, not incidentally, make it easier to procure their land. ~ David Grann,
1071:For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits. ~ Victor Hugo,
1072:Yes, as Damon had sat in the dimly-lit booth with Kenzy, he recognized the psychic screamer, and it was his own little redbird, Bonnie the brown-eyed enchantress, caught in a moment of unbearable trauma and funneling all her terror and distress into a tight psychic message addressed to him.               Someone was hurting Bonnie, he’d realized, perhaps even killing her.  That meant someone was going to be exceedingly sorry exceedingly soon. Whoever it was would learn the meaning of pain in a hundred languages before they would be allowed to die. Damon had flashed his most gorgeous barracuda smile at nothing at all. ~ L J Smith,
1073:Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike -- breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? ... Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you'll wait for ever. ~ Ngaio Marsh,
1074:In the Palaeolithic period, human beings had felt a disturbing kinship with the animals that they hunted and killed. They expressed their inchoate distress in the rituals of sacrifice, which honoured the beasts which laid down their lives for the sake of humanity. In Guernica, humans and animals, both victims of indiscriminate, heedless slaughter, lie together in a mangled heap, the screaming horse inextricably entwined with the decapitated human figure. Recalling the women at the foot of the cross in countless depictions of Jesus’s crucifixion, two women gaze at the wounded horse in sorrowful empathy with its pain. ~ Karen Armstrong,
1075:THE ALIENS
from The Last Night Of The Earth Poems

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here. ~ Charles Bukowski,
1076:No one ought even to desert a woman after throwing her a heap of gold in her distress! He ought to love her forever! You are young, only twenty-one, and kind and upright and fine. You'll ask me how a woman can take money from a man. Oh, God, isn't it natural to share everything with the one we owe all our happiness to? When one has given everything, how can one quibble about a mere portion of it? Money is important only when feeling has ceased. Isn't one bound for life? How can you foresee separation when you think someone loves you? When a man swears eternal love--how can there be any separate concerns in that case? ~ Honor de Balzac,
1077:The great protagonists are those who fight for their ideas and ideals despite the fact that they receive no recognition at the hands of their contemporaries. They are the men whose memories will be enshrined in the hearts of the future generations. It seems then as if each individual felt it his duty to make retroactive atonement for the wrong which great men have suffered at the hands of their contemporaries. Their lives and their work are then studied with touching and grateful admiration. Especially in dark days of distress, such men have the power of healing broken hearts and elevating the despairing spirit of a people. ~ Adolf Hitler,
1078:Where exactly do you think you’re taking Miss Waterhouse?” Kat demanded, her blue eyes flashing. “And on what grounds?” “Please step aside, Ma’am,” said the officer on the left with mechanical courtesy. “We are simply fulfilling the orders on the papers we have just served to Miss Waterhouse. And we’re taking her to the Human/Kindred Relations building for her claiming ceremony.” “Her what?” Sophia exclaimed, her green eyes wide with distress. “Her claiming ceremony, where she will meet the Kindred warrior who has chosen her as a bride,” the other officer explained patiently. “Miss Olivia Waterhouse has been drafted. ~ Evangeline Anderson,
1079:ROM8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  ROM8.36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. ROM8.37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ROM8.38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,  ROM8.39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous,
1080:You may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here. ~ Charles Bukowski,
1081:I do not pretend to give such a sum; I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your country with a good character, you cannot fail of getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. ~ Benjamin Franklin,
1082:I did not know why, maybe because he had suffered and gained experience in his distress; because his rebellion had freed him from established ways of thinking that bind us, and he had no prejudices; because he had purged himself of fear and taken a path that led nowhere; because he was already condemned and was only delaying his death heroically. Such people know a lot, more than those of us who stagger from learned rules to fear of sin, from habits to worries of possible guilt. And although I would never have taken the path of a renegade, not even in my thoughts, I would gladly have listened to his truth. But what was his truth? ~ Me a Selimovi,
1083:Surely his love proves he is the person to comfort you. Therefore, let him into your heart, Christian, so he may comfort you in your distress. He is a faithful Comforter. Shakespeare tells us (in King Lear) that a thankless child is “sharper than a serpent’s tooth” and so is an unfaithful friend. To have a friend turn away from me in my distress is more bitter that “the gall of bitterness.” Oh, misery of miseries, to have someone who loves me in my prosperity forsake me in the dark day of my trouble! That is very sad, but God’s Spirit is not like that. He always loves and loves even to the end. He is a faithful Comforter. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1084:Dear Mr Lipwig,
I feel that you are a dear, sweet man who will look after my little Mr Fusspot. Please be kind to him. He has been my only friend in difficult times. Money is such a crude thing in these circumstances, but the sum of $20,000 annually will be paid to you (in arrears) for performing this duty, which I beg you to accept.
If you do not, or if he dies of unnatural causes, your arse will belong to the Guild of Assassins. $100,000 is lodged with Lord Downey, and his young gentlemen will hunt you down and gut you like the weasel you are, Smart Boy!
May the gods bless you for your kindness to a widow in distress. ~ Terry Pratchett,
1085:May there not really be a way, for a scientifically alert observer, of detecting around us the signs of an ultra-evolution (we might say ‘a wind of reflection’) in a whole series of psychic phenomena, still incompletely identified and yet patient of statistical study? For example, the general rise, at this very moment, in the most advanced areas of human thought, of a certain distress—or, on the contrary, of a certain excited anticipation—both specifically connected with the gradual awakening in us of the consciousness that the universe is not only in movement but is carrying us with it? ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Convergence of the Universe,
1086:As soon as that majestic force,
which had already pierced me once
before I had outgrown my childhood, struck my eyes,

I turned to my left with the confidence
a child has running to his mamma
when he is afraid or in distress

to say to Virgil: 'Not a single drop of blood
remains in me that does not tremble--
I know the signs of the ancient flame.'

But Virgil had departed, leaving us bereft:
Virgil, sweetest of fathers,
Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation.

And not all our ancient mother lost
could save my cheeks, washed in the dew,
from being stained again with tears. ~ Dante Alighieri,
1087:In cultivating loving-kindness, we learn first to be honest, loving and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. But like mother-love, maitri is unconditional; no matter how we feel, we can aspire that we be happy. We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being. Gradually, we become more aware about what causes happiness as well as what causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others. ~ Pema Ch dr n,
1088:In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;
I am restless, but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.”

“Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
When all men fail me;
You remember and seek me;
It is Your will that I should know You
And turn to You.
Lord, I hear Your call and follow;
Help me. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1089:The great majority of Castalians, the officials no less than the scholars and students, lived in their Pedagogic Province and their Order as if these constituted a stable, eternal, inevitable world. They knew, of course, that it had not always existed, that it had come into being slowly and amid bitter struggles in times of cruel distress; they knew it had originated at the end of the Age of Wars out of a double source: the heroically ascetic efforts of scholars, artists, and thinkers who had come to their senses, and the profound craving of the exhausted, bled, and betrayed peoples for order, normality, reason, lawfulness, and moderation. ~ Hermann Hesse,
1090:Bel thought of the old woman alone in the little cottage with her husband lying on the floor in a crumpled heap; she thought of the door opening and Louise walking in—perhaps unable to do very much, but just being there, just standing by. Louise, calm and kind, giving confidence and reassurance, waiting for the doctor to come. There was no need for Louise to have gone to Willow Cottage. She could have done her job by ringing up the houses where the doctor might be found—nobody could expect her to do more—but Louise had not hesitated for a moment, she had crammed on her hat and had gone without hesitation to a fellow human-being in distress. ~ D E Stevenson,
1091:For a century, the human response to stress and danger has been defined as “fight or flight.” A 2000 UCLA study by several psychologists noted that this research was based largely on studies of male rats and male human beings. But studying women led them to a third, often deployed option: gather for solidarity, support, advice. They noted that “behaviorally, females’ responses are more marked by a pattern of ‘tend-and-befriend.’ Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. ~ Rebecca Solnit,
1092:We also knew that empathic resonance with pain can lead, when it is repeated many times, to emotional exhaustion and distress. It affects people who emotionally collapse when the worry, stress, or pressure they have to face in their professional lives affect them so much that they become unable to continue their activities. Burnout affects people confronted daily with others’ sufferings, especially health care and social workers. In the United States, a study has shown that 60% of the medical profession suffers or has suffered from burnout, and that a third has been affected to the point of having to suspend their activities temporarily.3 ~ Matthieu Ricard,
1093:Men achieve cheerfulness by moderation in pleasure and by proportion in their life excess and deficiency are apt to fluctuate and cause great changes in the soul. And souls which change over great intervals are neither stable nor cheerful. So one should set one's mind on what is possible and be content with what one has taking little account of those who are admired and envied and not dwelling on them in thought but one should consider the lives of those who are in distress thinking of their grievous sufferings so that what one has and possesses will seem great and enviable and one will cease to suffer in one's soul through the desire for more. ~ Democritus,
1094:Wonder Woman completely eschewed a damsel in distress role by instead being a superhero of unparalleled skill, and the inversion of the typical gender roles didn’t stop there. Like her superhero peers, Wonder Woman had her own damsel in distress, a fawning love interest who always got captured and had to be rescued. “Her” name was Steve Trevor. A major in the US Air Force, Steve was a highly decorated pilot who was often called on to perform important secret missions. He appeared to be the quintessential American hero and was drawn that way by H. G. Peter, with a strong jaw, muscular build, and handsome face. However, the man was entirely inept. ~ Anonymous,
1095:I'm not sure I handled it well," he sais,his face so open,gaze filled with such raw regret,my heart aches on his behalf.
"Considering the circumstances, I think you did fine.Besides,it's not like you stood a chance,her mind was make up the moment she saw you."
Dace jerks back,his expression slighted,voice unsure when he says, "I don't understand..."
I fumble with my lunch sack,wondering why I can never say the right thing around him.Having no way to explain in a way that won't sound completely embarrassing,when Xotichl steps in.
"What's not to get? You're hot-Daire's gorgeous-it's a recipe for parental distress if there ever was one. ~ Alyson Noel,
1096:Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
1097:(he was a great believer in the healing powers of cheerfulness, if not of open mirth). Yet he had some faults, and one was a habit of dosing himself, generally from a spirit of enquiry, as in his period of inhaling large quantities of the nitrous oxide and of the vapour of hemp, to say nothing of tobacco, bhang in all its charming varieties in India, betel in Java and the neighbouring islands, qat in the Red Sea, and hallucinating cacti in South America, but sometimes for relief from distress, as when he became addicted to opium in one form or another; and now he was busily poisoning himself with coca-leaves, whose virtue he had learnt in Peru. ~ Patrick O Brian,
1098:It was not an easy thing to explain, and she burst into quite authentic tears that came from the confusion of conflicting emotions. Distress at the sight of his blistered skin, his blackened fingernails, and a terrible smell she hadn’t anticipated. Terror of losing his love now that she’d compelled him to hurt himself. Terror of losing his trust, and with it her power to compel him ever to do it again. She threw herself sobbing onto the pillows of his bed. “I wanted to see what it was like to hurt someone,” she spat at him, “like you always tell me to. And now I know, and I’m horrified with both of us, and I’ll never do it again, not to anyone. ~ Kristin Cashore,
1099:The progress of Catherine's unhappiness from the events of the evening was as follows. It appeared first in a general dissatisfaction with everybody about her, while she remained in the rooms, which speedily brought on considerable weariness and a violent desire to go home. This, on arriving in Pulteney Street, took the direction of extraordinary hunger, and when that was appeased, changed into an earnest longing to be in bed; such was the extreme point of her distress; for when there she immediately fell into a sound sleep which lasted nine hours, and from which she awoke perfectly revived, in excellent spirits, with fresh hopes and fresh schemes. ~ Jane Austen,
1100:Horatia put a gloved hand on his arm. He didn’t even seem to notice. “Charles, are you unwell?”
He tensed. “No, I’m well enough. There’s much to give me worry these days. Don’t fret on my behalf.”
She stared at him for a long moment, wondering if she ought to inquire further as to the nature of his distress. Charles was always close-lipped when it came to such things. Her brother always claimed Charles couldn’t keep a secret, but Horatia knew better. When it came to matters of the heart, the Earl of Lonsdale could remain silent forever. She turned her attention to the streets again.

-Horatia & Charles. His Wicked Seduction ~ Lauren Smith,
1101:Patients, they wrote, underwent “unnamed tortures when having their hands and feet strapped to the operating table, their heads shaved to the vertex [top of the skull], and the outside world masked from view by the towels and drapes.” Next came the “rattling of the instruments, the noise of the suction apparatus, and the menacing spark of the electro-cautery.” Some patients told them they wanted to die right then and there. Others called for help. These terrifying moments were useful, the doctors assured their colleagues, as the patients’ distress was often so great that the “additional trouble caused by the operation passes almost unnoticed. ~ Kate Clifford Larson,
1102:There’s no evidence that there’s a chemical imbalance” in depressed or anxious people’s brains, Professor Joanna Moncrieff13—one of the leading experts on this question—explained to me bluntly in her office at the University College of London. The term doesn’t really make any sense, she said: we don’t know what a “chemically balanced” brain would look like. People are told that drugs like antidepressants restore a natural balance to your brain, she said, but it’s not true—they create an artificial state. The whole idea of mental distress being caused simply by a chemical imbalance is “a myth,” she has come to believe, sold to us by the drug companies. ~ Johann Hari,
1103:Some people were evidently scandalized at the accession of a child who had not been conceived within the bounds of holy matrimony. In another part of France, the Burgundian chronicler Ralph Glaber wrote that Robert’s lack of a legitimate son had been a cause of great distress to his people, and suggested that some thought it abominable that the duke had been succeeded by a bastard. In the same breath, however, Glaber conceded that the dukes of Normandy had always been happy to honour the offspring of their concubines and accept them as their heirs. ‘This had been the custom of this people’, the chronicler admitted, ‘ever since they first appeared in Gaul. ~ Marc Morris,
1104:Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material improvement. Knowledge is a viaticum. Though is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat. A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We should feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying of hunger for lack of light. All progress tends toward the solution. Some day, people will be amazed. As the human race ascends, the deepest layers will naturally emerge from the zone of distress. The effacement of wretchedness will be effected by a simple elevation level. ~ Victor Hugo,
1105:Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see... Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,
1106:Maternal stress during pregnancy has effects on the emotional and stress hormone reactions, particularly in female offspring. These effects were measured in goat kids. The stressed female kids ended up startling more easily and being less calm and more anxious than the male kids after birth. Furthermore, female kids who were stressed in utero showed a great deal more emotional distress than female kids who weren’t. So if you’re a girl about to enter the womb, plan to be born to an unstressed mom who has a calm, loving partner and family to support her. And if you are a mom-to-be carrying a female fetus, take it easy so that your daughter will be able to relax. ~ Louann Brizendine,
1107:Coincidence
For Mildred Nash
Coincidence. Perhaps coincidence
Explains it all. Why look far out, in deep
For mystical solutions to make sense
Of how a dream disturbed more than my sleep—
A dream in which you sat bolt upright on
A Windsor chair and wore a long blue dress
(Ornamented with a white chiffon)
And on your visage bore a dark distress
And said your dog was dead? When I awoke,
I thought the dream an impetus to phone,
And when I did, the first words that you spoke,
Through sobs, were that your cat had died. Your tone
Was as it had been in my dream, which plain
Coincidence tries too hard to explain.
~ David Berman,
1108:Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
1109:I can see what you’re worried about,” Mark cut in quickly, “and I assure you, it won’t be a problem.” “I don’t think you can, but what won’t be a problem?” “Butter bugs are highly controllable, ecologically speaking. The worker bugs are sterile; only the queens can reproduce, and they’re parthenogenetic—they don’t become fertile till treated with special hormones. Mature queens can’t even move, unless their human keeper moves them. Any worker bug that might chance to get out would just wander about till it died, end of story.” Enrique made a face of distress at this sad vision. “Poor thing,” he muttered. “The sooner, the better,” said Miles coldly. “Yuk!” Enrique ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,
1110:Sonnet 06: Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress
But only what you see.... Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,
1111:Love's Blindness
Now do I know that Love is blind, for I
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth,
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth,
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh.
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky,
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth,
Leaves linnet's pipe as sad as plover's cry,
And makes me in abundance find but dearth.
But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou
With orient eyes dawnest on my distress,
Suddenly sings a bird on every bough,
The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less,
The ground is buoyant as the ether now,
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness.
~ Alfred Austin,
1112:She wasn’t angry that there was a person who could provide her with help and protection. That would be arrogance, and she saw that arrogance was foolishness; she should strive for humility—and there was another way he’d helped her. He’d gotten her thinking about humility. But it wasn’t that. It was that she hadn’t asked for a person whom she trusted, whom she would do so much for, whom she would give herself over to. She hadn’t asked for a person whose absence, if she woke in the middle of the night, would distress her—not because of the protection he would then fail to give, but simply because she wished his company. She hadn’t asked for a person whose company she wished. ~ Kristin Cashore,
1113:Time passed, but neither one of them noticed. They talked, mostly about Chad and the kind of son he was. Jack had held on and still led by eight strokes. A gigantic lead. If he blew it this time, it would be worse than twenty-three years ago. The tent began to empty out, but Myron and Linda stayed and talked some more. A feeling of intimacy began to warm him; he found it hard to breathe when he looked at her. For a moment he closed his eyes. Nothing, he realized, was really going on here. If there was an attraction of some sort, it was simply a classic case of damsel-in-distress syndrome—and there was nothing less politically correct (not to mention Neanderthal) than that. The ~ Harlan Coben,
1114:I Grew. Foul Weather, Dreams, Forebodings...
I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings
Were bearing me - a Ganymede Away from earth; distress was growing
Like wings - to spread, to hold, to lead.
I grew. The veil of woven sunsets
At dusk would cling to me and swell.
With wine in glasses we would gather
To celebrate a sad farewell,
And yet the eagle's clasp already
Refreshes forearms' heated strain.
The days have gone, when, love, you floated
Above me, harbinger of pain.
Do we not share the sky, the flying?
Now, like a swan, his death-song done,
Rejoice! In triumph, with the eagle
Shoulder to shoulder, we are one.
~ Boris Pasternak,
1115:8Let me exult and rejoice in Your faithfulness     when You notice my affliction,     are mindful of my deep distress,     9and do not hand me over to my enemy,     but a-grant me relief.-a 10Have mercy on me, O LORD,     for I am in distress;     my eyes are wasted by vexation,     b-my substance and body too.-b 11My life is spent in sorrow,     my years in groaning;     my strength fails because of my iniquity,     my limbs waste away. 12Because of all my foes I am the particular butt of my neighbors,     a horror to my friends;     those who see me on the street avoid me. 13I am put out of mind like the dead; I am like an object given up for lost. 14I hear the whisperings of many, ~ Anonymous,
1116:Against remorse. I do not like this form of cowardice in regard to one’s own actions, one must not leave one’s self in the lurch under the pressure of sudden shame or distress. Extreme pride is much more fitting here. What is the good of it all in the end! No deed gets undone because it is regretted, no more than because it is 'forgiven' or 'atoned for'. A man must be a theologian in order to believe in a power that erases faults: we immoralists prefer not to believe in 'guilt'. We believe that all deeds of whatever kind are identically of the same value at root; just as deeds which turn against us may be useful from an economical point of view and even generally desirable. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
1117:If they had had a different neighbour, one less self-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-signals would have been heard, and perhaps they would have been rescued by now. Certainly they appeared utterly depraved, corrupt, vile and odious; but it is rare for those who have sunk so low not to be degraded in the process, and there comes a point, moreover, where the unfortunate and the infamous are grouped together, merged in a single fateful word. They are les miserables - the outcasts, the underdogs. And who is to blame? Is it not the most fallen who have most need of charity? ~ Victor Hugo,
1118:They were about the same age, but thirty-five years might have been forty-five if Mamma’s face had been a place for measuring time, while Coletta’s might have been twenty-five. You saw four children in Mamma’s face, you even saw Hugo there; you saw centuries of worry, ages of toil, aeons of work and distress. There was no record of children upon the face of Coletta Drigo, nor of worry, nor of distress; instead you saw a rare nuance of youth to maturity; you saw excitement; you saw great cities, happy times, the whole wonderful world; and, above all, her beauty, black hair, black eyes, the dark whitish skin. You were sure that if she had a pet it wasn’t a dog but a cat, a Siamese cat. ~ John Fante,
1119:If they had had a different neighbour, one less sel-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-signals would have been heard, and perhaps they would have been rescued by now. Certainly they appeared utterly depraved, corrupt, vile and odious; but it is rare for those who have sunk so low not to be degraded in the process, and there comes a point, moreover, where the unfortunate and the infamous are grouped together, merged in a single, fateful world. They are les misérables - the outcasts, the underdogs. And who is to blame? Is it not the most fallen who have most need for charity? ~ Victor Hugo,
1120:We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, 'I've been there.' This was unclear to him at first-I've been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific loacation, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
'So sadness is a place?' Giovanni asked.
'Sometimes people live there for years,' I said. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1121:Sonnet Vi: This Door You Might Not Open
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see.... Look yet again-An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,
1122:Love's Substitute
This love, that dares not warm before its flame
Our yearning hands, or from its tempting tree
Yield fruit we may consume, or let us claim
In Hymen's scroll of happy heraldry
The twining glyphs of perfect you and me -May kindle social fires whence curls no blame,
Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be,
And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame.
For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waits
For such as you to cherish it to Youth:
Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verve
That Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates:
And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuth
The perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!"
~ Bernard O'Dowd,
1123:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1124:The Aquittal Of Phryne
When Athens challenged Phryne to confess
Eleusis' self sufficed not to appal
Her impious tread, and, throned within their Hall,
The awful judges frowned on her distress,
Slowly her lovely limbs she did undress,
Swathe upon swathe, fold after fold, let fall,
Until she stood, absolved, before them all,
Clad in her clear convincing nakedness.
So when the slaves of custom would control
Your range of feeling and your realm of thought,
And close you half the world who claim the whole,
Show them your inmost self, keep back not aught,
By your mind's beauty be their bias bought,
And sway by bare simplicity of soul.
~ Alfred Austin,
1125:We have to dive below to discover the basic problem: these couples have disconnected emotionally; they don’t feel emotionally safe with each other. What couples and therapists too often do not see is that most fights are really protests over emotional disconnection. Underneath all the distress, partners are asking each other: Can I count on you, depend on you? Are you there for me? Will you respond to me when I need, when I call? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you? Do you need me, rely on me? The anger, the criticism, the demands, are really cries to their lovers, calls to stir their hearts, to draw their mates back in emotionally and reestablish a sense of safe connection. ~ Sue Johnson,
1126:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.
And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1127:Facts swooped like swallows, darting across her mind; there was a rush of pride in things still remembered. Singing was limited to the perching birds, the order Passeriformes. Nearly half the birds in the world didn't sing, but they still used sound to communicate- calls as opposed to song. Most birds had between five and fifteen distinct calls in their repertoire; alarm and territorial defense calls, distress calls from juveniles to bring an adult to the rescue, flight calls to keep the flock coordinated, even separate calls for commencing and ending flight. Nest calls. Feeding calls. Pleasure calls. Some chicks used calls to communicate with their mothers while they were still in the egg. ~ Tracy Guzeman,
1128:These feelings of rage and distress and despair that you talk about,” I said, circling something I knew I would have trouble articulating. “They only exist because of your original love for your father. They are like signposts back to that love. His leaving took that love with him, or appeared to, but you will see, if you stay with your meditation, that all of that love is still there in you. From the infant’s perspective, it’s directed at only one or two people, but even if they failed you, that capacity for love is still there in you. It’s too bad for your father that he didn’t get to know it—but there are plenty of people now who will be grateful for it. There’s a whole roomful right here. ~ Mark Epstein,
1129:Perfect Love
Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,
A moment's interlude in life's dull play;
Though many loves have lingered to distress,
So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,
But deepen with us till both heads be grey.
For perfect love is like a fair green plant,
That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,
And gentle lovers shall not come to want,
Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;
Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,
But sweeter still the green that never dies.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1130:Since you made it clear you didn't want to hear anything about [your son], I was obliged to act behind your back.'
'I understand. You had no choice.'
'And I should not distress you now, if I were not obliged to do something that you might never forgive.'
He swallowed nausea and pride in one gulp. 'Jess, the only unforgivable thing you can do is leave me,' he said. 'Se mi lasci mi uccido. If you leave me, I'll kill myself.'
'Don't be ridiculous,' she said. 'I should never leave you. Really, Dain, I cannot think where you get such addled ideas.'
Then, as though this explained and settled everything, she promptly returned to the main subject, and told him what had happened that day ~ Loretta Chase,
1131:Psychotic conditions were considered to involve thought disturbances, including delusions and/or hallucinations, a break with reality, and, in general, an inability to function in normal social situations. Neuroses involved several conditions in which one suffered from distress (sometimes debilitating distress) but without significant distortions of thought, or loss of touch with reality. The neurotic conditions most related to fear and anxiety included anxiety neurosis (excessive worry, dread), phobic neurosis (irrational fears), obsessive neurosis (repetitive thoughts), and war neurosis (mental problems in soldiers that stemmed from stress, exhaustion, and specific battlefield experiences). ~ Joseph E LeDoux,
1132:Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he let
everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,
all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among the
ferryman's virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew how
to listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how
Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he
did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,
did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt,
what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to burry in
his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering. ~ Hermann Hesse,
1133:Wisdom tells us secrets before we have a right to know them. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to pray for wisdom or make yourself worthy of it. As with the concept of grace in the New Testament, which falls like rain on the just and the unjust alike, the ultimate truth simply is. When we catch a glimpse of it, we become more real in ourselves.

It is undeniable that the outward appearance of life contains suffering and distress. Wisdom reveals that suffering comes and goes while a deeper reality never changes. That reality is founded on truth and love.

Faith makes life better because in the midst of pain and suffering, we need to trust that something else is more powerful. ~ Deepak Chopra,
1134:It’s going to work.”
“Classic,” Roarke said.
“What’s going to work? What’s classic? I want my jacket.”
“Forget it. You’re going to walk right up to Milo the Mole’s front door, and he’s going to answer.”
“I am? He is?”
“Damsel in distress, right?” Eve said to Roarke.
“A very alluring damsel. Clever, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, okay. I get it. I look like I’m in trouble—all alone, unarmed. Harmless. Girl. He opens up to find out what’s what. You should do it,” Peabody told Eve.
“You’re the one with the tits. Men are stupid for tits.”
“Harsh,” Roarke observed. “But largely true.”
“Plus, you’re the type, obviously, who appeals to skinny geeks.”
“Oh yeah,” McNab confirmed. “Completely. ~ J D Robb,
1135:The Temperance Movement
A POWER is stirring—a broad light has shone
Amid the nation’s—in the wilderness
Of the world’s social horror and distress,
Heralding temperance as the Baptist John
Announced the Christ. Amazed upon her throne,
Built up of skulls that were in life not less
Than temples of great souls—behold Excess
Blinks in its rays, and feels her empire gone!
And Ignorance and Crime—each brutal vice
That brands the brow with shame and steels the heart,
Are starting from their lairs in human sties,
Like felons scared, and gathering to depart:
Even as the fiend-gods of the pagan earth
Trooped hell-ward at the Babe of Bethlehem’s birth.
~ Charles Harpur,
1136:Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.

My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.

The most beautiful among the beautiful…

My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf…

My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this world…

My Constantinople, my Caraman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan

My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of mischief…

I’ll sing your praises always

I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi of the eyes full of tears, I am happy. ~ Claire North,
1137:DECEMBER 18 WHEN YOU ARE PLAGUED by a persistent problem—one that goes on and on—view it as a rich opportunity. An ongoing problem is like a tutor who is always by your side. The learning possibilities are limited only by your willingness to be teachable. In faith, thank Me for your problem. Ask Me to open your eyes and your heart to all that I am accomplishing through this difficulty. Once you have become grateful for a problem, it loses its power to drag you down. On the contrary, your thankful attitude will lift you up into heavenly places with Me. From this perspective, your difficulty can be seen as a slight, temporary distress that is producing for you a transcendent Glory never to cease! Although ~ Sarah Young,
1138:I Know The Face Of Falsehood And Her Tongue
I know the face of Falsehood and her Tongue
Honeyed with unction, Plausible with guile,
Are dear to men, whom count me not among,
That owe their daily credit to her smile;
Such have been succoured out of great distress
By her contriving, if accounts be true:
Their deference now above the board, I guess,
Dishcharges what beneath the board is due.
As for myself, I'd liefer lack her aid
Than eat her presence; let this building fall:
But let me never lift my latch, afraid
To hear her simpering accents in the hall,
Nor force an entrance past mephitic airs
Of stale patchoulie hanging on my stairs.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,
1139:Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day, and she would listen to every sound, spring to her feet, feel surprised that it had not come; then at sunset, always more sorrowful, she would wish the next day were already there. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
1140:Success
This I would claim for my success—not fame nor gold,
Nor the throng's changing cheers from day to day,
Not always ease and fortune's glad display,
Though all of these are pleasant joys to hold;
But I would like to have my story told
By smiling friends with whom I've shared the way,
Who, thinking of me, nod their heads and say:
'His heart was warm when other hearts were cold.
'None turned to him for aid and found it not,
His eyes were never blind to man's distress,
Youth and old age he lived, nor once forgot
The anguish and the ache of loneliness;
His name was free from stain or shameful blot
And in his friendship men found happiness.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1141:While Christopher went to the front of the church to wait at the altar, Beatrix remained at the back with Leo.
"Beatrix,” her brother asked, “what did you do to Hector?”
“He’s a flower mule,” she said reasonably.
“I hope it won’t distress you to learn that he’s eating his hat.”
Beatrix stifled a giggle.
Bending his head over hers, Leo murmured, “When I give you away at the altar, Bea, I want you to remember something. I’m not really giving you away. I’m merely allowing him the chance to love you as much as the rest of us do.”
Beatrix’s eyes watered, and she leaned against him. “He does,” she whispered.
“I think so, too,” her brother whispered back. “I wouldn’t let you marry him otherwise. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1142:Anyone who, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the colors of distress, green and gray with disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and loneliness, is certainly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not take all this burden and disgust upon himself voluntarily, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is certain: he was not made, he was not predestined, for knowledge. If he were, he would one day have to say to himself: ‘The devil take my good taste! but the rule is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!’ And he would go down, and above all, he would go ‘inside’. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
1143:This is how the entire course of life can be changed – by doing nothing. On Chesil beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer’s dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was blurred, receding against the immense straight road of shingle gleaming in the pallid light. ~ Ian McEwan,
1144:To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er.
The world takes sides: whether for impious aims
With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames
A generous people to heroic war;
Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore,
Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress
Still offer hearts that thirst for Righteousness
A glorious cause to strike or perish for.
England, which side is thine? Thou hast had sons
Would shrink not from the choice however grim,
Were Justice trampled on and Courage downed;
Which will they be -- cravens or champions?
Oh, if a doubt intrude, remember him
Whose death made Missolonghi holy ground.
~ Alan Seeger,
1145:Girls don’t get to rebel in quite the same way that boys do. There’s simply too much at stake. We know that we will not be indulged if we flame out, we have been taught to turn our anger inwards, to turn our rage inwards, to hurt ourselves rather than hurting others. According to the stereotype: where rebellious young men hurt other people, out-of-control young women hurt themselves, compulsively, dangerously. Eating disorders and self-harm, bingeing and purging and starving and cutting and burning, it all becomes a silent rhetoric of female distress. If you didn’t grow up doing it yourself, you almost certainly knew someone who did. We experience this trauma on our bodies. It is a physical thing. It fucking hurts. ~ Laurie Penny,
1146:Is it really for the tournaments or are you going for the women?” “You know, I’m not sure why you always make me out to be such a lady’s man,” Reuben admonished his father mildly. “I’m just looking for the perfect girl for me.” “Well,” growled the duke, “nobody could accuse you of not being diligent in your search, with close attention paid to every subject you study. Very close attention.” The young knight shrugged. “You can’t find the perfect girl if you aren’t looking, can you now? And as for your question—I am indeed going for the tournaments. And if I should happen to stumble over a dragon that needs to be slain or a damsel in distress on the way, I wouldn’t say no to that either.” “You’re mad! Completely mad! ~ Robert Thier,
1147:Sonnets 11: As To Some Lovely Temple, Tenantless
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
The worshiper returns, and those who pass
Marvel him crying on a name that was,—
So is it now with me in my distress.
Your body was a temple to Delight;
Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
Here might I hope to find you day or night,
And here I come to look for you, my love,
Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,
1148:The Growth Of Love Xi
XI
Belovèd, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,
A moment's interlude in life's dull play;
Though many loves have lingered to distress,
So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,
But deepen with us till both heads be grey.
For perfect love is like a fair green plant,
That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,
And gentle lovers shall not come to want,
Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;
Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,
But sweeter still the green that never dies.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1149:Farm animals aren't the only ones that suffer at the hands of human beings. Scientists use animals for their research. It's not just rats and guinea pigs – cats, dogs, monkeys and even chimpanzees can be found in laboratories, many of them suffering pain and distress as they are drugged or given electric shocks. Singer's test to see if any research is morally acceptable is this: would we be prepared to perform the same experiment on a brain-damaged human being? If not, he believes, it is not right to perform the experiment on an animal with a similar level of mental awareness. This is a tough test, and not many experiments would pass it. In practice, then, Singer is very strongly against using animals in research. The ~ Nigel Warburton,
1150:The Humorist
'What is that, mother?'
'The funny man, child.
His hands are black, but his heart is mild.'
'May I touch him, mother?'
''T were foolishly done:
He is slightly touched already, my son.'
'O, why does he wear such a ghastly grin?'
'That's the outward sign of a joke within.'
'Will he crack it, mother?'
'Not so, my saint;
'T is meant for the _Saturday Livercomplaint.'
'Does he suffer, mother?'
'God help him, yes!
A thousand and fifty kinds of distress.'
'What makes him sweat so?'
'The demons that lurk
In the fear of having to go to work.'
'Why doesn't he end, then, his life with a rope?'
'Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,
1151:Okay you guys need the dope on the real story of the princess and the frog...So once upon a time a beautiful independent confident princess came upon a frog sitting by a pond. The frog said to the princess 'I was once a handsome prince until an evil Witch put a spell on me.'...So the smart-assed frog said 'If you will just kiss me I will turn back into a prince. And then you'll marry me move into the castle with my mother and you can cook for me and clean my clothes have my children and live happy ever after while I go rescue a damsel in distress'...Later that night the princess laughed as she sat down to dinner. 'I don't think so ' she said and dug hungrily into her plate of frog's legs. And she lived happily ever after. ~ Phyllis Curott,
1152:It is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these records that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life. Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the most powerful of stimulants. ~ Evelyn Underhill,
1153:Somebody's Song
This is what I vow;
He shall have my heart to keep,
Sweetly will we stir and sleep,
All the years, as now.
Swift the measured sands may run;
Love like this is never done;
He and I are welded one:
This is what I vow.
This is what I pray:
Keep him by me tenderly;
Keep him sweet in pride of me,
Ever and a day;
Keep me from the old distress;
Let me, for our happiness,
Be the one to love the less:
This is what I pray.
This is what I know:
Lovers' oaths are thin as rain;
Love's a harbinger of painWould it were not so!
Ever is my heart a-thirst,
Ever is my love accurst;
He is neither last nor first:
This is what I know.
~ Dorothy Parker,
1154:The consequences of this affliction are physical neglect and an aversion to oiling and bathing the body and to other aspects of the daily regimen, when exactly the opposite should happen: purely mental suffering ought to be helped by physical fitness. Mental distress abates and subsides to a great extent when it is dispersed in physical calm, as waves subside in fair weather, but if as a result [B] of a bad regimen the body becomes sordid and foul and transmits to the mind nothing benign or beneficial, but only the harsh and unpleasant fumes of pain and distress, then even those who desire it find that recovery becomes hard to achieve. These are the kinds of disorders that take possession of the mind when it is treated so badly. ~ Plutarch,
1155:Just then Patch ambled through the front door. I did a double take to make it was really him. I hadn't expected him to come. We'd never resolved our fight, and I'd pridefully refused to take the first step, forcing myself to lock my cell phone in a drawer every time I was tempted to call him and apologize, despite my increasing distress that he might never call either. My pride immediately turned to relief at the sight of him. I hated fighting. I hated not having him close. If he was ready to mend this, so was I.A smile flickered across my face at the sight of his costume; black jeans, black t-shirt, black face mask. The latter concealed all but his cool, assessing gaze.

"There's my date," I said. "Fashionably late. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick,
1156:She had moved to Los Angeles from the Midwest, lured by a job with a publisher. But the publisher was bought by another soon after, and she was left without a job. Turning to freelance writing, an erratic marketplace, she found herself either swamped with work or unable to pay her rent. She often had to ration phone calls, and for the first time was without health insurance. This lack of coverage was particularly distressing: she found herself catastrophizing about her health, sure every headache signaled a brain tumor, picturing herself in an accident whenever she had to drive somewhere. She often found herself lost in a long reverie of worry, a medley of distress. But, she said, she found her worries almost addictive. Borkovec ~ Daniel Goleman,
1157:To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love All pray in their distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love Is God, our Father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love Is man, His child and care. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity and Peace. And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk or Jew; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. [2071.jpg] -- from Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry, Edited by Patrick Laude / Edited by Barry McDonald

~ William Blake, The Divine Image
,
1158:That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag of superstition. ~ Thomas Paine,
1159:Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys -- a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.

The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.

Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact. ~ Robert A Heinlein,
1160:Epilogue
With quiet heart, I climbed the hill,
from which one can see, the city, complete,
hospitals, brothels, purgatory, hell,
prison, where every sin flowers, at our feet.
You know well, Satan, patron of my distress,
I did not trudge up there to vainly weep,
but like an old man with an old mistress,
I longed to intoxicate myself, with the infernal delight
of the vast procuress, who can always make things fresh.
Whether you still sleep in the morning light,
heavy, dark, rheumatic, or whether your hands
flutter, in your pure, gold-edged veils of night,
I love you, infamous capital! Courtesans
and pimps, you often offer pleasures
the vulgar mob will never understand.
~ Charles Baudelaire,
1161:As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once -- that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1162:I seen the cold deeds of hunger. The world got a lot of people in it, and when it comes to slaughter and famine, whether we're to live or die, it don't care much either way. The world got so many it don't need to. We could have starved out there on the badlands, on that desert that wasn't a desert, on that journey that wasn't a journey so much as a fleeing eastward. Thousands die everywhere always. The world don't care much, it just don't mind much. That's what I notice about it. There is that great wailing and distress and then the pacifying waters close over everything, old Father Time washes his hands. On he plods to the next place. It suits us well to know these things, that you may exert yourself to survive. Just surviving is the victory. ~ Sebastian Barry,
1163:Witness
Against the enormous rocks of a rough coast
The ocean rams itself in pitched assault
And spastic rage to which there is no halt;
Foam-white brigades collapse; but the huge host
Has infinite reserves; at each attack
The impassive cliffs look down in gray disdain
At scenes of sacrifice, unrelieved pain,
Figured in froth, aquamarine and black.
Something in the blood-chemistry of life,
Unspeakable, impressive, undeterred,
Expresses itself without needing a word
In this sea-crazed Empedoclean Strife.
It is a scene of unmatched melancholy,
Weather of misery, cloud cover of distress,
To which there are not witnesses, unless
One counts the briny, tough and thorned sea holly.
~ Anthony Evan Hecht,
1164:He closed his eyes. Swiftly like a predator, the vision of his death struck. This time it would not be denied.

The white ground, black rocks, and red drops of his heart's blood growing on the ground like blooming roses. He lost himself in the sensation of liquid warmth flowing between his fingers.

When he could finally see again, he found himself kneeling on the floor, shoulders hunched. That damned scene hung like an albatross around his neck, until he almost wished it would go ahead and happen, just so that he could get it the fuck over with.

He had carried that albatross for almost two hundred damn years - exactly from the moment when he had responded to a damsel in distress and had embroiled himself in another man's curse. ~ Thea Harrison,
1165:107  g Oh give thanks to the LORD,  h for he is good,         for his steadfast love endures forever!     2 Let  i the redeemed of the LORD say so,         whom he has  j redeemed from trouble [1]     3 and  k gathered in from the lands,         from the east and from the west,         from the north and from the south.     4 Some  l wandered in desert wastes,         finding no way  m to a city to dwell in;     5 hungry and thirsty,         their soul  n fainted within them.     6 Then they  o cried to the LORD in their trouble,         and he delivered them from their distress.     7 He led them by  p a straight way         till they reached  m a city to dwell in.     8  q Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,         for his wondrous works ~ Anonymous,
1166:I managed to weave my way in and around it, a maneuver one learns in the process of writing history—to muffle the facts a bit when one can’t understand everything—watch Gibbon do it in those sonorous balanced sentences which, if you analyze them, often turn out to make little sense, but you forget that in the marvel of their structure. I am no Gibbon, but I have learned the value of venturing into the unfamiliar instead of returning to a field of previous study where one already knows the source material and all the persons and circumstances. To do the latter makes the work certainly easier, but removes any sense of discovery and surprise, which is why I like moving to a new subject for a new book. Though it may distress the critics, it pleases me. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,
1167:in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all these misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person a little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackened nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty. ~ Victor Hugo,
1168:O PEACE! and dost thou with thy presence bless
The dwellings of this war-surrounded Isle;
Soothing with placid brow our late distress,
Making the triple kingdom brightly smile?
Joyful I hail thy presence; and I hail
The sweet companions that await on thee;
Complete my joy let not my first wish fail,
Let the sweet mountain nymph thy favourite be,
With England's happiness proclaim Europa's Liberty.
O Europe! let not sceptred tyrants see
That thou must shelter in thy former state;
Keep thy chains burst, and boldly say thou art free;
Give thy kings law leave not uncurbed the great ;
So with the horrors past thou'lt win thy happier fate!
by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

~ John Keats, Sonnet. On Peace
,
1169:It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. ~ Bram Stoker,
1170:He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than the cloud which had closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one, the goblins faded from his sight; and, as the last one disappeared ~ Charles Dickens,
1171:To The Moon
O lovely moon, how well do I recall
The time,--'tis just a year--when up this hill
I came, in my distress, to gaze at thee:
And thou suspended wast o'er yonder grove,
As now thou art, which thou with light dost fill.
But stained with mist, and tremulous, appeared
Thy countenance to me, because my eyes
Were filled with tears, that could not be suppressed;
For, oh, my life was wretched, wearisome,
And _is_ so still, unchanged, belovèd moon!
And yet this recollection pleases me,
This computation of my sorrow's age.
How pleasant is it, in the days of youth,
When hope a long career before it hath,
And memories are few, upon the past
To dwell, though sad, and though the sadness last!
~ Count Giacomo Leopardi,
1172:Well I'm not going to hope that you get hurt, but if you do, remember that you're my damsel in distress, and no one is allowed to carry you."

"I don't remember signing a contract."

"All the more reason to promise me now."

"What if you're not around when I get hurt?"

"Send word, I`ll come running."

"How big an injury does it have to be? Because sometimes I do this thing when I stand up too quickly and my ankle kind of twists a little---"

"Sounds serious. You don't want to put any weight on that. I`d better carry you the next time that happens."

"What if I skin my knee?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Charley horse?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Chipped toenail?"

"Not worth taking a risk. I`ll carry you. ~ Claire LaZebnik,
1173:If the evil-doing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evil-doers, shun above all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evil-doers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a light to them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evil-doer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin. And even though your light was shining, yet you see men were not saved by it, hold firm and doubt not the power of the heavenly light. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
1174:But for some reason, it appears that more and more people, particularly young people, are forgetting this. Numerous professors and educators have noted a lack of emotional resilience and an excess of selfish demands in today’s young people. It’s not uncommon now for books to be removed from a class’s curriculum for no other reason than that they made someone feel bad. Speakers and professors are shouted down and banned from campuses for infractions as simple as suggesting that maybe some Halloween costumes really aren’t that offensive. School counselors note that more students than ever are exhibiting severe signs of emotional distress over what are otherwise run-of-the-mill daily college experiences, such as an argument with a roommate, or getting a low grade in a class. ~ Mark Manson,
1175:Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' These men without possessions or power, these strangers on Earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They have an irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity. If any man falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honour to shield him, and take his shame upon themselves. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1176:But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. He did not flee from it incontinently, as one might have expected him to do. He remained, astonished at himself for remaining, since nothing could have been more repulsive to his tastes, more painful to his senses, and, so to speak, more contrary to his genius, than this rude exhibition of vigour. The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence; and that impression was so strong that it seemed marvelous to see the people sitting so quietly on their chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving no signs of distress, anger, or fear. Heyst averted his gaze from the unnatural spectacle of their indifference. ~ Joseph Conrad,
1177:Knowledge drifts in and out of my mind", said Lestat with a little look of honest distress and a shake of his head. "I devour it and then I lose it and sometimes I can't reach for any knowledge that I ought to possess. I feel desolate, but then knowledge returns or I seek it out in a knew source."

(...)

"But you love books, then", Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.

"Oh, yes," Lestat said. "Sometimes they're the only thing that keeps me alive."

"What a thing to say at your age", she laughed.

"No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved. ~ Anne Rice,
1178:The collapse of order brings in its wake the four horsemen of the apocalypse - famine, war, pestilence, and death. Population declines, and wages increase, while rents decrease. As incomes of commoners recover, the fortunes of the upper classes hit the bottom. Economic distress of the elites and lack of effective government feed the continuing internecine wars. But civil wars thin the ranks of the elites. Some die in factional fighting, others succumb to feuds with neighbors, and many just give up on trying to maintain their noble status and quietly slip into the ranks of the commoners. Intra-elite competition subsides, allowing order to be restored. Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and another secular cycle begins. 'So peace brings warre and warre brings peace. ~ Peter Turchin,
1179:The first touch came when Bull was lying full-length along the skirting board in the little six-foot vestibule that connected the bathroom to the kitchenette and the front door. He was the picture of powerlessness. His sensible, striped M&S shirt was rucked up around his back, his white, cotton Y- fronts dewlapped over the flat surfaces of his buttocks. Alan’s fine and tapering hand described an arc over him. He knelt as if stroking a cat. At the zenith of the arc Alan’s palm made contact with the small of Bull’s back. Bull stiffened bur did not cry out or resist…Oh, cruel deceiver! For how could Margoulis not have known that in this moment of breakdown, of cracking distress, the thing that Bull, of course, still desired most ardently, was the dry, sensible touch of a doctor. ~ Will Self,
1180:The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn’t working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you’re doing is playing the victim. ~ Robin S Sharma,
1181:It is a marble statue of a man with his children near him, and the man has such desperation on his face and the children at his feet appear to be clinging, begging him, while he gazes out toward the world with a tortured look, his hands pulling at his nouth, but his children look only at him, and when I finally saw this, I said inside myself, Oh.
I read the placard, which let me know that these children are offering themselves as food for their father, he is being starved to death in prison, and these children only want one thing - to have their father's distress disappear. They will allow him - oh, happily, happily - to eat them.
And I thought, So that guy knew. Meaning the sculptor. He knew.
And so did the poet who wrote what the sculpture has shown. He knew too. ~ Elizabeth Strout,
1182:What is Separation Anxiety? The popular usage of the term “separation anxiety” denotes a condition where a dog becomes emotionally distraught when separated from a specific person or persons, or when he is left alone. In the first type, the agitation stems from a strong attachment to a particular individual or individuals from whom the dog cannot bear to be apart. In the second, the dog’s distress is not attributable to an emotional bond, but is simply a reaction to being isolated. In many cases of the latter type, a dog will remain at ease if he is left with a person—most anyone will do. For some, even the presence of another dog is enough to instill calmness. Those dogs, rather than having true separation issues, are more accurately described as suffering from “isolation distress. ~ Anonymous,
1183:As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from André one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now, I suppose you wouldn’t expect a man of André’s proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set we were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted in the campfire scene in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts. ~ Cary Elwes,
1184:There is a willow grows aslant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; therewith fantastic garlands did she make of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that the liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke; when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide and, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element; but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death. ~ William Shakespeare,
1185:In the case of our fair maiden, we have overlooked two very crucial aspects to that myth. On the one hand, none of us ever really believed the sorcerer was real. We thought we could have the maiden without a fight. Honestly, most of us guys thought our biggest battle was asking her out. And second, we have not understood the tower and its relationship to her wound; the damsel is in distress. If masculinity has come under assault, femininity has been brutalized. Eve is the crown of creation, remember? She embodies the exquisite beauty and the exotic mystery of God in a way that nothing else in all creation even comes close to. And so she is the special target of the Evil One; he turns his most vicious malice against her. If he can destroy her or keep her captive, he can ruin the story. ~ John Eldredge,
1186:Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe, safe for today! Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments. ~ Dale Carnegie,
1187:To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omens
By sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
Or barbituric acids, or dissect
The recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—
To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press:
And always will be, some of them especially
When there is distress of nations and perplexity
Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.
Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. ... ~ T S Eliot,
1188:He that is with the King, is not alone, though forsaken by all others. He on whom the sun shines is not without light, though all his candles are put out. If God be our God, he is our all. And if God be our all, we shall not, while he is with us, find the want of creatures. For, He is with us, who is every where, and therefore is never from us. He is with us, who is Almighty, and therefore we need not fear what man can do unto us. He can deliver us, when and how he pleases, from every danger and distress. He is with us, who is infinitely wise, to preserve us even from our own folly, as well as from our enemy's subtlety. He knows what to do with us, in what paths to lead us, and what condition is best for us. He is with us, who is infinitely good ; alone fit to be the perpetual delight of our souls. ~ Anonymous,
1189:You do not know me, Perry.”“No, I guess not.”“Perhaps by the end of the evening you will.”I looked at her. What was that supposed to mean? Ever since her comment about blood, I realized I’d been thinking about Sissy Spacek in Carrie, the high school loser in her homemade prom dress, drenched in pig blood, unleashing a firestorm of psychokinetic destruction on the high school gym ... The distress must have shown on my face, because for the first time ever, Gobi actually laughed. Her eyes sparkled, a bright and glinting green behind her glasses, and for an instant the light transformed her entire face—the bland, expressionless mask slipped away to reveal an actual girl underneath: feminine, uninhibited, spontaneous, and alive. It occurred to me that I might have been missing something this whole time. ~ Joe Schreiber,
1190:Faust also discusses the belief in salvation as a factor in nerving soldiers to face death with equanimity and as a source of comfort to their families. She cites the funeral sermon for a Massachusetts officer killed at Petersburg, in which the clergyman defined death as “the middle point between two lives.” But she seems inclined at times to view this conviction as the equivalent of grasping at straws—or, to change the metaphor, of whistling past the graveyard. Instead of a deeply held belief, it was for many soldiers and their families, she writes, the product of “distress and desire” to make tolerable the intolerable prospect of death. She also suggests the provocative idea that the vision of death as the middle point between two lives was a nineteenth-century version of a death-denying culture. ~ James M McPherson,
1191:The winter of 1789 was the hardest within living memory. No one, not even the old people of the district, had ever known anything like it. The cold weather set in early, and, coming on top of a bad harvest, led to great distress among the tenant farmers and the peasants. We were hard hit at the foundry too, for conditions on the road became impossible, what with frost and ice, and then snow; and we were unable to deliver our goods to Paris and the other big cities. This meant that we were left with unsold merchandise on our hands, and little prospect of getting rid of it in the spring, for in the meantime the traders in Paris would be buying elsewhere—if, that is, they ordered at all. There was a general drop in demand for luxury commodities at this time, owing to the unrest throughout the country. ~ Daphne du Maurier,
1192:But it doesn’t happen that way usually,” puzzled the comely ecstatica. “They like to haunt stationary places, houses, churchyards—but moving trains? notional rail lines? hardly ever. If at all.” “Something’s afoot,” groaned the Cohen, with an inflection almost of gastric distress. “And did somebody just blow up a train line?” Lew feeling somewhat out of his depth here, “or . . .” “Tried to,” she said, “thought about it, dreamed it, or saw something—analogous to an explosion. Death is a region of metaphor, it often seems.” “Not always decipherable,” added the Cohen, “but in this case Eastern-Questionable, beyond a doubt. More Renfrew and Werfner melodrama. Queer Street for the Tiresome Twins, I’d say. Not immediately clear which will murder the other, but the crime itself is as certain as the full moon. ~ Thomas Pynchon,
1193:You may not want to glare at me quite so fiercely,” West murmured to Kathleen sotto voce, as the sisters gathered up their gifts and carried them from the room. “It would distress the girls if they were to realize how much you dislike me.”
“I disapprove of you,” she replied gravely, walking out to the grand staircase with him. “That’s not the same as dislike.”
“Lady Trenear, I disapprove of me.” He grinned at her. “So we have something in common.”
“Mr. Ravenel, if you--”
“Mightn’t we call each other cousin?”
“No. Mr. Ravenel, if you are to spend a fortnight here, you will conduct yourself like a gentleman, or I will have you forcibly taken to Alton and tossed onto the first railway car that stops at the station.”
West blinked and looked at her, clearly wondering if she was serious. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1194:Symptoms of illness and distress, plus your feelings about them, can be viewed as messengers coming to tell you something important about your body or about your mind. In the old days, if a king didn't like the message he was given, he would sometimes have the messenger killed. This is tantamount to suppressing your symptoms or your feelings because they are unwanted. Killing the messenger and denying the message or raging against it are not intelligent ways of approaching healing. The one thing we don't want to do is to ignore or rupture the essential connections that can complete relevant feedback loops and restore self-regulation and balance. Our real challenge when we have symptoms is to see if we can listen to their message and really hear them and take them to heart, that is, make the connection fully. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn,
1195:Couples in distress too often turn to solutions that can be summed up by "You do your thing and I'll do my thing" or "You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself." We hear pop psychology pronouncements such as "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" and "You have to love yourself before anyone can love you."

Is any of this true? Is it really possible to love yourself before someone ever loves you?

Think about it. How could this be true? If it were true, babies would come into this world already self-loving or self-hating. And we know they don't. In fact, human beings don't start by thinking anything about themselves, good or bad. We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us. ~ Stan Tatkin,
1196:Boys’ aggressiveness is increasingly being treated as a medical problem, particularly in schools, a trend that has led to the diagnosing and medicating of boys whose problem may really be that they have been traumatized and influenced by exposure to violence and abuse at home. Treating these boys as though they have a chemical problem not only overlooks the distress they are in but also reinforces their belief that they are “out of control” or “sick,” rather than helping them to recognize that they are making bad choices based on destructive values. I have sometimes heard adults telling girls that they should be flattered by boys’ invasive or aggressive behavior “because it means they really like you,” an approach that prepares both boys and girls to confuse love with abuse and socializes girls to feel helpless. ~ Lundy Bancroft,
1197:I saw Mr. Prospero constantly, and always in distress; now soaked to the skin pathetically grinding the handle of his camera in an impenetrable pall of rain; now prostrate under the bare feet of a stampeding mob, like a football in a rugger scrum, now lamed, now groaning with indigestion, now shuddering in high fever. He became a figure from classic tragedy, inexorably hunted by hostile fates. After we had been in Addis Ababa some time a copy of a poster arrived from America advertising his news reel. It represented a young man of military appearance and more than military intrepidity standing calmly behind his camera while bombs burst overhead and naked warriors rolled interlocked about his knees. In vast letters across this scene of carnage was printed : " O.K., BOYS, YOU CAN START THE WAR NOW PROSPERO IS THERE. ~ Evelyn Waugh,
1198:Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable
than material improvement. To know is a sacrament, to
think is the prime necessity, truth is nourishment as well as
grain. A reason which fasts from science and wisdom grows
thin. Let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and
minds which do not eat. If there is anything more heartbreaking
than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul
which is dying from hunger for the light.
The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution.
Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts
upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of
1684 Les Miserables
distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by
a simple elevation of level.
We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation ~ Victor Hugo,
1199:Our True Heritage

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.
Each moment you are alive is a gem,
shining through and containing earth and sky,
water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting,
see the flowers blooming,
the blue sky,
the white clouds,
the smile and the marvelous look
of your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging for a living,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
We should enjoy our happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,
1200:Miss St. John!” she exclaimed severely. “What do you mean by such conduct? Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit up at once!”
Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes; and Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy.
“If Sara had been a boy and loved a few centuries ago,” her father used to say, “she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett,
1201:33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [10] 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,     “For your sake we are being killed all the day long;         we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous,
1202:To Henry
Think not, while fairer nymphs invite
Thy feet, dear youth, to Pleasure's bowers,
My faded form shall meet thy sight,
And cloud my Henry's smiling hours.
Thou art the world's delighted guest,
And all that pride desires is thine;
Then I'll not wound thy generous breast,
By numbering o'er the woes of mine.
I will not say how well, how long
This faithful heart has sighed for thee;
But leave thee happier nymphs among,
Content if thou contented be.
But, Henry, should Misfortune's hand
Bid all thy youth's fond triumphs fly,
The crimson from thy lip command,
And force the lustre from thine eye,....
Then, thoughtless of my own distress,
I'll haste thy comforter to prove;
And Henry shall my friendship bless,
Although, alas! he scorns my love.
~ Amelia Opie,
1203:He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, ~ Charles Dickens,
1204:He was as bold as a lion about it, and 'mightily convinced' not only himself, but everybody that heard him;—but then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with "Ran away from the subscriber" under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenseless child,—like that one which was now wearing his lost boy's little well-known cap; and so, as our poor senator was not stone or steel,—as he was a man, and a downright noble-hearted one, too,—he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case for his patriotism. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
1205:Go Not Far From Me, O My God
Go not far from me, O my God,
Whom all my times obey;
Take from me anything Thou wilt,
But go not Thou away,
And let the storm that does thy work
Deal with me as it may.
On thy compassion I repose
In weakness and distress:
I will not ask for greater ease,
Lest I should love Thee less.
Oh, 'tis a blessed thing for me
To need thy tenderness.
When I am feeble as a child,
And flesh and heart give way,
Then on thy everlasting strength
With passive trust I stay,
And the rough wind becomes a song;
The darkness shines like day.
Deep unto deep may call, but I
With peaceful heart can say,
Thy loving-kindness hath a charge
No waves can take away:
Then let the storm that speeds me home
Deal with me as it may.
~ Anna Laetitia Waring,
1206:He was wearing brown leather trousers, a darker brown leather vest, and a silk shirt that matched my dress. The sleeves were almost piratical in style, and the collar was unlaced. His boots were the same shade as his vest, a few shades lighter than his hair.

"Uh," I said again, before managing. "Weren't you wearing that the last time you came to Court?"

"She always dresses me in some variation of this attire," said Tybalt. "I can't tell whether she likes the look of it, or whether she's trying to make a point. This would have been a stagehand's garb, once upon a time, and nothing suited for a King."

"Uh," I said for a third time.

Seeing my distress, Tybalt smirked, leaned in, and murmured in my ear, "I have a disturbing assortment of leather trousers, thanks to her. I'd be happy to show you, if you like. ~ Seanan McGuire,
1207:...you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement: the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence ... and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
1208:I was spitting mad, having just endured a four-hour flight, economy class, on American Airlines where I'd found myself seated between two gigantic specimens of humanity. One of them, a woman of Jabba the Hutt proportions, literally took up half my seat in addition to her own, leaving me balanced on one butt cheek, leaning forward and against the seat back in front of me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sit back. I couldn't do anything but fume silently. Neither she nor the flight attendants ever acknowledged my obvious distress. For the duration of the flight, I tried to lull myself into a state of calm by focusing on the in-flight telephone against which my face was mashed, imagining what would happen if I wrapped the cord around my neck, leaned forward with my full body weight, and ended my life. That thought was what got me through. ~ Anthony Bourdain,
1209:I saw Mr. Prospero constantly, and always in distress; now soaked to the skin pathetically grinding the handle of his camera in an impenetrable pall of rain; now prostrate under the bare feet of a stampeding mob, like a football in a rugger scrum, now lamed, now groaning with indigestion, now shuddering in high fever. He became a figure from classic tragedy, inexorably hunted by hostile fates. After we had been in Addis Ababa some time a copy of a poster arrived from America advertising his news reel. It represented a young man of military appearance and more than military intrepidity standing calmly behind his camera while bombs burst overhead and naked warriors rolled interlocked about his knees. In vast letters across this scene of carnage was printed : " O.K., BOYS, YOU CAN START THE WAR NOW PROSPERO IS THERE."
-Waugh in Abyssinia ~ Evelyn Waugh,
1210:Waiting for the airlock to cycle, I felt my aloneness like an impenetrable wall pressing around me. Usually one body’s off-kilter emotion was a minor, easily dismissable thing. Now it was only this one body, nothing beyond to temper my distress. The rest of me was here, all around, but inaccessible. Soon, if things went right, I wouldn’t even be near my self, or have any idea when I might rejoin it. And at this moment I could do nothing but wait. And remember the feel of the gun in One Var’s hand—my hand. I was One Esk, but what was the difference? The recoil as One Var shot Lieutenant Awn. The guilt and helpless anger that had overwhelmed me had receded at that moment, overcome by more urgent necessity, but now I had time to remember. My next three breaths were ragged and sobbing. For a moment I was perversely glad I was hidden from myself. ~ Ann Leckie,
1211:In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again At Christmas Did We
Weave
Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possess'd the earth,
And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:
The yule-log sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,
Again our ancient games had place,
The mimic picture's breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show'd a token of distress?
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, regret can die!
No--mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
1212:Happiness
Happiness, to some, elation;
Is, to others, mere stagnation.
Days of passive somnolence,
At its wildest, indolence.
Hours of empty quietness,
No delight, and no distress.
Happiness to me is wine,
Effervescent, superfine.
Full of tang and fiery pleasure,
Far too hot to leave me leisure
For a single thought beyond it.
Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it
Means to give one's soul to gain
Life's quintessence. Even pain
Pricks to livelier living, then
Wakes the nerves to laugh again,
Rapture's self is three parts sorrow.
Although we must die to-morrow,
Losing every thought but this;
Torn, triumphant, drowned in bliss.
Happiness: We rarely feel it.
I would buy it, beg it, steal it,
Pay in coins of dripping blood
For this one transcendent good.
~ Amy Lowell,
1213:Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence... and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness — to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
1214:When a baby gets hungry and cries his levels of stress hormones will move upward. But if Mom or Dad regularly comes to feed him, they go back down, and over time, they become patterned and repetitive thanks to the daily routine. At times, nonetheless, the baby will feel distress and cry: not hungry, not wet, not in discernible physical pain, she will appear inconsolable. When this happens most parents hug and rock their children, almost instinctively using rhythmic motion and affectionate touch to calm the child. Interestingly, the rate at which people rock their babies is about eighty beats per minute, the same as a normal resting adult heart rate. Faster and the baby will find the motion stimulating; slower and the child will tend to keep crying. To soothe our children we reattune them physically to the beat of the master timekeeper of life. ~ Bruce D Perry,
1215:Ambiguous tasks are a good place to observe how personality traits bubble to the surface. Although few of us are elite soldiers, we’ve all experienced the kind of psychological distress these trainees encounter on their training run: managing unclear expectations, struggling with self-motivation, and balancing the use of social support with private reflection. These issues are endemic not only to the workplace, but also to relationships, health, and every aspect of life in which we seek to thrive and succeed. Not surprisingly, the leading predictor of success in elite military training programs is the same quality that distinguishes those best equipped to resolve marital conflict, to achieve favorable deal terms in business negotiations, and to bestow the gifts of good parenting on their children: the ability to tolerate psychological discomfort. ~ Todd Kashdan,
1216:His lips rubbed across hers, pursed to kiss the corners, returned to suck subtly at her lower lip. More dangerously alluring pleasure blasted her. She made a muffled sound of distress, raising one hand to his chest. To push him away or draw him closer? She couldn't have said.
Her eyes fluttered shut and her senses flooded with Merrick. With his male scent, so alien yet so alluring. The emphatic beat of his heart under her palm. The firm warmth of his mouth.
When his tongue flickered out to touch where he'd kissed her, she started. What an odd thing to do. If he'd told her he meant to lick her, she would have been revolted. In practice, it was... intriguing. Another whimper escaped as her hand clutched at his loose shirt. The leashed power beneath the shirt should terrify her. Right now, that strength stirred curiosity rather than trepidation. ~ Anna Campbell,
1217:At the risk of sounding extreme, let me give you an example from my own case files that sets the tone for this chapter. Kate had never been on an antidepressant and never suffered from depression, but she felt overwhelmed and frazzled after the birth of her first baby. At her six-week postpartum follow-up appointment, her obstetrician prescribed Zoloft. Within one week of starting it, she had written a suicide note and was planning to jump off of her fifteenth-floor Manhattan balcony. She said to me, “It just made sense at the time. And I felt really detached about it, like it was nothing.” Kate’s experience is not an outlier. She is among millions of women who are reflexively prescribed medication for symptoms of distress. She’s also among those who have serious side effects that may seem like part of the depression—not a result of the drugs. Rather ~ Kelly Brogan,
1218:There are monsters all around us
They can be so hard to see
hey don't have fangs, no blood-soaked claws
They look like you and me.

But we're not defenseless
We're no damsels in distress
Together we can fend off the attack
All we gotta do is watch our backs.

Your body is beautiful how it is
Who you love is nobody's business
We all contemplate life and death
It's the poet who gives these thoughts
breath.

The monster is strong, don't be mistaken
It thrives on fear-keeps us isolated
But together we can fend off its attack
All we gotta do is watch our backs.

In your darkest hour
When the fight's made you weary
When you think you've lost your power
When you can't see clearly
When you're ready to surrender
Give in to the black
look over your shoulder
I've got your back. ~ Gayle Forman,
1219:There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in Christ. Sometimes prayer, meditation and contemplation are 'death' - a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance. Note how common this theme is in the Psalms. If we need help in meditation we can turn to scriptural texts that express this profound distress of man in his nothingness and his total need of God. Then as we determine to face the hard realities of our inner life and humbly for faith, he draws us out of darkness into light - he hears us, answers our prayer, recognizes our need, and grants us the help we require - if only by giving us more faith to believe that he can and will help us in his own time. This is already a sufficient answer. ~ Thomas Merton,
1220:There was something in Lima that was wrappd up in yards of violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly hands; and that was its archbishop. Between the rolls of flesh that surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness, and wit. A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard, but by dint of never refusing himself a pheasant or a goose or his daily procession of Roman wines, he was his own bitter jailer. He loved his cathedral; he loved his duties; he was very devout. Some days he regarded his bulk ruefully; but the distress of remorse was less poignant than the distress of fasting, and he was presently found deliberating over the secret messages that a certain roast sends to the certain salad that will follow it. And to punish himself he led an exemplary life in every other respect. ~ Thornton Wilder,
1221:I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."
And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.
The old trouble; things won't fit."
What things?"
The things of the universe. It's quite true. They don't."
Oh Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"
In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I."

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world of sorrow. ~ E M Forster,
1222:news, he formulates his denial, for whom it may concern: “His Grace the cardinal wholly rejects any imputation that he has sent an evil spirit to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk. He deprecates the suggestion in the strongest possible terms. No headless calf, no fallen angel in the shape of loll-tongued dog, no crawling pre-used winding-sheet, no Lazarus or animated cadaver has been sent by His Grace to pursue His Grace: nor is any such pursuit pending.” Someone is screaming, down by the quays. The boatmen are singing. There is a faint, faraway splashing; perhaps they are drowning someone. “My lord cardinal makes this statement without prejudice to his right to harass and distress my lord of Norfolk by means of any fantasma which he may in his wisdom elect: at any future date, and without notice given: subject only to the lord cardinal’s views in the matter. ~ Hilary Mantel,
1223:I was going to yell my lungs out when I got to her for pulling this kind of shit.

Once I got to the location, I called her number again and again, trying to reach her. I called maybe thirty times before I heard the faint sound of a ringtone and found her cell in a dumpster among cardboard, junk food leftovers and cigarette butts.

Desperation and distress coursed through my veins. I kicked the dumpster so hard, I left a dent.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I yelled, not caring about people around me watching my very public meltdown.

She hadn’t run away. Wouldn’t run away. I knew my lovebird—she was the fighting kind. The only running she’d ever do was to get her cardio fix.

No, this was not her trying to break free. This was him trying to get even.

It was the moment I realized that, for the first time, Brock was one step ahead of me. ~ L J Shen,
1224:I’m pregnant,” she whispered. Sam didn’t miss a beat. “So you’re sitting here trying to get in your cups. Excellent way to manage the stress, Taylor.” Taylor started shaking her head back and forth, a pendulum of distress. “Noo, that’s not it at all. I’m...” “You’re at a complete loss. You’re not ready to have a baby. You haven’t told Baldwin because you don’t know how he’s going to react. You don’t know what to think, how to behave, what to do. That about sum it up?” Taylor gave her a dirty look. “Well, leprosy cases are on the rise, too. Besides, you’re supposed to be encouraging me here. Not—” “Not what? What do you want me to do? You’re a big girl. You can make decisions for yourself. Did you want me to toss the beer over the railing and lecture you? I’ll do it if you want. But I don’t think that’s why you wanted to talk to me. So get drunk and talk.” Taylor ~ J T Ellison,
1225:And out floated Eeyore.
"Eeyore!" cried everybody.
Looking very calm, very dignified, with his legs in the air, came Eeyore from beneath the bridge.
"It's Eeyore!" cried Roo, terribly excited.
"Is that so?" said Eeyore, getting caught up by a little eddy, and turning slowly round three times. "I wondered."
"I didn't know you were playing," said Roo.
"I'm not," said Eeyore.
"Eeyore, what are you doing there?" said Rabbit.
"I'll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak-tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right. Give Rabbit time, and he'll always get the answer."
"But, Eeyore," said Pooh in distress, "what can we--I mean, how shall we--do you think if we--"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "One of those would be just the thing. Thank you, Pooh. ~ A A Milne,
1226:JULY 1 Be of Good Cheer In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.] JOHN 16:33 Life in today’s world can be stressful and frustrating—but as a Christian you do not have to operate on the world’s system. Yes, you will face difficult and trying situations, but you can refuse to be agitated, disturbed, and upset (see John 14:27). Even in the midst of your problems you can be happy and confident, cheerful and courageous. Now that’s good news! When you come to the end of a tiring and frustrating day, it is good to spend time with God, thanking Him for overcoming the world on your behalf. Reflecting on His goodness will calm your spirit and prepare you for a peaceful ~ Joyce Meyer,
1227:Messages that tell us we aren’t pretty enough, young enough, thin enough, or desirable enough are garbage. Anyone who implies we are unable to care for our own families is lying. If you believe the persona that marketing culture has crafted --helpless, too stressed, overwhelmed, incompetent (without their products)-- I am here to say otherwise. You are not a moron or a damsel in distress. You are smart and able, and getting older is not a tragedy. Don’t believe them. Even if some observations are descriptive, they need not be prescriptive. You are not a total hot disaster! Well, no more than any of us. You can do hard things. (Some “hard things” are actually “easy things” rebranded as impossible.) You are more than some company’s profitability, and you don’t need their tricks to live a beautiful, meaningful life. We can reclaim our merit without dancing like monkeys. ~ Jen Hatmaker,
1228:Well I'm not going to hope that you get hurt, but if you do, remember that you're my damsel in distress, and no one is allowed to carry you."

"I don't remember signing a contract."

"All the more reason to promise me now."

"What if you're not around when I get hurt?"

"Send word, I`ll come running."

"How big an injury does it have to be? Because sometimes I do this thing when I stand up too quickly and my ankle kind of twists a little---"

"Sounds serious. You don't want to put any weight on that. I`d better carry you the next time that happens."

"What if I skin my knee?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Charley horse?"

"I`ll carry you."

"Chipped toenail?"

"Not worth taking a risk. I`ll carry you.”

I grin at him [...] I have to admit -- he's funnier and smarter than I've given him credit for. ~ Claire LaZebnik,
1229:Do They Know?
Do they know? At the turn to the straight
Where the favourites fail,
And every last atom of weight
Is telling its tale;
As some grim old stayer hard-pressed
Runs true to his breed,
And with head in front of the rest
Fights on in the lead;
When the jockeys are out with the whips,
With a furlong to go,
And the backers grow white in the lips -Do you think they don't know?
Do they know? As they come back to weigh
In a whirlwind of cheers,
Though the spurs have left marks of the fray,
Though the sweat on the ears
Gathers cold, and they sob with distress
As they roll up the track,
They know just as well their success
As the man on their back.
As they walk through a dense human lane
That sways to and fro,
And cheers them again and again,
Do you think they don't know?
~ Banjo Paterson,
1230:People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your inner contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1231:A more fundamental problem with labelling human distress and deviance as mental disorder is that it reduces a complex, important, and distinct part of human life to nothing more than a biological illness or defect, not to be processed or understood, or in some cases even embraced, but to be ‘treated’ and ‘cured’ by any means possible—often with drugs that may be doing much more harm than good. This biological reductiveness, along with the stigma that it attracts, shapes the person’s interpretation and experience of his distress or deviance, and, ultimately, his relation to himself, to others, and to the world. Moreover, to call out every difference and deviance as mental disorder is also to circumscribe normality and define sanity, not as tranquillity or possibility, which are the products of the wisdom that is being denied, but as conformity, placidity, and a kind of mediocrity. ~ Neel Burton,
1232:A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. ~ Douglas Adams,
1233:Islam being theocentric, the community owes its cohesion primarily to the Faith, not to government and not to its religious leaders. Each individual Muslim is personally responsible for the well-being of his fellows, his 'brothers' and his 'sisters', to aid them in poverty, to comfort them in distress and to put them right when they go astray (though always in a spirit of kindness); at least in principle, each member of the community, however humble, has a duty - when he sees something wrong or out of place - to correct it either with his hand or with his tongue, or, if he does not have the power to do this, then to correct it within his own heart. His duty dos not, however, extend to sending for the police or reporting the matter to the authorities, for - as a Muslim - he embodies the Law in himself; there is no question of handing over his responsibility to the impersonal state. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton,
1234:Sion calls Anne an eel, he calls her a slippery dipper from the slime, and he remembers what the cardinal had called her: my serpentine enemy. Sion says, she goes to it with her brother; he says, what, her brother George? ‘Any brother she's got. Those kind keep it in the family. They do filthy French tricks, like –’
‘Can you keep your voice down?’ He looks around, as if spies might be swimming by the boat.
‘– and that's how she trusts herself she don't give in to Henry, because if she lets him do it and she gets a boy he's, thanks very much, now clear off, girl – so she's oh, Your Highness, I never could allow – because she knows that very night her brother's inside her, licking her up to the lungs, and then he's, excuse me, sister, what shall I do with this big package – she says, oh,don't distress yourself, my lord brother, shove it up the back entry, it'll come to no harm there. ~ Hilary Mantel,
1235:Rosabella Beauty was the daughter of the famous Beauty, a girl whose love had turned the Beast back into a prince. Darling Charming was the daughter of the renowned King Charming, whose royal storyline stretched back to the very beginning of stories. The Charming men had always been known for their heroic deeds, luxurious hair, and enchanting eyes. Darling's two brothers were expected to follow in King Charming's heroic footsteps by saving damsels, slaying dragons, and basically conquering whatever evil stepped into their paths.
Darling, however, was not a son. She was a daughter. And being a daughter was a different matter altogether. No heroic deeds were expected of her. No quests or adventures. While the activities of the Charming princes had always been celebrated by poets and storytellers, the Charming princesses had a singular destiny- to be damsels in distress waiting for rescue. ~ Suzanne Selfors,
1236:The mayor informed General Petronio San Roman of the episode, down to the last literal phrase, in an alarming telegram. General San Roman must have followed his son's wishes to the letter, because he didn't come for him, but sent his wife with their daughters and two other older women who seemed to be her sisters. They came on a cargo boat, locked in mourning up to their necks because of Bayardo San Roman's misfortunes, and with their hair hanging loose in grief. Before stepping onto land, they took off their shoes and went barefoot through the streets up to the hilltop in the burning dust of noon, pulling out strands of hair by the roots and wailing loudly with such high-pitched shrieks that they seemed to be shouts of joy. I watched them pass from Magdalena Oliver's balcony, and I remember thinking that distress like theirs could only be put on in order to hide other, greater shames. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez,
1237:GENERAL RAGINSKY: Mr. President, in order to exhaust fully the presentation of evidence in regard to the subject-matter of my report, I ask your permission to examine witness Josif Abgarovitch Orbeli— Tatiana dropped the cup of tea she was drinking, and it fell on the tile floor and broke, and Tatiana fell on the floor, too, on her knees, and began to pick up the pieces, every moment or so emitting cries of such distress that Vikki, who was nearby, jumped up, backed away and said in a stunned voice, “What’s wrong with you?” Tatiana waved her off with one hand, her other hand holding a ceramic shard which covered her mouth as she continued to listen to the bare echo that was the radio broadcast as it ceaselessly continued. A crash on the road, but the radio still plays music, still transmits sounds no matter how incongruous it is that the ear can somehow hear, that the brain can somehow listen— ~ Paullina Simons,
1238:For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His
Hands
Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
For pain is pleasure's cost,
Denial is route
To speech before the millions
Or personal with the flute.
The ape and great Achilles,
Heavy with their fate,
Batter doors down, strike
Small children at the gate,
Driven by love to this,
As knock-kneed Hegel said,
To seek with a sword their peace,
That the child may be taken away
From the hurly-burly and fed.
Ladies and Gentlemen, said
The curious Socrates,
I have asked, What is this life
But a childermass,
As Abraham recognized,
A working with the knife
At animal, maid and stone
Until we have cut down
All but the soul alone:
Through hate we guard our love,
And its distinction's known.
~ Delmore Schwartz,
1239:I hate to disappoint you, but if you’re considering Miss Harding for that position, I hear she’s practically engaged to some professor back home.” Oliver grimaced. “You just found something that turns my stomach more than mushrooms.” Oliver clutched his midriff, feigning gastric distress. Then a smile split his face. “You said ‘practically,’ didn’t you?” When Ethan nodded, Oliver’s smile widened. “That means there’s hope. If the man was foolish enough to let Miss Harding come all this way without him, he can’t love her as much as I do.” “You haven’t even met her.” Oliver would not be discouraged. “The moment I saw her, I knew she was the woman for me. Now all I need to do is figure out a way to afford a wife. Miss Harding deserves more than a second lieutenant’s pay.” Oliver leaned back and closed his eyes, as if the lack of visual distractions would improve his cogitation. “There’s got to be a way. ~ Amanda Cabot,
1240:Have you been having fun, Eliza?” Gloria asked. “She’s danced every dance,” Hamilton said before Eliza could respond. “How wonderful,” Gloria exclaimed. “See, I told you there was no reason for your earlier distress.” “You were distressed?” Mr. Murdock inquired as he leaned forward over Agatha. “It was only a little case of nerves,” Eliza returned, her eyes widening when Hamilton absently traced a finger down her arm. The action was not lost on Mr. Murdock. He sat back in his seat and turned his head to address the guest on his left. “What are you doing?” Eliza hissed. “If you’re not careful, everyone will believe there’s soon to be an announcement.” “That would bother you?” And just what did he mean by that? She took a deep breath and slowly released it. “You’ve obviously lost your mind.” Hamilton sent her a wicked smile and refused to say another word, although he did remove his finger from her skin. ~ Jen Turano,
1241:1I love you, LORD, my strength. 2The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shieldb and the hornc of my salvation, my stronghold. 3I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I have been saved from my enemies. 4The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. 5The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. 6In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. 7The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. 8Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. 9He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. 10He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. ~ Anonymous,
1242:Reading Barracoon, one understands immediately the problem many black people, years ago, especially black intellectuals and political leaders, had with it. It resolutely records the atrocities African peoples inflicted on each other, long before shackled Africans, traumatized, ill, disoriented, starved, arrived on ships as “black cargo” in the hellish West. Who could face this vision of the violently cruel behavior of the “brethren” and the “sistren” who first captured our ancestors? Who would want to know, via a blow-by-blow account, how African chiefs deliberately set out to capture Africans from neighboring tribes, to provoke wars of conquest in order to capture for the slave trade people—men, women, children—who belonged to Africa? And to do this in so hideous a fashion that reading about it two hundred years later brings waves of horror and distress. This is, make no mistake, a harrowing read. ~ Zora Neale Hurston,
1243:The Principal of Seabrook College came in to speak to her too, a couple of days after it happened. He was a tall, dynamic man, in his late thirties maybe? Basically he was doing the same thing she was, trying to protect the school’s image and explain that while it was a tragedy it was just this one crazy kid, and not anyone else’s fault. Having said that – he put his hand on her arm – on behalf of the school I want to apologize for any distress this might have caused you or your employees. He shook his head. I’ve been teaching for nearly twenty years, he said, and I’m at a loss to understand this.

Lynsey doesn’t understand it either. He’s fourteen, and he takes an overdose just because his girlfriend dumped him? Jesus, like, relax! That’s life! People get dumped! If Lynsey had killed herself over every fucking self-absorbed arsehole who’d dumped her, she’d… well, she’d be pretty dead at this stage. ~ Paul Murray,
1244:How does our self-sufficiency ruin safety? Primarily by preventing us from experiencing our impoverishment. People who “have it together” are not hungry, or thirsty, for others. They do not feel a lack within when they’re alone or in distress. They do not connect with other people, because they do not experience any need for it. Adults who grow up in military families often report this dynamic. They’ll move twelve times in as many years, and they quickly realize that they probably won’t see their classmates ever again after each school year. To survive, they simply construct an adaptive front that lets them make a few acquaintances and not get rejected by the class, and that’s it. No one gets inside, no one gets close. They stay self-sufficient to keep from experiencing overwhelming loss and abandonment. And they often hold it together until they grow up and try to pull off a marriage—at which time disaster erupts. ~ Henry Cloud,
1245:At Castle Wood
The day is done, the winter sun
Is setting in its sullen sky;
And drear the course that has been run,
And dim the hearts that slowly die.
No star will light my coming night;
No morn of hope for me will shine;
I mourn not heaven would blast my sight,
And I ne'er longed for joys divine.
Through life's hard task I did not ask
Celestial aid, celestial cheer;
I saw my fate without its mask,
And met it too without a tear.
The grief that pressed my aching breast
Was heavier far than earth can be;
And who would dread eternal rest
When labour's hour was agony?
Dark falls the fear of this despair
On spirits born of happiness;
But I was bred the mate of care,
The foster-child of sore distress.
No sighs for me, no sympathy,
No wish to keep my soul below;
The heart is dead in infancy,
Unwept-for let the body go.
~ Emily Jane Brontë,
1246:A child dragging bent useless legs is crawling up the hill outside the village. Nose to the stones, goat dung, and muddy trickles, she pulls herself along like a broken cricket. We falter, ashamed of our strong step, and noticing this, she gazes up, clear-eyed, without resentment—it seems much worse that she is pretty. In Bengal, GS says stiffly, beggars will break their children’s knees to achieve this pitiable effect for business purposes: this is his way of expressing his distress. But the child that lies here at our boots is not a beggar; she is merely a child, staring in curiosity at tall, white strangers. I long to give her something—a new life?—yet am afraid to tamper with such dignity. And so I smile as best I can, and say “Namas-te!” “Good morning!” How absurd! And her voice follows as we go away, a small clear smiling voice—“Namas-te!”—a Sanskrit word for greeting and parting that means, “I salute you”. ~ Peter Matthiessen,
1247:Tell me this: If you decide to marry Ravenhill, will you let him share your bed?” She colored at the question. “You have no right to ask such a thing.” “You don't want him that way,” he said flatly. “There is far more to a marriage than what occurs in the conjugal bed.” “Is that what George told you?” he shot back. “I wonder… did you ever respond to him the way you do with me?” The question filled her with outrage. Holly had never struck anyone in her life, but her hand moved of its own accord. As if she stood outside the scene, she watched the white flash of her glove as she slapped his face. The blow was pitifully soft, insignificant except as a gesture of rebuke. It didn't seem to bother Bronson in the slightest. In fact, she saw the satisfied gleam in his eyes, and she realized in a flash of despair that she had given him his answer. With a sob of distress, she sped away from him as fast as her feet would take her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1248:You can't keep working here. It's not safe for you anymore." His words were flat, spoken as if they pained him. "Not safe?" Her eyes were glued to him, but there was no alarm for her safety in her voice.
"You're seventeen now, Becky." Irritation laced his words. His arms crossed in front of his chest. He leaned back against the table, one booted foot across the other. "You're not a young girl anymore. You can't keep coming here, being alone with me."
"You won't--you won't hurt me. You're the sheriff." Distress slid through her. She had to keep coming here. It was the only way she could see him every day. The only way she had of taking care of him, being with him. Her hands rubbed down her apron in turbulence. The sliding movement pulled her apron and dress down. The material of her bodice tightened next to the soft curves of her breasts. Her breathing was palpable.

"I didn't say I would hurt you, sweetheart. ~ Lynda Chance,
1249:Perhaps depression can best be described as emotional pain that forces itself on us against our will, and then breaks free of its externals. Depression is not just a lot of pain; but too much pain can compost itself into depression. Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. It is tumbleweed distress that thrives on thin air, growing despite its detachment from the nourishing earth. It can be described only in metaphor and allegory. Saint Anthony in the desert, asked how he could differentiate between angels who came to him humble and devils who came in rich disguise, said you could tell by how you felt after they had departed. When an angel left you, you felt strengthened by his presence; when a devil left, you felt horror. Grief is a humble angel who leaves you with strong, clear thoughts and a sense of your own depth. Depression is a demon who leaves you appalled. ~ Andrew Solomon,
1250:…the rising movement of romanticism, with its characteristic idealism, one that tended toward a black-and-white view of the world based on those ideas, preferred for different reasons that women remain untinged by “masculine” traits of learning. Famous romantic writers such as Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Hazlitt criticized the bluestockings. …and Hazlitt declared his 'utter aversion to Bluestockingism … I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even what an author means.' Because of the tremendous influence that romanticism gained over the cultural mind-set, the term bluestocking came to be a derogatory term applied to learned, pedantic women, particularly conservative ones. ... Furthermore, learned women did not fit in with the romantic notion of a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued by a knight in shining armor any more than they fit in with the antirevolutionary fear of progress. ~ Karen Swallow Prior,
1251:Continuing to stare into her pale, damp face, Nick shook his head with a slight frown, as if the sight of her distress was painful to him. Seeming unable to help himself, he reached out and pulled her against him, his arms wrapping around her as he tried to comfort her with his body. There was nothing sexual about the embrace, but somehow it was more intimate than anything they had ever done together. His arms were strong and possessive, holding her steady while his breath fell in moist, hot surges against her neck.
"Shall I take you home?" he whispered.
Lottie nodded slowly, while a lifetime of loneliness transformed into a sense of inconceivable comfort. A home... a husband... things she had never let herself hope for. Surely this illusion couldn't last- somehow, someday, it would be taken away from her. But until that happened, she would cherish every moment.
"Yes," she said, her voice muffled against his coat. "Let's go home. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1252:The first meditation is the meditation of love, in which you so adjust your heart that you long for the weal and welfare of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies. "The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all beings in distress, vividly representing in your imagination their sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul. "The third meditation is the meditation of joy, in which you think of the prosperity of others, and rejoice with their rejoicings. "The fourth meditation is the meditation of impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin and diseases. How trivial often the pleasure of the moment, and how fatal its consequences. "The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity, in which you rise above love and hate, tyranny and oppression, wealth and want, and regard your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquillity. ~ James Allen,
1253:No happiness without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity.” The mildness of all government among them, civil or domestic, may be signalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or forbidden—viz., “It is requested not to do so and so.” Poverty among the Ana is as unknown as crime; not that property is held in common, or that all are equals in the extent of their possessions or the size and luxury of their habitations: but there being no difference of rank or position between the grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, each pursues his own inclinations without creating envy or vying; some like a modest, some a more splendid kind of life; each makes himself happy in his own way. Owing to this absence of competition, and the limit placed on the population, it is difficult for a family to fall into distress; there are no hazardous speculations, no emulators striving for superior wealth and rank. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton,
1254:I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will eat away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1255:Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there
Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;
The stars look very cold about the sky,
And I have many miles on foot to fare.
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,
Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:
For I am brimfull of the friendliness
That in a little cottage I have found;
Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress,
And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.
'Clarke records that this sonnet was written on the occasion of Keats's first becoming acquainted with Leigh Hunt at the Cottage in the Vale of Health, Hampstead.' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, Sonnet IX. Keen, Fitful Gusts Are
,
1256:The story is that while a child named Servius Tullius lay sleeping, his head burst into flames in the sight of many. The general outcry which so great a miracle called forth brought the king and queen to the place. One of the servants fetched water to quench the fire, but was checked by the queen, who stilled the uproar and commanded that the boy should not be disturbed until he awoke of himself. Soon afterwards sleep left him, and with it disappeared the flames. Then, talking her husband aside, Tanaquil Said: 'Do you see this child whom we are bringing up in so humble a fashion? Be assured he will one day be a lamp to our dubious fortunes, and a protector to the royal house in the day of its distress. Let us therefore rear with all solicitude one who will lend high renowen to the state and to our family.' It is said that from that moment the boy began to be looked upon as a son, and to be trained in the studies by which men are inspired to bear themselves greatly. ~ Livy,
1257:I.
A cat in distress,
Nothing more, nor less;
Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye,
As I am a sinner,
It waits for some dinner
To stuff out its own little belly.

II.
You would not easily guess
All the modes of distress
Which torture the tenants of earth;
And the various evils,
Which like so many devils,
Attend the poor souls from their birth.

III.
Some a living require,
And others desire
An old fellow out of the way;
And which is the best
I leave to be guessed,
For I cannot pretend to say.

IV.
One wants society,
Another variety,
Others a tranquil life;
Some want food,
Others, as good,
Only want a wife.

V.
But this poor little cat
Only wanted a rat,
To stuff out its own little maw;
And it were as good
SOME people had such food,
To make them HOLD THEIR JAW!
Published by Hogg, Life of Shelley, 1858; dated 1800
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Verses On A Cat
,
1258:the rebels of 1905, at the frontier on which they stand united, teach us, to the sound of exploding bombs, that rebellion cannot lead, without ceasing to be rebellion, to consolation and to the comforts of dogma. Their only evident victory is to triumph at least over solitude and negation. In the midst of a world which they deny and which rejects them, they try, man after man, like all the great-hearted ones, to reconstruct a brotherhood of man. The love they bear for one another, which brings them happiness even in the desert of a prison, which extends to the great mass of their enslaved and silent fellow men, gives the measure of their distress and of their hopes. To serve this love, they must first kill; to inaugurate the reign of innocence, they must accept a certain culpability. This contradiction will be resolved for them only at the very last moment. Solitude and chivalry, renunciation and hope will only be surmounted by the willing acceptance of death. ~ Albert Camus,
1259:Mrs. Church settled a blanket over him and told the footmen, “Take him up to the master bedroom. Softly…no jostling. Treat him as if he were a newborn babe.”
After counting in unison, the footmen lifted the stretcher. “A babe that weighs fourteen stone,” one of them grunted.
Mrs. Church tried to look stern, but the corners of her eyes crinkled briefly. “Mind your tongue, David.”
Kathleen followed behind the footmen, swiping impatiently at the film of tears over her eyes.
Walking beside her, the housekeeper murmured consolingly, “There, there. Don’t distress yourself, my lady. We’ll soon have him patched up and as good as new.”
Although Kathleen longed to believe her, she whispered tightly, “He’s so bruised and feeble--he might have internal injuries.”
“He didn’t seem so feeble as all that, a moment ago,” the housekeeper observed dryly.
Kathleen turned scarlet. “He was overwrought. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“If you say so, my lady. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1260:My Love
SHE has tender eyes that tell
All her prim, set lips suppress—
Daring thoughts that ever dwell
Prisoned in her bashfulness;
Hints of sudden tenderness
That within her breast rebel.
Till her bosom's fall and swell
Tell her meaning all too well,
To her heart's demure distress.
She has soft, smooth cheeks that flame
As she nestles close, so close,
With the new half-joy, half-shame,
That within her bosom glows,
And each fevered feature shows.
Her hot pulses beat acclaim
Of the hopes she dare not tame,
Fervid thoughts she cannot name—
Till I kiss her, and she knows.
She has clinging arms of white,
Little hands and fingers fine,
And she holds me tight, so tight;
While her eager arms entwine
Deep I drink her kisses' wine.
Hush! I feel through all her slight,
Trembling figure love's delight,
And she knows that all is right,
And her bosom beats with mine.
~ Arthur Henry Adams,
1261:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you—daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. ~ Douglas Adams,
1262:A generous intercourse of charity united the most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent brethren. Such an institution, which paid less regard to the merit than to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to the progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged the benevolence of the new sect. The prospect of immediate relief and of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would have abandonned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old age. There is some reason likewise to believe, that great numbers of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of the times, had been exposed by their parents, were frequently rescued from death, baptised, educated, and maintained by the piety of the Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure. ~ Edward Gibbon,
1263:Sadly, prosperity is not the only reason people forget God. It can also be hard to remember Him when our lives go badly. When we struggle, as so many do, in grinding poverty or when our enemies prevail against us or when sickness is not healed, the enemy of our souls can send his evil message that there is no God or that if He exists He does not care about us. Then it can be hard for the Holy Ghost to bring to our remembrance the lifetime of blessings the Lord has given us from our infancy and in the midst of our distress.

There is a simple cure for the terrible malady of forgetting God, His blessings, and His messages to us. Jesus Christ promised it to His disciples when He was about to be crucified, resurrected, and then taken away from them to ascend in glory to His Father. They were concerned to know how they would be able to endure when He was no longer with them.

Here is the promise. It was fulfilled for them then. It can be fulfilled for all of us now. ~ Henry B Eyring,
1264:Ben Graham–style bargain equities, we may become quite uncomfortable at times, especially if the market value of the portfolio declined precipitously. We might look at the portfolio and conclude that every investment could be worth zero. After all, we may have a mediocre business run by mediocre management, with assets that could be squandered. Investing in deep value equities therefore requires faith in the law of large numbers—that historical experience of market-beating returns in deep value stocks and the fact that we own a diversified portfolio will combine to yield a satisfactory result over time. This conceptually sound view becomes seriously challenged in times of distress. By contrast, an investor in high-quality businesses that are conservatively financed and run by shareholder-friendly managements may fall back on the well-founded belief that no matter how low the stock prices of those companies fall, the businesses will survive the downturn and recover value over time. ~ John Mihaljevic,
1265:The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distress. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the workman and the master there are frequent relations, but no real association.

I am of the opinion, on the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest that ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrates into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they will enter. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,
1266:Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first [met you]. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. ~ Charles Dickens,
1267:But men have no secrets, except from women, and never grow up in the way that women do. It is very much harder, and it takes much longer, for a man to grow up, and he could never do it at all without women. This is a mystery which can terrify and immobilize a woman, and it is always the key to her deepest distress. She must watch and guide, but he must lead, and he will always appear to be giving far more of his real attention to his comrades than he is giving to her. But that noisy, outward openness of men with each other enables them to deal with the silence and secrecy of women, that silence and secrecy which contains the truth of a man, and releases it. I suppose that the root of the resentment—a resentment which hides a bottomless terror—has to do with the fact that a woman is tremendously controlled by what the man’s imagination makes of her—literally, hour by hour, day by day; so she becomes a woman. But a man exists in his own imagination, and can never be at the mercy of a woman’s. ~ James Baldwin,
1268:Bartal placed one rat in an enclosure, where it encountered a small transparent container, a bit like a jelly jar. Squeezed inside it was another rat, locked up, wriggling in distress. Not only did the free rat learn how to open a little door to liberate the other, but she was remarkably eager to do so. Never trained on it, she did so spontaneously. Then Bartal challenged her motivation by giving her a choice between two containers, one with chocolate chips—a favorite food that they could easily smell—and another with a trapped companion. The free rat often rescued her companion first, suggesting that reducing her distress counted more than delicious food.47 The empathy of laboratory rats has been tested by presenting them with a companion trapped in a glass container. Responding to the distress of the trapped rat, the free rat makes a purposeful effort to liberate her. This behavior disappears if the free rat is put on a relaxing drug, which dulls her sensitivity to the other’s emotional state. ~ Frans de Waal,
1269:It was the sound of her name being called that brought Shanna into full wakefulness.

"Shanna! Shanna! Don't go!"

It seemed a call of distress, lonely in the silence of night, and she could not mistake the voice. She flew from her bed and out onto the balcony, not pausing for her robe, and entered Ruark's room...

"Are you really there, Shanna? Or does my dream befuddle my sight?" His fingers closed lightly around her wrist and brought it against his lips. Kissing her soft skin, he murmured, "No maiden of my dreams could taste as sweet. Shanna, Shanna," he sighed. "I thought I had lost you."

She bent low to press her trembling mouth upon his. "Oh, Ruark," she breathed against his lips. "I thought I had lost you."

He laid an arm about her nape and pulled her down beside him, searching her eyes in the meager glow.

"I'll hurt your leg!" Shanna protested in concern.

"Come here!" he commanded. "I would know if this is a dream or more heady stuff. ~ Kathleen E Woodiwiss,
1270:Gage and Rebecca finally succumb to one another and I never get tired of him calling her "beautiful"...

He sat up, noticing her distress. “If you don’t want to—”
“No. I mean, yes. I do. Want to.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, brushing the hair away from her face and looking into her eyes.
She nodded. No matter what had happened in his past, Rebecca knew she wanted this, wanted him. She reached out, running a hand down his chest and lower.
He smiled, jerking his hips up into her hand.
He pulled her down, her mouth to his as he rekindled that fire deep inside. For some reason, it grew faster than it had before. She gripped his shoulders, holding on, ready to embrace whatever came next.
He roamed his hands all over her body. Sometimes they were soft and gentle, at other times strong and passionate. She gasped and all thought left her mind as his fingers disappeared between her legs.
“Are you ready, beautiful?” he whispered against her lips. She nodded, and he slid inside her. ~ Sherri Hayes,
1271:If the evil-doing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evil-doers, shun above all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evil-doers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a light to them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evil-doer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin. And even though your light was shining, yet you see men were not saved by it, hold firm and doubt not the power of the heavenly light. Believe that if they were not saved, they will be saved hereafter. And if they are not saved hereafter, then their sons will be saved, for your light will not die even when you are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
1272:It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy. Will You carry this too, Lord Jesus? But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ~ Corrie ten Boom,
1273:For instance, since none of us lives until age 240, people tend not to think that failing to reach that age makes one’s life go less well. However, most people regard it as tragic when somebody dies at forty (at least if that person’s quality of life was comparatively good). But why should a death at ninety not be tragic if a death at forty is? The only answer can be that our judgement is constrained by our circumstances. We do not take that which is beyond our reach as something that would be a crucial good. But why must it be that the good life is within our reach? Perhaps the good life is something that is impossible to attain. It certainly sounds as though a life that is devoid of any discomfort, pain, suffering, distress, stress, anxiety, frustration, and boredom, that lasts for much longer than ninety years, and that is filled with much more of what is good would be better than the sort of life the luckiest humans have. Why then do we not judge our lives in terms of that (impossible)
standard? ~ David Benatar,
1274:I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It's a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it's not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, Fine, I'm feeling bad, but I've put the source of these fellings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usuallly extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then sooner or later, I forget about them. ~ Haruki Murakami,
1275:Come, O King Of The Lacedaimonians
Kratisiklia didn't deign to allow
the people to see her weeping and grieving:
she walked in dignity and in silence.
Her calm face betrayed nothing
of her sorrow and her agony.
But even so, for a moment she couldn't hold back:
before she went aboard the detestable ship for Alexandria
she took her son to Poseidon's temple,
and once they were alone
she embraced him tenderly and kissed him
(he was "in great distress," says Plutarch, "badly
shaken").
But her strong character struggled through;
regaining her poise, the magnificent woman
said to Kleomenis: "Come, O King of the Lacedaimonians,
when we go outside
let no one see us weeping
or behaving in any way unworthy of Sparta.
At least this is still in our power;
what lies ahead is in the hands of the gods."
And she boarded the ship, going toward whatever lay "in the
hands of the gods."
~ Constantine P. Cavafy,
1276:Why have you done this?” he asked. “First you murdered the air with your greed, now you send us machines that bring water from nothing. You have stretched our agony across time. We live on the price of your pity, coins you have cast away. Miserable beggars whose piety and distress is our only weapon. We are reduced to eternal ~ Anonymous compassion victims. If you truly pity us, give us back our dependence on the weather. Bring back the rain and the wind. Then all men may be equal in our dependency again.” She had understood what the headman had meant, how he felt. The insulting humiliation of relying on a technology he couldn’t begin to understand, sent as a gift by people he did not know, reducing him and his relatives to little more than chattels. A primitive culture preserved by godlike science, a throw-away act of charity. He’d lost every shred of dignity, his entire existence subject to whims outside his control. Whims of a culture that had wrecked his land in the pursuit of its own comfort. Unforgivable. ~ Anonymous,
1277:No one would take me just as I was, no one loved me; I shall love myself enough, I thought, to make up for this abandonment by everyone. Formerly, I had been quite satisfied with myself, but I had taken very little trouble to increase my self-knowledge; from now on, I would stand outside myself, watch over and observe myself; in my diary I had long conversations with myself. I was entering a world whose newness stunned me. I learned to distinguish between distress and melancholy, lack of emotion and serenity; I learned to recognize the hesitations of the heart, and its ecstasies, the splendor of great renunciations, and the subterranean murmurings of hope. I entered into exalted trances, as on those evenings when I used to gaze upon the sky full of moving clouds behind the distant blue of the hills; I was both the landscape and its beholder: I existed only through myself, and for myself… My path was clearly marked: I had to perfect, enrich and express myself in a work of art that would help others to live. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,
1278:may be tempting to dismiss these findings as by-products of midlife rather than the presence of teenagers in the house. But Steinberg’s results don’t seem to suggest this notion. “We were much better able to predict what an adult was going through psychologically,” he writes, “by looking at his or her child’s development than by knowing the adult’s age.” Which is to say that a mother of 43 and a mother of 53 have far more in common, psychologically speaking, if they both have 14-year-olds than two moms of the same age with kids who are seven and 14. And the mothers of the adolescents, according to Steinberg’s research, are much more likely to be experiencing distress. Steinberg has a theory about why this is. Adolescents, in his view, exacerbate conflicts already in progress, especially those at work or between the parents, sometimes unmasking problems parents hadn’t recognized or consciously acknowledged for years. You might say that adolescents are the human equivalent of salt, intensifying whatever mix they’re in. ~ Anonymous,
1279:The Holy Spirit is a wise Comforter. Job had comforters, and I think he spoke the truth when he said, “Miserable comforters are you all.” But I dare say they thought they were wise. And when the young man Elihu rose to speak, they thought he was quite disrespectful. Were they not his wise and honored elders? Did they not understand Job’s grief and sorrow? If they could not comfort him, who could? But they did not discover the reason for their friend’s distress. They thought Job was not really a child of God. They thought he was self-righteous and they gave him the wrong treatment. It is a bad case when the doctor makes a wrong diagnosis and gives the wrong prescription, and perhaps, kills the patient. Sometimes, when we go and visit people, we misdiagnose them. We want to comfort them about something that does not need comforting. They would be better off if we left them alone. But, oh, how wise the Holy Spirit is! He takes the soul, lays it on the examination table, and knows the problem in an instant. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1280:The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1281:No question, he replied. To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And ~ Plato,
1282:Then Anomander turned to Gripp Galas. ‘Old friend, long have you served me, with valour and with honour. As my most trusted servant I have set my weight upon you, and not once heard from you a word of complaint. You have dressed my wounds on the field of battle. You have mended the damage of my clumsy youth. Did you truly believe that now, on this fraught day, I would once more draw tight this leash? We are all weakened by distress, and indeed it seems every tender emotion lies exposed and trembling to a forest of knives. Gripp Galas, old friend, your service to me ends here and it ends now. You have won the heart of a woman who in all things is nothing less than breathtaking. If love needs permission, I give it. If your future with Lady Hish can be served by any sacrifice within my ability, I give it.’ He set his gaze upon Hish Tulla. ‘Nothing need be asked and nothing need be surrendered by you, my lady. On this, of all days, I will see love made right.’ He swung into the saddle. ‘Go well, my friends. We are done here. ~ Steven Erikson,
1283:He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God's creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all. ~ Charles Dickens,
1284:Citizens, the nineteenth century is grand, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then there will be nothing more like old history. Men will no longer have to fear, as now, a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations with the armed hand, an interruption of civilisation depending on a marriage of kings, a birth in the hereditary tyrannies, a partition of the peoples by a Congress, a dismemberment by the downfall of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting head to head, like two goats of darkness, upon the bridge of the infinite; they will no longer have to fear famine, speculation, prostitution from distress, misery from lack of work, and the scaffold, and the sword, and the battle, and all the brigandages of chance in the forest of events. We might almost say: there will be no events more. Men will be happy. The human race will fulfil its law as the terrestrial globe fulfils its; harmony will be re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate about the truth like the star about the light. ~ Victor Hugo,
1285:At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress. ~ Albert Camus,
1286:The Confidant
Anna was always full of thought
As if she'd many sorrows known,
Yet mostly her full heart was fraught
With troubles that were not her own;
For the whole school to Anna used to tell
Whatever small misfortunes unto them befell.
And being so by all beloved,
That all into her bosom poured
Their dearest secrets, she was moved
To pity all-her heart a hoard,
Or storehouse, by this means became for all
The sorrows can to girls of tender age befall.
Though individually not much
Distress throughout the school prevailed,
Yet as she shared it all, 'twas such
A weight of woe that her assailed,
She lost her colour, loathed her food, and grew
So dull, that all their confidence from her withdrew.
Releasëd from her daily care,
No longer listening to complaint,
She seems to breathe a different air,
And health once more her cheek does paint.
Still Anna loves her friends, but will not hear
Again their list of grievances which cost so dear.
~ Charles Lamb,
1287:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us? 32 He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things? 33 Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God that justifieth. 34 Who is he that shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died, yea that is risen also again; who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35 Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? 36 (As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) 37 But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous,
1288:A primary goal of Feeling Release Therapy is to put patients in touch with painful feelings from the past: the anger, rage, anxiety, sadness or grief that they found too threatening to allow themselves fully to experience originally. In shutting off this pain at an early age, people disengage from their real selves as a center of feeling, perception, cognition, and behavior. They disown their genuine reactions by projecting them onto others, or they feel guilty and hate themselves for having “unacceptable” feelings and try to cover them up. They numb themselves against their pain or suppress it altogether after they repress or depersonalize their memories of the traumatic events that caused them distress. They build a false self that is almost completely cut off from the pain they are suppressing. These repressed feelings are locked into the muscles of the body and experienced as tension. Patients are generally unaware that they still have these unresolved, disconnected feelings or that they are actively engaged in suppressing them. ~ Robert W Firestone,
1289:FEBRUARY 17 I WILL CAUSE YOU TO DWELL IN SAFETY I HAVE SENT My angels to surround you and to cause you to dwell in safety. They will deliver you from all danger and will surround you with My protection. I will hold you up, and you will be safe. My eyes are turned on My righteous servants, and My ears are attentive to your cry. I will deliver you from all your troubles. The name of My Son is a fortified tower for you, and you can run to it where you will be safe. Do not be afraid, for I will guide you safely wherever you go. You can lie down and sleep, for I have made you to dwell in safety. I am Your God, and I will keep you safe and will protect you forever from the wicked who freely strut around in wickedness. PSALMS 34:7–22; 78:52; 12:5 Prayer Declaration You will answer me, Lord, when I call to You, and will give me relief from my distress. You will have mercy on me and hear my prayer. You will grant peace in my family, in my land, and no one will cause me to be afraid. You will walk with me and will be My God, and I will be Your faithful servant. ~ John Eckhardt,
1290:As regards the origin of God, my own idea is that having realized the limitations of man, his weaknesses and shortcoming having been taken into consideration, God was brought into imaginary existence to encourage man to face boldly all the trying circumstances, to meet all dangers manfully and to check and restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God both with his private laws and parental generosity was imagined and painted in greater details. He was to serve as a deterrent factor when his fury and private laws were discussed so that man may not become a danger to society. He was to serve as a father, mother, sister and brother, friend and helpers when his parental qualifications were to be explained. So that when man be in great distress having been betrayed and deserted by all friends he may find consolation in the idea that an ever true friend was still there to help him, to support him and that He was almighty and could do anything. Really that was useful to the society in the primitive age. The idea of God is helpful to man in distress. ~ Bhagat Singh,
1291:You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithful hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God Bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
1292:Sometimes pausing and listening to the flow of her distress the way one leans over to hear the sweet and incessant lament of a wellspring, she would muse about her atrocious dilemma: one alternative being her future shame, which would lead to the despair of her loved ones; the other alternative (if she did not give in) being her eternal sorrow; and she would curse herself for having so expertly dosed her love with the pleasure and the pain that she had not managed to reject immediately as an unbearable poison or to recover from subsequently. First she cursed her eyes, or perhaps before them her detestable curiosity and coquettishness, which had made her eyes blossom like flowers in order to tempt this young man, and had then exposed her to his glances, some of which were like arrows and more invincibly sweet than injections of morphine would have been. She also cursed her imagination; it had nurtured her love so tenderly that Françoise sometimes wondered if her imagination alone had given birth to this love, which now tyrannized and tortured its birth-giver. ~ Marcel Proust,
1293:You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God Bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
1294:Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
1295:Hark! The Dogs Howl!
Hark! the dogs howl! the sleetwinds blow,
The church-clocks knoll: the hours haste,
I leave the dreaming world below.
Blown o'er frore heads of hills I go,
Long narrowing friths and stripes of snow ÔÇô
Time bears my soul into the waste.
I seek the voice I loved ÔÇô ah where
Is that dear hand that I should press,
Those honoured brows that I would kiss?
Lo! the broad Heavens cold and bare,
The stars that know not my distress.
My sighs are wasted in the air,
My tears are dropped into the abyss.
Now riseth up a little cloud ÔÇô
Divideth like a broken wave ÔÇô
Shows Death a drooping youth pale-browed
And crowned with daisies of the grave.
The vapour labours up the sky,
Uncertain forms are darkly moved,
Larger than human passes by
The shadow of the man I loved.
I wind my arms for one embrace ÔÇô
Can this be he? is that his face?
In my strait throat expires the cry.
He bends his eyes reproachfully
And clasps his hands, as one that prays.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
1296:Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful creature, daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial while we are at Marseille. I never was in a law-court; I am told it is so very amusing!" "Amusing, certainly," replied the young man, "inasmuch as, instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre, you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine distress - a drama of life.
The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed, instead of - as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy - going home to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow, - is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the executioner. I leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a scene. Of this, however, be assured, that should any favorable opportunity present itself, I will not fail to offer you the choice of being present. ~ Alexandre Dumas,
1297:It is interesting, in this context, to think again of our earlier argument that membership of the species Homo sapiens does not entitle a being to better treatment than a being at a similar mental level who is a member of a different species. We could also have said – except that it seemed too obvious to need saying – that membership of the species Homo sapiens is not a reason for giving a being worse treatment than a member of a different species. Yet in respect of euthanasia, this needs to be said. If your dog is ill and in pain with no chance of recovery, the humane thing to do is take her to the vet, who will end her suffering swiftly with a lethal injection. To ‘allow nature to take its course’, withholding treatment while your dog dies slowly and in distress over days, weeks or months, would obviously be wrong. It is only our misplaced respect for the doctrine of the sanctity of human life that prevents us from seeing that what it is obviously wrong to do to a dog, it is equally wrong to do to a human being who has never been able to express a view about such matters. ~ Peter Singer,
1298:No one has ever encountered the full burning ecstatic beauty of a seabird quite in the way the twenty-two-year-old Herman Melville, crewing as a green hand on board a New Bedford whaler deep in the South Pacific at some time in 1841, first met an albatross. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage ~ Adam Nicolson,
1299:The Happy Isles
Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles
In the golden haze off yonder,
Where the song of the sun-kissed breeze beguiles
And the ocean loves to wander.
Fragrant the vines that mantle those hills,
Proudly the fig rejoices,
Merrily dance the virgin rills,
Blending their myriad voices.
Our herds shall suffer no evil there,
But peacefully feed and rest them;
Never thereto shall prowling bear
Or serpent come to molest them.
Neither shall Eurus, wanton bold,
Nor feverish drought distress us,
But he that compasseth heat and cold
Shall temper them both to bless us.
There no vandal foot has trod,
And the pirate hordes that wander
Shall never profane the sacred sod
Of those beautiful isles out yonder.
Never a spell shall blight our vines,
Nor Sirius blaze above us,
But you and I shall drink our wines
And sing to the loved that love us.
So come with me where Fortune smiles
And the gods invite devotion,-Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles
In the haze of that far-off ocean!
~ Eugene Field,
1300:Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
1301:Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,- on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hours of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
1302:Saul And David
It was a villainous spirit, snub-nosed, foul
Of breath, thick-taloned and malevolent,
That squatted within him wheresoever he went
.......And possessed the soul of Saul.
There was no peace on pillow or on throne.
In dreams the toothless, dwarfed, and squinny-eyed
Started a joyful rumor that he had died
.......Unfriended and alone.
The doctors were confounded. In his distress, he
Put aside arrogant ways and condescended
To seek among the flocks where they were tended
.......By the youngest son of Jesse,
A shepherd boy, but goodly to look upon,
Unnoticed but God-favored, sturdy of limb
As Michelangelo later imagined him,
.......Comely even in his frown.
Shall a mere shepherd provide the cure of kings?
Heaven itself delights in ironies such
As this, in which a boy's fingers would touch
.......Pythagorean strings
And by a modal artistry assemble
The very Sons of Morning, the ranked and choired
Heavens in sweet laudation of the Lord,
.......And make Saul cease to tremble.
~ Anthony Evan Hecht,
1303:When an upright man is in the greatest distress, which he might have avoided if he could only have disregarded duty, is he not sustained by the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his own person and honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in his own sight, or to dread the inward glance of self-examination? This consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life in such circumstances. But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely negative as regards what can make life pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in life. ~ Immanuel Kant,
1304:To The Poor
Child of distress, who meet'st the bitter scorn
Of fellow-men to happier prospects born,
Doomed Art and Nature's various stores to see
Flow in full cups of joy, - and not for thee;
Who seest the rich, to heaven and fate resigned,
Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind;
Whose bursting heart disdains unjust control,
Who feel'st oppression's iron in thy soul,
Who dragg'st the load of faint and feeble years,
Whose bread is anguish, and whose water tears;
Bear, bear thy wrongs-fulfill thy destined hour,
Bend thy meek neck beneath the foot of Power;
But when thou feel'st the great deliverer nigh,
And thy freed spirit mounting seeks the sky,
Let no vain fears thy parting hour molest,
No whispered terrors shake thy quiet breast:
Think not their threats can work thy future woe.
Nor deem the Lord above like lords below;
Safe in the bosom of that love repose
By whom the sun gives light, the ocean flows;
Prepare to meet a Father undismayed,
Nor fear the God whom priests and kings have made.
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
1305:A Woman's Love
There are times a woman's love
Fer a man stands out, I guess,
More ‘n usual, like as when
Sickness comes or else distress;
But I reckon that it shines
Brighter than a taller dip
When a man is goin' away
An' she comes t' pack his grip.
'Pears t' me she seems t' think
More about his comforts then;
Puts in slippers, jes' as though
They were worn by traveling men;
Fusses round an' round th' room,
Hopin', maybe, that she'll see
Somethin' that perhaps he'll need —
Jes' as thoughtful as can be.
Packs in heavy underwear,
Fearin' that it may get cold;
It is most remarkable
What a common grip will hold
When a woman fills it up —
Things fer sunshine an' fer rain,
Pills fer every kind of ills,
Liniment fer every pain.
Seen her pack that grip o' mine
Hundred times, I guess, an' more;
Heard her sigh while doin' it,
Kneelin' on th' bedroom floor;
An' I never went away
On the shortest kind o' trip
Without feelin' that her heart
Had been packed inside my grip.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1306:The "Happy Isles" Of Horace
Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles
In the golden haze off yonder,
Where the song of the sun-kissed breeze beguiles,
And the ocean loves to wander.
Fragrant the vines that mantle those hills,
Proudly the fig rejoices;
Merrily dance the virgin rills,
Blending their myriad voices.
Our herds shall fear no evil there,
But peacefully feed and rest them;
Neither shall serpent nor prowling bear
Ever come there to molest them.
Neither shall Eurus, wanton bold,
Nor feverish drouth distress us,
But he that compasseth heat and cold
Shall temper them both to bless us.
There no vandal foot has trod,
And the pirate hosts that wander
Shall never profane the sacred sod
Of those beautiful Isles out yonder.
Never a spell shall blight our vines,
Nor Sirius blaze above us,
But you and I shall drink our wines
And sing to the loved that love us.
So come with me where Fortune smiles
And the gods invite devotion,-Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles
In the haze of that far-off ocean!
~ Eugene Field,
1307:Drugs do not always have the function of freeing people from dependency and maternal constraints. Sometimes legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, prescribed medications) are used in an attempt to fill the void left by the mother. The child was not given the nourishment needed from her and has found no substitute for this in later life. Without drugs, this gap can literally express itself as a feeling of physical hunger, gnawing away at the stomach, which contracts in response. Probably the foundations for addiction are laid at the very beginning of life, as is the case with bulimia and other eating disorders. The body makes it clear that in the past it urgently needed something, something withheld from it when it was a tiny baby. But this message is misunderstood as long as the emotions are ignored. Accordingly, the distress of the small child is erroneously registered as present distress, and all attempts to combat that distress in the present are doomed to failure. As adults we have different needs, and we can satisfy them only if they are no longer coupled with the old needs in our unconscious minds. ~ Alice Miller,
1308:Sometimes a spouse, in trying to relieve a partner’s distress, accomplishes just the opposite. Judy is an artist. One evening she was quite upset by her problems in getting ready for a show, and she started to tell her husband, Cliff, about them. She wanted his support, encouragement, and sympathy. But Cliff instead fired off a barrage of instructions: “One, you’ve got to get all the people together in the group. Two, you have to call anyone else who is involved. Three, you want to get your accountant in on it—check with the bank to see how much money you still have. Four, you could contact the PR people. Five, call the gallery and see about the time.” Judy felt rejected by Cliff and thought, “He doesn’t care about how I feel. He just wants to get me off his back.” But in his eyes, Cliff thought that he was filling the bill. He had given her his best advice—he thought that he was being supportive. To Judy, however, Cliff was being controlling, not supportive. She was seeking sympathy and emotional rapport, while he was tuned in to problem solving. How can you find the appropriate channel? One point ~ Aaron T Beck,
1309:Two things that weren’t even on the agenda survived every upheaval that followed. General Akhtar remained a general until the time he died, and all God’s names were slowly deleted from the national memory as if a wind had swept the land and blown them away. Innocuous, intimate names: Persian Khuda which had always been handy for ghazal poets as it rhymed with most of the operative verbs; Rab, which poor people invoked in their hour of distress; Maula, which Sufis shouted in their hashish sessions. Allah had given Himself ninety-nine names. His people had improvised many more. But all these names slowly started to disappear: from official stationery, from Friday sermons, from newspaper editorials, from mothers’ prayers, from greeting cards, from official memos, from the lips of television quiz-show hosts, from children’s storybooks, from lovers’ songs, from court orders, from telephone operators’ greetings, from habeas corpus applications, from inter-school debating competitions, from road inauguration speeches, from memorial services, from cricket players’ curses; even from beggars’ begging pleas. ~ Mohammed Hanif,
1310:Whatever a student hears in class or reads in a book travels these pathways as he masters yet another iota of understanding. Indeed, everything that happens to us in life, all the details that we will remember, depend on the hippocampus to stay with us. The continual retention of memories demands a frenzy of neuronal activity. In fact, the vast majority of neurogenesis—the brain’s production of new neurons and laying down of connections to others—takes place in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is especially vulnerable to ongoing emotional distress, because of the damaging effects of cortisol. Under prolonged stress, cortisol attacks the neurons of the hippocampus, slowing the rate at which neurons are added or even reducing the total number, with a disastrous impact on learning. The actual killing off of hippocampal neurons occurs during sustained cortisol floods induced, for example, by severe depression or intense trauma. (However, with recovery, the hippocampus regains neurons and enlarges again.)20 Even when the stress is less extreme, extended periods of high cortisol seem to hamper these same neurons. ~ Daniel Goleman,
1311:Ann and Abby, for the most part, remained aloof and practical. The position of the advice columnist, as they both defined it, was an inherently centrist one. It was their job to be dispassionate, to base their advice on social averages. 'Do not agree to engage in any practice you consider frightening, abnormal, or weird,' Abby once advised a reader. The Friedman sisters were not moral heroes. They lacked Dorothy Dix's empathy. 'I'm sorry' was not in their vocabulary. They could be intolerant and cruel and mocked people in distress-- Abby especially. But they never cast themselves as ethicists. They weren't interested in what was right; they were interested in what was normal. They saw themselves as keepers of the social curve. Their advice was a reminder of what was expected of their readers: to buck up, respect their commitments, not be weird. Abby preached acceptance... partly because forgiveness was more efficient than the alternative. She seemed to think that emotions were a waste of time. Eppie was similar. Her response to conflict was either to "dismiss it or rationalize it," as one friend told Carol Felsenthal. ~ Jessica Weisberg,
1312:Deliverance From Another Sore Fit
In my distress I sought the Lord
When naught on earth could comfort give,
And when my soul these things abhorred,
Then, Lord, Thou said'st unto me, "Live."
Thou knowest the sorrows that I felt;
My plaints and groans were heard of Thee,
And how in sweat I seemed to melt
Thou help'st and Thou regardest me.
My wasted flesh Thou didst restore,
My feeble loins didst gird with strength,
Yea, when I was most low and poor,
I said I shall praise Thee at length.
What shall I render to my God
For all His bounty showed to me?
Even for His mercies in His rod,
Where pity most of all I see.
My heart I wholly give to Thee;
O make it fruitful, faithful Lord.
My life shall dedicated be
To praise in thought, in deed, in word.
Thou know'st no life I did require
Longer than still Thy name to praise,
Nor ought on earth worthy desire,
In drawing out these wretched days.
Thy name and praise to celebrate,
O Lord, for aye is my request.
O grant I do it in this state,
And then with Thee, which is the best.
~ Anne Bradstreet,
1313:If two people with no symptoms in common can both receive the same diagnosis of schizophrenia, then what is the value of that label in describing their symptoms, deciding their treatment, or predicting their outcome, and would it not be more useful simply to describe their problems as they actually are? And if schizophrenia does not exist in nature, then how can researchers possibly find its cause or correlates? If psychiatric research has made so little progress in recent decades, it is in large part because everyone has been barking up the wrong tree. It is not a question of getting a bigger and better scanner, but of going right back to the drawing board.

What’s more, medical-type labels can be as harmful as they are hollow. By reducing rich, varied, and complex human experiences to nothing more than a mental disorder, they not only sideline and trivialize those experiences but also imply an underlying defect that then serves as a pseudo-explanation for the person’s disturbed behaviour. This demeans and disempowers the person, who is deterred from identifying and addressing the important life problems that underlie his distress. ~ Neel Burton,
1314:Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love. ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, C. Garnett, trans. (New York: 2003), Part 2, Chapter 33, p. 207,
1315:Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. ~ Max Ehrmann,
1316:But we belong to no one, we’re always on some frontier, always someone’s dowry. Is it then surprising that we’re poor? For centuries we’ve been trying to find, trying to recognize ourselves. Soon we won’t even know who we are, we’re already forgetting that we’ve even been striving for anything. Others do us the honor of letting us march under their banners, since we have none of our own. They entice us when they need us, and reject us when we’re no longer any use to them. The saddest land in the world, the most unhappy people in the world. We’re losing our identity, but we cannot assume another, foreign one. We’ve been severed from our roots, but haven’t become part of anything else; foreign to everyone, both to those who are our kin and those who won’t take us in and adopt us as their own. We live at a crossroads of worlds, at a border between peoples, in everyone’s way. And someone always thinks we’re to blame for something. The waves of history crash against us, as against a reef. We’re fed up with those in power and we’ve made a virtue out of distress: we’ve become noble-minded out of spite. You’re ruthless on a whim. So who’s backward? ~ Me a Selimovi,
1317:We got to the moment when I wake up from being "mostly dead" and say: "I'll beat you both apart! I'll take you both together!", Fezzik cups my mouth with his hand, and answers his own question to Inigo as to how long it might be before Miracle Max's pill begins to take effect by stating: "I guess not very long."
As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from Andre' one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now I suppose you wouldn't expect a man of Andre's proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted int eh campfire scene in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts.
Except of course, this one wasn't in the script. ~ Cary Elwes,
1318:We got to the moment when I wake up from being "mostly dead" and say: "I'll beat you both apart! I'll take you both together!", Fezzik cups my mouth with his hand, and answers his own question to Inigo as to how long it might be before Miracle Max's pill begins to take effect by stating: "I guess not very long."
As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from Andre' one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now I suppose you wouldn't expect a man of Andre's proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted int eh campfire scene in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts.
Except of course, this one wasn't in the script. ~ Cary Elwes,
1319:My life only has a meaning insofar as I lack one: oh, but let me be mad! Make something of all this he who is able to, understand it he who is dying, and there the living self is, knowing not why, its teeth chattering in the lashing wind: the immensity, the night engulfs it and, all on purpose, that living self is there just in order … ‘not to know’. But as for GOD? What have you got to say, Monsieur Rhetorician? And you, Monsieur Godfearer? — GOD, if He knew, would be a swine. I said ‘GOD, if He knew, would be a swine.’ He (He would I suppose be, at that particular moment, somewhat in disorder, his peruke would sit all askew) would entirely grasp the idea … but what would there be of the human about him? Beyond, beyond everything … and yet farther, and even farther still … HIMSELF, in an ecstasy, above an emptiness … And now? I TREMBLE. O Thou my Lord [in my distress, I call out unto my heart], O deliver me, make them blind! The story — how shall I go on with it?
But I am done.
From out of the slumber which for so short a space kept us in the taxi, I awoke, the first to open his eyes … The rest is irony, long, weary waiting for death … ~ Georges Bataille,
1320:In England in the 19th century, advances in printing methods, combined with the rise of a prosperous middle class, engendered a booming new industry of books published just for children. Casting about for cheap story material, English publishers laid hands on the subtle, sensual adult fairy tales of the Continental tradition and revised them into simpler stories instilled with Victorian values. Although these simplified versions retained much of the violence of the older stories, elements of sexuality and moral complexity were carefully scrubbed away — along with the fiesty heroines who appeared everywhere in the older tales, tamed now into models of Victorian propiety and passivity. In the 20th century, the Walt Disney Studios watered down the tales further still in popular animated films like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, continuing the trend of turning active heroines into powerless damsels in distress. Walt Disney considered even the Victorian versions of the tales too dark for 20th century audiences. "It's just that people now don't want fairy stories the way they were written," Disney commented. "They were too rough." ~ Terri Windling,
1321:Turning, she smiled with genuine affection at Lord Marchman and offered him her hand through the open window of the coach. “Thank you,” she said shyly but with great sincerity, “for being all the things you are, my lord.”
His face scarlet with pleasure at her compliment, John Marchman stepped back and watched her coach pull out of his drive. He watched it until the horses turned onto the road, then he slowly walked back toward the house and went into his study. Sitting down at his desk, he looked at the note he’d written her uncle and idly drummed his fingers upon his desk, recalling her disturbing answer when he asked if she’d dissuaded old Belhaven from pressing his suit. “I think I have,” she’d said. And then John made his decision.
Feeling rather like an absurd knight in shining armor rushing to save an unwilling damsel in the event of future distress, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a new message to her uncle. As it always happened the moment courtship was involved, Lord Marchman lost his ability to be articulate. His note read:

If Belhaven asks for her, please advise me of it. I think I want her first. ~ Judith McNaught,
1322:The Rook And The Sparrows
A little boy with crumbs of bread
Many a hungry sparrow fed.
It was a child of little sense,
Who this kind bounty did dispense;
For suddenly it was withdrawn,
And all the birds were left forlorn,
In a hard time of frost and snow,
Not knowing where for food to go.
He would no longer give them bread,
Because he had observed (he said)
That sometimes to the window came
A great black bird, a rook by name,
And took away a small bird's share.
So foolish Henry did not care
What became of the great rook,
That from the little sparrows took,
Now and then, as 'twere by stealth,
A part of their abundant wealth;
Nor ever more would feed his sparrows.
Thus ignorance a kind heart narrows.
I wish I had been there, I would
Have told the child, rooks live by food
In the same way that sparrows do.
I also would have told him too,
Birds act by instinct, and ne'er can
Attain the rectitude of man.
Nay that even, when distress
Does on poor human nature press,
We need not be too strict in seeing
The failings of a fellow being.
~ Charles Lamb,
1323:A Glass Of Wine
'What's in a glass of wine?'
There, set the glass where I can look within.
Now listen to me, friend, while I begin
And tell you what I seeWhat I behold with my far-reaching eyes,
And what I know to be
Below the laughing bubbles that arise
Within this glass of wine.
There is a little spirit, night and day,
That cries one word, for ever and alway:
That single word is 'More!'
And whoso drinks a glass of wine, drinks him:
You fill the goblet full unto the brim,
And strive to silence him.
Glass after glass you drain to quench his thirst,
Each glass contains a spirit like the first;
And all their voices cry
Until they shriek and clamor, howl and rave,
And shout 'More!' noisily,
Till welcome death prepares the drunkard's grave,
And stills the imps that rave.
That see I in the wine:
And tears so many that I cannot guess;
And all these drops are labelled with 'Distress.'
I know you cannot see.
And at the bottom are the dregs of shame:
Oh! it is plain to me.
And there are woes too terrible to name:
Now drink your glass of wine.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1324:Here is Abraham Lincoln’s touching condolence letter to 22-year-old Fanny McCullough, the daughter of a long-time friend:

“Dear Fanny

It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend,
A. Lincoln ~ Abraham Lincoln,
1325:I am revoking the defendant’s bail and remanding him to the county prison, to remain there until and through the duration of his trial.” With that he nods to the two deputies, who walk to the front of the courtroom, cuff David, and lead him out the side door, their destination the holding cells in the subbasement. David will stay there until five o’clock, at which time he will be loaded into the sheriff’s bus and transported to the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia. I watch David’s exit, watch him hold his head high, keep his back straight, trying to retain as much dignity as he can. Before the deputies close the door behind them, David glances back into the courtroom. I’ve seen the “last glance” from dozens of defendants, seen the guilt, sorrow, regret, fear, numbed disbelief plastered all over their faces as they take in a final look at the loved ones they’re leaving behind, sometimes for good. But David isn’t looking back in sadness or distress. And he isn’t looking at Marcie. His eyes hold only hatred for his real enemy. For Edwin. According to David, it was Edwin who placed the anonymous call to the DA’s office. Somehow, ~ William L Myers Jr,
1326:Our memories are in part reconstructions. Whenever we retrieve a memory, the brain rewrites it a bit, updating the past according to our present concerns and understanding. At the cellular level, LeDoux explains, retrieving a memory means it will be “reconsolidated,” slightly altered chemically by a new protein synthesis that will help store it anew after being updated.40 Thus each time we bring a memory to mind, we adjust its very chemistry: the next time we retrieve it, that memory will come up as we last modified it. The specifics of the new consolidation depend on what we learn as we recall it. If we merely have a flare-up of the same fear, we deepen our fearfulness. But the high road can bring reason to the low. If at the time of the fear we tell ourselves something that eases its grip, then the same memory becomes reencoded with less power over us. Gradually, we can bring the once-feared memory to mind without feeling the rush of distress all over again. In such a case, says LeDoux, the cells in our amygdala reprogram so that we lose the original fear conditioning.41 One goal of therapy, then, can be seen as gradually altering the neurons for learned fear. ~ Daniel Goleman,
1327:To constantly have at your side a woman,an unmarried woman,a sister,a wonderful person who is there because you need her and because she can't do without you,to know that you are indispensable to the one you need, to be endlessly able to measure her affection by the amount of presence she grants you and to say to your self, "since she devotes all her time to me,that means i have her whole heart";to see her thoughts,if not her face,to weigh one being's faithfulness when the rest of the world has been eclipsed,to detect the rustling of her dress as though it were the sound of wings,to hear her coming and going,going out,coming back,talking,singing,and to know you are the centre of every step she takes,of every word,of every song,to manifest your own gravitational pull every minute of the day,to feel yourself your infirmity,to become in darkness,and through darkness,the star around which this angel revolves-few worms of bliss come anywhere near it!The ultimate happiness in life is the conviction that one is loved;loved for oneself-better still,loved in spite of oneself.And this conviction is what the blind have.In such distress,to be waited on is to be hugged and kissed. ~ Victor Hugo,
1328:Tu Ne Quaesieris
For all the lore of Lodge and Myers
I cannot heal my torn desires,
Nor hope for all that man can speer
To make the riddling earth grow clear.
Though it were sure and proven well
That I shall prosper, as they tell,
In fields beneath a different sun
By shores where other oceans run,
When this live body that was I
Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,
Yet what were endless lives to me
If still my narrow self I be
And hope and fail and struggle still,
And break my will against God's will,
To play for stakes of pleasure and pain
And hope and fail and hope again,
Deluded, thwarted, striving elf
That through the window of my self
As through a dark glass scarce can see
A warped and masked reality?
But when this searching thought of mine
Is mingled in the large Divine,
And laughter that was in my mouth
Runs through the breezes of the South,
When glory I have built in dreams
Along some fiery sunset gleams,
And my dead sin and foolishness
Grow one with Nature's whole distress,
To perfect being I shall win,
And where I end will Life begin
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1329:My generation has a giddy delight in dissolution. [...] To inspire the
unsophisticated young to demand "change" is an easy and a cheap trick— it was the tactic of the Communist Internationale in the thirties, another "movement.[...] We were self-taught in the sixties to award ourselves merit for membership in a superior group–irrespective of our
group’s accomplishments. We continue to do so, irrespective of accomplishments, individual or communal, having told each other we were special. We learned that all one need do is refrain from trusting
anybody over thirty; that all people are alike, and to judge their behavior was “judgmental”; that property is theft. As we did not investigate these assertions or their implications, we could not act
upon them and felt no need to do so. For we were the culmination of history, superior to all those misguided who had come before, which is to say all humanity. Though we had never met a payroll, fought for an education, obsessed about the rent, raised a child, carried a weapon for our country, or searched for work. Though we had never been in sufficient distress to call upon God, we indicted those who had. And continue to do so. ~ David Mamet,
1330:Some people have more highly activated left prefrontal cortexes and some people have more highly activated right prefrontal cortexes. (This has nothing to do with the question of hemispheric dominance that determines whether you are right-handed or left-handed, which occurs in other areas of the brain.) The majority of people have higher left-side activation. People with higher right-side activation tend to experience more negative emotion than people with higher left-side activation. Right-side activation also predicts how easily someone’s immune system will become depressed. The right-brain activation is also correlated with high baseline levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Though the settled patterns of activation do not stabilize until adulthood, babies with greater right-side activation will become frantic when their mothers leave a room; babies with strong left-side activation will be more likely to explore the room without apparent distress. In babies, however, the balance is subject to change. “The likelihood,” Davidson says, “is that there’s more plasticity in the system in the early years of life, more opportunity for the environment to sculpt this circuitry. ~ Andrew Solomon,
1331:Even when in the deepest distress, the actor ultimately cannot cease to think of the impression he and the whole scenic effect is making, even for example at the burial of his own child; he will weep over his own distress and the ways in which it expresses itself, as his own audience. The hypocrite who always plays one and the same role finally ceases to be a hypocrite; for example priests, who as young men are usually conscious or unconscious hypocrites, finally become natural and then really are priests without any affectation; or if the father fails to get that far then perhaps the son does so, employing his father's start and inheriting his habits. If someone obstinately and for a long time wants to appear something it is int he end hard for him to be anything else. The profession of almost every man, even that of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitation from without, with a copying of what is most effective. He who is always wearing a mask of a friendly countenance must finally acquire a power over benevolent moods without which the impression of friendliness cannot be obtained - and finally these acquire power over him, he is benevolent. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
1332:Oh, Mr. Tumnus—I’m so sorry to stop you, and I do love that tune—but really, I must go home. I only meant to stay for a few minutes.” “It’s no good now, you know,” said the Faun, laying down its flute and shaking its head at her very sorrowfully. “No good?” said Lucy, jumping up and feeling rather frightened. “What do you mean? I’ve got to go home at once. The others will be wondering what has happened to me.” But a moment later she asked, “Mr. Tumnus! Whatever is the matter?” for the Faun’s brown eyes had filled with tears and then the tears began trickling down its cheeks, and soon they were running off the end of its nose; and at last it covered its face with its hands and began to howl. “Mr. Tumnus! Mr. Tumnus!” said Lucy in great distress. “Don’t! Don’t! What is the matter? Aren’t you well? Dear Mr. Tumnus, do tell me what is wrong.” But the Faun continued sobbing as if its heart would break. And even when Lucy went over and put her arms round him and lent him her handkerchief, he did not stop. He merely took the handkerchief and kept on using it, wringing it out with both hands whenever it got too wet to be any more use, so that presently Lucy was standing in a damp patch. ~ C S Lewis,
1333:Wireless.
Now to those who search the deep,
Gleam of Hope
and
Kindly Light,
Once, before you turn to sleep,
Breathe a message through the night.
Never doubt that they'll receive it.
Send it, once, and you'll believe it.
Wrecks that burn against the stars,
Decks where death is wallowing green,
Snare the breath among their spars,
Hear the flickering threads between,
Quick, through all the storms that blind them,
Quick with worlds that rush to find them.
Think you those aerial wires
Whisper more than spirits may ?
Think you that our strong desires
Touch no distance when we pray ?
Think you that no wings are flying
'Twixt the living and the dying ?
Inland, here, upon your knees,
You shall breathe from urgent lips,
Round the ships that guard your seas,
Fleet on fleet of angel ships ;
Yea, the guarded may so bless them .
That no terrors can distress them.
You shall guide the darkling prow,
Kneeling thus-and far inlandYou shall touch the storm-beat brow
Gently as a spirit-hand.
Even a blindfold prayer may speed them,
And a little child may lead them.
189
~ Alfred Noyes,
1334:Then, by the light of the Mark, he saw Dumbledore’s wand flying in an arc over the edge of the ramparts and understood. . . . Dumbledore had wordlessly immobilized Harry, and the second he had taken to perform the spell had cost him the chance of defending himself. Standing against the ramparts, very white in the face, Dumbledore still showed no sign of panic or distress. He merely looked across at his disarmer and said, “Good evening, Draco.” Malfoy stepped forward, glancing around quickly to check that he and Dumbledore were alone. His eyes fell upon the second broom. “Who else is here?” “A question I might ask you. Or are you acting alone?” Harry saw Malfoy’s pale eyes shift back to Dumbledore in the greenish glare of the Mark. “No,” he said. “I’ve got backup. There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight.” “Well, well,” said Dumbledore, as though Malfoy was showing him an ambitious homework project. “Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?” “Yeah,” said Malfoy, who was panting. “Right under your nose and you never realized!” “Ingenious,” said Dumbledore. “Yet . . . forgive me . . . where are they now? You seem unsupported.” “They met some of your guards. ~ J K Rowling,
1335:Those who come close to people in need do so first of all in a generous desire to help them and bring them relief; they often feel like saviours and put themselves on a pedestal. But once in contact with them, once touching them, establishing a loving and trusting relationship with them, the mystery unveils itself. At the heart of the insecurity of people in distress there is a presence of Jesus. And so they may discover the sacrament of the poor and enter the mystery of compassion.

People who are poor seem to break down the barriers of powerfulness, of wealth, of ability and of pride; they pierce the armour the human heart builds to protect itself; they reveal Jesus Christ. They reveal to those who have come to 'help' them their own poverty and vulnerability. These people also show their 'helpers' their capacity for love, the forces of love in their hearts. A poor person has a mysterious power: in his weakness he is able to open hardened hearts and reveal the sources of living water within them. It is the tiny hand of the fearless child which can slip through the bars of the prison of egoism. He is the one who can open the lock and set free. And God hides himself in the child. ~ Jean Vanier,
1336:1) The Titanic hit the iceberg in the North Atlantic, approximately 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. 2) The Titanic was considered unsinkable because she was built with huge watertight doors to contain any possible leaks. However, when the ship hit the iceberg, six watertight compartments quickly filled up with water, dooming the ship. 3) The signal SOS was chosen as an international distress call because of the simplicity of the three letters in Morse code: three dots, three dashes, and three dots. 4) No one knows for certain exactly how long the musicians played on the Titanic, but legend says they played until the ship went down, and their last song was the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” 5) More than 1,500 people perished in the Titanic disaster, while 705 people escaped in lifeboats and were eventually rescued by a ship named the Carpathia. 6) After the sinking of the Titanic, laws were changed so that every ship was required to have enough lifeboats to carryall its passengers. Also, the International Ice Patrol was formed, so that ships would have warning about ice conditions. 7) In 1985, a scientist named Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the undersea wreck of the Titanic. ~ Mary Pope Osborne,
1337:Early anxieties stored in the body can be resolved in therapy as long as their causes are not denied. Initial moves toward a therapeutic concept of this kind have been with us for a number of years now, frequently in the form of counseling for self-therapy, counseling of a kind that I once advocated myself. I no longer recommend this course. I feel strongly that we need the company of an enlightened witness to embark on the journey. Unfortunately, it is rare for therapists to have enjoyed such company in their own training. I am only too well aware of the various forms of anxiety assailing therapists, their fear of hurting their parents if they dare to face their own childhood distress head on and without embellishment, and the resultant reluctance to support their patients fully in their search. But the more we write and talk on the subject, the sooner this state of affairs will change and the anxieties lose some of their power over us. In a society with a receptive attitude toward the distress of children, none of us will be alone with our histories. Therapists will be more inclined to forsake Freud’s principle of neutrality and to take the side of the children their clients once were. ~ Alice Miller,
1338:Fairy tales are entertaining, but what about after the story? When the knight marries the princess do you think he actually makes a decent husband? Just because he wears expensive armor and rescues her doesn't mean he's a good man. He might slay as many innocent dragons as he does evil ones. The princess married a man, not a saint. Well, unless he's Saint George." He grinned but she didn't smile back.
"That doesn't make saving a damsel in distress any less honorable. And if he stoops to marry his damsel he's the one most liked to be disappointed. A pretty face doesn't guarantee she can do anything useful."
Ah, so they were more alike than he thought. She didn't believe she deserved him any more than he believed he did her. "So a poor maiden can't ever be worthy of a knight, not even a flawed one?"
"What could a commoner possibly do to make a knight happy?"
"You help him figure out which dragons need to be vanquished and which can be redeemed and trained."
She finally looked at him for more than a moment, her eyes as dazzling as the sparkling flakes dancing in the moonlight. "Are we still talking about mythology?" Her voice shook.
"No." He smiled. "I never thought we were. ~ Melissa Jagears,
1339:The connection between economic interest and recognition was well understood by the founder of modern political economy, Adam Smith, in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Even in late-eighteenth-century Britain, he observed that the poor had basic necessities and did not suffer from gross material deprivation. They sought wealth for a different reason: To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. It is the vanity, not the ease or the pleasure, which interests us. But vanity is always founded upon the belief of our being the object of attention and approbation. The rich man glories in his riches, because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world, and that mankind are disposed to go along with him in all the agreeable emotions with which the advantages of his situation so readily inspire him … The poor man, on the contrary, is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of sight of mankind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers. ~ Francis Fukuyama,
1340:[A man], who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven pleases, or as he can make himself; I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress! Now no doubt, if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well subsist, and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires. ~ Immanuel Kant,
1341:Good Luck
Good luck! That's all I'm saying, as you sail across the sea;
The best o' luck, in the parting, is the prayer you get from me.
May you never meet a danger that you won't come safely through,
May you never meet a German that can get the best of you;
Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow's at the front,
A thousand different mishaps, but here's hoping that they won't.
Good luck! That's all I'm saying, as you turn away to go,
Good luck and plenty of it, may it be your lot to know;
May you never meet rough weather, but remember if you do
That the folks at home are wishing that you'll all come safely through.
Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow bears the brunt
Of His Country's fight for glory, but I'm praying that they won't.
Good luck! That's all I'm saying as you're falling into line;
May the splendour of your service bring you everything that's fine;
May the fates deal kindly with you, may you never know distress,
And may every task you tackle end triumphant with success.
Oh! A thousand things may happen that with joy your life will fill;
You may not get all the gladness, but I'm hoping that you will.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1342:Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both partners run out of goods.

But if the seed of a genuine disinterested love, which is often present, is ever to develop, it is essential that we pretend to ourselves and to others that it is stronger and more developed than it is, that we are less selfish than we are. Hence the social havoc wrought by the paranoid to whom the thought of indifference is so intolerable that he divides others into two classes, those who love him for himself alone and those who hate him for the same reason.

Do a paranoid a favor, like paying his hotel bill in a foreign city when his monthly check has not yet arrived, and he will take this as an expression of personal affection – the thought that you might have done it from a general sense of duty towards a fellow countryman in distress will never occur to him. So back he comes for more until your patience is exhausted, there is a row, and he departs convinced that you are his personal enemy. In this he is right to the extent that it is difficult not to hate a person who reveals to you so clearly how little you love others. ~ W H Auden,
1343:At this crisis certain inventions in machinery were introduced into the staple manufactures of the north, which, greatly reducing the number of hands necessary to be employed, threw thousands out of work, and left them without legitimate means of sustaining life. A bad harvest supervened. Distress reached its climax. Endurance, overgoaded, stretched the hand of fraternity to sedition. The throes of a sort of moral earthquake were felt heaving under the hills of the northern counties. But, as is usual in such cases, nobody took much notice. When a food-riot broke out in a manufacturing town, when a gig-mill was burnt to the ground, or a manufacturer’s house was attacked, the furniture thrown into the streets, and the family forced to flee for their lives, some local measures were or were not taken by the local magistracy. A ringleader was detected, or more frequently suffered to elude detection; newspaper paragraphs were written on the subject, and there the thing stopped. As to the sufferers, whose sole inheritance was labour, and who had lost that inheritance — who could not get work, and consequently could not get wages, and consequently could not get bread — they were left to suffer on, perhaps inevitably left. It ~ Charlotte Bront,
1344:Why should caring for others begin with the self? There is an abundance of rather vague ideas about this issue, which I am sure neuroscience will one day resolve. Let me offer my own “hand waving” explanation by saying that advanced empathy requires both mental mirroring and mental separation. The mirroring allows the sight of another person in a particular emotional state to induce a similar state in us. We literally feel their pain, loss, delight, disgust, etc., through so-called shared representations. Neuroimaging shows that our brains are similarly activated as those of people we identify with. This is an ancient mechanism: It is automatic, starts early in life, and probably characterizes all mammals. But we go beyond this, and this is where mental separation comes in. We parse our own state from the other’s. Otherwise, we would be like the toddler who cries when she hears another cry but fails to distinguish her own distress from the other’s. How could she care for the other if she can’t even tell where her feelings are coming from? In the words of psychologist Daniel Goleman, “Self-absorption kills empathy.” The child needs to disentangle herself from the other so as to pinpoint the actual source of her feelings. ~ Frans de Waal,
1345:Just as the separation of Church and world became visible only in their continuous conflict, so also does personal sanctification consist in the conflict of the Spirit against the flesh. The saints are only conscious of the strife and distress, the weakness and sin in their lives; and the further they advance in holiness, the more they feel they are fighting a losing battle and dying in the flesh. "They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts thereof" (Gal. 5.24). They still live in the flesh, but for that very reason their whole life must be an act of faith in the Son of God, who has begun his life in them (Gal. 2.20). The Christian dies daily (I Cor. 15.31), but although this may mean suffering and decay in the flesh, the inward man is renewed day by day (II Cor. 4.16). The only reason why the saints have to die in the flesh is that Christ through the Holy Spirit has begun to live his life in them. The effect of Christ and his life on the saints is that they die after the flesh. There is no need for them to go out of their way to look for suffering: indeed that would only mean a return to the self-assertion of the flesh. Every day Christ is their death and Christ is their life. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1346:October 27 “His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.” Revelation 22:3, 4 THREE choice blessings will be ours in the glory-land. “His servants shall serve him.” No other lords shall oppress us, no other service shall distress us. We shall serve Jesus always, perfectly, without weariness, and with out error. This is Heaven to a saint: in all things to serve the Lord Christ, and to be owned by him as his servant, is our soul’s high ambition for eternity. “And they shall see his face.” This makes the service delightful: indeed, it is the present reward of service. We shall know our Lord, for we shall see him as he is. To see the face of Jesus is the utmost favour that the most faithful servant of the Lord can ask. What more could Moses ask than: “Let me see thy face”? “And his name shall be in their foreheads.” They gaze upon their Lord till his name is photographed upon their brows. They are acknowledged by him, and they acknowledge him. The secret mark of inward grace develops into the public sign-manual of confessed relationship. O Lord, give us these three things in their beginnings here, that we may possess them in their fulness in thine own abode of bliss! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1347:With six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be calm. One got sick, another might get sick, a third lacked something, a fourth showed signs of bad character, and so on, and so on. Rarely, rarely would there be short periods of calm. But these troubles and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the only possible happiness. Had it not been for them, she would have remained alone with her thoughts of her husband, who did not love her. But besides that, however painful the mother's fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the distress at seeing signs of bad inclinations in her children, the children repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold.

Now, in her country solitude, she was more aware of these joys. Often, looking at them, she made every possible effort to convince herself that she was mistaken, that as a mother she was partial to her children; all the same, she could not but tell herself that she had lovely children, all six of them, each in a different way, but such as rarely happens -- and she was happy in them and proud of them. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
1348:Kat?” The deep voice echoed in the darkness some unknowable length of time later. “Kat? I know you’re in here—I can feel how upset you are.” “Here,” she managed to whisper feebly. “Who…?” “It’s me.” Deep came suddenly into view, picking his way toward her over the fallen rocks. “Lock and I felt your distress and he managed to convince the natives that one of us had to be in here with you at all times. Sorry it turned out to be me, but he has to keep talking to their chief so I’m afraid you’re stuck with—” He broke off abruptly, obviously getting a good look at her for the first time. “Gods, Kat! Are you all right?” “Just peachy.” Kat managed a weak smirk. Despite her pain she was still reluctant to admit the extent of her disability to Deep. “Why are you lying there like that? What’s wrong?” he demanded, crouching beside her. “Just getting a little rest.” This is stupid—just tell him! But somehow she couldn’t. “Being kidnapped at knifepoint by aliens who speak in obscure forms of poetry always tires me out.” She tried to smile but it was apparent Deep wasn’t fooled. “Stop being so goddess damned brave and tell me what’s wrong.” Tilting his head to one side to look into her eyes, he cupped her cheek gently. “Please, Kat. Tell me.” Even ~ Evangeline Anderson,
1349:With 6 children Darya Alexandrovna could not be calm. One got sick, another might get sick, a third lacked something, a fourth showed signs of bad character, and so on, and so on. Rarely, rarely would there be short periods of calm but these troubles and anxieties were for Darya Alexandroyna the only possible happiness. Had it not been for them, she would have remained alone with her thoughts of her husband, who did not love her. But besides that, however painful the mother's fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the distress at seeing signs of bad inclinations in her children, the children themselves repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold.
Now, in her country solitude, she was more aware of these joys. Often, looking at them, she made every possible effort to convince herself that she was mistaken, that as a mother she was partial to her children; all the same, she could not but tell herself that she had lovely children, all 6 of them, each in a different way, but such as rarely happens - and she was happy in them in them and proud of them. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
1350:For preference utilitarians, taking the life of a person will normally be worse than taking the life of some other being, because persons are highly future-oriented in their preferences. To kill a person is therefore, normally, to violate not just one but a wide range of the most central and significant preferences a being can have. Very often, it will make nonsense of everything that the victim has been trying to do in the past days, months or even years. In contrast, beings that cannot see themselves as entities with a future do not have any preferences about their own future existence. This is not to deny that such beings might struggle against a situation in which their lives are in danger, as a fish struggles to get free of the barbed hook in its mouth; but this indicates no more than a preference for the cessation of a state of affairs that causes pain or fear. The behaviour of a fish on a hook suggests a reason for not killing fish by that method but does not in itself suggest a preference utilitarian reason against killing fish by a method that brings about death instantly, without first causing pain or distress. Struggles against danger and pain do not suggest that fish are capable of preferring their own future existence to non-existence. ~ Peter Singer,
1351:Meeting
The snow will dust the roadway,
And load the roofs still more.
I'll stretch my legs a little:
You're there outside the door.
Autumn, not winter coat,
Hat-none, galoshes-none.
You struggle with excitement
Out there all on your own.
Far, far into the darkness
Fences and trees withdraw.
You stand there on the corner,
Under the falling snow.
The water trickles down from
The kerchief that you wear
Into your sleeves, while dewdrops
Shine sparkling in your hair.
And now illumined by
A single strand of light
Are features, kerchief, figure
And coat of autumn cut.
There's wet snow on your lashes
And in your eyes, distress,
And your external image
Is all, all of apiece.
As if an iron point
With truly consummate art,
Dipped into antimony,
Had scribed you on my heart.
Those modest, humble features
Are in it now to stay,
And if the world's cruel-hearted,
That's merely by the way.
93
And therefore it is doubled,
All this night in snow;
To draw frontiers between us
Is more than I can do.
But who are we and whence,
If, of those years gone by,
Scandal alone remains
And we have ceased to be.
~ Boris Pasternak,
1352:I’m right here, dear, and yes, I do most heartily disapprove of unmentionables being brought up in polite conversations, as you very well know,” Abigail said as she took that moment to breeze into the room. She stopped and beamed at Bram. “Unmentionables aside, though, aren’t you just a dear for taking such excellent care of my darling Lucetta when she was in distress and I was, er, unavailable?” Bram felt his lips begin to curl. “I have a feeling, Grandmother, that you were fully aware of the fact your darling Lucetta had absolutely nothing wrong with her and was simply putting to good use her acting abilities in order to spare you a confrontation with my mother.” Abigail stepped to his side, lifted her chin, and reached up to pat his cheek. “You’re a dear boy, with a chivalrous heart, even if you have yet to explain why you’re wearing this patch when you have no need of one.” Since he certainly wasn’t comfortable telling his grandmother the truth, he settled for summoning up a smile. “It’s difficult to explain.” “Is it now?” “Indeed, and since I do seem to be dripping all over the Aubusson rug, which is surprising since it seems like forever ago that I took those dips in the moat, I’m going to excuse myself and leave you to see after Miss Plum.” Beating ~ Jen Turano,
1353:Working People
O that warm February morning!
The untimely south came
to stir up our absurd paupers' memories,
our young distress.
Henrika had on a brown
and white checked cotton skirt
which must have been worn in the last century,
a bonnet with ribbons and a silk scarf.
It was much sadder than any mourning.
We were taking a stroll in the suburbs.
The weather was overcast
and that wind from the south
excited all the evil odors of the desolate
garden and the dried fields.
It did not seem to weary my wife as it did me.
In a puddle left by the rains of the preceding month,
on a fairly high path,
she called my attention to some very little fishes.
The city with its smoke and its factory noises
followed us far out along the roads.
O other world, habituation
blessed by sky and shade!
The south brought black miserable memories
of my childhood, my summer despairs,
the horrible quantity of strength
and of knowledge that fate has always kept from me.
No! we will not spend the summer
in this avaricious country
where we shall never be anything
but affianced orphans.
I want this hardened arm
to stop dragging _a cherished image._
238
~ Arthur Rimbaud,
1354:Answer Me! Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. PSALM 4:1 NIV Have you ever felt like God wasn’t listening? We’ve all felt that from time to time. David felt it when he slept in a cold, hard cave night after night, while being pursued by Saul’s men. He felt it when his son Absalom turned against him. Time and again in his life, David felt abandoned by God. And yet, David was called a man after God’s own heart. No matter our maturity level, there will be times when we feel abandoned by God. There will be times when our faith wavers and our fortitude wanes. That’s okay. It’s normal. But David didn’t give up. He kept crying out to God, kept falling to his knees in worship, kept storming God’s presence with his pleas. David knew God wouldn’t hide His face for long, for he knew what we might sometimes forget: God is love. He loves us without condition and without limit. And He is never far from those He loves. No matter how distant God may seem, we need to keep talking to Him. Keep praying. Keep pouring out our hearts. We can know, as David knew, that God will answer in His time. Dear Father, thank You for always hearing my prayers. Help me to trust You, even when You seem distant. Amen. ~ Anonymous,
1355:The Child World
The child world is a wondrous world,
For there the flags of hate are furled,
And there the imps of wickedness
Cause neither sorrow nor distress.
And there is never strife for gold,
There petty gossip's never told,
There all is joy and wondrous mirth,
The child earth is a glorious earth.
The land of childhood is aglow
With smiles, and there pink roses grow
Upon the cheeks of boys and girls;
The golden rod is yellow curls,
And eyes of brown and eyes of blue
Are daisies and the violets, too;
And warm and true is every hand
That clings to yours in Childhood Land.
Who owns a spot on childhood's globe
Envies no king his ermine robe;
Envies no sage his manners wise,—
His world is rich with glad surprise,
The quaintest of all speech he hears,
The truest smiles, the sweetest tears
Are his possessions every day
However troubled be his way.
Who knows the joys of Childhood Land,
The pressure of a tiny hand,
The joy that's in a babe's caress,
The soft embrace of happiness,
The sweet good-nights, the shouts of glee
That greet the morning lustily,
Has riches, those who childless live
To know, would all their fortunes give.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1356:I remembered the way, when each of my sons was a baby, they would deliberately drop things from their high chair in order to watch them fall to the floor, an activity as delightful to them as its consequences were appalling. They would stare down at the fallen thing – a half-eaten rusk, or a plastic ball – and become increasingly agitated by its failure to return. Eventually they would begin to cry, and usually found that the fallen object came back to them by that route. It always surprised me that their response to this chain of events was to repeat it: as soon as the object was in their hands they would drop it again, leaning over to watch it fall. Their delight never lessened, and nor did their distress. I always expected that at some point they would realise the distress was unnecessary and would choose to avoid it, but they never did. The memory of suffering had no effect whatever on what they elected to do: on the contrary, it compelled them to repeat it, for the suffering was the magic that caused the object to come back and allowed the delight in dropping it to become possible again. Had I refused to return it the very first time they dropped it, I suppose they would have learned something very different, though what that might have been I wasn’t sure. ~ Rachel Cusk,
1357:The more consciousness there is in such a sufferer who in despair wills to be himself, the more his despair intensifies and becomes demonic. It usually originates as follows. A self that in despair wills to be itself is pained in some distress or other that does not allow itself to be taken away from or separated from his concrete self. So now he makes precisely this torment the object of all his passion, and finally it becomes a demonic age. By now, even if God in heaven and all the angels offered to help him out of it- no, he does not want that, now it is too late. Once he would gladly have given everything to be rid of this agony, but he was kept waiting; now it is too late, now he would rather rage against everything and be the wronged victim of the whole world and of all life, and it is of particular significance to him to make sure that he has his torment on hand and that no one takes it away from him- for then he would not be able to demonstrate and prove to himself that he is right. This eventually becomes such a fixation that for an extremely strange reason he is afraid of eternity, afraid that it will separate him from his, demonically understood, infinite superiority over other men, his justification, demonically understood, for being what he is. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
1358:The more consciousness there is in such a sufferer who in despair wills to be himself, the more his despair intensifies and becomes demonic. It usually originates as follows. A self that in despair wills to be itself is pained in some distress or other that does not allow itself to be taken away from or separated from his concrete self. So now he makes precisely this torment the object of all his passion, and finally it becomes a demonic rage. By now, even if God in heaven and all the angels offered to help him out of it- no, he does not want that, now it is too late. Once he would gladly have given everything to be rid of this agony, but he was kept waiting; now it is too late, now he would rather rage against everything and be the wronged victim of the whole world and of all life, and it is of particular significance to him to make sure that he has his torment on hand and that no one takes it away from him- for then he would not be able to demonstrate and prove to himself that he is right. This eventually becomes such a fixation that for an extremely strange reason he is afraid of eternity, afraid that it will separate him from his, demonically understood, infinite superiority over other men, his justification, demonically understood, for being what he is. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
1359:How do we stop them?” Edilio asked. He raised his head, and Sam saw the distress on his face. “How do you think we stop them? When your fifteenth birthday rolls around, the easy thing is to take the poof. You gotta fight to resist it. We know that. So how are we going to tell kids this isn’t real, this Orsay thing?”
“We just tell them,” Astrid said.
“But we don’t know if it’s real or not,” Edilio argued.
Astrid shrugged. She stared at nothing and kept her features very still. “We tell them it’s all fake. Kids hate this place, but they don’t want to die.”
“How do we tell them if we don’t know?” Edilio seemed genuinely puzzled.
Howard laughed. “Deely-O, Deely-O, you are such a doof sometimes.” He put his feet down and leaned toward Edilio as if sharing a secret with him. “She means: We lie. Astrid means that we lie to everyone and tell them we do know for sure.”
Edilio stared at Astrid like he was expecting her to deny it.
“It’s for people’s own good,” Astrid said in a low voice, still looking at nothing.
“You know what’s funny?” Howard said, grinning. “I was pretty sure we were coming to this meeting so Astrid could rank on Sam for not telling us the whole truth. And now, it turns out we’re really here so Astrid can talk us all into becoming liars. ~ Michael Grant,
1360:The experiment is called the Strange Situation, and you can see variations of it on the Internet. A mother and her toddler are in an unfamiliar room. A few minutes later, a researcher enters and the mother exits, leaving the youngster alone or with the researcher. Three minutes later, the mother comes back. Most children are initially upset at their mother’s departure; they cry, throw toys, or rock back and forth. But three distinct patterns of behavior emerge when mother and child are reunited—and these patterns are dictated by the type of emotional connection that has developed between the two. Children who are resilient, calm themselves quickly, easily reconnect with their moms, and resume exploratory play usually have warm and responsive mothers. Youngsters who stay upset and nervous and turn hostile, demanding, and clingy when their moms return tend to have mothers who are emotionally inconsistent, blowing sometimes hot, sometimes cold. A third group of children, who evince no pleasure, distress, or anger and remain distant and detached from their mothers, are apt to have moms who are cold and dismissive. Bowlby and Ainsworth labeled the children’s strategies for dealing with emotions in relationships, or attachment styles, secure, anxious, and avoidant, respectively. ~ Sue Johnson,
1361:Mrs. Rutledge . . .” he started, and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I shouldn’t overstep my bounds. But I feel it necessary to say—” He hesitated. “Go on,” Poppy said gently. “I’ve worked for Mr. Rutledge for more than five years. I daresay I know him as well as anyone. He’s a complicated man . . . too smart for his own good, and he doesn’t have much in the way of scruples, and he forces everyone around him to live by his terms. But he has changed many lives for the better. Including mine. And I believe there’s good in him, if one looks deep enough.” “I think so, too,” Poppy said. “But that’s not enough to found a marriage on.” “You mean something to him,” Valentine insisted. “He’s formed an attachment to you, and I’ve never seen that before. Which is why I don’t think anyone in the world can manage him except for you.” “Even if that’s true,” Poppy managed to say, “I don’t know if I want to manage him.” “Ma’am . . .” Valentine said feelingly, “Someone has to.” Amusement broke through Poppy’s distress, and she ducked her head to hide a smile. “I’ll consider it,” she said. “But at the moment I need some time away. What do they call it in the rope ring . . . ?” “A breather,” he said, bending to pick up her valise. “Yes, a breather. Will you help me, Mr. Valentine?” “Of course. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1362:Two Sonnets
Just as I wonder at the twofold screen
Of twisted innocence that you would plait
For eyes that uncourageously await
The coming of a kingdom that has been,
So do I wonder what God’s love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate
The purpose and the consequent estate
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen.
No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of God’s home
To find Him in the names of buried men;
Nor your ingenious recreance to think
We cherish, in the life that is to come,
The scattered features of dead friends again.
IL
Never until our souls are strong enough
To plunge into the crater of the Scheme—
Triumphant in the flash there to redeem
Love’s handsel and forevermore to slough,
Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough
And reptile skins of us whereon we set
The stigma of scared years—are we to get
Where atoms and the ages are one stuff.
Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste
Of life in the beneficence divine
Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine
That we have squandered in sin’s frail distress,
Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste,
The mead of Thought’s prophetic endlessness.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,
1363:You’re saying your mother engaged in unprotected sex outside her primary relationship?’

‘With some other student,’ replied Rosie. ‘While she was dating my’ – at this point Rosie raised her hands and made a downwards movement, twice, with the index and middle fingers of both hands – ‘father. My real dad’s a doctor. I just don’t know which one. Really, really pisses me off.’

I was fascinated by the hand movements and silent for a while as I tried to work them out. Were they a sign of distress at not knowing who her father was? If so, it was not one I was familiar with. And why had she chosen to punctuate her speech at that point … of course! Punctuation! ‘Quotation marks,’ I said aloud as the idea hit me.

‘What?’

‘You made quotation marks around “father” to draw attention to the fact that the word should not be interpreted in the usual way. Very clever.’

‘Well, there you go,’ she said. ‘And there I was thinking you were reflecting on my minor problem with my whole fucking life. And might have something intelligent to say.’

I corrected her. ‘It’s not a minor problem at all!’ I pointed my finger in the air to indicate an exclamation mark. ‘You should insist on being informed.’ I stabbed the same finger to indicate a full stop. This was quite fun. ~ Graeme Simsion,
1364:That hundreds of millions of people believe that a man named Noah built an ark and put all of the world's species onto it two-by-two, that those species included dinosaurs—even though dinosaurs and man are separated by millions of years—that these people want this taught as science, that they want to get onto every school board and into every legislature to ensure that their view prevails, and that the mainstream media of a modern society
continues to take this seriously, may only mildly annoy one smart person, perhaps one who grew up in religion and is tempted to give religion a pass. But it will seriously outrage—and almost derange—another smart person
who is convinced that these views always come with an authoritarian edge and a coercive public agenda. It will likewise strike a smart person as a ludicrous claim that the collectivist farms in her country are working beautifully when there is no food to be found on the shelves of any grocery store anywhere or to claim that a
certain corporation is a mighty source for good and innovation when it is paying its employees peanuts and freely polluting. Misrepresentations of this sort affect our brain and our nervous system. They are an assault on
our senses as well as our sense of right and wrong, and they bring pain and distress. ~ Eric Maisel,
1365:In the Discourse, a few verses further along: “Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29-30). It’s almost like a mythological description of depression. Have you ever had a day when it all doesn’t make any sense? Emptiness has to precede fullness. Usually our old securities have to be wrested from us before we will move into the new. We seldom do it deliberately. Spirituality is always about letting go—not just in Christianity, but in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. All the great world religions at their higher levels teach the mystery and the art of letting go. You let go, and hopefully collapse back into your true self, into who you really are. The work of religion is to guide us on the path of the fall and onto the path of the return. What Jesus is painting here with his words is a cosmic liturgy, a cosmic image of everything falling apart. Out of that emptiness comes the possibility of a new kind of fullness. “Take ~ Richard Rohr,
1366:Does it distress you, reader, how I remind you of their sexes in each sentence? ‘Hers’ and ‘his’? Does it make you see them naked in each other’s arms, and fill even this plain scene with wanton sensuality? Linguists will tell you the ancients were less sensitive to gendered language than we are, that we react to it because it’s rare, but that in ages that heard ‘he’ and ‘she’ in every sentence they grew stale, as the glimpse of an ankle holds no sensuality when skirts grow short. I don’t believe it. I think gendered language was every bit as sensual to our predecessors as it is to us, but they admitted the place of sex in every thought and gesture, while our prudish era, hiding behind the neutered ‘they,’ pretends that we do not assume any two people who lock eyes may have fornicated in their minds if not their flesh. You protest: My mind is not as dirty as thine, Mycroft. My distress is at the strangeness of applying ‘he’ and ‘she’ to thy 2450s, where they have no place. Would that you were right, good reader. Would that ‘he’ and ‘she’ and their electric power were unknown in my day. Alas, it is from these very words that the transformation came which I am commanded to describe, so I must use them to describe it. I am sorry, reader. I cannot offer wine without the poison of the alcohol within. ~ Ada Palmer,
1367:So, Dani . . . is that short for Danielle?” I searched for you, I tried to convey with my eyes. Scoured the Internet for your sister’s wedding announcement, knowing you shared a maiden name. Hunted through the White Pages . . .

“Danica.”

Ah, no wonder. I hoped every Danielle James in the tri-state area would forgive me for cyber-stalking them. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be a variant. “So, um . . . how’d you two meet?” And where? And when? My brain wanted to scream. And why. Why, why, why?

Nash’s arm slid around Dani’s waist, pulling her against his hip. “We met on tour, if you can believe that. She was a damsel in distress.”

Dani gave a cute snort. “You thought I was a groupie in heat.”

“My bad.” Nash gave a shrug and winked in my direction. “I’ll never forget, seeing her out the tour bus window for the first time. She was standing by this old, broken-down van at the side of the road, waving a white lacy thong like a matador—” He butted his forehead against her shoulder, like a big bull come to rut.

“Oh?” I managed, swallowed hard. The espresso I’d had earlier threatened to burn its way back up my throat.

“It wasn’t a thong , you perv!” Dani gave a tug on his long locks. “It was a camisole. And it was the only thing white I had. ~ Jessica Topper,
1368:In May
Grief was my master yesternight;
To-morrow I may grieve again;
But now along the windy plain
The clouds have taken flight.
The
The
The
The
sowers in the furrows go;
lusty river brimmeth on;
curtains from the hills are gone;
leaves are out; and lo,
The
The
The
The
silvery distance of the day,
light horizons, and between
glory of the perfect green,
tumult of the May.
The bobolinks at noonday sing
More softly than the softest flute,
And lightlier than the lightest lute
Their fairy tambours ring.
The roads far off are towered with dust;
The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;
In yonder swaying elms the wind
Is charging gust on gust.
But here there is no stir at all;
The ministers of sun and shadow
Horde all the perfumes of the meadow
Behind a grassy wall.
An infant rivulet wind-free
Adown the guarded hollow sets,
Over whose brink the violets
Are nodding peacefully.
From pool to pool it prattles by;
The flashing swallows dip and pass,
Above the tufted marish grass,
And here at rest am I.
105
I care not for the old distress,
Nor if to-morrow bid me moan;
To-day is mine, and I have known
An hour of blessedness.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1369:"Because I have called, and ye refused . . . I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you." "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem: "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."

The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure. King Minos retained the divine bull, when the sacrifice would have signified submission to the will of the god of his society; for he preferred what he conceived to be his economic advantage. Thus he failed to advance into the liferole that he had assumed-and we have seen with what calamitous effect. The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
1370:when it comes to empathy and compassion, rich people tend to suck. This has been explored at length in a series of studies by Dacher Keltner of UC Berkeley. Across the socioeconomic spectrum, on the average, the wealthier people are, the less empathy they report for people in distress and the less compassionately they act. Moreover, wealthier people are less adept at recognizing other people’s emotions and in experimental settings are greedier and more likely to cheat or steal. Two of the findings were picked up by the media as irresistible: (a) wealthier people (as assessed by the cost of the car they were driving) are less likely than poor people to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks; (b) suppose there’s a bowl of candy in the lab; invite test subjects, after they finish doing some task, to grab some candy on the way out, telling them that whatever’s left over will be given to some kids—the wealthier take more candy.25 So do miserable, greedy, unempathic people become wealthy, or does being wealthy increase the odds of a person’s becoming that way? As a cool manipulation, Keltner primed subjects to focus either on their socioeconomic success (by asking them to compare themselves with people less well off than them) or on the opposite. Make people feel wealthy, and they take more candy from children. ~ Robert M Sapolsky,
1371:A Mother's Dream
As I slept one night I saw this dream
Which further increased my vexation
I dreamt I was going somewhere on the way
Dark it was and impossible to find the way
Trembling all over with fear I was
Difficult to take even a step with fear was
With some courage as I forward moved
I saw some boys as lined in nice array
Dressed in emerald-like raiment they were
Carrying lighted lamps in their hands they were
They were going quietly behind each other
No one knew where they were to go
Involved in this thought was I
When in this troupe my son saw I
He was walking at the back, and was not walking fast
The lamp he had in his hand was not lighted
Recognizing him I said 'O My dear!
Where have you come leaving me there?
Restless due to separation I am
Weeping every day for ever I am
You did not care even a little for me
What loyalty you showed, you left me'!
As the child saw the distress in me
He replied thus, turning around to me
'The separation from me makes you cry
Not least little good does this to me'
14
He remained quiet for a while after talking
Showing me the lamp then he started talking
'Do you understand what happened to this?
Your tears have extinguished this'!
~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal,
1372:Cousin, you will avoid much future distress if you learn to see people as they really are, instead of as you wish them to be.”
Helen smiled faintly. “I already do.”
“If that were true, you would understand that Lady Trenear and I are correct in our assessments of each other. I am a scoundrel, and she is a heartless bitch who’s entirely capable of looking after herself.”
Helen’s eyes, the silvery-blue of moonstones, widened in concern. “My lord, I have come to know Kathleen very well in our shared grief over my brother’s passing--”
“I doubt she feels much grief,” Devon interrupted brusquely. “By her own admission, she hasn’t shed a single tear over your brother’s death.”
Helen blinked. “She told you that? But she didn’t explain why?”
Devon shook his head.
Looking perturbed, Helen said, “It isn’t my story to tell.”
Concealing an instant flare of curiosity, Devon shrugged casually. “Don’t concern yourself with it, then. My opinion of her won’t alter.”
As he had intended, the show of indifference pushed Helen into talking. “If it helps you to understand Kathleen a little better,” she said uncertainly, “perhaps I should explain something. Will you swear on your honor to keep it in confidence?”
“Of course,” Devon said readily. Having no honor, he never hesitated to promise something on it. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1373:He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our battles for us or under whose shield we fight, the charioteer, the pilot of our ways. And here we come at once to a closer intimacy; he is the comrade and eternal companion, the playmate of the game of living. But still there is so far a certain division, however pleasant, and friendship is too much limited by the appearance of beneficence. The lover can wound, abandon, be wroth with us, seem to betray, yet our love endures and even grows by these oppositions; they increase the joy of reunion and the joy of possession; through them the lover remains the friend, and all that he does, we find in the end, has been done by the lover and helper of our being for our souls perfection as well as for his joy in us. These contradictions lead to a greater intimacy. He is the father and mother too of our being, its source and protector and its indulgent cherisher and giver of our desires. He is the child born to our desire whom we cherish and rear. All these things the lover takes up; his love in its intimacy and oneness keeps in it the paternal and maternal care and lends itself to our demands upon it. All is unified in that deepest many-sided relation.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,
1374:Capitalist realism insists on treating mental health as if it were a natural fact, like weather (but, then again, weather is no longer a natural fact so much as a political-economic effect). In the 1960s and 1970s, radical theory and politics (Laing, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) coalesced around extreme mental conditions such as schizophrenia, arguing, for instance, that madness was not a natural, but a political, category. But what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders. Indeed, it is their very commonness which is the issue: in Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. In his book The Selfish Capitalist, Oliver James has convincingly posited a correlation between rising rates of mental distress and the neoliberal mode of capitalism practiced in countries like Britain, the USA and Australia. In line with James’s claims, I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? ~ Mark Fisher,
1375:The LORD Is My Rock and My Fortress To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David,  f the servant of the LORD,  g who addressed the words of this  h song to the LORD on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said: PSALM 18 I love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my  i rock and my  j fortress and my deliverer, my God, my i rock, in k whom I take refuge, my l shield, and m the horn of my salvation, my n stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is  o worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. 4  p The cords of death encompassed me; q the torrents of destruction assailed me; [1] 5  p the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. 6  r In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his  s temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. 7 Then the earth  t reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry. 8 Smoke went up from his nostrils, [2] and devouring  u fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. 9 He v bowed the heavens and w came down;  x thick darkness was under his feet. 10 He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on  z the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his covering, his  a canopy around him, thick clouds b dark with water. ~ Anonymous,
1376: MIRTH, Spring, to linger in a garden fair,
What more has earth to give? All ye that wait,
Where is the Cup-bearer, the flagon where?
When pleasant hours slip from the hand of Fate,
Reckon each hour as a certain gain;
Who seeks to know the end of mortal care
Shall question his experience in vain.

Thy fettered life hangs on a single thread--
Some comfort for thy present ills devise,
But those that time may bring thou shalt not dread.
Waters of Life and Irem's Paradise--
What meaning do our dreams and pomp convey,
Save that beside a mighty stream, wide-fed,
We sit and sing of wine and go our way!

The modest and the merry shall be seen
To boast their kinship with a single voice;
There are no differences to choose between,
Thou art but flattering thy soul with choice!
Who knows the Curtain's secret? . . . Heaven is mute
And yet with Him who holds the Curtain, e'en
With Him, oh Braggart, thou would'st raise dispute!

Although His thrall shall miss the road and err,
'Tis but to teach him wisdom through distress,
Else Pardon and Compassionate Mercy were
But empty syllables and meaningless.
The Zealot thirsts for draughts of Kausar's wine,
And Hafiz doth an earthly cup prefer--
But what, between the two, is God's design?
~ Hafiz, To Linger In A Garden Fair
,
1377:Evening Solace
THE human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.
But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.
And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !
And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.
~ Charlotte Brontë,
1378:Family life, which is the Ashrama of the householder, can also take you in His direction, provided it is accepted as an asrama. Lived in this spirit, it helps man to progress towards Self-realization.

Nevertheless, if you hanker after anything such as name, fame or position, God will bestow it on you, but you will not feel satisfied.

The Kingdom of God is a whole, and unless you are admitted to the whole of it you cannot remain content. He grants you just a little, only to keep Your discontent alive, for without discontent there can be no progress. You, a scion of the Immortal, can never become reconciled to the realm of death, neither does God allow you to remain in it.

He Himself kindles the sense of want in you by granting you a small thing, only to whet your appetite for a greater one. This is His method by which He urges you on. The traveller on this path finds it difficult and feels troubled, but one who has eyes to see can clearly perceive that the pilgrim is advancing.

The distress that is experienced burns to ashes all pleasure derived from worldly things. This is what is called ‘tapasya’. What obstructs one on the spiritual path bears within itself seeds of future suffering. Yet the heartache, the anguish over the effects of these obstructions, are the beginning of an awakening to Consciousness. ~ Anandamayi Ma,
1379:He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw off small fumes of vapour. Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition ceased and the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green. My visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and looked upon me with an air of scrutiny.

"And now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will you be wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in my hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? or has the greed of curiosity too much command of you? Think before you answer, for it shall be done as you decide. As you decide, you shall be left as you were before, and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
1380:Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back-­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come. ~ Charlotte Bront,
1381:Implications. Mercy is not without a painful empathy which affects the merciful, and moves him to satisfy the needs of the one receiving mercy. Yet the Lord-praise be to Him most high-transcends that, so you may think that this diminishes the meaning of mercy. But you should know that this is a perfection and does not diminish the meaning of mercy. It is not diminished inasmuch as the perfection of mercy depends on the perfection of its fruits. So long as the needs of those in need are perfectly fulfilled, the one who receives mercy has no need of suffering or distress in the merciful one; rather the suffering of the merciful only stems from a weakness and defect in himself. Moreover, this weakness adds nothing to the goal of those in need once their needs have been perfectly fulfilled. So far as God's mercy perfectly fulfilling the meaning of mercy is concerned, we should recall that one who is merciful out of empathy and suffering comes close to intending to alleviate his own suffering and sensitivity by his actions, thereby looking after himself and seeking his own goals, and that would take away from the perfection of the meaning of mercy. Rather, the perfection of mercy consists in looking after the one receiving mercy for the sake of the one receiving mercy, and not for the sake of being relieved from one's own suffering and sensitivity. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,
1382:Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings
tags: blessings, gratefulness, misfortunes, reflection 826 likes Like
“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! ~ Charles Dickens,
1383:Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, “What is happening?” for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt.

The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, “Hear that? They’re celebrating . It’s the Armistice. The war is over, my dear.” Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, “My country, ’tis of thee…”

Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, “Sweet land of Liberty-”

“Oh, say, can you see?” their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. “The war is over,” said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, “Please open the window, please, I smell death in here. ~ Katherine Anne Porter,
1384:Taking deep breaths, I gathered my power until I could feel it crackling in my fingertips. "Let him go!" I commanded in what I hoped was my most "I am a powerful demon" voice. Probably would've been better if my voice hadn't cracked on the last word. I released the magic in my hands, which felt kind of like snapping a giant rubber band.
A bolt of power flew from my fingertips, crashing into a nearby tree with a thunderous crack. There was a bright flash like lightning, and a branch fell to the ground. The ghouls startled, which meant the one holding Archer jerked his head back even farther. The smallest one made a noise that might have been distress, but they certainly didn't seem under my control.
And they weren't letting Archer go.
Okay, so my first experiment with necromancy was an epic fail.Take two.
I fought panic and frustration. Shooting off my magic at the ghouls was no good, but what else was I supposed to try? "Think,Sophie," I muttered under my breath.
"Yeah,please do that," Archer replied, his voice slightly strangled. The ghoul holding him had wrapped a hand around Archer's throat. The thing's expression wasn't threatening, just curious, like he was little kid trying to see what would happen if he just kept squeezing.
I slammed my eyes shut. Okay, they were dead. Yucky dead things. That smelled like-okay, those thoughts were not helpful. ~ Rachel Hawkins,
1385:Major Trapp was never there. Instead he remained in Jozefow because he allegedly could not bear the sight. We men were upset about that and said we couldn't bear the sight either." Indeed, Trapp's distress was a secret to no one. At the marketplace one policeman remembered hearing Trapp say, "Oh God, why did I have to be given these orders," as he put his hand on his heart. Another policeman witnessed him at the schoolhouse. "Today, I can still see exactly before my eyes Major Trapp there in the room pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. He said something like, 'Man, ... such jobs don't suit me. But orders are orders.' " Another man remembered vividly "how Trapp, finally alone in our room, sat on a stool and wept bitterly. The tears really flowed." Another also witnessed Trapp at his headquarters. "Major Trapp ran around excitedly and then suddenly stopped dead in front of me, stared and asked if I agreed with this. I looked him straight in the eye and said 'No, Herr Major!' He then began to run around again and wept like a child." The doctor's aide encountered Trapp weeping on the path from the marketplace to the forest and asked if he could help. "He answered me only to the effect that everything was very terrible." Concerning Jozefow, Trapp later confined to his driver, "If this Jewish business is ever avenged on earth, then have mercy on us Germans. ~ Christopher R Browning,
1386:We all have gifts and talents. When we cultivate those gifts and share them with the world, we create a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. Most of us who are searching for spiritual connection spend too much time looking up at the sky and wondering why God lives so far away. God lives within us, not above us. Sharing our gifts and talents with the world is the most powerful source of connection with God. Using our gifts and talents to create meaningful work takes a tremendous amount of commitment, because in many cases the meaningful work is not what pays the bills. Some folks have managed to align everything—they use their gifts and talents to do work that feeds their souls and their families; however, most people piece it together. No one can define what’s meaningful for us. Culture doesn’t get to dictate if it’s working outside the home, raising children, lawyering, teaching, or painting. Like our gifts and talents, meaning is unique to each one of us. Self-Doubt ~ Bren Brown,
1387:No, darling, I never would have got used to it. I was used to being alone, that was the truth of the matter. A very sad truth, no doubt.’ ‘Don’t distress yourself.’ ‘He was such a marvellous man.’ She was crying freely now. ‘So generous with his feelings. So unselfishly anxious to make me feel at home. But how could I? He was a stranger to me. And it is possible to love a stranger, Zoë, a great deal, so much so that all I wanted was to make him happy, and to make him think that he had made me happy. He made me lonely in a different way, and I never became familiar with that kind of loneliness.’ ‘I thought marriage was a cure for loneliness.’ ‘So did I. And there was a longing in him that made me want to comfort him. He looked so upright, so impressive, but in fact I was stronger than he was. My task was not to let him see that. We had a pleasant life, certainly, but it was like being cast in a play, without an audition. And perhaps I wasn’t always as responsive as I might have been. I don’t mean . . . ’ She blushed. ‘I mean appreciative. I was always trying to do what I thought would please him. And sometimes I just longed to get out of the house, to be on my own again. I was happier when you were there. You didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with me.’ ‘There wasn’t anything wrong with you.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘And now that I have my freedom again I don’t want it. ~ Anita Brookner,
1388:Partant Pour La Scribie
A pleasant land is Scribie, where
The light comes mostly from below,
And seems a sort of symbol rare
Of things at large, and how they go,
In rooms where doors are everywhere
And cupboards shelter friend or foe.
This is a realm where people tell
Each other, when they chance to meet,
Of things that long ago befell And do most solemnly repeat
Secrets they both know very well,
Aloud, and in the public street!
A land where lovers go in fours,
Master and mistress, man and maid;
Where people listen at the doors
Or 'neath a table's friendly shade,
And comic Irishmen in scores
Roam o'er the scenes all undismayed:
A land where Virtue in distress
Owes much to uncles in disguise;
Where British sailors frankly bless
Their limbs, their timbers, and their eyes;
And where the villain doth confess,
Conveniently, before he dies!
A land of lovers false and gay;
A land where people dread a 'curse;'
A land of letters gone astray,
Or intercepted, which is worse;
Where weddings false fond maids betray,
And all the babes are changed at nurse.
Oh, happy land, where things come right!
We of the world where things go ill;
Where lovers love, but don't unite;
Where no one finds the Missing Will -
134
Dominion of the heart's delight,
Scribie, we've loved, and love thee still!
~ Andrew Lang,
1389:Mussolini and Hitler also felt that they were doing things along similar lines to FDR. Indeed, they celebrated the New Deal as a kindred effort. The German press was particularly lavish in its praise for FDR. In 1934 the Völkischer Beobachter—the Nazi Party’s official newspaper—described Roosevelt as a man of “irreproachable, extremely responsible character and immovable will” and a “warmhearted leader of the people with a profound understanding of social needs.” The paper emphasized that Roosevelt, through his New Deal, had eliminated “the uninhibited frenzy of market speculation” of the previous decade by adopting “National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies.” After his first year in office, Hitler sent FDR a private letter congratulating “his heroic efforts in the interests of the American people. The President’s successful battle against economic distress is being followed by the entire German people with interest and admiration.” And he told the American ambassador, William Dodd, that he was “in accord with the President in the view that the virtue of duty, readiness for sacrifice, and discipline should dominate the entire people. These moral demands which the President places before every individual citizen of the United States are also the quintessence of the German state philosophy, which finds its expression in the slogan ‘The Public Weal Transcends the Interest of the Individual.’ ”38 ~ Jonah Goldberg,
1390:Does Jesus Care? In a fit of despondency, the psalmist once bemoaned, “No one cares for my soul” (Ps. 142:4). But in the next verse he turned his gloom into a prayer, declaring to God, “You are my refuge.” The word care occurs eighty-two times in the Bible, which frequently reminds us that when “the days are weary, the long nights dreary,” our Savior cares. Frank Graeff wrote “Does Jesus Care?” in 1901, and it was set to music by the noted conductor and composer, Dr. J. Lincoln Hall (born November 4, 1866), who later called it his most inspired piece of music. The form of the hymn is unusual. Each stanza asks questions about God’s care for us in various situations, and the chorus resounds with the bolstering answer: “Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares!” NOVEMBER 4 Does Jesus care when my heart is pained Too deeply for mirth or song, As the burdens press, and the cares distress And the way grows weary and long? Does Jesus care when I’ve tried and failed To resist some temptation strong; When for my deep grief there is no relief, Though my tears flow all the night long? Does Jesus care when I’ve said “good-bye” To the dearest on earth to me, And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks, Is it aught to Him? Does He see? Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief; When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares. . . . casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. – 1 Peter 5:7 ~ Robert J Morgan,
1391:Whereas “ruthless nations” used their strength to bring oppression and foster injustice (vv. 3, 4, 5), God is a “stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat” (v. 4). While they may be forgotten and mistreated by society, God remains a refuge for them. Biblically, a paradox arises: it is precisely God’s impartiality that makes him partial to the poor (Deut. 10:17–18; cf. James 3:17). We think of fairness as treating everyone the same, yet God sees perfectly the many ways in which things are not the same for all people. The world gives inherent priority to the powerful, wealthy, and beautiful. Impartiality for God does not mean treating everyone the exact same way at all times, since he alone perfectly takes into consideration all things (Rom. 11:33–35). It is in fairness that God favors the forgotten and receives the rejected (Psalm 113; cf. Ps. 107:41; 136:23). God’s royal majesty is seen in his tender mercy (Ps. 138:6; cf. Luke 1:52–53). How easy it is for us to forget that God gives priority to the weak, the vulnerable, and the needy (James 2:5). Accordingly, one of the marks of a healthy church, and a healthy Christian, is an impulse to extend God’s compassionate care to those most in need—supremely those in spiritual need, but also those in physical need. The church thus becomes a “stronghold” for those must vulnerable, bringing the peace of Christ to trial-ridden lives. ~ Anonymous,
1392:Historic Evening
On an evening, for example, when the naive tourist has retired
from our economic horrors, a master's hand awakens
the meadow's harpsichord;
they are playing cards at the bottom of the pond,
mirror conjuring up favorites and queens;
there are saints, veils, threads of harmony,
and legendary chromatics in the setting sun.
He shudders as the hunts and hordes go by.
Comedy drips on the grass stages.
And the distress of the poor and of the weak
on those stupid planes! Before his slave's vision,
Germany goes scaffolding toward moons;
Tartar deserts light up; ancient revolts ferment
in the center of the Celestial Empire;
over stairways and armchairs of rock, a little world, wan and flat,
Africa and Occidents, will be erected.
Then a ballet of familiar seas and nights,
worthless chemistry and impossible melodies. The same bourgeois magic
wherever the mail-train sets you down.
Even the most elementary physicist feels that it is no longer possible
to submit to this personal atmosphere, fog of physical remorse,
which to acknowledge is already an affliction. No!
The moment of the seething cauldron, of seas removed,
of subterranean conflagrations, of the planet swept away,
and the consequent exterminations, certitudes indicated
with so little malice by the Bible and by the Norns
and for which serious persons should be on the alert
~ Arthur Rimbaud,
1393:I love the stillness of the wood;
I love the music of the rill:
I love the couch in pensive mod
Upon some silent hill.

Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,
The silver-crested ripples pass;
and, like a mimic brook, the breeze
Whispers among the grass.

Here from the world I win release,
Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,
Break into mar the holy peace
Of this great solitude.

Here may the silent tears I weep
Lull the vested spirit into rest,
As infants sob themselves to sleep
Upon a mothers breast.

But when the bitter hour is gone,
And the keen throbbing pangs are still,
Oh, sweetest then to couch alone
Upon some silent hill!

To live in joys that once have been,
To put the cold world out of sight,
And deck life's drear and barren scene
With hues of rainbow-light.

For what to man the gift of breath,
If sorrow be his lot below;
If all the day that ends in death
Be dark with clouds of woe?

Shall the poor transport of an hour
Repay long years of sore distress-
The fragrance of a lonely flower
Make glad the wilderness?

Ye golden house of life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth!

I'd give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life's decay,
To be once more a little child
For on bright summers day. ~ Lewis Carroll,
1394:But Holms had proven stalwart and valiant. When Miss Jones had shown up to discover them in the castle hallway, because she’d heard a suspicious noise and had feared for her schoolchums’ safety, they’ d had to bring her along. She’d wanted to run straight to the headmistress, of course, but Armand had persuaded her not to. How he regretted that decision now!
The duke had fired his guns at them all. They’d retreated, thought to go to the automobile to fetch a doctor and the sheriff, but they’d stumbled the wrong way and fallen down the slope to the beach instead. All three of them. And there, noble Jesse had died.
Fact. Fiction. Likely because so much of it had happened, and because Armand’s red-eyed, stoic distress seemed so genuine, the adults around us had accepted it as truth.
Mostly.
I think if I hadn’t been discovered wearing only Armand’s coat as I knelt next to Jesse’s body, Mrs. Westcliffe might have found the whole thing easier to swallow.
Yet the official version ruled the day. And here we all were basking in it, breathing fresh sea air, warmed by the generous spring sun. Burying a hero. A far, far greater hero than anyone standing around me at his funeral would ever suspect.
Somewhere in deep-blue briny waters, a U-boat rested, filled with live torpedoes and solid-gold men.
I thought I better understood Rue’s letters now. I understood her warning about the pain that would come with my Gifts.
I understood my sacrifice. ~ Shana Abe,
1395:This, not incidentally, is another perfect setting for deindividuation: on one side, the functionary behind a wall of security glass following a script laid out with the intention that it should be applied no matter what the specific human story may be, told to remain emotionally disinvested as far as possible so as to avoid preferential treatment of one person over another - and needing to follow that advice to avoid being swamped by empathy for fellow human beings in distress. The functionary becomes a mixture of Zimbardo's prison guards and the experimenter himself, under siege from without while at the same time following an inflexible rubric set down by those higher up the hierarchical chain, people whose job description makes them responsible, but who in turn see themselves as serving the general public as a non-specific entity and believe or have been told that only strict adherence to a system can produce impartial fairness. Fairness is supposed to be vested in the code: no human can or should make the system fairer by exercising judgement. In other words, the whole thing creates a collective responsibility culminating in a blameless loop. Everyone assumes that it's not their place to take direct personal responsibility for what happens; that level of vested individual power is part of the previous almost feudal version of responsibility. The deindividuation is actually to a certain extent the desired outcome, though its negative consequences are not. ~ Nick Harkaway,
1396:That was so-Gryffin always has so much pain. That you can take it away like that - it's almost like magic."

Chase shrugged in the dark. "Kindness is a form of magic," he said. "So everyone should be capable of at least a little. Good night. See you in the morning." And he nodded to me and strode off.

Kindness is a form of magic.

Then magic had sprinkled itself across me many times, when I had not noticed its fey sparkle. I had been used to thinking of my life as bleak and full of darkness, but for the first time it occurred to me how often a stranger had stepped forward to offer me comfort and assistance, no matter how briefly. Ian Shelby. Sarah Parmer. Aylre the Safe-Keeper. The man who had stopped Carlon from beating me in the streets. Chase Beerin. They had been kind to me; most had, in different ways, been kind to Gryffin as well. Looked at that way, my life was a weave of brightness laid over a trembling black, a scrap of midnight velvet spangled with many jewels.

I had another thought as I stood there, trying desperately to understand a completely altered view of my existence. Someday I might be the one to offer kindness to someone else in grim and dire circumstances. Someday I might be the one with wealth or knowledge or strength or power that could be used to alleviate another person's distress. Such a thought had literally never crossed my mind before. More than once I had been saved. Someday I might save someone else in return. ~ Sharon Shinn,
1397:When Norway Would Not Help
When Kattegat now or the Belt you sail,
No more will you sight
The Danish proud frigate, no more will you hail
The red and white;
No more will the ringing command be heard
In Wessel's tongue,
No rollicking music, no jocund word,
'Neath Dannebrog sung.
No dance will you see, no laughter meet,
As the white sails shine,
From mast and from stern no garland you greet,
Of arts the sign.
But all that we owned of the treasures on board
The deeps now hold;
One sad winter night to the sea-waves were poured
Our memories old.
It was that same night, when the frigate nigh
To Norway's land
Distress-guns was firing, the surf running high
With sea-weed and sand.
To help from the harbor men put out boats,
But they turn back,…
The frigate toward Germany drifting floats,
A broken wrack!
What once had been ours overboard was strown,
Each kinship mark
Was quickly removed, to the sea it was thrown
With curses stark!
The Northern lion, that figure-head gray,
Now had to fall,
In pieces 'twas hewn, and the frigate lay
Like a shattered wall.
Repaired and refitted, its canvas it spread
Near Germany's coast,
With black-yellow flag and an eagle dread
In the lion's post.
When sailing we Kattegat sweep with our eyes,
218
'T is still evermore.
But a German admiral's frigate lies
Near Scania's shore.
~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson,
1398:No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me I would rather die than live — I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest — "
"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness — to glory? ~ Charlotte Bront,
1399:By the second day, the song lyrics had faded, but in their place came darker irritations. Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the mediation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified - a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? Experienced retreat-goers, it turns out, have a term for this phenomenon. The call it 'vipassana vendetta'. In the stillness tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever's available. Being on retreat had temporarily separated me from all the real causes of distress in my life, and so, apparently, I was inventing new ones. As I shuffled to my narrow bed that evening, I was still smarting about the loud-breathing man. I did let go of the vendetta eventually - but only because I'd fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep ~ Oliver Burkeman,
1400:Simple Sister Goes To Sydney
When Flo resolved to go to town from brothers three a yell went up,
Predicting ruin and distress. Bill in his horror dropped a cup.
“Gorstruth!” he said, “in Sydney there what is a simple girl to do?
They took me down. I lost me watch and seven quid. What ‘ope for you?”
Ben turned on her in pale dismay. “Look here, me girl, ain’t you bin told
How one iv them there spieler blokes done me for twenty pound in gold?
He was as nice a gentleman as any in the blessed shops:
He got away with all I had, and took a luner at the cops.”
“Me, too,” said Dave, “that time I went to Sydney town to see the Show
One trimmed me for me bran’ new suit. You stay where we can watch you, Flo.”
Flo packed. “If spieler comes at me his finish will be sharp,” she said;
And when the boys next heard of her she’d got a bloke, and then was wed.
She wrote: “He’s rather nice, I think, and I am putting him to work.
Next Chrissmiss we are comin’ up to see yous people back o’ Bourke.”
And when he came he brought for Bill a silver watch and seven quid,
For Dave a bran’ new suit of check, a ruby tie-pin and a lid.
To Ben he handed twenty pounds, in nice new minted sovereigns, too.
And still the brothers gaped at him, and still their great amazement grew.
He was a natty kind of chap, with gentle manners, small and slim.
And when they spoke ‘twas as one man. “So ‘elp me cat,” they said, “it’s ‘im!”
~ Edward George Dyson,
1401:Prologue To Faulkener
A TRAGEDY BY WILLIAM GODWIN, 1807.
An author who has given you all delight
Furnished the tale our stage presents to-night.
Some of our earliest tears he taught to steal
Down our young cheeks, and forced us first to feel.
To solitary shores whole years confined,
Who has not read how pensive Crusoe pined?
Who, now grown old, that did not once admire
His goat, his parrot, his uncouth attire,
The stick, due-notched, that told each tedious day
That in the lonely island wore away?
Who has not shuddered, where he stands aghast
At sight of human footsteps in the waste?
Or joyed not, when his trembling hands unbind
Thee, Friday, gentlest of the savage kind?
The genius who conceived that magic tale
Was skilled by native pathos to prevail.
His stories, though rough-drawn and framed in haste,
Had that which pleased our homely grandsires' taste.
His was a various pen, that freely roved
Into all subjects, was in most approved.
Whate'er the theme, his ready Muse obeyedLove, courtship, politics, religion, tradeGifted alike to shine in every sphere,
Novelist, historian, poet, pamphleteer.
In some blest interval of party-strife,
He drew a striking sketch from private life,
Whose moving scenes of intricate distress
We try to-night in a dramatic dress:
A real story of domestic woe,
That asks no aid from music, verse, or show,
106
But trusts to truth, to Nature, and Defoe.
~ Charles Lamb,
1402:Characters
OH! born to sooth distress, and lighten care;
Lively as soft, and innocent as fair;
Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought
So rarely found, and never to be taught;
Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind,
The loveliest pattern of a female mind;
Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest
With all her native heaven within her breast;
So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin,
But thinks the world without like that within;
Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless,
Her charity almost becomes excess.
Wealth may be courted, wisdom be rever'd,
And beauty prais'd, and brutal strength be fear'd;
But goodness only can affection move;
And love must owe its origin to love.
OF gentle manners, and of taste refin'd,
With all the graces of a polish'd mind;
Clear sense and truth still shone in all she spoke,
And from her lips no idle sentence broke.
Each nicer elegance of art she knew;
Correctly fair, and regularly true :
Her ready fingers plied with equal skill
The pencil's task, the needle, or the quill.
So pois'd her feelings, so compos'd her soul,
So subject all to reason's calm controul,
One only passion, strong, and unconfin'd,
Disturb'd the balance of her even mind:
One passion rul'd despotic in her breast,
In every word, and look, and thought confest;
But that was love, and love delights to bless
The generous transports of a fond excess.
34
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
1403:Money
HE'D made a fortune out of stocks, he couldn't count his worth;
He 'd hoarded up a store of gold, a section of the earth;
But still he sighed alone and talked of all the world's distress,
And mentioned to his dearest friends: 'Gold won't buy happiness.'
Within his mansion big and warm he often cried aloud:
'There is no joy in being rich, no charm in being proud;'
But still the morning saw him frowning, cross and very glum,
Unless he added to his store another goodly sum.
'Ah, me,' he often used to say,' indeed it's very true,
There are so many things in life that money cannot do;
It cannot purchase peace of mind nor make a conscience clear;
It cannot, when the soul is sad, make sorrow disappear.'
'You do not know what gold can do,' a friend of his replied,
'You little guess its purchase power, because you haven't tried;
Go, take your money out today, and see what it will buy;
Go, feed the hungry little child and note his twinkling eye.
'Go, help the brother in distress — an old man starts today
Across the hills to die within the poorhouse far away;
Give him a little of the gold you've hoarded to excess,
Then tell me if you can that money won't buy happiness.
'The money that is hoarded up will buy no peace of mind,
But money rightly used will bring much comfort you will find;
And if for others but a part of what you have is spent,
You'll find the happiness you crave, and you will live content.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1404:If you’ve picked up this book, then chances are you can relate to any of the following: persistent distress, malaise, anxiety, inner agitation, fatigue, low libido, poor memory, irritability, insomnia, sense of hopelessness, and feeling overwhelmed and trapped but emotionally flat. You might wake up most mornings unmotivated and uninspired, and you drag yourself around all day waiting for it to end (or waiting for a drink). Maybe you feel a sense of dread or panic without knowing why. You can’t silence the negative thoughts, which puts you on edge. Sometimes it seems like you could let loose an endless stream of tears, or perhaps you can’t remember the last time you cared enough about something to cry. All of these descriptions are symptoms that typically fall under a diagnosis of clinical depression. And if you were to seek help through conventional medicine, even if you don’t consider yourself “depressed,” you’d likely be handed a prescription for an antidepressant, joining the more than 30 million users in America. You might already be part of this community and feel like your fate is now sealed. It doesn’t have to be. Over the past twenty-five years, ever since the FDA approval of Prozac-type medications, we’ve been taught that drugs can improve the symptoms of or even cure mental illness, particularly depression and anxiety disorders. Today they are among the most prescribed, best-selling drugs.1 This has led to one of the most silent and underestimated tragedies in the history of modern health care. ~ Kelly Brogan,
1405:My neighbour turned to me again, and asked me what work it was that was taking me to Athens. For the second time I felt the conscious effort of his enquiry, as though he had trained himself in the recovery of objects that were falling from his grasp. I remembered the way, when each of my sons was a baby, they would deliberately drop things from their high chair in order to watch them fall to the floor, an activity as delightful to them as its consequences were appalling. They would stare down at the fallen thing – a half-eaten rusk, or a plastic ball – and become increasingly agitated by its failure to return. Eventually they would begin to cry, and usually found that the fallen object came back to them by that route. It always surprised me that their response to this chain of events was to repeat it: as soon as the object was in their hands they would drop it again, leaning over to watch it fall. Their delight never lessened, and nor did their distress. I always expected that at some point they would realise the distress was unnecessary and would choose to avoid it, but they never did. The memory of suffering had no effect whatever on what they elected to do: on the contrary, it compelled them to repeat it, for the suffering was the magic that caused the object to come back and allowed the delight in dropping it to become possible again. Had I refused to return it the very first time they dropped it, I suppose they would have learned something very different, though what that might have been I wasn’t sure. ~ Rachel Cusk,
1406:After Sidney had given her his handkerchief and ordered further drinks, Amanda turned the conversation towards her childhood; how she wanted to run away back to the time when she was last happy, holidaying on the island of Skye, on a day with strong winds and dark skies, the barking of dogs, the bleating of sheep, the collapse of telephone wires – with no boat daring to go out to sea, and everyone stuck inside. ‘No one thought we would ever go out again, but then the dark clouds moved and everything blew over the Cuillins and the sun came through the clouds and light fell across the tops. The wind was stilled and we could go out again and I felt such happiness that the darkness had passed. I often think that if I ever go back there then the same thing will happen, that the clouds will clear and the air will still be fresh, and the dogs will stop barking, and the light on the mountains will be sharp even if it’s only for a short time. I will still have seen it. Do you understand, Sidney?’ ‘Like Noah after the flood.’ ‘We always need something to remember. A time when everything was possible. Do you think this too will pass?’ ‘Eventually. The compensation for losing happiness, for discovering that it never lasts, is that our troubles are transient too.’ ‘I don’t think that’s of much comfort to those who are in distress.’ ‘One cannot be trite about these things. But the ultimate end to suffering is death.’ ‘Then perhaps I could find the person behind all this and kill them myself?’ ‘I’ll ignore that remark, Amanda. ~ James Runcie,
1407:As she neared the bed Lord Gareth reached out, took her hand, and kissed it. "You're ... an angel," he said thickly, his fingers warmly enclosing her own. She smiled. "And you, Lord Gareth, are foxed." "Shamefully so. But useful, under the circumstances." "Are you in much pain?" He grinned, still holding her hand. "To be honest, Miss Paige, I cannot feel a thing." Behind her, Chilcot guffawed, but Juliet, entranced, never heard it. As Gareth gazed up at her through the loose hair that fell endearingly over his brow and tangled in his lashes, she saw, at last, that his eyes were a pale, sleepy blue. "I guess you were right," she said and, pulling her fingers from his grasp, reached over and brushed the strands of hair off his brow. Her hand was trembling. "You're not going to die after all." "Wouldn't dream of it. I rather like being a hero, you know. Think I'll stick around and rescue damsels in distress more often."  He looked up at her, those beautiful blue eyes of his warm, earnest, and reaching areas of her heart that she'd forgotten had existed. "Don't let Lucien scare you off, will you?" "I won't." He nodded once, satisfied, and let his eyes drift shut. "Thank you for coming to see me, Miss Paige." She swallowed, trying to find her voice. "And thank you, Lord Gareth, for what you did for us tonight."  And then, on a sudden impulse, she bent down and, through the loose strands of his hair, dropped a kiss on his brow. "We owe you our lives."   ~ Danelle Harmon~ Danelle Harmon~ Danelle Harmon~ Danelle Harmon ~ Danelle Harmon,
1408:Two things that weren’t even on the agenda survived every upheaval that followed. General Akhtar remained a general until the time he died, and all God’s names were slowly deleted from the national memory as if a wind had swept the land and blown them away. Innocuous, intimate names: Persian Khuda which had always been handy for ghazal poets as it rhymed with most of the operative verbs; Rab, which poor people invoked in their hour of distress; Maula, which Sufis shouted in their hashish sessions. Allah had given Himself ninety-nine names. His people had improvised many more. But all these names slowly started to disappear: from official stationery, from Friday sermons, from newspaper editorials, from mothers’ prayers, from greeting cards, from official memos, from the lips of television quiz-show hosts, from children’s storybooks, from lovers’ songs, from court orders, from telephone operators’ greetings, from habeas corpus applications, from inter-school debating competitions, from road inauguration speeches, from memorial services, from cricket players’ curses; even from beggars’ begging pleas. In the name of God, God was exiled from the land and replaced by the one and only Allah who, General Zia convinced himself, spoke only through him. But today, eleven years later, Allah was sending him signs that all pointed to a place so dark, so final, that General Zia wished he could muster up some doubts about the Book. He knew if you didn’t have Jonah’s optimism, the belly of the whale was your final resting place. ~ Mohammed Hanif,
1409:The Rising Of The Sun
I did not expect to live in such an unusual moment.
When the God of thunders and of rocky heights,
The Lord of hosts, Kyrios Sabaoth,
Would humble people to the quick,
Allowing them to act whatever way they wished,
Leaving to them conclusions, saying nothing.
It was a spectacle that was indeed unlike
The agelong cycle of royal tragedies.
Roads on concrete pillars, cities of glass and cast iron,
Airfields larger than tribal dominions
Suddenly ran short of their essence and disintegrated
Not in a dream but really, for, subtracted from themselves,
They could only hold on as do things which should not last.
Out of trees, field stones, even lemons on the table,
Materiality escaped and their spectrum
Proved to be a void, a haze on a film.
Dispossessed of its objects, space was swarming.
Everywhere was nowhere and nowhere, everywhere.
Letters in books turned silver-pale, wobbled, and faded
The hand was not able to trace the palm sign, the river sign, or the sign of ibis.
A hullabaloo of many tongues proclaimed the mortality of the language.
A complaint was forbidden as it complained to itself.
People, afflicted with an incomprehensible distress,
Were throwing off their clothes on the piazzas so that nakedness might call
For judgment.
But in vain they were longing after horror, pity, and anger.
Neither work nor leisure
Was justified,
Nor the face, nor the hair nor the loins
Nor any existence
~ Czeslaw Milosz,
1410:Dimaratos
His subject, 'The Character of Dimaratos',
which Porphyry proposed to him in conversation
was outlined by the young sophist as follows
(he planned to develop it rhetorically later):
'First a courtier of King Dareios,
and after that of King Xerxes,
now with Xerxes and his army,
at last Dimaratos will be vindicated.
He'd been treated very unjustly.
He was definitely Ariston's son, but his enemies
bribed the oracle brazenly.
And it wasn't enough that they deprived him of his kingship,
but when he finally gave in and decided
to live quietly as a private citizen,
they had to insult him even in front of the people,
they had to humiliate him publicly at the festival.
As a result, he serves Xerxes assiduously.
Along with the great Persian army,
he'll make it back to Sparta too;
and once he's king again, how quickly
he'll throw him out, how thoroughly
he'll shame that schemer Leotychidis.
So now he spends his days full of anxiety,
advising the Persians, explaining
what they should do to conquer Greece.
Much worrying, much thinking, and for this reason
Dimaratos finds his days so burdensome;
much worrying, much thinking, and for this reason
Dimaratos can't find a moment's joy
because what he's feeling can't be called joy
(it isn't; he won't admit it;
how can he call it joy? his distress couldn't be greater)
now things make it quite clear to him
that it's the Greeks who are going to win.'
~ Constantine P. Cavafy,
1411:The demolition of the wall of silence, against which the theme of child abuse constantly runs up, marks only the beginning of a long overdue development. It creates the conditions that make it possible to free the truth from the prison of misleading opinions and well-established lies. But for the full unfolding of the truth and its deployment in the service of life, more is required than a merely statistical grasp of the facts. Some people may, for instance, say, "Yes, I was often spanked as a child," while remaining, emotionally, miles from the truth—because they cannot feel. They lack the consciousness, the emotional knowledge, of what it means, as small, defenseless children, to be beaten and shoved around by incensed adults. They say the word "spanked" but thereby identify with the mindless, destructive behavior of the adult who violates, abuses, and destroys the child without the slightest knowledge of or concern for what he is doing and what it may result in. Even Adolf Hitler never denied that he had been beaten. What he denied was that these beatings were painful. And by totally falsifying his feelings, he would become a mass murderer. That would never have occurred had he been capable of feeling, and weeping about, his situation and had he not repressed his justifiable hatred of those responsible for his distress but consciously experienced and comprehended it. Instead he perverted this hatred into ideology. The same holds for Stalin, Ceausescu, and all the other beaten and humiliated children who later turn into tyrants and criminals. ~ Alice Miller,
1412:You remember the Latin?"
"Of course. Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit." I couldn't see his face. Cease of the hood, but it could tell by the tone of his voice that he was completely serious. Or at least trying to be. I wrinkled my forehead as I attempted to translate.
"Wait a second," Seth said, pulling back his hood to demonstrate his utter confusion. "I thought their greeting was Non ducor, duco. 'I am not led, I lead.'"
Liam's shoulders began shaking just as I finished my rough translation. "A wise man does not urinate against the wind?" I pulled down my hood and looked at Liam. He winked at me, and it was pretty much the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. Normally, I'm very anti-wink when it comes to guys, but in this case it was a wink of absolution. It was a wink that meant Liam and I were actually going to be okay.
"You've been planning that all night, haven't you?" I reached over and squeezed his arm. It was the first time I had touched him in at least twenty-four hours, and his strong forearm felt so good beneath my fingertips. When he grabbed my hand and quickly brought my palm to his lips, I felt all the air leave my body. As much as I hated to admit it, for fear of sounding like a ridiculous, boy-crazed damsel in distress, it felt good to have my boyfriend back.
Taylor whipped back her hood, her blue eyes icy. "I'm so glad this is such a joke to you," she spat, clearly not in the mood for games.
Liam dropped my hand and sat up a little straiter. "Sorry T., I've got it non ducor, duco. Don't worry. ~ Lisa Roecker,
1413:we as authors have been writing about people we aren't for forever. We find a way to empathise, we find a way in. Female characters are no different. All they are are characters. They are people too. Instead of asking yourself, "How do I write this female soldier?" ask yourself, "How do I write this soldier? Where is she from, how was she raised, does she have a sense of humour? Is she big and tall, is she short and petite? How does her size affect her ability to fight? What is her favourite weapon, her least favourite? Why? Is she more logical than emotional? The other way around? Was she an only child and spoiled, was she the eldest of six siblings and a surrogate mother? How does that upbringing affect how she interacts with her team? etc etc and so forth." Notice how the first question gets you some kind of broad, generalised answer, likely resulting in a stereotype, and how the second version asks lots and lots of smaller questions with the goal of creating someone well rounded.

One would hope, really, that we as authors ask such detailed questions of all our characters, regardless of gender.


So let me, at long last, actually answer the original question:

"How do I write a female character?"

Write her the way you would write any other character. Give her dimension, give her strength but please also don't forget to give her weaknesses (for a totally strong nothing can beat her kind of girl is not a person, she's again a type - the polar opposite yet exactly the same as the damsel in distress).

Create a person. ~ Adrienne Kress,
1414:Comradeship
OF ALL the ships that sail life's sea,
The Comradeship's the one for me;
In weather fair or weather foul,
A pleasant breeze or gales that howl,
An ocean smooth or troubled sea,
The Comradeship rides merrily.
Her masts are staunch, her sails are white,
Her compass true, and day or night
She keeps her course, and in the end
Comes back to port with every friend.
The Comradeship is manned by men
Who teach the sad to smile again;
True-hearted souls who've quaffed the glass
Of bitterness and seen it pass;
Who know the meaning of distress,
The heartache and the weariness
That those who journey here below
Sooner or later come to know;
And on the deck they stand and smile
And bid us fare with them a while.
They bid us make a pleasant trip
Upon the gallant Comradeship;
With them they bid us pace her deck,
A friendly arm about each neck,
And back to hearts with aching sore
They bring the balm of peace once more;
And from the troubled sea of strife
They bring us to the joy of life,
Restoring hope and faith again
To weary and despairing men.
Of all the ships that sail life's sea
The Comradeship's the one for me.
Her cabin rings with laughter true,
Above her skies seem ever blue,
And by the sunlight of a smile
She steers for ' Happy Afterwhile;'
188
The port of Consolation, too,
She touches ere her journey's through;
And this the song her master sings,
'Our destination's Better Things.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1415:In times of distress everyone calls for help; in times of toothache, and earache, in doubt, fear and insecurity. In secret everyone calls out hoping that One will hear and grant their requests. Privately, secretly, people perform good deeds to ward off weakness and restore their strength, trusting that Life will accept their gifts and efforts. When they are restored to health and peace of mind, then suddenly their faith leaves, and the phantom of anxiety soon returns.
“O God,” they cry again, “we were in such a terrible state when, with all sincerity, we called upon you from our prison corner. For a hundred prayers you granted our requests. Now, freed of the prison, we are still as much in need. Bring us out of this world of darkness into that world of the prophets, the world of light. Why can freedom not come without prisons and pain? A thousand desires fill us, both good and deceitful, and the conflict of these phantoms brings a thousand tortures that leave us weary. Where is that sure faith that burns up all phantoms?”
God answers, “The seeker of pleasure in you is your enemy and My enemy. When your pleasure-seeking self is imprisoned, filled with trouble and pain, then your freedom arrives and gathers strength. A thousand times you have proved that freedom comes to you out of toothache, headache and fear. Why then are you chained to bodily comfort? Why are you always occupied with tending the flesh? Do not forget the end of that thread: unravel those bodily passions till you have attained your eternal passion, and find freedom from the prison of darkness. ~ Rumi,
1416:Mary Magdalene

With wandering eyes and aimless zeal,
She hither, thither, goes;
Her speech, her motions, all reveal
A mind without repose.

She climbs the hills, she haunts the sea,
By madness tortured, driven;
One hour's forgetfulness would be
A gift from very heaven!

She slumbers into new distress;
The night is worse than day:
Exulting in her helplessness;
Hell's dogs yet louder bay.

The demons blast her to and fro;
She has not quiet place,
Enough a woman still, to know
A haunting dim disgrace.

A human touch! a pang of death!
And in a low delight
Thou liest, waiting for new breath,
For morning out of night.

Thou risest up: the earth is fair,
The wind is cool; thou art free!
Is it a dream of hell's despair
Dissolves in ecstasy?

That man did touch thee! Eyes divine
Make sunrise in thy soul;
Thou seest love in order shine:-
His health hath made thee whole!

Thou, sharing in the awful doom,
Didst help thy Lord to die;
Then, weeping o'er his empty tomb,
Didst hear him Mary cry.

He stands in haste; he cannot stop;
Home to his God he fares:
'Go tell my brothers I go up
To my Father, mine and theirs.'

Run, Mary! lift thy heavenly voice;
Cry, cry, and heed not how;
Make all the new-risen world rejoice-
Its first apostle thou!

What if old tales of thee have lied,
Or truth have told, thou art
All-safe with Him, whate'er betide
Dwell'st with Him in God's heart! ~ George MacDonald,
1417:He. Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.
She. An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth's bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my days were cast
Amid most lovely places; smitten as though
It had not learned its lesson.
He. Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes?
What can have suddenly alarmed you
Whereon 'twere best
My eyes should never rest?
What is there but the slowly fading west,
The river imaging the flashing skies,
All that to this moment charmed you?
She. A Sweetheart from another life floats there
As though she had been forced to linger
From vague distress
Or arrogant loveliness,
Merely to loosen out a tress
Among the starry eddies of her hair
Upon the paleness of a finger.
He. But why should you grow suddenly afraid
And start I at your shoulder
Imagining
That any night could bring
An image up, or anything
Even to eyes that beauty had driven mad,
But images to make me fonder?
She. Now She has thrown her arms above her head;
Whether she threw them up to flout me,
Or but to find,
Now that no fingers bind,
That her hair streams upon the wind,
I do not know, that know I am afraid
Of the hovering thing night brought me.

~ William Butler Yeats, An Image From A Past Life
,
1418:Loving-Kindness: The Essential Practice FOR AN ASPIRING BODHISATTVA, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri, or loving-kindness. The Shambhala teachings speak of “placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.” Another image for maitri is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask, “Who am I in this image—the mother or the chick?” The answer is we’re both: both the loving mother and those ugly little chicks. It’s easy to identify with the babies—blind, raw, and desperate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn’t all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. Whether this is our attitude toward ourselves or toward others, it is the key to learning how to love. We stay with ourselves and others when we’re screaming for food and have no feathers and also when we are more grown up and more appealing by worldly standards. In cultivating loving-kindness, we learn first to be honest, loving, and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. But like mother-love, maitri is unconditional; no matter how we feel, we can aspire that we be happy. We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being. Gradually, we become more aware about what causes happiness as well as what causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others. ~ Pema Ch dr n,
1419:Sinners, Obey The Gospel-Word!
Sinners, obey the gospel-word!
Haste to the supper of my Lord!
Be wise to know your gracious day;
All things are ready, come away!
Ready the Father is to own
And kiss his late-returning son;
Ready your loving Saviour stands,
And spreads for you his bleeding hands.
Ready the Spirit of his love
Just now the stony to remove,
To apply, and witness with the blood,
And wash and seal the sons of God.
Ready for you the angels wait,
To triumph in your blest estate;
Tuning their harps, they long to praise
The wonders of redeeming grace.
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Is ready, with their shining host:
All heaven is ready to resound,
'The dead's alive! the lost is found!'
Come then, ye sinners, to your Lord,
In Christ to paradise restored;
His proffered benefits embrace,
The plenitude of gospel grace:
A pardon written with his blood,
The favour and the peace of God;
The seeing eye, the feeling sense,
The mystic joys of penitence;
The
The
The
The
godly grief, the pleasing smart,
meltings of a broken heart,
tears that tell your sins forgiven,
sighs that waft your souls to heaven;
50
The
The
The
The
guiltless shame, the sweet distress,
unutterable tenderness,
genuine, meek humility,
wonder, 'Why such love to me?'
The o'erwhelming power of saving grace,
The sight that veils the seraph's face;
The speechless awe that dares not move,
And all the silent heaven of love.
~ Charles Wesley,
1420:The Snow At Fredericksburg
Drift over the sunrise land,
Oh, wonderful, wonderful snow!
Oh! pure as the breast of a virgin saint,
Drift tenderly, soft and slow.
Over the slopes of the sunrise land,
And into the haunted dells
Of the forest of pine, where the roving winds
Are tuning their memory bells.
Into the forests of sighing pines,
And over those yellow slopes,
That show not the work of the cleaving plow,
But cover so many hopes;
They are many indeed, and straightly made,
Not shapen with loving care;
By the souls let out and the broken blades,
May never be counted there!
Fall over those lonely hero graves,
Oh, delicate-dropping snow,
Like the blessing of God's unfaltering love,
On the warrior heads below!
Like the tender sigh of a mother's soul
As she waiteth and watcheth for One
Who will never come back from the sunrise land,
When this terrible war is done.
And here, where lieth the high of heart,
Drift - white as the bridal veil That will never be borne by the drooping girl
Who waiteth afar, so pale.
Fall, that as the tears of the suffering wife,
Who stretcheth despairing hands
Out to the blood-rich battlefields
That crimson the Eastern sands!
Fall in thy virgin tenderness,
Oh, delicate snow, and cover
The graves of our heroes, sanctified
362
Husband and son and lover.
Drift tenderly over those yellow slopes,
And mellow our deep distress,
And put us in mind of the shriven souls
And their mantles of righteousness.
~ Anonymous Americas,
1421:A Successful Dad
OTHERS may laugh at my feeble endeavor
To capture life's prizes, and others may sneer;
The whole world may loudly declare I shall never
Be worthy the gunpowder to blow me from here.
It may be I 'm punk as a parlor reciter,
And when I begin grown-ups take to the woods;
But that baby of mine! I can always delight her,
She vows I 'm a wonder, she swears I 'm the goods.
It may be I can't keep a tune for a minute,
It may be my voice wanders far from the key;
It may be the nightingale, lark and the linnet
As songsters have quite a wide margin on me.
Caruso and others may take down the money
For singing their ditties to high-brows, but I
Have one little audience, cheerful and sunny,
Who 'd rather hear me than the music you buy.
She thinks I 'm a corker, a lalapaloosa,
She nightly applauds every stunt that I do;
She 'd rather hear me than your John Philip Sousa,
To her the old nonsense forever is new.
That baby of mine thinks I 'm great in whatever
I tackle, the moment we've finished our tea;
And though others may laugh at my feeble endeavor,
The praise of my little one satisfies me.
And so though the big world goes by me unheeding,
And never a grown-up takes notice of me;
Though into my work failure others are reading,
I 'm still a success to the babe on my knee.
When worn out and weary, my long day is ended,
And homeward I turn, I forget my distress;
For I know that my baby still thinks I am splendid,
To her, anyhow, I 'm a corking success!
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1422:The Prisoner
Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers for short life, eternal liberty.
He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:
Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.
Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,
When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears:
When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunderstorm.
But first, a hush of peace -a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends;
Mute music soothes my breast -unuttered harmony
That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.
Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels;
Its wings are almost free -its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.
O dreadful is the check -intense the agony When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again,
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;
And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,
If it but herald Death, the vision is divine.
~ Emily Jane Brontë,
1423:1025
Think Happy Thoughts
Think happy thoughts!
Think sunshine all the day;
Refuse to let the trifling worries stay,
Crowd them with thoughts of laughter from your mind.
Think of the good, forget the bad you find,
Think of the sun behind the clouds; the blue
And not the gray skies that you view.
Think of the kindness not the meanness shown,
The true friends not the false ones you have known;
The joy and not the hatred of the strife,
The sweetness not the bitterness of life.
Think happy thoughts!
Think happy thoughts!
Think always of the best,
Think of the ones you love, not those that you detest;
Think of your victories and not your failures here,
The smile that pleased and not the hurtful sneer,
The kindly word and not the harsh word spoken,
The promise kept and not the promise broken;
The good that you have known and not the bad,
The happy days that were and not the sad;
Think of the rose and not the withered flower,
The beauty of the rainbow, not the shower.
Think happy thoughts!
Think happy thoughts!
This is true happiness!
That life is sad that feeds on its distress;
That mind is gloomy that subsists on gloom,
And is as dismal as a curtained room,
Where daily comes the sunshine, but to find
It cannot enter through the close-drawn blind.
Fling up the curtains of your mind today
And let the morning sunshine in to play;
Dwell on the joys and not the sorrows here,
Master your thoughts and you have mastered fear.
Think happy thoughts.
1026
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1424:Sleep
If any man, with sleepless care oppressed,
On many a night had risen, and addressed
His hand to make him out of joy and moan
An image of sweet sleep in carven stone,
Light touch by touch, in weary moments planned,
He would have wrought her with a patient hand,
Not like her brother death, with massive limb
And dreamless brow, unstartled, changeless, dim,
But very fair, though fitful and afraid,
More sweet and slight than any mortal maid.
Her hair he would have carved a mantle smooth
Down to her tender feet to wrap and soothe
All fevers in, yet barbed here and there
With many a hidden sting of restless care;
Her brow most quiet, thick with opiate rest,
Yet watchfully lined, as if some hovering guest
Of noiseless doubt were there; so too her eyes
His light hand would have carved in cunning wise
Broad with all languor of the drowsy South,
Most beautiful, but held askance; her mouth
More soft and round than any rose half-spread,
Yet ever twisted with some nervous dread.
He would have made her with one marble foot,
Frail as a snow-white feather, forward put,
Bearing sweet medicine for all distress,
Smooth languor and unstrung forgetfulness;
The other held a little back for dread;
One slender moonpale hand held forth to shed
Soft slumber dripping from its pearly tip
Into wide eyes; the other on her lip.
So in the watches of his sleepless care
The cunning artist would have wrought her fair;
Shy goddess, at keen seeking most afraid
Yet often coming, when we last have prayed.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1425:
COVER thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist,
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles' heads,
Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks,
Yet thou must leave
My earth still standing;
My cottage too, which was not raised by thee;
Leave me my hearth,
Whose kindly glow
By thee is envied.

I know nought poorer
Under the sun, than ye gods!
Ye nourish painfully,
With sacrifices
And votive prayers,
Your majesty:
Ye would e'en starve,
If children and beggars
Were not trusting fools.

While yet a child
And ignorant of life,
I turned my wandering gaze
Up tow'rd the sun, as if with him
There were an ear to hear my wailings,
A heart, like mine,
To feel compassion for distress.

Who help'd me
Against the Titans' insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceived with grateful thanks
To yonder slumbering one?

I honour thee! and why?
Hast thou e'er lighten'd the sorrows
Of the heavy laden?
Hast thou e'er dried up the tears
Of the anguish-stricken?
Was I not fashion'd to be a man
By omnipotent Time,
And by eternal Fate,
Masters of me and thee?

Didst thou e'er fancy
That life I should learn to hate,
And fly to deserts,
Because not all
My blossoming dreams grew ripe?

Here sit I, forming mortals
After my image;
A race resembling me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And thee to scorn,
As I!

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Prometheus
,
1426:The Butterfly
SISTER.
Do, my dearest brother John,
Let that butterfly alone.
BROTHER.
What harm now do I do?
You're always making such a noiseSISTER.
O fie, John; none but naughty boys
Say such rude words as you.
BROTHER.
Because you're always speaking sharp:
On the same thing you always harp.
A bird one may not catch,
Nor find a nest, nor angle neither,
Nor from the peacock pluck a feather,
But you are on the watch
To moralize and lecture still.
SISTER.
And ever lecture, John, I will,
When such sad things I hear.
But talk not now of what is past;
The moments fly away too fast,
Though endlessly they seem to last
To that poor soul in fear.
BROTHER.
Well, soon (I say) I'll let it loose;
But, sister, you talk like a goose,
There's no soul in a fly.
SISTER.
It has a form and fibres fine,
Were tempered by the hand divine
Who dwells beyond the sky.
Look, brother, you have hurt its wing-
132
And plainly by its fluttering
You see it's in distress.
Gay painted coxcomb, spangled beau,
A butterfly is called, you know,
That's always in full dress:
The finest gentleman of all
Insects he is-he gave a ball,
You know the poet wrote.
Let's fancy this the very same,
And then you'll own you've been to blame
To spoil his silken coat.
BROTHER.
Your dancing, spangled, powdered beau,
Look, through the air I've let him go:
And now we're friends again.
As sure as he is in the air,
From this time, Ann, I will take care,
And try to be humane.
~ Charles Lamb,
1427:The Foolish Elm
The bold young Autumn came riding along
One day where an elm-tree grew.
'You are fair,' he said, as she bent down her head,
'Too fair for your robe's dull hue.
You are far too young for a garb so old;
Your beauty needs color and sheen.
Oh, I would clothe you in scarlet and gold
Befitting the grace of a queen.
'For one little kiss on your lips, sweet elm,
For one little kiss, no more,
I would give you, I swear, a robe more fair
Than ever a princess wore.
One little kiss on those lips, my pet,
And lo! you shall stand, I say,
Queen of the forest, and, better yet,
Queen of my heart alway.'
She tossed her head, but he took the kiss'Tis the way of lovers boldAnd a gorgeous dress for that sweet caress
He gave ere the morning was old.
For a week and a day she ruled a queen
In beauty and splendid attire;
For a week and a day she was loved, I ween,
With the love that is born of desire.
Then bold-eyed Autumn went on his way
In search of a tree more fair;
And mob winds tattered her garments and scattered
Her finery here and there.
Poor and faded and ragged and cold
She rocked in her wild distress,
And longed for the dull green gown she had sold
For her fickle lover's caress.
592
And the days went by and Winter came,
And his tyrannous tempests beat
On the shivering tree, whose robes of flame
He had trampled under his feet.
I saw her reach up to the mocking skies
Her poor arms, bare and thin;
Ah, well-a-day! it is ever the way
With a woman who trades with sin.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1428:A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. ~ Douglas Adams,
1429:Lines Inscribed On The Wall Of A Dungeon In The
Southern P Of I
Though not a breath can enter here,
I know the wind blows fresh and free;
I know the sun is shining clear,
Though not a gleam can visit me.
They thought while I in darkness lay,
'Twere pity that I should not know
How all the earth is smiling gay;
How fresh the vernal breezes blow.
They knew, such tidings to impart
Would pierce my weary spirit through,
And could they better read my heart,
They'd tell me, she was smiling too.
They need not, for I know it well,
Methinks I see her even now;
No sigh disturbs her bosom's swell,
No shade o'ercasts her angel brow.
Unmarred by grief her angel voice,
Whence sparkling wit, and wisdom flow:
And others in its sound rejoice,
And taste the joys I must not know,
Drink rapture from her soft dark eye,
And sunshine from her heavenly smile;
On wings of bliss their moments fly,
And I am pining here the while!
Oh! tell me, does she never give -To my distress a single sigh?
She smiles on them, but does she grieve
One moment, when they are not by?
When she beholds the sunny skies,
And feels the wind of heaven blow;
Has she no tear for him that lies
61
In dungeon gloom, so far below?
While others gladly round her press
And at her side their hours beguile,
Has she no sigh for his distress
Who cannot see a single smile
Nor hear one word nor read a line
That her beloved hand might write,
Who banished from her face must pine
Each day a long and lonely night?
Alexander April 1826
~ Anne Brontë,
1430:All that exists, or remains, of Duchamp’s stay in Buenos Aires is a readymade. Though of course his whole life was a readymade, which was his way of appeasing fate and at the same time sending out signals of distress. As Calvin Tomkins writes: As a wedding present for his sister Suzanne and his close friend Jean Crotti, who were married in Paris on April 14, 1919, Duchamp instructed the couple by letter to hang a geometry book by strings on the balcony of their apartment so that the wind could “go through the book, choose its own problems, turn and tear out the pages.” Clearly, then, Duchamp wasn’t just playing chess in Buenos Aires. Tompkins continues: This Unhappy Readymade, as he called it, might strike some newlyweds as an oddly cheerless wedding gift, but Suzanne and Jean carried out Duchamp’s instructions in good spirit; they took a photograph of the open book dangling in midair (the only existing record of the work, which did not survive its exposure to the elements), and Suzanne later painted a picture of it called Le Readymade malheureux de Marcel. As Duchamp later told Cabanne, “It amused me to bring the idea of happy and unhappy into readymades, and then the rain, the wind, the pages flying, it was an amusing idea.” I take it back: all Duchamp did while he was in Buenos Aires was play chess. Yvonne, who was with him, got sick of all his play-science and left for France. According to Tompkins: Duchamp told one interviewer in later years that he had liked disparaging “the seriousness of a book full of principles,” and suggested to another that, in its exposure to the weather, “the treatise seriously got the facts of life. ~ Roberto Bola o,
1431:The Real Successes
You think that the failures are many,
You think the successes are few,
But you judge by the rule of the penny,
And not by the good that men do.
You judge men by standards of treasure
That merely obtain upon earth,
When the brother you're snubbing may measure
Full-length to God's standard of worth.
The failures are not in the ditches,
The failures are not in the ranks,
They have missed the acquirement of riches,
Their fortunes are not in the banks.
Their virtues are never paraded,
Their worth is not always in view,
But they're fighting their battles unaided,
And fighting them honestly, too.
There are failures to-day in high places
The failures aren't all in the low;
There are rich men with scorn in their faces
Whose homes are but castles of woe.
The homes that are happy are many,
And numberless fathers are true;
And this is the standard, if any,
By which we must judge what men do.
Wherever loved ones are awaiting
The toiler to kiss and caress,
Though in Bradstreet's he hasn't a rating,
He still is a splendid success.
If the dear ones who gather about him
And know what he's striving to do
Have never a reason to doubt him,
Is he less successful than you?
You think that the failures are many,
You judge by men's profits in gold;
You judge by the rule of the penny—
933
In this true success isn't told.
This falsely man's story is telling,
For wealth often brings on distress,
But wherever love brightens a dwelling,
There lives; rich or poor, a success.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1432:Confession

I love you – I love you, e’en as I
Rage at myself for this obsession,
And as I make my shamed confession,
Despairing at your feet I lie.
I know, I know – It ill becomes me,
I am too old, time to be wise …
But how? … This love – it overcomes me,
A sickness this in passion’s guise.
When you are near I’m filled with sadness,
When far, I yawn, for life’s a bore.
I must pour out this love, this madness,
There’s nothing that I long for more!
When your shirts rustle, when, my angel,
Your girlish voice I hear, when your
Light step sounds in the parlour – strangely,
I turn confused, perturbed, unsure.
Your frown – and I’m in pain, I languish;
You smile – and joy defeats distress;
My one reward for a day’s anguish
Comes when your, pale hand, love, I kiss.
When you sit, bent over your sewing,
Your eyes cast down and fine curls blowing.
About your face, with tenderness
I like childlike watch, my heart o’erflowing
With love, in my gaze a caress.
Shall I my jealousy and yearning
Describe, my bitterness and woe
When by yourself on some bleak morning
Off on a distant walk you go,
Or with another spend the evening
And, with him near, the piano play,
Or for Opochka leave, or, grieving
Weep and in silence, pass the day?
Alina! Pray relent have mercy!
I dare not ask for love – with all
My many sins, both great and small,
I am perhaps of love unworthy!
But if feigned love, if you would
Pretend, you’d easily deceive me,
For happily would I, believe me,
Deceive myself if but I could! ~ Alexander Pushkin,
1433:Confession


I love you – I love you, e’en as I
Rage at myself for this obsession,
And as I make my shamed confession,
Despairing at your feet I lie.
I know, I know – It ill becomes me,
I am too old, time to be wise …
But how? … This love – it overcomes me,
A sickness this in passion’s guise.
When you are near I’m filled with sadness,
When far, I yawn, for life’s a bore.
I must pour out this love, this madness,
There’s nothing that I long for more!
When your shirts rustle, when, my angel,
Your girlish voice I hear, when your
Light step sounds in the parlour – strangely,
I turn confused, perturbed, unsure.
Your frown – and I’m in pain, I languish;
You smile – and joy defeats distress;
My one reward for a day’s anguish
Comes when your, pale hand, love, I kiss.
When you sit, bent over your sewing,
Your eyes cast down and fine curls blowing.
About your face, with tenderness
I like childlike watch, my heart o’erflowing
With love, in my gaze a caress.
Shall I my jealousy and yearning
Describe, my bitterness and woe
When by yourself on some bleak morning
Off on a distant walk you go,
Or with another spend the evening
And, with him near, the piano play,
Or for Opochka leave, or, grieving
Weep and in silence, pass the day?
Alina! Pray relent have mercy!
I dare not ask for love – with all
My many sins, both great and small,
I am perhaps of love unworthy!
But if feigned love, if you would
Pretend, you’d easily deceive me,
For happily would I, believe me,
Deceive myself if but I could! ~ Alexander Pushkin,
1434:Whisperings In Wattle-Boughs
Oh, gaily sings the bird, and the wattle-boughs are stirr'd
And rustled by the scented breath of spring ;
Oh, the dreary, wistful longing ! Oh, the faces that are thronging !
Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering !
Oh, tell me, father mine, ere the good ship cross'd the brine,
On the gangway one mute hand-grip we exchanged,
Do you, past the grave, employ, for your stubborn reckless boy,
Those petitions that in life were ne'er estranged ?
Oh, tell me, sister dear, parting word and parting tear
Never pass'd between us ;—let me bear the blame.
Are you living, girl, or dead ? bitter tears since then I've shed
For the lips that lisp'd with mine a mother's name.
Oh, tell me, ancient friend, ever ready to defend,
In our boyhood, at the base of life's long hill,
Are you waking yet, or sleeping ? have you left this vale of weeping?
Or do you, like our comrade, linger still ?
Oh, whisper, buried love, is there rest and peace above ?—
There is little hope or comfort here below ;—
On your sweet face lies the mould, and your bed is strait and cold—
Near the harbour where the sea-tides ebb and flow.
All silent—they are dumb—and the breezes go and come
With an apathy that mocks at man's distress ;
Laugh, scoffer, while you may ! I could bow me down and pray
For an answer that might stay my bitterness.
Oh, harshly screams the bird ! and the wattle-bloom is stirr'd !
There's a sullen weird-like whisper in the bough :
'Aye, kneel, and pray, and weep, but His beloved sleep
Can never be disturb'd by such as thou !!'
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon,
1435:Miranda, honey, sit down. I wish you’d eat something.” Peering out the window, Aunt Teeta gave a shudder. “Y’all be sure and take umbrellas. There’s supposed to be a doozy of a storm coming in.”
“How much of a doozy?” Etienne asked. “Medium doozy or big doozy?”
Aunt Teeta flapped her dishtowel at him. “Monster doozy. Big bad winds, flash-flood rain, and maybe even tornadoes kind of doozy. Miranda, don’t you feel well?”
“Just”--Miranda brushed it off--“kind of sick to my stomach, I guess.”
“What, darlin’, something keep you awake last night?”
Etienne stared at her. Gage stared at her. Aunt Teeta stared at her. Thank God for Gage, who finally seemed to sense her growing distress. Cramming the last bite of sausage into his mouth, he scraped back his chair from the table.
“I’ll make sure she eats something later,” he promised Aunt Teeta. “Come on, we better go. We’re gonna be late.”
Miranda threw him a grateful look as the three of them trooped out the door. Still, once they reached Etienne’s truck, she couldn’t resist.
“You really are cute and precious,” she said, touching a fingertip to one of his dimples.
Gage’s face went redder. He grabbed her hand and boosted her into the front seat. “See if I come to your rescue anymore.”
“And I have to agree with Roo and Ashley. You’re especially cute when you’re embarrassed.”
“Yeah?” Gage’s lips moved against her ear. “Don’t tempt me. I bet you’re especially cute when you’re embarrassed, too.”
Miranda stared at him in surprise. Gage gave her an innocent smile, then climbed in beside her. Etienne seemed completely unaware of their little exchange. ~ Richie Tankersley Cusick,
1436:Hey, baby,” Chelsea said in a voice that bordered on baby talk as Mike bent down to give her a quick kiss. “Miss me?”
Violet almost rolled her eyes.
“I thought about you all period,” he answered, his voice husky. “Did you get the note I left in your backpack?”
Violet couldn’t hold back any longer; she rolled her eyes. Neither of them noticed.
“I did. You’re so sweet.” The cooing verged on sickening. “Did anyone say anything about your mustache?”
Mike winced, as if he suddenly remembered the patchy hair on his upper lip. “A coupla’ people,” he reluctantly responded, and Violet suspected that he’d taken his hair share of ribbing over it.
Chelsea ignored the obvious distress in his voice. “Vi and I gotta run or we’ll be late.” She stretched up to kiss him and then rubbed her thumb across the hairs above his lip as if she were petting them. “See you after class.”
Chelsea tugged at Violet, who was still staring at his unsightly mustache. It was like seeing a car accident…hard to look away.
“So do you? Like it, I mean?” Violet asked as she was being dragged down the hallway.
“The mustache?” Chelsea grimaced. “God, no. It’s hideous on him.”
“Then, why?”
“I told you, to see if he’d actually do it. Don’t worry. I’m gonna make him shave it this weekend.”
Violet wasn’t sure whether to congratulate her friend on her training abilities or reprimand her for being so cruel. In the end, she didn’t do either, mostly because she knew it wouldn’t make any difference.
Chelsea was Chelsea. Trying to convince her that what she’d done was wrong would be like banging your head against a brick wall. It would be painful to you but accomplish nothing. ~ Kimberly Derting,
1437:According to at least one study, that would be the wrong decision. Researchers followed a sample of young adults who had a 50 percent chance of getting Huntington’s disease and who agreed to take the genetic test. The participants completed measures of depression and psychological well-being before they knew the results of the genetic test, right after they got the results, six months later, and one year later. Those who got the bad news were, of course, initially devastated, reporting considerably more distress and depression than did those who got the good news. At the six-month and one-year points, however, the two groups were indistinguishable—those who knew that they would die at a relatively young age were no more depressed, and expressed just as much well-being, as did those who knew that they were disease-free. The participants who learned they had the gene received the worst news one can get, and yet within six months they were as happy as anyone else. Even more striking were the results of a third group—those for whom the test was inconclusive or who had chosen not to take the test. At the beginning of the study, before any genetic testing had begun, this group was as happy and well-adjusted as the others. But as time went by, this group did the worst: at the one-year mark, they exhibited significantly more depression, and lower well-being, than those in the other two groups—including the ones who had found out that they had inherited the Huntington gene. In other words, people who were 100 percent sure that they would get the disease and die prematurely were happier and less depressed than people who were 50 percent sure that they were healthy and disease-free. ~ Timothy D Wilson,
1438:Do you spend much time with Davis?” “A fair amount, but he’s very busy, especially since Everett keeps giving him new projects to complete every day, even though the peacock enclosure is far from being finished.” The gleam was replaced with calculation. “Are these projects Everett gives Davis completely necessary?” “Well . . . I suppose they must be or else why would Everett assign them?” Lucetta ignored the question. “And you said that Everett had been behaving downright charming to you, but then . . . completely out of the blue, he began acting somewhat surly?” “I think distant rather than surly might be a better way to describe him at the moment.” “Interesting” was all Lucetta said as she turned her head and looked out toward the ocean. “What’s interesting?” Lucetta considered the ocean a moment longer before she finally looked back to Millie. “I might be completely off the mark, but have you ever considered the idea that Everett might be slightly . . . intrigued by you? And because you seem to get along so well with Davis, Everett’s been behaving distantly toward you because he’s . . . jealous?” Amusement was immediate. “You’re delusional, especially since Everett is a gentleman who embraces his role within society. Because of that, he’d never look at a member of his staff as anything other than an employee, and he certainly would never allow himself to become intrigued by anyone on his staff.” Lucetta crossed her arms over her chest. “Why else would he be maintaining a careful distance from you? He certainly can’t blame you for the whole peacock fiasco or for getting stuck up in that tree. Besides, gentlemen enjoy rescuing damsels in distress. It makes them feel manly.” “I ~ Jen Turano,
1439:the two kinds of repentance. There are two kinds of repentance, one which belongs to time and the senses and another which is supernatural and of God. The temporal kind always draws us downwards into yet greater suffering, plunging us into such distress that it is as if we were already in a state of despair. And so repentance can find no way out of suffering. Nothing comes of this. But the repentance which is of God is very different. As soon as we become ill at ease, we immediately reach up to God and vow with an unshakeable will to turn away from all sin for ever. Thus we raise ourselves up to a great trust in God and gain a great sense of certainty. This brings a spiritual joy that lifts the soul out of her suffering and distress and binds her to God. For the more inadequate and guilty we perceive ourselves to be, the more reason we have to bind ourselves to God with an undivided love, who knows neither sin nor inadequacy. And so if we wish to approach God in complete devotion, the best path that we can follow is to be without sin in the power of that kind of repentance which comes from God. And the greater we feel our sin to be, the more prepared God is to forgive our sin, to enter into the soul and drive sin away. Everyone is keenest to rid themselves of what is most hateful to them, and so the greater and graver our sins, the more God is immeasurably willing and quick to forgive them, since they are hateful to him. And when the repentance which comes from God rises up to him, all our sins vanish more quickly in the abyss of God than the eye can blink, and are eradicated so totally that it is as if they had never existed, provided only that we have perfect contrition. ~ Meister Eckhart,
1440:The existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century. This is understandable; it may be due to a twofold loss which man has had to undergo since he became a truly human being. At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is imbedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

A statistical survey recently revealed that amount my European students, 25 percent showed a more-or-less marked degree of existential vacuum. Among my American students it is not 25 but 60 percent.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. In actual fact, boredom is now causing, and certainly bringing to psychiatrists, more problems to solve than distress. And these problems are growing increasingly crucial, for progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in leisure hours available to the average worker. The pity of it is that many of these will not know what to do with all their newly acquired free time. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
1441:I charge you with a phrase from the gospel of John, Updike that is: Your only duty is to give the mundane its beautiful due.

You step from this moment with scripture and stole ordained to the ordinary. Ours is an existence in something more than the husk it once was but not yet the bloom it shall be; in other words, you are charged to the in-between, middle-earth, us.

Yes, our lives are sewn on occasion with a texture of joy unmistakable, the foretastes. But many days, if not most hours, reek of repetition, a mundane rising and falling punctuated with what the old hymn writer penned as “seasons of distress and grief.” The relief you are charged to bring to our souls in times like these is beauty – nothing more, nothing less. It is your only duty. Give up all other ambitions for the dross they are.

Give the mundane its beautiful due.

Bear witness to the truth we so often bury, that our lives are shot through with drama, interest, relevance, importance, and poetry. Live among us, story by story, with both precision and surprisingness. Help us to believe in God by startling us with the kicker – God believes in us. Know this, that yours is not so much a high calling as it is a careful attention; you are to be a person of prayer, not big britches.

Once you begin a gesture it's often fatal not to go through with it, so please, for the love of God and us and you, go through with this. The world for you may be even harder from here on in, but most things worth doing are hard. So break and bless and preach and teach and laugh and sing and weep and rage and whisper at the altar of this astonishingly splendid fallen world.

Give the mundane its beautiful due.

Amen and amen. ~ John Blase,
1442:It was some time before Hero came downstairs, but after about half an hour she put in an appearance, still wearing her silk and gauze ball-dress, but with her jewels discarded and her curls a little ruffled. She came quickly into the room, a look of great distress in her face, and went towards Sherry with her hands held out, and saying impetuously: 'Oh, Sherry, it is so shocking! She has told me the whole, and I never thought anyone could be so wicked! It is all too true! That dear little baby is indeed Sir Montagu's own child, but he will not give poor Ruth a penny for its maintenance, no, nor even see Ruth! Oh, Sherry, how can such things be?'
'Yes, I know, Kitten. It's devilish bad, but- but we have only the girl's word for it, and I dare say, if we only knew-'
'Might be a mistake,' explained Ferdy, anxious to be helpful.
She turned her large eyes towards him. 'Oh no, Ferdy, there can be none indeed! You see, she told me everything! She is not a wicked girl- I am sure she is not! She is quite simple, and she did not know what she was doing!'
'They all say that,' said Mr Ringwood gloomily.
'How can you, Gil? I had not thought "you" would be so unjust!' Hero cried. 'She is nothing but a country maid, and I can tell that her father is a very good sort of a man- respectable, I mean, for no sooner did he discover the dreadful truth than he cast her out of his home, and will not have anything to say to her, which always seems to me shockingly cruel, though Cousin Jane says it is to be expected, because of the wages of sin, which comes in the Bible! Indeed, she is quite an innocent girl, for how could it be otherwise when she believed in Sir Montagu's promise to marry her? Why, even I know better than that! ~ Georgette Heyer,
1443:Do you know what I believe, Miss Whittaker? Regarding your question on the origins of human compassion and
self-sacrifice? I believe that evolution explains nearly everything about us, and I certainly believe it
explains absolutely everything about the rest for the natural world, But I do not believe that evolution
alone can account for our unique human consciousness.

There is no evolutionary need, you see, for us to have such acute sensitivities of intellect and emotion.
There is no practical need for the minds that we have. We do not need a mind that can play chess, Miss
Whittaker. We don't need a mind that can invent religions or argue over our origins. We don't need a mind
that causes us to weep at the opera. We don't need opera, for that matter - nor science, nor art. We don't
need ethics, morality, dignity or sacrifice. We don't need affection or love - certainly not to the degree
that we feel it. If anything, our sensibilities can be a liability, for they can cause us to suffer distress.
So I do not believe that the process of natural selection gave us this minds - even though I do believe
that it did give us these bodies, and most of our abilities. Do you know why I think we have these
extraordinary minds? (...)'

I will tell why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker (...) we have them because there
is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence
longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable
minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than
anything. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1444:Good-Bye--God Bless You!
I like the Anglo-Saxon speech
With its direct revealings;
It takes a hold, and seems to reach
'Way down into your feelings;
That some folk deem it rude, I know,
And therefore they abuse it;
But I have never found it so,-Before all else I choose it.
I don't object that men should air
The Gallic they have paid for,
With "Au revoir," "Adieu, ma chère,"
For that's what French was made for.
But when a crony takes your hand
At parting, to address you,
He drops all foreign lingo and
He says, "Good-by--God bless you!"
This seems to me a sacred phrase,
With reverence impassioned,-A thing come down from righteous days,
Quaintly but nobly fashioned;
It well becomes an honest face,
A voice that's round and cheerful;
It stays the sturdy in his place,
And soothes the weak and fearful.
Into the porches of the ears
It steals with subtle unction,
And in your heart of hearts appears
To work its gracious function;
And all day long with pleasing song
It lingers to caress you,-I'm sure no human heart goes wrong
That's told "Good-by--God bless you!"
I love the words,--perhaps because,
When I was leaving Mother,
Standing at last in solemn pause
We looked at one another,
And I--I saw in Mother's eyes
139
The love she could not tell me,-A love eternal as the skies,
Whatever fate befell me;
She put her arms about my neck
And soothed the pain of leaving,
And though her heart was like to break,
She spoke no word of grieving;
She let no tear bedim her eye,
For fear that might distress me,
But, kissing me, she said good-by,
And asked our God to bless me.
~ Eugene Field,
1445:In a dark night, With anxious love inflamed, O, happy lot! Forth unobserved I went, My house being now at rest. TAKING these words, then, with reference to purgation, contemplation, or detachment, or poverty of spirit—these are, as it were, one and the same thing—they may be thus explained in this way, as if the soul were saying: In poverty, without protection and help1 in all my powers, the understanding in darkness, the will under constraint, the memory in trouble and distress, in the dark, in pure faith, which is the dark night of the natural faculties, the will alone touched by grief and affliction, and the anxieties of the love of God, I went forth out of myself, out of my low conceptions and lukewarm love, out of my scanty and poor sense of God, without being hindered by the flesh or the devil. 2. This was to me a great blessing, a happy lot, for by annihilating and subduing my faculties, passions, appetites,2 and affections—the instruments of my low conceptions of God—I went forth out of the scanty works and ways of my own to those of God; that is, my understanding went forth out of itself, and from human and natural3 became divine; for united to God in that purgation, it understands no more by its natural powers,4 but in the divine wisdom to which it is united. 3. My will went forth out of itself becoming divine, for now, united with the divine love, it loves no more meanly with the powers of its nature,5 but with the energy and pureness of the divine spirit. Thus the will acts now in the things of God, not in a human way, and the memory also is transformed in eternal apprehensions of glory. Finally, all the energies and affections of the soul are, in this night and purgation of the old man, renewed into a divine temper and delight. ~ Juan de la Cruz,
1446:We find this even more clearly expressed in Paul, who stresses that justification is apart from works of the law. We might be surprised, then, to see that Paul also emphasizes the necessity of good works for final salvation. God repays every person “according to his works” (Rom 2:6). Those who do evil will suffer “wrath and indignation” (2:8) and “affliction and distress” (2:9), while those who do good will enjoy “eternal life” (2:7, 10). Some have taken these verses to be hypothetical, but the conclusion to Romans 2 shows that the hypothetical reading isn’t convincing, for we see that those who obey do so because of the work of the Spirit in them (2:26 – 29). Their obedience isn’t self-generated but the result of the supernatural work of the Spirit in their lives. Hence, their obedience doesn’t earn or merit eternal life but is the result of the new life they already possess, showing that God’s grace has transformed them in Jesus Christ. It is important to recognize that obedience isn’t motivated by a desire to be accepted by God. Acceptance with God is by faith alone through the work of Christ alone and to the glory of God alone. Obedience, then, stems from joy, from a delight in God, from a desire to do what pleases him. Obedience is necessary, for those who don’t obey reveal that they haven’t truly been accepted by God and show that they don’t know God’s love. But the obedience of believers isn’t animated by a desire to receive God’s love. On the contrary, it is a response to his love. All Christian obedience enshrines the principle: “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). So too, we obey because we know his love. Obedience, then, flows out of our freedom and joy. Though it is required, it isn’t simply a duty, it is a delight. ~ Thomas R Schreiner,
1447:When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. “It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]” (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is “notoriously difficult to translate.” The various attempts we have in English are “helper” or “companion” or the notorious “help meet.” Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat . . . disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing, “One day I shall be a help meet”? Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it “sustainer beside him.” The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you . . . Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. (Deut. 33:26, 29, emphasis added) I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Ps. 121:1–2, emphasis added) May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help. (Ps. 20:1–2, emphasis added) We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. (Ps. 33:20, emphasis added) O house of Israel, trust in the LORD—he is their help and shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD—he is their help and shield. You who fear him, trust in the LORD—he is their help and shield. (Ps. 115:9–11, emphasis added) ~ John Eldredge,
1448:To T.L.H.
A CHILD
Model of thy parent dear,
Serious infant worth a fear:
In thy unfaultering visage well
Picturing forth the son of Tell,
When on his forehead, firm and good,
Motionless mark, the apple stood;
Guileless traitor, rebel mild,
Convict unconscious, culprit-child!
Gates that close with iron roar
Have been to thee thy nursery door;
Chains that chink in cheerless cells
Have been thy rattles and thy bells;
Walls contrived for giant sin
Have hemmed thy faultless weakness in;
Near thy sinless bed black Guilt
Her discordant house hath built,
And filled it with her monstrous broodSights, by thee not understoodSights of fear, and of distress,
That pass a harmless infant's guess!
But the clouds, that overcast
Thy young morning, may not last.
Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour,
That yields thee up to Nature's power.
Nature, that so late doth greet thee,
Shall in o'er-flowing measure meet thee.
She shall recompense with cost
For every lesson thou hast lost.
Then wandering up thy sire's lov'd hill,
Thou shalt take thy airy fill
Of health and pastime. Birds shall sing
For thy delight each May morning.
'Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play,
Hardly less a lamb than they.
204
Then thy prison's lengthened bound
Shall be the horizon skirting round.
And, while thou fill'st thy lap with flowers,
To make amends for wintery hours,
The breeze, the sunshine, and the place,
Shall from thy tender brow efface
Each vestige of untimely care,
That sour restraint had graven there;
And on thy every look impress
A more excelling childishness.
So shall be thy days beguil'd,
Thornton Hunt, my favourite child.
~ Charles Lamb,
1449:When you are walking down the road in Bali and your pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, "Where are you going?" The second question is, "Where are you coming from?" To a Westerner, this can seem like a rather invasive inquiry from a perfect stranger, but they're just trying to get an orientation on you, trying to insert you into the grid for the purposes of security and comfort. If you tell them that you don't know where you're going, or that you're just wandering about randomly, you might instigate a bit of distress in the heart of your new Balinese friend. It's far better to pick some kind of specific direction -- anywhere -- just so everybody feels better.

The third question a Balinese will almost certainly ask you is, "Are you married?" Again, it's a positioning and orienting inquiry. It's necessary for them to know this, to make sure that you are completely in order in your life. They really want you to say yes. it's such a relief to them when you say yes. If you're single, it's better not to say so directly. And I really recommend that you not mention your divorce at all, if you happen to have had one. It just makes the Balinese so worried. The only thing your solitude proves to them is your perilous dislocation from the grid. If you are a single woman traveling through Bali and somebody asks you, "Are you married?" the best possible answer is: "Not yet." This is a polite way of saying, "No," while indicating your optimistic intentions to get that taken care of just as soon as you can.

Even if you are eighty years old, or a lesbian, or a strident feminist, or a nun, or an eighty-year-old strident feminist lesbian nun who has never been married and never intends to get married, the politest possible answer is still: "Not yet. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1450:You are a passenger. We are all, often, passengers. The boat, history, is going somewhere. You are not the captain. But you have excellent accommodations. Of course, down there in the hold are famished immigrants or enslaved Africans or press-ganged tars. You can’t help them—you do feel sorry for them—and you can’t control the captain, either. Cosseted though you may be, you are actually quite powerless. A gesture on your part might relieve your bad conscience, if you have a bad conscience, but would not materially improve their situation. How would it help them to give up your own spacious cabin, with the room you require for your copious belongings, since, although those below have very few belongings, there are so many of them? The food you are eating would never be enough to feed all of them; indeed, if prepared with them in mind as well, it would no longer be as refined; and of course the view would be spoiled (crowds spoil a view, crowds litter, etc.). So you have no choice but to enjoy the excellent food and the view. Nevertheless, assuming you are not indifferent, you think a lot about what is going on. Even if it is not your responsibility, how can it be your responsibility, you are still a participant and a witness. (First- or second-class passengers, these are the points of view from which most accounts of history are written.) And if those being persecuted are those who might have had accommodations as agreeable as your own, people of your own rank or who have your interests, you are far less likely to be indifferent to their present distress. Of course, you cannot prevent them from being punished if they are in fact guilty. But, assuming you are not indifferent, that you are a decent person, you will try to intervene when you can. Counsel leniency. Or at least prudence. The ~ Susan Sontag,
1451:March 20 MORNING “My beloved.” — Song of Solomon 2:8 THIS was a golden name which the ancient Church in her most joyous moments was wont to give to the Anointed of the Lord. When the time of the singing of birds was come, and the voice of the turtle was heard in her land, her love-note was sweeter than either, as she sang, “My beloved is mine and I am His: He feedeth among the lilies.” Ever in her song of songs doth she call Him by that delightful name, “My beloved!” Even in the long winter, when idolatry had withered the garden of the Lord, her prophets found space to lay aside the burden of the Lord for a little season, and to say, as Esaias did, “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard.” Though the saints had never seen His face, though as yet He was not made flesh, nor had dwelt among us, nor had man beheld His glory, yet He was the consolation of Israel, the hope and joy of all the chosen, the “beloved” of all those who were upright before the Most High. We, in the summer days of the Church, are also wont to speak of Christ as the best beloved of our soul, and to feel that He is very precious, the “chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.” So true is it that the Church loves Jesus, and claims Him as her beloved, that the apostle dares to defy the whole universe to separate her from the love of Christ, and declares that neither persecutions, distress, affliction, peril, or the sword have been able to do it; nay, he joyously boasts, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” O that we knew more of Thee, Thou ever precious one! “My sole possession is Thy love; In earth beneath, or heaven above, I have no other store; And though with fervent suit I pray, And importune Thee day by day, I ask Thee nothing more. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1452:It is especially in the faubourgs, we must insist, that the Parisian race appears. This is where the thoroughbred is; this is where the true features of the breed are to be found; this is where the people work and suffer, and this suffering and work are the two faces of the man. The place is teeming with heaps of unknown beings, the strangest specimens from the stevedore of La Rapée to the knacker of Montfaucon. Fex Urbis, cries Cicero; mob, adds Burke, indignant. Riffraff, mob, rabble- those words are easily said. But so be it. What does it matter? What do I care if they go about barefoot? Too bad if they can't read. Are you going to abandon them for that? Are you going to turn their distress into a curse? Can't the light penetrate the teeming masses? Let's get back to that cry: Let there be light! And let's stick to it! Light! Light! Who knows if these opaque walls won't become transparent? Aren't revolutions transfigurations? Off you go, philosophers- teach, enlighten, fire up, think out loud, speak out loud, go on joyful romps in broad daylight, fraternize in public places, bring glad tidings, spray alphabets lavishly all over the place, proclaim rights, since the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasm, rip green branches off the oaks. Whip up ideas into a whirlwind. The hordes can be made sublime. Let's learn how to use this vast blaze of principles and virtues that crackles and flames out and occasionally sputters. These bare feet, these bare arms, these rags, this ignorance, this abjectness, this darkness, can be put to work in the conquest of the ideal. Look through the people and you will see truth. This vile sand that you trample beneath your feet, throw it in the furnace, and if it melts there and boils, it will become sparkling crystal. And it is thanks to this that Galileo and Newton will discover the stars. ~ Victor Hugo,
1453:It was a sad fact that the commonest complaint in the outpatient department was “Rasehn . . . libehn . . . hodehn,” literally, “My head . . . my heart . . . and my stomach,” with the patient’s hand touching each part as she pronounced the words. Ghosh called it the RLH syndrome. The RLH sufferers were often young women or the elderly. If pressed to be more specific, the patients might offer that their heads were spinning (rasehn yazoregnal) or burning (yakatelegnal ), or their hearts were tired (lib dekam), or they had abdominal discomfort or cramps (hod kurteth), but these symptoms were reported as an aside and grudgingly, because rasehn-libehn-hodehn should have been enough for any doctor worth his salt. It had taken Matron her first year in Addis to understand that this was how stress, anxiety, marital strife, and depression were expressed in Ethiopia—somatization was what Ghosh said the experts called this phenomenon. Psychic distress was projected onto a body part, because culturally it was the way to express that kind of suffering. Patients might see no connection between the abusive husband, or meddlesome mother-in-law, or the recent death of their infant, and their dizziness or palpitations. And they all knew just the cure for what ailed them: an injection. They might settle for mistura carminativa or else a magnesium trisilicate and belladonna mixture, or some other mixture that came to the doctor’s mind, but nothing cured like the marfey—the needle. Ghosh was dead against injections of vitamin B for the RLH syndrome, but Matron had convinced him it was better for Missing to do it than have the dissatisfied patient get an unsterilized hypodermic from a quack in the Merkato. The orange B-complex injection was cheap, and its effect was instantaneous, with patients grinning and skipping down the hill. T ~ Abraham Verghese,
1454:Only a man can see in the face of a woman the girl she was. It is a secret which can be revealed only to a particular man, and, then, only at his insistence. But men have no secrets, except from women, and never grow up in the way women do. It is very much harder, and it takes much longer, for a man to grow up, and he could never do it at all without women. This is a mystery which can terrify and immobilize a woman, and it is always the key to her deepest distress. She must watch and guide, but he must lead, and he will always appear to be giving far more of his real attention to his comrades than he is giving to her. But that noisy, outward openness of men with each other enables them to deal with the silence and secrecy of women, that silence and secrecy which contains the truth of a man, and releases it. I suppose that the root of the resentment—a resentment which hides a bottomless terror—has to do with the fact that a woman is tremendously controlled by what the man’s imagination makes of her—literally, hour by hour, day by day; so she becomes a woman. But a man exists in his own imagination, and can never be at the mercy of a woman’s.—Anyway, in this fucked up time and place, the whole thing becomes ridiculous when you realize that women are supposed to be more imaginative than men. This is an idea dreamed up by men, and it proves exactly the contrary. The truth is that dealing with the reality of men leaves a woman very little time, or need, for imagination. And you can get very fucked up, here, once you take seriously the notion that a man who is not afraid to trust his imagination (which is all that men have ever trusted) if effeminate. It says a lot about this country, because, of course, if all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination. Or women, for that matter: or men. ~ James Baldwin,
1455:There is another and stronger reason why the soul travels securely when in darkness. This reason is derived from the consideration of the light itself, or dark wisdom. The dark night of contemplation so absorbs the soul, and brings it so near unto God, that He defends it, and delivers it from all that is not God. For the soul is now, as it were, under medical treatment for the recovery of its health, which is God Himself: God compels it to observe a particular diet, and to abstain from all hurtful things, the very desire for them being subdued. The soul is treated like a sick man respected by his household, who is so carefully tended that the air shall not touch him, nor the light shine upon him, whom the noise of footsteps and the tumult of servants shall not disturb, and to whom the most delicate food is given most cautiously by measure, and that nutritious rather than savory. 12. All these advantages—they all minister to the safekeeping of the soul—are the effects of this dim contemplation, for it brings the soul nearer to God. The truth is, that the nearer the soul comes to Him it perceives that darkness is greater and deeper because of its own weakness; thus the nearer the sun the greater the darkness and distress wrought by its great brightness, because our eyes are weak, imperfect, and defective. Hence it is that the spiritual light of God is so immeasurable, so far above the understanding, that when it comes near to it, it dims and blinds it. 13. This is the reason why David says that God made darkness His hiding-place and covert, His tabernacle around Him, dark water in the clouds of the air.10 The dark water in the clouds of the air is the dim contemplation and divine wisdom in souls, as I am going to explain, of which they have experience as a thing near to the pavilion where He dwells, when God brings them ~ Juan de la Cruz,
1456:Dungeon Grates
So piteously the lonely soul of man
Shudders before this universal plan,
So grievous is the burden and the pain,
So heavy weighs the long, material chain
From cause to cause, too merciless for hate,
The nightmare march of unrelenting fate,
I think that he must die thereof unless
Ever and again across the dreariness
There came a sudden glimpse of spirit faces,
A fragrant breath to tell of flowery places
And wider oceans, breaking on the shore
From which the hearts of men are always sore.
It lies beyond endeavour; neither prayer
Nor fasting, nor much wisdom winneth there,
Seeing how many prophets and wise men
Have sought for it and still returned again
With hope undone. But only the strange power
Of unsought Beauty in some casual hour
Can build a bridge of light or sound or form
To lead you out of all this strife and storm;
When of some beauty we are grown a part
Till from its very glory’s midmost heart
Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light
Into our souls. All things are seen aright
Amid the blinding pillar of its gold,
Seven times more true than what for truth we hold
In vulgar hours. The miracle is done
And for one little moment we are one
With the eternal stream of loveliness
That flows so calm, aloft from all distress
Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire
Making us faint with overstrong desire
To sport and swim for ever in its deep—
Only a moment.
O! but we shall keep
Our vision still. One moment was enough,
We know we are not made of mortal stuff.
And we can bear all trials that come after,
The hate of men and the fool’s loud bestial laughter
29
And Nature’s rule and cruelties unclean,
For we have seen the Glory—we have seen.
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1457:…For many years now, that way of living has been scorned, and over the last 40 or 50 years it has nearly disappeared. Even so, there was nothing wrong with it. It was an economy directly founded on the land, on the power of the sun, on thrift and skill and on the people’s competence to take care of themselves. They had become dependent to some extent on manufactured goods, but as long as they stayed on their farms and made use of the great knowledge that they possessed, they could have survived foreseeable calamities that their less resourceful descendants could not survive. Now that we have come to the end of the era of cheap petroleum which fostered so great a forgetfulness, I see that we could have continued that thrifty old life fairly comfortably – could even have improved it. Now, we will have to return to it, or to a life necessarily as careful, and we will do so only uncomfortably and with much distress. Increasingly over the last maybe forty years, the thought has come to me that the old world, in which our people lived by the work of their hands, close to weather and earth, plants and animals, was the true world. And that the new world of cheap energy and ever cheaper money, honored greed and dreams of liberation from every restraint, is mostly theater. This new world seems a jumble of scenery and props never quite believable. An economy of fantasies and moods, in which it is hard to remember either the timely world of nature, or the eternal world of the prophets and poets. And I fear, I believe I know, that the doom of the older world I knew as a boy will finally afflict the new one that replaced it. The world I knew as a boy was flawed surely, but it was substantial and authentic. The households of my grandparents seemed to breathe forth a sense of the real cost and worth of things. Whatever came, came by somebody’s work. ~ Wendell Berry,
1458:He led them forth by the right way." Psalm 107:7 Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to inquire "Why is it thus with me?" I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for peace, but behold, trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved. Lord, thou dost hide thy face, and I am troubled. It was but yesterday that I could read my title clear; today my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday, I could climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance; today, my spirit has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but much distress. Is this part of God's plan with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven? Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope, all these things are but parts of God's method of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which you shall soon enter. These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith--they are waves that wash you further upon the rock--they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards the desired haven. According to David's words, so it might be said of you, "So he bringeth them to their desired haven." By honour and dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. "We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom." Learn, then, even to "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." "O let my trembling soul be still, And wait thy wise, thy holy will! I cannot, Lord, thy purpose see, Yet all is well since ruled by thee. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1459:Anybody who lives beneath the Cross and who has discerned in the Cross of Jesus the utter wickedness of all men and of his own heart will find there is no sin that can ever be alien to him. Anybody who has once been horrified by the dreadfulness of his own sin that nailed Jesus to the Cross will no longer be horrified by even the rankest sins of a brother. Looking at the Cross of Jesus, he knows the human heart. He knows how utterly lost it is in sin and weakness, how it goes astray in the ways of sin, and he also knows that it is accepted in grace and mercy. Only the brother under the Cross can hear a confession. It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants .to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ. It is not lack of psychological knowledge but lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ that makes us so poor and inefficient in brotherly confession. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
1460:29For those whom He foreknew [and loved and chose beforehand], He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son [and ultimately share in His complete sanctification], so that He would be the firstborn [the most beloved and honored] among many believers. 30And those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified [declared free of the guilt of sin]; and those whom He justified, He also glorified [raising them to a heavenly dignity]. 31What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us? [Ps 118:6] 32He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. 34Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us. 35Who shall ever separate us from the love of dChrist? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36Just as it is written and forever remains written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE REGARDED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.” [Ps 44:22] 37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. 38For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Anonymous,
1461:In Fleury’s day, however, the grass was cut and the graves well cared for. Besides, as you might expect, he was fond of graveyards; he enjoyed brooding in them and letting his heart respond to the abbreviated biographies he found engraved in their stones . . . so eloquent, so succinct! All the same, once he had spent an hour or two pondering by his mother’s grave he decided to call it a day because, after all, one does not want to overdo the lurking in graveyards. This decision was not a very sudden one. From the age of sixteen when he had first become interested in books, much to the distress of his father, he had paid little heed to physical and sporting matters. He had been of a melancholy and listless cast of mind, the victim of the beauty and sadness of the universe. In the course of the last two or three years, however, he had noticed that his sombre and tubercular manner was no longer having quite the effect it had once had, particularly on young ladies. They no longer found his pallor so interesting, they tended to become impatient with his melancholy. The effect, or lack of it, that you have on the opposite sex is important because it tells you whether or not you are in touch with the spirit of the times, of which the opposite sex is invariably the custodian. The truth was that the tide of sensitivity to beauty, of gentleness and melancholy, had gradually ebbed leaving Fleury floundering on a sandbank. Young ladies these days were more interested in the qualities of Tennyson’s “great, broad-shouldered, genial Englishman” than they were in pallid poets, as Fleury was dimly beginning to perceive. Louise Dunstaple’s preference for romping with jolly officers which had dismayed him on the day of the picnic had by no means been the first rebuff of this kind. Even Miriam sometimes asked him aloud why he was looking “hangdog” when once she would have remained silent, thinking “soulful”. All ~ J G Farrell,
1462:The Witch
Trapped amid the woods with guile
They've led her bound in fetters vile
To death, a deadlier sorceress
Than any born for earth's distress
Since first the winner of the fleece
Bore home the Colchian witch to GreeceSeven months with snare and gin
They've sought the maid o'erwise within
The forest's labyrinthine shade.
The lonely woodman half afraid
Far off her ragged form has seen
Sauntering down the alleys green,
Or crouched in godless prayer alone
At eve before a Druid stone.
But now the bitter chase is won,
The quarry's caught, her magic's done,
The bishop's brought her strongest spell
To naught with candle, book, and bell;
With holy water splashed upon her,
She goes to burning and dishonour
Too deeply damned to feel her shame,
For, though beneath her hair of flame
Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed
It droops for meditation proud
Impenitent, and pondering yet
Things no memory can forget,
Starry wonders she has seen
Brooding in the wildwood green
With holiness. For who can say
In what strange crew she loved to play,
What demons or what gods of old
Deep mysteries unto her have told
At dead of night in worship bent
At ruined shrines magnificent,
Or how the quivering will she sent
Alone into the great alone
Where all is loved and all is known,
Who now lifts up her maiden eyes
And looks around with soft surprise
82
Upon the noisy, crowded square,
The city oafs that nod and stare,
The bishop's court that gathers there,
The faggots and the blackened stake
Where sinners die for justice' sake?
Now she is set upon the pile,
The mob grows still a little while,
Till lo! before the eager folk
Up curls a thin, blue line of smoke.
'Alas!' the full-fed burghers cry,
'That evil loveliness must die!'
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1463:Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy. ~ Max Ehrmann,
1464:When a corner of Maya, the illusion of individual life, is lifted before the eyes of a man in such sort that he no longer makes any egoistic difference between his own person and other men, that he takes as much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own and that he becomes succourable to the point of devotion, ready to sacrifice himself for the salvation of others, then that man is able to recognise himself in all beings, considers as his own the infinite sufferings of all that lives and must thus appropriate to himself the sorrow of the world. No distress is alien to him. All the torments which he sees and can so rarely soften, all the torments of which he hears, those even which it is impossible for him to conceive, strike his spirit as if he were himself the victim. Insensible to the alternations of weal and woe which succeed each other in his destiny, delivered from all egoism, he penetrates the veils of the individual illusion : all that lives, all that suffers is equally near to his heart. He conceives the totality of things, their essence, their eternal flux, the vain efforts, the internal struggles and sufferings without end ; he sees to whatever side he turns his gaze man who suffers, the animal who suffers and a world that is eternally passing away. He unites himself henceforth to the sorrows of the world as closely as the egoist to his own person. How can he having such a knowledge of the world affirm by incessant desires his will to live, attach himself more and more to life and clutch it to him always more closely ? The man seduced by the illusion of individual life, a slave of his egoism, sees only the things that touch him personally and draws from them incessantly renewed motives to desire and to will : on the contrary one who penetrates the essence of things and dominates their totality, elevates himself to a state of voluntary renunciation, resignation and true tranquillity. ~ Schopenhauer,
1465:April 12 MORNING “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” — Psalm 22:14 OUR blessed Lord experienced a terrible sinking and melting of soul. “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?” Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials; all besides is as nothing. Well might the suffering Saviour cry to His God, “Be not far from me,” for above all other seasons a man needs his God when his heart is melted within him because of heaviness. Believer, come near the cross this morning, and humbly adore the King of glory as having once been brought far lower, in mental distress and inward anguish, than any one among us; and mark His fitness to become a faithful High Priest, who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Especially let those of us whose sadness springs directly from the withdrawal of a present sense of our Father’s love, enter into near and intimate communion with Jesus. Let us not give way to despair, since through this dark room the Master has passed before us. Our souls may sometimes long and faint, and thirst even to anguish, to behold the light of the Lord’s countenance: at such times let us stay ourselves with the sweet fact of the sympathy of our great High Priest. Our drops of sorrow may well be forgotten in the ocean of His griefs; but how high ought our love to rise! Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in spring tides, cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul, and float it right up to my Lord’s feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value; and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put His ear to me, He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet for ever. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1466:The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.

The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call "dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . . ~ Judith Lewis Herman,
1467:-Desiderata-

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy. ~ Max Ehrmann,
1468:Anticipation
How beautiful the earth is still,
To thee - how full of happiness!
How little fraught with real ill,
Or unreal phantoms of distress!
How spring can bring thee glory, yet,
And summer win thee to forget
December's sullen time!
Why dost thou hold the treasure fast,
Of youth's delight, when youth is past,
And thou art near thy prime?
When those who were thy own compeers,
Equals in fortune and in years,
Have seen their morning melt in tears,
To clouded, smileless day;
Blest, had they died untried and young,
Before their hearts went wandering wrong,
Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,
A weak and helpless prey!
" Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,
And, by fulfilment, hope destroyed;
As children hope, with trustful breast,
I waited bliss - and cherished rest.
A thoughtful spirit taught me, soon,
That we must long till life be done;
That every phase of earthly joy
Must always fade, and always cloy:
This I foresaw - and would not chase
The fleeting treacheries;
But, with firm foot and tranquil face,
Held backward from that tempting race,
Gazed o'er the sands the waves efface,
To the enduring seas - ;
There cast my anchor of desire
Deep in unknown eternity;
Nor ever let my spirit tire,
With looking for what is to be!
18
It is hope's spell that glorifies,
Like youth, to my maturer eyes,
All Nature's million mysteries,
The fearful and the fair Hope soothes me in the griefs I know;
She lulls my pain for others' woe,
And makes me strong to undergo
What I am born to bear.
Glad comforter! will I not brave,
Unawed, the darkness of the grave?
Nay, smile to hear Death's billows rave Sustained, my guide, by thee?
The more unjust seems present fate,
The more my spirit swells elate,
Strong, in thy strength, to anticipate
Rewarding destiny !"
~ Emily Jane Brontë,
1469:I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lacks an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress—as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.
Among some pious people I found a hatred of reason and was well disposed to them for that; for this at least betrayed their bad intellectual conscience. But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing—that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody. Some folly keeps persuading me that every human being has this feeling, simply because he is human. This is my type of injustice. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
1470:May 28 Evening "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope." – Lamentations 3:21 Memory is frequently the bond slave of despondency. Dispairing minds call to remembrance every dark foreboding in the past, and dilate upon every gloomy feature in the present; thus memory, clothed in sackcloth, presents to the mind a cup of mingled gall and wormwood. There is, however, no necessity for this. Wisdom can readily transform memory into an angel of comfort. That same recollection which in its left hand brings so many gloomy omens, may be trained to bear in its right a wealth of hopeful signs. She need not wear a crown of iron, she may encircle her brow with a fillet of gold, all spangled with stars. Thus it was in Jeremiah’s experience: in the previous verse memory had brought him to deep humiliation of soul: "My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me;" and now this same memory restored him to life and comfort. "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope." Like a two-edged sword, his memory first killed his pride with one edge, and then slew his despair with the other. As a general principle, if we would exercise our memories more wisely, we might, in our very darkest distress, strike a match which would instantaneously kindle the lamp of comfort. There is no need for God to create a new thing upon the earth in order to restore believers to joy; if they would prayerfully rake the ashes of the past, they would find light for the present; and if they would turn to the book of truth and the throne of grace, their candle would soon shine as aforetime. Be it ours to remember the lovingkindness of the Lord, and to rehearse his deeds of grace. Let us open the volume of recollection which is so richly illuminated with memorials of mercy, and we shall soon be happy. Thus memory may be, as Coleridge calls it, "the bosom-spring of joy," and when the Divine Comforter bends it to his service, it may be chief among earthly comforters. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1471:Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration. I would strictly deny that one's search or a meaning to his existence, or even his doubt of it, in every case is derived from, or results in, any disease. Existential frustration is neither pathological or pathogenic. A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. it may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development.

Logotherapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life. Inasmuch as logotherapy makes him aware of the hidden logos of his existence, it is an analytical process. To this extent, logotherapy resembles psychoanalysis. However, in logotherapy's attempt to make something conscious again it does not restrict its activity to instinctual facts within the individual's unconscious bu also cares for existential realities, such as the potential meaning of his existence to be fulfilled as well as his will to meaning. Any analysis, however, even when it refrains from including the noological dimension in its therapeutic process, tries to make the patient aware of what he actually longs for in the depth of his being. Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflict claims of id, ego and supergo, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment. ~ Viktor E Frankl,
1472:As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on. ~ W H Auden,
1473:The doctor gave him a look of sympathy. “We won’t have a choice. If left untreated, both mother and child could die. The only cure for eclampsia is delivery of the baby. We’re doing tests to determine the lung maturity of the baby. At thirty-four weeks’ gestation, the child has a very good chance of survival without complications.”

Ryan dug a hand into his hair and closed his eyes. He’d done this to her. She should have been cherished and pampered during her entire pregnancy. She should have been waited on hand and foot. Instead she’d been forced to work a physically demanding job under unimaginable stress. And once he’d brought her back, she’d been subjected to scorn and hostility and endless emotional distress.

Was it any wonder she wanted to wash her hands of him and his family?

“Will…will Kelly be all right? Will she recover from this?”

He didn’t realize he held his breath until his chest began to burn. He let it out slowly and forced himself to relax his hands.

“She’s gravely ill. Her blood pressure is extremely high. She could seize again or suffer a stroke. Neither is good for her or the baby. We’re doing everything we can to bring her blood pressure down and we’re monitoring the baby for signs of stress. We’re prepared to take the baby if the condition of either mother or child deteriorates. It’s important she remain calm and not be stressed in any way. Even if we’re able to bring down her blood pressure and put off the delivery until closer to her due date, she’ll be on strict bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.”

“I understand,” Ryan said quietly. “Can I see her now?”

“You can go in but she must remain calm. Don’t do or say anything to upset her.”

Ryan nodded and turned to walk the few steps to Kelly’s room. He paused at the door, afraid to go in. What if his mere presence upset her?

His hand rested on the handle and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the surface. He closed his eyes as grief and regret—so much regret—swamped him. ~ Maya Banks,
1474:1.    Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted. 2.    Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him. [One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.77 ] 3.    By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near. [In the first case, he will entice him with a bait; in the second, he will strike at some important point which the enemy will have to defend.] 4.    If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him; [This passage may be cited as evidence against Mei Yao-Ch’en’s interpretation of I. ss. 23.] if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if quietly encamped, he can force him to move. 5.    Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected. 6.    An army may march great distances without distress, if it marches through country where the enemy is not. [Ts’ao Kung sums up very well: “Emerge from the void [q.d. like “a bolt from the blue”], strike at vulnerable points, shun places that are defended, attack in unexpected quarters.”] 7.    You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended. [Wang Hsi explains “undefended places” as “weak points; that is to say, where the general is lacking in capacity, or the soldiers in spirit; where the walls are not strong enough, or the precautions not strict enough; where relief comes too late, or provisions are too scanty, or the defenders are variance amongst themselves.”] You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked. [I.e., where there are none of the weak points mentioned above. There is rather a nice point involved in the interpretation of this later clause. Tu ~ Sun Tzu,
1475:Imagine a drug that can intoxicate us, can infuse us with energy, and can do so when taken by mouth. It doesn’t have to be injected, smoked, or snorted for us to experience its sublime and soothing effects. Imagine that it mixes well with virtually every food and particularly liquids, and that when given to infants it provokes a feeling of pleasure so profound and intense that its pursuit becomes a driving force throughout their lives. Overconsumption of this drug may have long-term side effects, but there are none in the short term—no staggering or dizziness, no slurring of speech, no passing out or drifting away, no heart palpitations or respiratory distress. When it is given to children, its effects may be only more extreme variations on the apparently natural emotional roller coaster of childhood, from the initial intoxication to the tantrums and whining of what may or may not be withdrawal a few hours later. More than anything, our imaginary drug makes children happy, at least for the period during which they’re consuming it. It calms their distress, eases their pain, focuses their attention, and then leaves them excited and full of joy until the dose wears off. The only downside is that children will come to expect another dose, perhaps to demand it, on a regular basis. How long would it be before parents took to using our imaginary drug to calm their children when necessary, to alleviate pain, to prevent outbursts of unhappiness, or to distract attention? And once the drug became identified with pleasure, how long before it was used to celebrate birthdays, a soccer game, good grades at school? How long before it became a way to communicate love and celebrate happiness? How long before no gathering of family and friends was complete without it, before major holidays and celebrations were defined in part by the use of this drug to assure pleasure? How long would it be before the underprivileged of the world would happily spend what little money they had on this drug rather than on nutritious meals for their families? ~ Gary Taubes,
1476:Of David. 1 TO YOU, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust;                     do not let me be put to shame;           do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;           let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD;           teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me,           for you are the God of my salvation;           for you I wait all day long. 6 Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love,           for they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;           according to your steadfast love remember me,           for your goodness’ sake, O LORD! 8 Good and upright is the LORD;           therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right,           and teaches the humble his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,           for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. 11 For your name’s sake, O LORD,           pardon my guilt, for it is great. 12 Who are they that fear the LORD?           He will teach them the way that they should choose. 13 They will abide in prosperity,           and their children shall possess the land. 14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,           and he makes his covenant known to them. 15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD,           for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,           for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 Relieve the troubles of my heart,           and bring me [44] out of my distress. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble,           and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider how many are my foes,           and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20 O guard my life, and deliver me;           do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me,           for I wait for you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God,           out of all its troubles. ~ Anonymous,
1477:How Beautiful The Earth Is Still
How beautiful the Earth is still
To thee–how full of Happiness;
How little fraught with real ill
Or shadowy phantoms of distress;
How Spring can bring thee glory yet
And Summer win thee to forget
December's sullen time!
Why dost thou hold the treasure fast
Of youth's delight, when youth is past
And thou art near thy prime?
When those who were thy own compeers,
Equal in fortunes and in years,
Have seen their morning melt in tears,
To dull unlovely day;
Blest, had they died unproved and young
Before their hearts were wildly wrung,
Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,
A weak and helpless prey!
'Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,
And by fulfilment, hope destroyed
As children hope, with trustful breast,
I waited Bliss and cherished Rest.
'A thoughtful Spirit taught me soon
That we must long till life be done;
That every phase of earthly joy
Will always fade and always cloy-'This I foresaw, and would not chase
The fleeting treacheries,
But with firm foot and tranquil face
Held backward from the tempting race,
Gazed o'er the sands the waves efface
To the enduring seas–
'There cast my anchor of Desire
Deep in unknown Eternity;
37
Nor ever let my Spirit tire
With looking for What is to be.
'It is Hope's spell that glorifies
Like youth to my maturer eyes
All Nature's million mysteries-The fearful and the fair–
'Hope soothes me in the griefs I know,
She lulls my pain for others' woe
And makes me strong to undergo
What I am born to bear.
'Glad comforter, will I not brave
Unawed the darkness of the grave?
Nay, smile to hear Death's billows rave,
My Guide, sustained by thee?
The more unjust seems present fate
The more my Spirit springs elate
Strong in thy strength, to anticipate
Rewarding Destiny!
( June 2, 1845)
Charlotte Brontë wrote 'Never was better stuff penned.' in the manuscript of this
poem.
~ Emily Jane Brontë,
1478:The Two Bees
But a few words could William say,
And those few could not speak plain,
Yet thought he was a man one day;
Never saw I boy so vain.
From what could vanity proceed
In such a little lisping lad?
Or was it vanity indeed?
Or was he only very glad?
For he without his maid may go
To the heath with elder boys,
And pluck ripe berries where they grow:
Well may William then rejoice.
Be careful of your little charge;
Elder boys, let him not rove;
The heath is wide, the heath is large,
From your sight he must not move.
But rove he did: they had not been
One short hour the heath upon,
When he was nowhere to be seen;
'Where,' said they, 'is William gone?'
Mind not the elder boys' distress;
Let them run, and let them fly.
Their own neglect and giddiness
They are justly suffering by.
William his little basket filled
With his berries ripe and red;
Then, naughty boy, two bees he killed,
187
Under foot he stamped them dead.
William had coursed them o'er the heath,
After them his steps did wander;
When he was nearly out of breath,
The last bee his foot was under.
A cruel triumph which did not
Last but for a moment's space,
For now he finds that he has got
Out of sight of every face.
What are the berries now to him?
What the bees which he has slain?
Fear now possesses every limb,
He cannot trace his steps again.
The poor bees William had affrighted
In more terror did not haste
Than he from bush to bush, benighted
And alone amid the waste.
Late in the night the child was found:
He who these two bees had crushed
Was lying on the cold damp ground,
Sleep had then his sorrows hushed.
A fever followed from the fright,
And from sleeping in the dew;
He many a day and many a night
Suffered ere he better grew.
His aching limbs while sick he lay
Made him learn the crushed bees' pain;
Oft would he to his mother say,
188
'I ne'er will kill a bee again.'
~ Charles Lamb,
1479:Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old,
we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of
civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because
of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we
shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the
sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall be happy.
The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul
and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing
you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up,
consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is
the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of
iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: 'I
am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their
agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies
in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn. ~ Victor Hugo,
1480:The waiter brought the drinks. After he had moved silently away, I looked at her and said, “You’re not involved in any of this?” She looked into her glass. Several seconds went by. “You want an honest answer, or a really honest answer?” she asked. “Give me both.” “Okay,” she said, nodding. “The honest answer is no.” She took a sip of the Highland Park. Closed her eyes. “The really honest answer is, is…” “Is, not yet,” I said quietly. Her eyes opened and she looked at me. “How do you know?” I watched her for a moment, feeling her distress, seeing an opportunity. “You’re being suborned,” I said. “It’s a process, a series of techniques. If you even half realize it, you’re smarter than most. You’ve also got a chance to do something about it, if you want to.” “What do you mean?” I sipped from my glass, watching the amber liquid glowing in the candlelight, remembering. “You start slow. You find the subject’s limits and get him to spend some time there. He gets used to it. Before long, the limits have moved. You never take him more than a centimeter beyond. You make it feel it’s his choice.” I looked at her. “You told me when you first got to the club you were so shy you could hardly move on the stage.” “Yes, that’s true.” “At that point you would never have done a lap dance.” “No.” “But now you can.” “Yes.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. “When you did your first lap dance, you probably said you would never let a customer touch you.” “I did say that,” she said. Her voice had gone lower. “Of course you did. I could go on. I could tell you where you’ll be three months from now, six months, a year. Twenty years, if you keep going where you’re going. Naomi, you think this is all an accident? It’s a science. There are people out there who are experts at getting others to do tomorrow what was unthinkable today.” But for her breath, moving rapidly in and out through her nostrils, she was silent, and I wondered if she was fighting tears. I needed to push it just a little further before backing off. “You want to know what’s next for you?” I asked. She looked at me but said nothing. ~ Barry Eisler,
1481:Remembrance
How dear to me the twilight hour!
It breathes, it speaks of pleasures past;
When Laura sought this humble bower,
And o'er it courtly splendours cast.
Fond fancy's friend, dim twilight, hail!
Thou canst the absent nymph restore;
And as around thy shadows sail,
They bring the form I still adore.
Again her pensive smile I view,
Her modest eye's soft chastened fire;
And mark her cheek of tender hue
From thee a softer tint acquire.
No eye but mine in that dim hour
The softly blushing maid could see;
And then her voice of magic power
Charmed with its sweetness none but me.
But now, alas! to distant plains,
To crowded scenes, perhaps, she flies;
She speaks, to charm unnumbered swains;
She smiles, to bless unnumbered eyes.
Yet if, while crowds before thee bow,
Thy lips to favouring smiles incline,
Think not, sweet maid, their bosoms glow
With love as pure, as true as mine.
Reflect,....I knelt before thy feet,
Afraid to speak, or look, or move,
Nor e'en thy pity dared entreat
For hours of hopeless pining love.
They can with bold unfaltering tongue
Their loudly-boasted flame reveal;
But, Laura, spurn the heartless throng,
They talk of pangs I only feel .
38
From glowing cheeks, and sparkling eyes,
O turn, my Laura! turn to him
From whose sunk cheek the colour flies,
Whose eye with hopeless love is dim.
O turn to me, whose blighted youth
The wreck of former days appears!....
But well the change has proved my truth,
And thou wilt own that change endears.
Yet, no; ah, no! forget, forget
My ardent love, my faith, and me;
Remember not we ever met;
I would not cause one pang to thee.
And when I hear that thou art blest,
My own distress I'll learn to scorn;
I'll bid imperious anguish rest,
While smiles my pallid lips adorn.
Deep in my heart the load of grief,
Concealed from every glance, shall lie;
Till sorrow proves its own relief,
And I shall suffer, smile, and die.
~ Amelia Opie,
1482:Says Mister Doojabs
Well, eight months ago one clear cold day,
I took a ramble up Broadway,
And with my hands behind my back
I strolled along on the streetcar track—
(I walked on the track, for walking there
Gives one, I think, a distinguished air.)
'Well, all of a sudden I felt a jar
And I said, 'I’ll bet that’s a trolley car,'
And, sure enough, when I looked to see
I saw it had run right over me!
And my limbs and things were so scattered about
That for a moment I felt put out.
Well, the motorman was a nice young chap!
And he came right up and tipped his cap
And said, 'Beg pardon,' and was so kind
That his gentle manner soothed my mind:
Especially as he took such pains
To gather up my spilt remains.
Well, he found my arms and found my head,
And then, in a contrite voice, he said,
'Say, mister, I guess I’ll have to beg Your pardon,
I can’t find your left leg,'
And he would have wept, but I said,
'No! no! It doesn’t matter, just let it go.'
Well, I went on home and on the way
I considered what my wife would say:
I knew she would have some sharp reply
If I let her know I was one leg shy,
So I thought, on the whole, ’twould be just as well
For my peace of mind if I didn’t tell.
Well, that was the first thing in my life
That I kept a secret from my wife.
And for eight long months I was in distress
To think that I didn’t dare confess,
53
And I’d probably still feel just that way
If it hadn’t come ’round to Christmas Day.
Well, in good old customs I still believe,
So I hung up my stocking Christmas Eve;
(A brand-new left one I’d never worn.)
And when I looked in it Christmas morn
There was my leg, as large as life,
With a ticket on it, 'From your wife.'
Well, my wife had had it stored away
In cotton, since last Easter Day,
When she ran across it, quite by chance,
In the left hip-pocket of my pants;
And the only reproachful thing she said
Was, 'Look out or some day you’ll lose your head.'
~ Ellis Parker Butler,
1483:One final note here: you’ve probably noticed that whenever I mention serial killers, I always refer to them as “he.” This isn’t just a matter of form or syntactical convenience. For reasons we only partially understand, virtually all multiple killers are male. There’s been a lot of research and speculation into it. Part of it is probably as simple as the fact that people with higher levels of testosterone (i.e., men) tend to be more aggressive than people with lower levels (i.e., women). On a psychological level, our research seems to show that while men from abusive backgrounds often come out of the experience hostile and abusive to others, women from similar backgrounds tend to direct the rage and abusiveness inward and punish themselves rather than others. While a man might kill, hurt, or rape others as a way of dealing with his rage, a woman is more likely to channel it into something that would hurt primarily herself, such as drug or alcohol abuse, prostitution, or suicide attempts. I can’t think of a single case of a woman acting out a sexualized murder on her own. The one exception to this generality, the one place we do occasionally see women involved in multiple murders, is in a hospital or nursing home situation. A woman is unlikely to kill repeatedly with a gun or knife. It does happen with something “clean” like drugs. These often fall into the category of either “mercy homicide,” in which the killer believes he or she is relieving great suffering, or the “hero homicide,” in which the death is the unintentional result of causing the victim distress so he can be revived by the offender, who is then declared a hero. And, of course, we’ve all been horrified by the cases of mothers, such as the highly publicized Susan Smith case in South Carolina, killing their own children. There is generally a particular set of motivations for this most unnatural of all crimes, which we’ll get into later on. But for the most part, the profile of the serial killer or repeat violent offender begins with “male.” Without that designation, my colleagues and I would all be happily out of a job. ~ John Edward Douglas,
1484:To The Heroic Soul
Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring
That wells beneath the secret inner shrine;
Commune with its deep murmur,--'tis divine;
Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring
The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing
The inlet of thy being. Learn to know
These powers, and life with all its venom and show
Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting:
And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more
Than all the deepest woes of all the world;
Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth;
Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door;
And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled;
And death shall touch thee not but a new birth.
II
Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth
Kings are but wraiths, republics fade like rain,
Peoples are reaped and garnered as the grain,
And that alone prevails which is the truth:
Be strong when all the days of life bear ruth
And fury, and are hot with toil and strain:
Hold thy large faith and quell thy mighty pain:
Dream the great dream that buoys thine age with youth.
Thou art an eagle mewed in a sea-stopped cave:
He, poised in darkness with victorious wings,
Keeps night between the granite and the sea,
Until the tide has drawn the warder-wave:
Then from the portal where the ripple rings,
He bursts into the boundless morning,--free!
RETROSPECT
143
This is the mockery of the moving years;
Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow
Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow,
Even slower than the fount of human tears
To empty, the consuming shadow nears
That Time is casting on the worldly show
Of pomp and glory. But falter not;--below
That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers.
Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure
To catch thy heart up from a dark distress;
It were enough to find one deed mature,
Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press;
To save one memory of the sweet and pure,
From out life's failure and its bitterness.
~ Duncan Campbell Scott,
1485:Then the events leading up to her collapse came back to her in a flash. Her hands flew automatically to her belly and she was only partially reassured to feel the tight ball there. Was her baby okay? Was she herself okay?

She blinked harder to bring the room more into focus. There was light shining through a crack in the bathroom door. A glance at the blinds told her that it was dark outside.

Then her gaze fell on the chair beside her bed and she found Ryan staring at her, his gaze intense. She flinched away from the raw emotion shining in his blue eyes.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“Numb,” she answered before she could think better of it. “Kind of blank. My head doesn’t hurt anymore. Are my feet still swollen?”

He carefully picked up the sheet and pushed it over her feet. “Maybe a little. Not as bad as they were. They’ve been giving you meds and they’re monitoring the baby.”

“How is she?” Kelly asked, a knot of fear in her throat.

“For now, she’s doing fine. Your blood pressure stabilized, but they might have to do a C-section if it goes back up or if the baby starts showing signs of distress.”

Kelly closed her eyes and then suddenly Ryan was close to her, holding her, his lips pressed against her temple.

“Don’t worry, love,” he murmured. “You’re supposed to stay calm. You’re getting the best possible care. I’ve made sure of it. They’re monitoring you round-the-clock. And the doctor said the baby has an excellent prognosis at thirty-four weeks’ gestation.”

She sagged against the pillow and closed her eyes. Relief pulsed through her but she was so tired she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything more than lie there thanking God that her baby was okay.

“I’m going to take care of you, Kell,” Ryan said softly against her temple. “You and our baby. Nothing will ever hurt you again. I swear it.”

Tears burned her eyelids. She was emotionally and physically exhausted and didn’t have the strength to argue. Something inside her was broken and she had no idea how to fix it. She felt so…disconnected. ~ Maya Banks,
1486:Letty wanted to know every detail of Laura's going. As she asked and listened, her heart beat uncomfortably fast and she felt that, if she did not take care, she would burst into tears. Laura had gone; she had broken away.

'It's not fair! It's not fair!' Letty cried to herself. Laura had got what she wanted; whatever happened to her afterwards she had got, once, what she wanted. She had had the courage to take it.

'Not that I ever wanted to go off with a man,' Letty had thought on the way to Greenbanks with Ambrose. No, she had never seen anyone she wanted to go off with. When she thought of going, it was never with a man. Once she had indulged in wild dreams. For years after she was married she felt that someone would one day come, someone she could love with all her heart, with that high, free elation and that deep satisfaction she could imagine. She would be able to share everything with him; her fears in the night about loneliness, death, the end of things. He would understand, she felt, but he would not explain, for after all there is no explanation. He would laugh, too, at what she laughed at; he would enjoy shop incidents, tram incidents, street incidents - all the queer, funny things that go to make up every day. Letty felt, for years, that someone like this would come before it was too late.

'It's not really me, having the children and living with Ambrose,' she would think in bewilderment. 'This isn't my life really; it will all be different soon. I shall begin to live as I want to - soon.'

But the years went on and now she was over forty and looked for nobody to rescue her as if she were a damsel in distress. She no longer expected to be loved by any man. Men wanted youth and beauty; no matter how old and ugly they were themselves, they felt entitled to youth and beauty in women. She had missed the great love she had dreamed of as a girl, but she thought about it no more. Her wishes had changed as she grew older; she now only wanted to get away by herself, to enjoy life in her own way. [...] She knew what she wanted, but could not have; it was freedom. ~ Dorothy Whipple,
1487:Here Follows Some Verses Upon The Burning Of Our
House
In silent night when rest I took
For sorrow near I did not look
I waked was with thund'ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of "Fire!" and "Fire!"
Let no man know is my desire.
I, starting up, the light did spy,
And to my God my heart did cry
To strengthen me in my distress
And not to leave me succorless.
Then, coming out, beheld a space
The flame consume my dwelling place.
And when I could no longer look,
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine;
He might of all justly bereft
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the ruins oft I past
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast,
And here and there the places spy
Where oft I sat and long did lie:
Here stood that trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best.
My pleasant things in ashes lie,
And them behold no more shall I.
Under thy roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy table eat a bit.
No pleasant tale shall e'er be told,
Nor things recounted done of old.
No candle e'er shall shine in thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice e'er heard shall be.
In silence ever shall thou lie,
Adieu, Adieu, all's vanity.
Then straight I 'gin my heart to chide,
50
And did thy wealth on earth abide?
Didst fix thy hope on mold'ring dust?
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast an house on high erect,
Framed by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though this be fled.
It's purchased and paid for too
By Him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown
Yet by His gift is made thine own;
There's wealth enough, I need no more,
Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store.
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
~ Anne Bradstreet,
1488:I do apologize, Mrs. Travers, for causing you undue distress. I certainly didn’t deliberately set out to get in my current predicament. It simply . . . happened.” “But how did it happen?” Mrs. Travers demanded. “That’s a bit difficult to explain,” Wilhelmina began. She was spared further response, though, when Miss Cadwalader took that moment to join the conversation. “She’s under there because of the mouse,” Miss Cadwalader said in a very loud, very carrying, voice before she took what looked to be some type of cookie from the platter and began nibbling around the edges of it. “A . . . mouse?” Mrs. Travers repeated slowly. Miss Cadwalader stopped nibbling and nodded. “Indeed, and it wasn’t a little mouse, mind you, but an enormous one, with rather large teeth.” She sent what almost seemed to be the smallest of winks Wilhelmina’s way. “Miss Radcliff should be commended for being brave enough to take on such a beast, but as she was attempting to lure the creature away, she got stuck underneath that chair.” Miss Cadwalader heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately the mouse charged straight through the middle of the ballroom floor.” Edgar could only watch in dumbfounded amazement as chaos immediately took over the ball. The chaos started when one of the ladies who’d been inching ever so casually closer to them let out a shriek, lifted up the hem of her skirt, and was soon standing on top of a chair, joined seconds later by additional ladies, their shrieks about mice being on the loose echoing around the ballroom. In the span of a single minute, all the chairs were occupied with ladies holding their hems up as servants began dashing into the room, all of them carrying brooms. Edgar heard Wilhelmina toss “That was brilliant” Miss Cadwalader’s way as Mrs. Travers seemingly forgot all about Wilhelmina being stuck underneath a chair as she hurried off to join the chaos that was interrupting her ball. Miss Cadwalader grinned. “I do have my uses.” Wilhelmina returned the grin. “Indeed you do—even though I have to say that, if I had seen a mouse, I’m hardly the type to throw myself on the floor in an attempt to lure it away.” With ~ Jen Turano,
1489:Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House, July 18th,
1666
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I waken'd was with thund'ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of 'fire' and 'fire,'
Let no man know is my Desire.
I starting up, the light did spy,
And to my God my heart did cry
To straighten me in my Distress
And not to leave me succourless.
Then coming out, behold a space
The flame consume my dwelling place.
And when I could no longer look,
I blest his grace that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was his own; it was not mine.
Far be it that I should repine,
He might of all justly bereft
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the Ruins oft I past
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast
And here and there the places spy
Where oft I sate and long did lie.
Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best,
My pleasant things in ashes lie
And them behold no more shall I.
Under the roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy Table eat a bit.
No pleasant talk shall 'ere be told
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.
In silence ever shalt thou lie.
Adieu, Adieu, All's Vanity.
Then straight I 'gin my heart to chide:
192
And did thy wealth on earth abide,
Didst fix thy hope on mouldring dust,
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast a house on high erect
Fram'd by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished
Stands permanent, though this be fled.
It's purchased and paid for too
By him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by his gift is made thine own.
There's wealth enough; I need no more.
Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store.
The world no longer let me love;
My hope and Treasure lies above.
~ Anne Bradstreet,
1490:Never having experienced inequality, therefore, the majority of straight white men will be absolutely oblivious to their own advantages – not because they must necessarily be insensitive, sexist, racist, homophobic or unaware of the principles of equality; but because they have been told, over and over again, that there is no inequality left for them – or anyone else – to experience – and everything they have experienced up to that point will only have proved them right.

Let the impact of that sink in for a moment.

By teaching children and teenagers that equality already exists, we are actively blinding the group that most benefits from inequality – straight white men – to the prospect that it doesn’t. Privilege to them feels indistinguishable from equality, because they’ve been raised to believe that this is how the world behaves for everyone. And because the majority of our popular culture is straight-white-male-dominated, stories that should be windows into empathy for other, less privileged experiences have instead become mirrors, reflecting back at them the one thing they already know: that their lives both are important and free from discrimination.

And this hurts men. It hurts them by making them unconsciously perpetrate biases they’ve been actively taught to despise. It hurts them by making them complicit in the distress of others. It hurts them by shoehorning them into a restrictive definition masculinity from which any and all deviation is harshly punished. It hurts them by saying they will always be inferior parents and caregivers, that they must always be active and aggressive even when they long for passivity and quietude, that they must enjoy certain things like sports and beer and cars or else be deemed morally suspect. It hurts them through a process of indoctrination so subtle and pervasive that they never even knew it was happening , and when you’ve been raised to hate inequality, discovering that you’ve actually been its primary beneficiary is horrifying – like learning that the family fortune comes from blood money.

Blog post 4/12/2012: Why Teaching Equality Hurts Men ~ Foz Meadows,
1491:She shifted gears as they left Worth Avenue, hurtling them along the beach at just sublight speed. “Jesus, Addison, you are so blind,” she finally exploded. “She comes in playing the damsel in distress, and you buy all of it.”
“She did n—”
“‘Oh, Richard, I need your help,’” she mimicked, doing a startlingly good impression of Patricia’s soft, cultured Brit—especially since the two women had barely spoken a total of five words to one another. “’I’ve left Peter, and I so badly want to make a new start, but I just don’t know how to do it on my own. You’re so big and strong and successful, can’t you see it in your heart to help me?’” Samantha canted her eyes at him. “Did it go a little like that?”
Christ. “Maybe,” he hedged. “But—”
“See? She wants you back.”
“Well, she can’t have me. I’m taken. But she asked for my help, and I’m partially the reason she’s in this position.”
“No, she put herself on her back and then you put her in the next position.”
“Even so—”
“You can’t resist putting on your shining armor, can you?” she said more calmly, blowing out her breath. “And if I know it, then she knows it, too.”

“Honestly, Samantha, I think it’s more a matter of Patricia actually being helpless than her acting that way to gain my assistance. I doubt she could find a grocery store on her own, much less the toothpaste aisle.”
“But she’s not after toothpaste.”

As they stopped at a light, Richard leaned over and grabbed Samantha’s face, kissing her hard on her surprised mouth. “Don’t worry about this. You won’t have to deal with her.”
“Maybe not, but you will. And keep in mind that she’s got a subscriber website where she gives advice about how not to get screwed in a divorce.”
“She does?”
“Yes. Interesting stuff. You really need to spend more time surfing the ’net.”
“Shit.” Before Samantha could follow up her smug look with more commentary, he took a breath. “I’ll make dumping the website a condition of my helping her.”
“Great. She won’t need the site, anyway, because she’ll be busy screwing you over in person, instead.”
“No one screws me over, Samantha. Ever.”
“Yet, smart guy. Yet. ~ Suzanne Enoch,
1492:The Litanies Of Satan
O you, the most knowing, and loveliest of Angels,
a god fate betrayed, deprived of praises,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
O, Prince of exile to whom wrong has been done,
who, vanquished, always recovers more strongly,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who know everything, king of the underworld,
the familiar healer of human distress,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who teach even lepers, accursed pariahs,
through love itself the taste for Paradise,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
O you who on Death, your ancient true lover,
engendered Hope – that lunatic charmer!
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who grant the condemned that calm, proud look
that damns a whole people crowding the scaffold,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who know in what corners of envious countries
a jealous God hid those stones that are precious,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You whose clear eye knows the deep caches
where, buried, the race of metals slumbers,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You whose huge hands hide the precipice,
from the sleepwalker on the sky-scraper’s cliff,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who make magically supple the bones
of the drunkard, out late, who’s trampled by horses,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who taught us to mix saltpetre with sulphur
to console the frail human being who suffers,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who set your mark, o subtle accomplice,
on the forehead of Croesus, the vile and pitiless,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
You who set in the hearts and eyes of young girls
the cult of the wound, adoration of rags,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
461
The exile’s staff, the light of invention,
confessor to those to be hanged, to conspirators,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
Father, adopting those whom God the Father
drove in dark anger from the earthly paradise,
O Satan, take pity on my long misery!
~ Charles Baudelaire,
1493:Siste Viator
WHAT is it that is dead?
Somewhere there is a grave, and something lies
Cold in the ground, and stirs not for my sighs,
Nor songs that I can make, nor smiles from me,
Nor tenderest foolish words that I have said;
Something that was has hushed, and will not be.
Did it go yesterday?
Or did it wane away with the old years?
There hath not been farewell, nor watchers' tears,
Nor hopes, nor vain reprieves, nor strife with death,
Nor lingering in a meted out delay;
None closed the eyes nor felt the latest breath.
But, be there joyous skies,
It is not in their sunshine; in the night
It is not in the silence, and the light
Of all the silver stars; the flowers asleep
Dream no more of it, nor their morning eyes
Betray the secrets it has bidden them keep.
Birds that go singing now
Forget it and leave sweetness meaningless;
The fitful nightingale, that feigns distress
To sing it all away, flows on by rote;
The seeking lark, in very heaven, I trow,
Shall find no memory to inform her note.
The voices of the shore
Chime not with it for burden; in the wood,
Where it has soul of the vast solitude,
It hath forsook the stillness; dawn and day
And the deep-thoughted dusk know it no more;
It is no more the freshness of the May.
Joy hath it not for heart;
Nor music for its second, subtler, tongue,
Sounding what music's self hath never sung;
Nor very Sorrow needs it help her weep.
145
Vanished from everywhere! what was a part
Of all and everywhere; lost into sleep!
What was it ere it went?
Whence had it birth? What is its name to call,
That gone unmissed has left a want in all?
Or shall I cry on Youth, in June-time still?
Or cry on Hope, who long since am content?
Or Love, who hold him ready at my will?
What is it that is dead?
Breath of a flower? sea-freshness on a wind?
Oh, dearest, what is that that we should find,
If you and I at length could win it back?
What have we lost and know not it hath fled?
Heart of my heart, could it be love we lack?
~ Augusta Davies Webster,
1494:The Boy And The Snake
Henry was every morning fed
With a full mess of milk and bread.
One day the boy his breakfast took,
And eat it by a purling brook
Which through his mother's orchard ran.
From that time ever when he can
Escape his mother's eye, he there
Takes his food in th'open air.
Finding the child delight to eat
Abroad, and make the grass his seat,
His mother lets him have his way.
With free leave Henry every day
Thither repairs, until she heard
Him talking of a fine grey bird.
This pretty bird, he said, indeed,
Came every day with him to feed,
And it loved him, and loved his milk,
And it was smooth and soft like silk.
His mother thought she'd go and see
What sort of bird this same might be.
So the next morn she follows Harry,
And carefully she sees him carry
Through the long grass his heaped-up mess.
What was her terror and distress,
When she saw the infant take
His bread and milk close to a snake!
Upon the grass he spreads his feast,
And sits down by his frightful guest,
Who had waited for the treat;
And now they both begin to eat.
Fond mother! shriek not, O beware
The least small noise, O have a careThe least small noise that may be made,
The wily snake will be afraidIf he hear the lightest sound,
He will inflict th'envenomed wound.
She speaks not, moves not, scarce does breathe,
As she stands the trees beneath;
No sound she utters; and she soon
126
Sees the child lift up its spoon,
And tap the snake upon the head,
Fearless of harm; and then he said,
As speaking to familiar mate,
'Keep on your own side, do, Grey Pate:'
The snake then to the other side,
As one rebukëd, seems to glide;
And now again advancing nigh,
Again she hears the infant cry,
Tapping the snake, 'Keep further, do;
Mind, Grey Pate, what I say to you.'
The danger's o'er-she sees the boy
(O what a change from fear to joy!)
Rise and bid the snake 'good-bye;'
Says he, 'Our breakfast's done, and I
Will come again to-morrow day:'
Then, lightly tripping, ran away.
~ Charles Lamb,
1495:...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.

...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished.

And this is a damnable doctrine. ~ Charles Darwin,
1496:I am Yours and born of You, What do You want of me? Majestic Sovereign, Unending wisdom, Kindness pleasing to my soul; God sublime, one Being Good, Behold this one so vile. Singing of her love to you: What do You want of me? Yours, you made me, Yours, you saved me, Yours, you endured me, Yours, you called me, Yours, you awaited me, Yours, I did not stray. What do You want of me? Good Lord, what do you want of me, What is this wretch to do? What work is this, This sinful slave, to do? Look at me, Sweet Love, Sweet Love, look at me, What do You want of me? In Your hand I place my heart, Body, life and soul, Deep feelings and affections mine, Spouse -- Redeemer sweet, Myself offered now to you, What do You want of me? Give me death, give me life, Health or sickness, Honor or shame, War or swelling peace, Weakness or full strength, Yes, to these I say, What do You want of me? Give me wealth or want, Delight or distress, Happiness or gloominess, Heaven or hell, Sweet life, sun unveiled, To you I give all. What do You want of me? Give me, if You will, prayer; Or let me know dryness, And abundance of devotion, Or if not, then barrenness. In you alone, Sovereign Majesty, I find my peace, What do You want of me? Give me then wisdom. Or for love, ignorance, Years of abundance, Or hunger and famine. Darkness or sunlight, Move me here or there: What do You want of me? If You want me to rest, I desire it for love; If to labor, I will die working: Sweet Love say Where, how and when. What do You want of me? Calvary or Tabor give me, Desert or fruitful land; As Job in suffering Or John at Your breast; Barren or fruited vine, Whatever be Your will: What do You want of me? Be I Joseph chained Or as Egypt's governor, David pained Or exalted high, Jonas drowned, Or Jonas freed: What do You want of me? Silent or speaking, Fruitbearing or barren, My wounds shown by the Law, Rejoicing in the tender Gospel; Sorrowing or exulting, You alone live in me: What do You want of me? Yours I am, for You I was born: What do You want of me? [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila: Volume Three, Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD / Translated by Otilio Rodriguez, OCD

~ Saint Teresa of Avila, In the Hands of God
,
1497:My lady?” He came inside just in time to catch her as her legs collapsed. “Kat!” He looked at her anxiously. “Are you all right? I could feel your pain and distress—it worried me.” Kat smiled at him weakly. “Just the same old thing. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.” She sighed. “Where’s Deep?” Lock’s handsome features tightened. “I don’t know and I don’t care to know.” “What? So you two really are fighting?” she asked as he carried her back to the bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. “It goes beyond that.” Lock stripped off his shirt and climbed into the bed beside her. Kat sighed in relief when she felt his warm hand on her arm. She didn’t even protest when he pulled her blouse gently over her head, leaving her bare from the top up except for her bra. “We should call him, even if you are fighting,” she said as Lock pulled her close, pressing his broad chest to her back. “Don’t want to hurt you.” “The pain is nothing,” Lock assured her gently. “It’s more than worth it to be near you, my lady. Especially when…” His voice faltered for a moment. “When I’m going to lose you so soon.” “Oh, Lock…” Kat could feel his sorrow welling up, a sense of loss so great it nearly smothered her with its intensity. Still, she didn’t draw back or try to get away. Instead, she turned in his arms so she was facing him and drew him into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his shoulder. “So sorry.” “So am I.” It sounded like Lock might be crying. His large form shook against hers and Kat held him tighter, wishing she could comfort him better. “I love you, Kat,” he whispered brokenly. “And the idea of being torn apart from you tomorrow—of losing what little bond we have between us—it feels like death to me. Like the end of everything.” “I love you too,” Kat admitted. “And…I feel like I could love Deep. If only he would let me. If only he wanted me to.” Lock stiffened in her arms. “He won’t. He doesn’t. There’s no point in even considering it. No hope.” A low growl rose in his throat. “Gods, I wish I wasn’t tied to him.” “Don’t say that,” Kat said softly. “You’re brothers—twins. You ought to be close.” “How can I want to be close to him when he’s killing the only relationship that ever mattered to me? ~ Evangeline Anderson,
1498:This means that most of the births they have seen were to women on epidurals lying still during labor, waiting for it all to be over. Seeing this kind of birth over and over again causes a subconscious imprint on the mind, and many women develop enough fear of the pains of childbirth that they block the messages their bodies give them about other positions they might take in labor. Others may simply fear diverging from the norm. A woman in the first stage of labor may find it beneficial to try several upright positions: standing, perhaps leaning on a counter or tray table; slow dancing with her partner; sitting while leaning forward or propped up with pillows; squatting; or sitting in a rocking chair. Sometimes one position suffices, but laboring women usually like to change from one position to another as labor progresses. One of the most effective labors I ever witnessed was that of a first-time mother giving birth to a very large baby. She moved through the first part of labor very efficiently by belly-dancing while putting as much of her weight as possible on a long staff she was holding to steady herself. She then pushed her baby out while leaning on the bed in a kneeling position. A woman’s position during labor and birth may affect her ability to breastfeed in a couple of ways. Dr. Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia, an Uruguayan obstetrician, was one of the first to scientifically investigate the effects of maternal position on labor. In 1979 he published a study now regarded as a classic, which demonstrated that mothers in a “vertical” position had thirty-six percent shorter opening stages of labor than “horizontal” women; the “vertical” women also reported less pain than the “horizontals.” Walking helped labor progress as well, because it brought the pressure of the baby’s head against the cervix, helping it to thin and open. And the “vertical” mothers’ babies’ heads were less apt to be extremely molded just after birth, indicating a somewhat smoother passage through the mother’s birth canal. Equally important, the babies of women who gave birth in upright positions had less fetal distress at birth.5 These factors all increase the chances that a woman will have a good early breastfeeding experience. Dr. ~ Ina May Gaskin,
1499:Slavery became a huge, international business, and of course would remain one down to the present moment. It’s estimated that at the midpoint of the fifth century every third or fourth person in Athens was a slave. When Carthage fell to Rome in 146 B.C.E., fifty thousand of the survivors were sold as slaves. In 132 B.C.E. some seventy thousand Roman slaves rebelled; when the revolt was put down, twenty thousand were crucified, but this was far from the end of Rome’s problems with its slaves.               But new signs of distress appeared in this period that were far more relevant to our purpose here tonight. For the first time in history, people were beginning to suspect that something fundamentally wrong was going on here. For the first time in history, people were beginning to feel empty, were beginning to feel that their lives were not amounting to enough, were beginning to wonder if this is all there is to life, were beginning to hanker after something vaguely more. For the first time in history, people began listening to religious teachers who promised them salvation.               It's impossible to overstate the novelty of this idea of salvation. Religion had been around in our culture for thousands of years, of course, but it had never been about salvation as we understand it or as the people of this period began to understand it. Earlier gods had been talismanic gods of kitchen and crop, mining and mist, house-painting and herding, stroked at need like lucky charms, and earlier religions had been state religions, part of the apparatus of sovereignty and governance (as is apparent from their temples, built for royal ceremonies, not for popular public devotions).               Judaism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Buddhism all came into being during this period and had no existence before it. Quite suddenly, after six thousand years of totalitarian agriculture and civilization building, the people of our culture—East and West, twins of a single birth—were beginning to wonder if their lives made sense, were beginning to perceive a void in themselves that economic success and civil esteem could not fill, were beginning to imagine that something was profoundly, even innately, wrong with them. ~ Daniel Quinn,
1500:So then let the Adept set this sigil upon all the Words he hath writ in the book of the Works of his Will. And let him then end all, saying: Such are the Words!2 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose. Let the Adept perform this ritual right, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons; next thrice, noon added, for three moons; afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in constant ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.3 For know that the true Formula4 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:

INVOKE OFTEN

So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth The Beast, and prayeth his own Angel that this Book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.

1. There is an alternative spelling, TzBA-F, where the Root, "an Host," has the value of 93. The Practicus should revise this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will, and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
2. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word," add (Hebrew values) to 93 [reading the Sigma as Samekh = 60; reading it as Shin = 300 gives 333], and ΕΠΗ, "Words" (whence "Epic") has also that value; ΕΙ∆Ε ΤΑ ΕΠΗ might be the phrase here intended; its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX, III, 75.
3. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's phyiscal or mental health on à priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh,

IN CHAPTERS [150/324]



   97 Poetry
   63 Integral Yoga
   27 Philosophy
   27 Christianity
   22 Occultism
   19 Yoga
   15 Psychology
   14 Fiction
   8 Mythology
   8 Mysticism
   5 Hinduism
   4 Science
   2 Theosophy
   2 Baha i Faith
   1 Sufism
   1 Philsophy
   1 Integral Theory
   1 Buddhism
   1 Alchemy


   54 Sri Aurobindo
   34 William Wordsworth
   17 The Mother
   16 Friedrich Nietzsche
   15 Sri Ramakrishna
   15 Satprem
   13 Saint Teresa of Avila
   12 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   11 Carl Jung
   10 Saint Augustine of Hippo
   7 Percy Bysshe Shelley
   7 Ovid
   7 H P Lovecraft
   6 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
   6 John Keats
   6 James George Frazer
   6 Anonymous
   5 William Butler Yeats
   5 Aleister Crowley
   4 Vyasa
   4 Robert Browning
   4 Plato
   4 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
   3 Rabindranath Tagore
   3 Nirodbaran
   3 Jordan Peterson
   2 Swami Vivekananda
   2 Swami Krishnananda
   2 Saint John of Climacus
   2 Lucretius
   2 Jorge Luis Borges
   2 Henry David Thoreau
   2 Baha u llah
   2 Alice Bailey
   2 Aldous Huxley


   34 Wordsworth - Poems
   14 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   12 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
   11 The Bible
   11 Record of Yoga
   11 Letters On Yoga IV
   10 The Synthesis Of Yoga
   8 The Way of Perfection
   8 City of God
   7 Shelley - Poems
   7 Metamorphoses
   7 Lovecraft - Poems
   6 Words Of Long Ago
   6 The Golden Bough
   6 Mysterium Coniunctionis
   6 Keats - Poems
   5 Yeats - Poems
   4 Vishnu Purana
   4 Twilight of the Idols
   4 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
   4 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   4 Browning - Poems
   3 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
   3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
   3 Tagore - Poems
   3 Some Answers From The Mother
   3 Maps of Meaning
   3 Magick Without Tears
   3 Faust
   3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
   3 Agenda Vol 13
   2 Walden
   2 Vedic and Philological Studies
   2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
   2 The Secret Doctrine
   2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
   2 The Perennial Philosophy
   2 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
   2 The Future of Man
   2 The Divine Comedy
   2 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
   2 On the Way to Supermanhood
   2 Of The Nature Of Things
   2 Letters On Yoga III
   2 Let Me Explain
   2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
   2 Essays On The Gita
   2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
   2 Collected Poems
   2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
   2 Agenda Vol 08


0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  This AGENDA ... One day, another species among men will pore over this fabulous document as over the tumultuous drama that must have surrounded the birth of the first man among the hostile hordes of a great, delirious Paleozoic. A first man is the dangerous contradiction of a certain simian logic, a threat to the established order that so genteelly ran about amid the high, indefeasible ferns - and to begin with, it does not even know that it is a man. It wonders, indeed, what it is. Even to itself it is strange, Distressing. It does not even know how to climb trees any longer in its usual way
  - and it is terribly disturbing for all those who still climb trees in the old, millennial way. Perhaps it is even a heresy. Unless it is some cerebral disorder? A first man in his little clearing had to have a great deal of courage. Even this little clearing was no longer so sure. A first man is a perpetual question. What am I, then, in the midst of all that? And where is my law? What is the law? And what if there were no more laws? ... It is terrifying. Mathematics - out of order. Astronomy and biology, too, are beginning to respond to mysterious influences. A tiny point huddled in the center of the world's great clearing. But what is all this, what if I were 'mad'? And then, claws all around, a lot of claws against this uncommon creature. A first man ... is very much alone. He is quite unbearable for the pre-human 'reason.' And the surrounding tribes growled like red monkies in the twilight of Guiana.
  One day, we were like this first man in the great, stridulant night of the Oyapock. Our heart was beating with the rediscovery of a very ancient mystery - suddenly, it was absolutely new to be a man amidst the diorite cascades and the pretty red and black coral snakes slithering beneath the leaves. It was even more extraordinary to be a man than our old confirmed tribes, with their infallible equations and imprescriptible biologies, could ever have dreamed. It was an absolutely uncertain 'quantum' that delightfully eluded whatever one thought of it, including perhaps what even the scholars thought of it. It flowed otherwise, it felt otherwise. It lived in a kind of flawless continuity with the sap of the giant balata trees, the cry of the macaws and the scintillating water of a little fountain. It 'understood' in a very different way. To understand was to be in everything. Just a quiver, and one was in the skin of a little iguana in Distress. The skin of the world was very vast.
  To be a man after rediscovering a million years was mysteriously like being something still other than man, a strange, unfinished possibility that could also be all kinds of other things. It was not in the dictionary, it was fluid and boundless - it had become a man through habit, but in truth, it was formidably virgin, as if all the old laws belonged to laggard barbarians. Then other moons began whirring through the skies to the cry of macaws at sunset, another rhythm was born that was strangely in tune with the rhythm of all, making one single flow of the world, and there we went, lightly, as if the body had never had any weight other than that of our human thought; and the stars were so near, even the giant airplanes roaring overhead seemed vain artifices beneath smiling galaxies. A man was the overwhelming Possible. He was even the great discoverer of the Possible.

0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
   Naturally the temple officials took him for an insane person. His worldly well-wishers brought him to skilled physicians; but no-medicine could cure his malady. Many a time he doubted his sanity himself. For he had been sailing across an uncharted sea, with no earthly guide to direct him. His only haven of security was the Divine Mother Herself. To Her he would pray: "I do not know what these things are. I am ignorant of mantras and the scriptures. Teach me, Mother, how to realize Thee. Who else can help me? Art Thou not my only refuge and guide?" And the sustaining presence of the Mother never failed him in his Distress or doubt. Even those who criticized his conduct were greatly impressed with his purity, guilelessness, truthfulness, integrity, and holiness. They felt an uplifting influence in his presence.
   It is said that samadhi, or trance, no more than opens the portal of the spiritual realm. Sri Ramakrishna felt an unquenchable desire to enjoy God in various ways. For his meditation he built a place in the northern wooded section of the temple garden. With Hriday's help he planted there five sacred trees. The spot, known as the Panchavati, became the scene of many of his visions.
  --
   Mathur had faith in the sincerity of Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual zeal, but began now to doubt his sanity. He had watched him jumping about like a monkey. One day, when Rani Rasmani was listening to Sri Ramakrishna's singing in the temple, the young priest abruptly turned and slapped her. Apparently listening to his song, she had actually been thinking of a law-suit. She accepted the punishment as though the Divine Mother Herself had imposed it; but Mathur was Distressed. He begged Sri Ramakrishna to keep his feelings under control and to heed the conventions of society. God Himself, he argued, follows laws. God never permitted, for instance, flowers of two colours to grow on the same stalk. The following day Sri Ramakrishna presented Mathur Babu with two hibiscus flowers growing on the same stalk, one red and one white.
   Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking that a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the Universe and went into samadhi uttering Her name.
  --
   Sri Ramakrishna was grateful to the Divine Mother for sending him one who doubted his own realizations. Often he asked Narendra to test him as the money-changers test their coins. He laughed at Narendra's biting criticism of his spiritual experiences and samadhi. When at times Narendra's sharp words Distressed him, the Divine Mother Herself would console him, saying: "Why do you listen to him? In a few days he will believe your every word." He could hardly bear Narendra's absences. Often he would weep bitterly for the sight of him. Sometimes Narendra would find the Master's love embarrassing; and one day he sharply scolded him, warning him that such infatuation would soon draw him down to the level of its object. The Master was Distressed and prayed to the Divine Mother. Then he said to Narendra: "You rogue, I won't listen to you any more. Mother says that I love you because I see God in you, and the day I no longer see God in you I shall not be able to bear even the sight of you."
   The Master wanted to train Narendra in the teachings of the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy. But Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. He could hardly go about his day's business. His parents became anxious about him and thought him ill. And when the intensity of the experience abated a little, he saw the world as a dream. Walking in the public square, he would strike his head against the iron railings to know whether they were real. It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.
   At the beginning of 1884 Narendra's father suddenly died of heart-failure, leaving the family in a state of utmost poverty. There were six or seven mouths to feed at home. Creditors were knocking at the door. Relatives who had accepted his father's unstinted kindness now became enemies, some even bringing suit to deprive Narendra of his ancestral home. Actually starving and barefoot, Narendra searched for a job, but without success. He began to doubt whether anywhere in the world there was such a thing as unselfish sympathy. Two rich women made evil proposals to him and promised to put an end to his Distress; but he refused them with contempt.
   Narendra began to talk of his doubt of the very existence of God. His friends thought he had become an atheist, and piously circulated gossip adducing unmentionable motives for his unbelief. His moral character was maligned. Even some of the Master's disciples partly believed the gossip, and Narendra told these to their faces that only a coward believed in God through fear of suffering or hell. But he was Distressed to think that Sri Ramakrishna, too, might believe these false reports. His pride revolted. He said to himself: "What does it matter? If a man's good name rests on such slender foundations, I don't care." But later on he was amazed to learn that the Master had never lost faith in him. To a disciple who complained about Narendra's degradation, Sri Ramakrishna replied: "Hush, you fool! The Mother has told me it can never be so. I won't look at you if you speak that way again."
   The moment came when Narendra's Distress reached its climax. He had gone the whole day without food. As he was returning home in the evening he could hardly lift his tired limbs. He sat down in front of a house in sheer exhaustion, too weak even to think. His mind began to wander. Then, suddenly, a divine power lifted the veil over his soul. He found the solution of the problem of the coexistence of divine justice and misery, the presence of suffering in the creation of a blissful Providence. He felt bodily refreshed, his soul was bathed in peace, and he slept serenely.
   Narendra now realized that he had a spiritual mission to fulfil. He resolved to renounce the world, as his grandfather had renounced it, and he came to Sri Ramakrishna for his blessing. But even before he had opened his mouth, the Master knew what was in his mind and wept bitterly at the thought of separation. "I know you cannot lead a worldly life," he said, "but for my sake live in the world as long as I live."

0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Not naughty, poor little one, only a little sad, and that Distresses
  me, for I would like to see you always full of light and joy.

0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Do not Distress yourself, it is the result of these last few days of
  sickness. It will pass - but you must eat well regularly and sleep

0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  with me. It is the same old thing, but nonetheless Distressing. It is civil war, a conflict between two different
  tendencies and ideals, a pull from two different types

01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Apart from the well-recognised fact that only in Distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is that the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life that one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, that even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all around and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all that knapsack on its back.
   If one were to be busy about reforming the world and when that was done then alone to turn to other-worldly things, in that case, one would never take the turn, for the world will never be reformed totally or even considerably in that way. It is not that reformers have for the first time appeared on the earth in the present age. Men have attempted social, political, economic and moral reforms from times immemorial. But that has not barred the spiritual attempt or minimised its importance. To say that because an ideal is apparently too high or too great for the present age, it must be kept in cold storage is to set a premium on the present nature of humanity arid eternise it: that would bind the world to its old moorings and never give it the opportunity to be free and go out into the high seas of larger and greater realisations.

01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   These are luminous life-giving mantras and the world and humanity of today, sore Distressed and utterly confounded, have great need of them to live them by and be saved.
   ***

01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   There is another aspect of personality as viewed by Berdyaev which involves a bias of the more orthodox Christian faith: the Christ is inseparable from the Cross. So he says: "There is no such thing as personality if there is no capacity for suffering. Suffering is inherent in God too, if he is a personality, and not merely an abstract idea. God shares in the sufferings of men. He yearns for responsive love. There are divine as well as human passions and therefore divine or creative personality must always suffer to the end of time. A condition of anguish and Distress is inherent in it." The view is logically enforced upon the Christian, it is said, if he is to accept incarnation, God becoming flesh. Flesh cannot but be weak. This very weakness, so human, is and must be specially characteristic of God also, if he is one with man and his lover and saviour.
   Eastern spirituality does not view sorrow and sufferingevilas an integral part of the Divine Consciousness. It is born out of the Divine, no doubt, as nothing can be outside the Divine, but it is a local and temporal formation; it is a disposition consequent upon certain conditions and with the absence or elimination of those conditions, this disposition too disappears. God and the Divine Consciousness can only be purity, light, immortality and delight. The compassion that a Buddha feels for the suffering humanity is not at all a feeling of suffering; pain or any such normal human reaction does not enter into its composition; it is the movement of a transcendent consciousness which is beyond and purified of the normal reactions, yet overarching them and entering into them as a soothing and illumining and vivifying presence. The healer knows and understands the pain and suffering of his patient but is not touched by them; he need not contract the illness of his patient in order to be in sympathy with him. The Divine the Soulcan be in flesh and yet not smirched with its mire; the flesh is not essentially or irrevocably the ooze it is under certain given conditions. The divine physical body is composed of radiant matter and one can speak of it even as of the soul that weapons cannot pierce it nor can fire burn it.

0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I remember once going into a church (which I wont name) and I found it a very beautiful place. It wasnt a feast or ceremony day, so it was empty. There were just one or two people at prayer. I went in and sat down in a little chapel off to the side. Someone was praying there, someone who must have been in Distressshe was crying and praying. And there was a statue, I no longer know of whom: Christ or the Virgin or a Saint I have no idea. And, oh! Suddenly, in place of the statue, I saw an enormous spider like a tarantula, you know, but (gesture) huge! It covered the entire wall of the chapel and was just waiting there to swallow all the vital force of the people who came. It was heart-rending. I said to myself, Oh, these people There was this miserable woman who had come seeking solace, who was praying there, weeping, hoping to find solace; and instead of reaching a consciousness that was at least compassionate, her supplications were feeding this monster!
   I have seen other things but I have rarely seen anything favorable in churches. Here, I remember going to M I was taken inside and received there in quite an unusual waya highly respected person introduced me as a great saint! They led me up to the main altar where people are not usually allowed to go, and what did I see there! An asura (oh, not a very high-ranking one, more like a rakshasa4), but such a monster! Hideous. So I went wham! (gesture of giving a blow) I thought something was going to happen. But this being left the altar and came over to try to intimidate me; of course, he saw it was useless, so he offered to make an alliance: If you just keep quiet and dont do anything, I will share all I get with you. Well, I sent him packing! The head of this Math5. It was a Math with a monastery and temple, which means a substantial fortune; the head of the Math has it all at his disposal for as long as he holds the position and he is appointed for life. But he has to name his successor and as a rule, his own life is considerably shortened by the successorthis is how it works. Everyone knew that the present head had considerably shortened the life of his predecessor. And what a creature! As asuric as the god he worshipped! I saw some poor fellows throw themselves at his feet (he must have been squeezing them pitilessly), to beg forgiveness and mercyan absolutely ruthless man. But he received meyou should have seen it! I said nothing, not a word about their god; I gave no sign that I knew anything. But I thought to myself, So thats how it is!
  --
   One of my most terrible experiences took place in Venice (the cathedrals there are so beautifulmagnificent!). I remember I was painting they had let me settle down in a corner to paintand nearby there was a (what do they call it?) a confessional. And a poor woman was kneeling there in Distresswith such a dreadful sense of sin! So piteous! She wept and wept. Then I saw the priest coming, oh, like a monster, a hard-hearted monster! He went inside; he was like an iron bar. And there was this poor woman sobbing, sobbing; and the voice of the other one, hard, curt. I could barely contain myself.
   I dont know why, but I have had this kind of experience so very often: either a hostile force lurking behind and swallowing up everything, or else manruthless man abusing the Power.

0 1963-08-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   No, sometimes the sensation of how life is beleaguered comes to me in wavesyou are beleaguered. Its a perception I have, sometimes very strongly; you cant do anything without being beleaguered by something for everything, everywhere, in every detail. For a year or two Ive had that sensation. Sometimes its revolting or else Distressing. Ive never felt it so strongly as during these last years that sensation of being beleaguered, assailed.
   All sorts of things come that way; at one period one thing, at another period another thingthose are periods of inner transformation. For instance, the sense of a universal duplicity (what in the Vedas they call crookedness): the impression that nothing goes straight. I have extraordinary examples of writing a sentence with a clear, precise will, and it was understood (by someone with perfect goodwill) in quite another way, according to his own vision of things. It happened a few days ago. But it happens all the time! I say something, which to me is as clear as can be, and its understood absolutely differently, sometimes the very opposite! So theres the feeling, the sensation that EVERYTHING is that way, all life is that way, all consciousnesses are that way, all vibrations are that wayinstead of going straight, everything is crooked. Its so strong that, as you say, it almost makes you feel sort of ill-at-ease. You are disgusted, it makes you feel sick.

0 1967-08-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Thats how it is. Day after day, almost hour after hour, as the Power comes back You remember, I once said it had gone completely,1 and that was true, it had gone completely in order to leave the body absolutely to itself, for its conversion, we could say; but once there had been in this body consciousness the same aspiration and the same ardour of consciousness (with a far greater steadiness than in any other part of the being; there are no fluctuations as there are in the vital and mind, its very steady), once that was established (through kinds of pulsations, not distant from one another, first on one detail, then spreading out and becoming generalized), since then the Power has been I can say it has been coming back. But at each stage of that return, all the old difficulties appear to be waking up again,2 they seem to spring up again (they had completely fallen asleep, you understand), and each time, this body consciousness feels a sort of surprise, at once astonished and Distressed that the presence of the divine Power, the divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness, should give rise to all those difficulties, which are essentially difficulties of ignorance and inertia the incapacity to receive. And it comes back as memories, like that (gesture from below), like a snake rearing its head. And every time, everything in the physical consciousness has the same call, Why? How can these things be when You are there! Thats the astonishing thing: Since You are there, how can these things be?
   Till now, in the majority of cases, this has signalled a conversion, a transformation, an illumination (depending on the case), but this case we were just talking about (the Tantric apprentice) came precisely as a result of that return of the Power (I knew it; he told me yesterday, but I knew it when he had his revolt). And all that came was just all the old revolts, all the old movements, which were previously so strong, so widespread, so ESTABLISHED, and had been as though halted in their expression by the withdrawal of the Power. So everyone was slumbering in his condition. Then, as soon as the Force started coming back and working again, it all woke up.

0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Then she came to see me. And there was a veritable battle; really, for an hour it was absolutely a battle with her. Because she kept pushing me, she wanted to know: Why do you turn me down? Why do you shut your door? Why do you refuse me? So I was driven to tell her everything: how she is imprisoned, how her religion is like a structure in which she is shut, how one cant do the yoga until one breaks out of it, etc.it all came out. Because I was really driven to it. I felt I was fighting a veritable battle, and two or three times, I was very conscious of a sort of little thing going like this [gesture like the tongue of a snake], just a malevolent little vibration two or three times: Ah, I thought, thats it. And at the same time, a kind of quite sincere Distress in her, when she said, I have been wanting to come to India for twenty years now, I have been waiting for this moment for twenty years, so why do you close your door on me?
   Its difficult to break free from that grip.

0 1968-12-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Finally theres a letter from P.L. My stay in Spain was prolonged more than I had thought. Tell Sweet Mother that I am continuing my struggle and my effort, that she follows me everywhere and her protection is my support. I will tell you about my experience. I went to spend a weekend by the sea, where I have a very pretty tiny apartment. There I meditate and go through all the teachings of Mother again by immersing myself in The Life Divine and the Questions and Answers. I lighted an incense stick. Suddenly my whole body broke into a profuse sweat, and an atrocious struggle began. If I could use religious terms from before my Ashramite experiences, I would say that all of St. Anthonys temptations fell on me to destroy and shatter me spiritually. First, a disarray, a very deep Distress of helplessness: What use is my life? What am I doing? Why do I live? My efforts are useless. Then there was the attraction of woman, which came to ridicule my continence. Everything was called into question: whys and more whys made my head burst. After that came the invasion of power: Why did you renounce the hope of becoming a bishop? Glory would have come to you. Then the desire for money. Everything in a macabre and at the same time attractive carrousel. Finally, total solitude abandoned by all, all having gone away: my friends, my connections in the Vatican, my family, all of you. How much time went by? I do not know. Nevertheless I think I heard a very small voice (but I was so weak that I cannot say if it was true) telling me, Do not weep, I am with you. If I am with you, others are superfluous, and if you are without me, others wont be able to help you. I remained in a void the whole night passed. In the morning, the sunshine, everything was so beautiful! When I returned to the Rome house, I was told I was transformed! So there.
   I did say that to him [I am with you].

0 1969-08-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ive received a line from P.L. He is arriving on the 8th. He just writes this: The Distress of these last few weeks is slowly turning into strength and calm. I confess that I suffered a good deal from my failure regarding the Vatican, but after what you conveyed to me from Mother, everything is growing clearer Yes, I had told him that it wasnt at all a question of outer triumph or failure, that the simple fact of his PRESENCE there acted as a kind of relay enabling the Light to enter there the very fact of his being there. Thats what I had told him.
   As for me, Ill add something. You understand, they made an attempt to unify all of Christendom, and the Pope went to Geneva to unite with the Protestantswhich wouldnt have been so good. Thats not the thing needed, because it would have streng thened Christianitydivision takes away some of its power. Its the unification of ALL religions thats needed, not the unification of Christianity they havent reached that point. So after looking a good deal, I saw it was, on the contrary, a divine grace that it didnt work out.

0 1972-05-19, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Sujata, taken aback) I feel very Distressed. The Ashram belongs to Mother.
   Oh, mon petit, that ceased being true a long time ago. Ever since I stopped going out, people have been thinking that Mother is no longer looking after things, she doesnt know whats going on. We ought to start a new Ashram with perhaps a nucleus of ten people and even then.

0 1972-12-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother turns to one of the teachers with a kind of Distress in her voice)
   People say that I am old, that I cant speak, that I am senile, but the consciousness has never been so clear. One minute of silence and.

0 1973-03-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (At the end of a long and Distressing conversation that exposes the grudges of a particular individual against her neighbor, then angry remarks, then finally a request for blessings for a new trucking company, with a photo of the truck on the back of which Mother is asked to write something, one of the teachers announces that an epidemic of chickenpox and mumps has broken out at the school among the students and teachers, and that one of them has typhoid fever. Mother listens to all that. This will be the last meeting with the teachers.)
   I hope youre not bringing any of that here?

03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The most significant fact in the history of India is the unbroken continuity of the line of her spiritual masters who never ceased to appear even in the midst of her most dark and Distressing ages. Even in a decadent and fast disintegrating India, when the whole of her external life was a mass of ruins, when her political and economical and even her cultural life was brought to stagnation and very near to decomposition, this undying Fire in her secret heart was ever alight and called in the inevitable rebirth and rejuvenation. Ramakrishna, with Vivekananda as his emanation in life dynamic and material, symbolises this great secret of India's evolution. The promise that the Divine held out in the Gita to Bharata's descendant finds a ready fulfilment in India, in Bharata's land, more perhaps than anywhere else in the world; for in India has the. Divine taken birth over and over again to save the pure in heart, to destroy the evil-doer and to establish the Right Law of life.
   Other peoples may be the arms and the feet and the head of Humanity, but India is its heart, its soul for she cherishes always within her the Truth that lives for ever, the flaming God-head, the Immortal awake in mortality, as say the Vedas, amto martyeu tv .

03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Suffering, Distress and Death today hold the earth in thrall. And yet can there be any other issue in temporal life? That seems to be the ineluctable fate for mankind. Ages ago it was declared, the wages of sin is death.
   Doubters ask, however, if sinners alone suffered, one would not perhaps mind; but along with sinners why should innocents, nay even the virtuous, pass under the axe? What sins indeed babes commit? Are the sins of the fathers truly visited upon coming generations? A queer arrangement, to say the least, if there is a wise and just and benevolent God! Yes, how many honest people, people who strive to live piously, honestly and honourably, according to the law of righteousness, fail to escape! All equally undergo the same heavy punishment. Is it not then nearer the truth to say that a most mechanical Nature, a mere gamble of chance, a statistical equation, as mathematicians say, moves the destiny of creatures and things in the universe, that there is nowhere a heart or consciousness in the whole business?

05.08 - True Charity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   It is not true that when one's wants are met, one always becomes or remains happy; all paupers are not unhappy, nor are the affluent invariably happy. Happiness is a quality that depends upon something else and comes from elsewhere: it is not directly proportional to material well-being. Unhappiness too is a psychological entity and consists in a special vibration of mind and vitality and consequently of the physical beingdue to a warp in the consciousness itself, in the core of the inner personality. The material conditions serve only to manifest it, maintain or aggravate it, but do not create ittruly they are created by it. That is why the spiritual healers always refer to the bliss of the Spirit as the sole remedy for physical ills even, for disease, misery and death. And the unhappy mortals are always called to turn to the Divine alone in their Distressbhajasva mm.
   True charity consists in laying the healing balm upon the sore that lies hidden behind all external miseries which derive from that source and sustainer. And it is in the sole possession of him alone who has found the bliss of the Spirit and dwells in it always. Such a person does not require external accessories for his work of healing and comforting. He need do nothing apparently; he may even appear to be aloof and indifferent. But his presence itself is a healing power: the patient feels it and wonders at the ease and happiness that come into him as if from nowhere. Many physicians have this kind of healing power; indeed without that, a mere medical man, with his pharmacopoeia, is no physician. It may not be well known and recognised, but it is a fact that a good part of the efficacy of medicines lies in the subtle influence, the vital health, that the doctor puts into his medicine or even directly into the body of his patient. And in the case of a spiritual Bhishak, the power can be raised to the nth degree. The healer need not even be present at all physically near the patient; his influence can act very well from any distance. It is quite natural and inevitable that it should be so. For the healing power is in the spiritual consciousness, the inalienable bliss of one's status in the Spirit. One becomes identified with each and every objectperson or thingin one's own self, in the true being and substance; and the light and happiness that one possesses there inalienably go out in a spontaneous flow to others who are not really others but integral parts and portions of the same self.

05.16 - A Modernist Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Further Monsieur Gide says, God is nowhere, he has to be created. If he means that God is not anywhere in the manifest physical world, especially, the physical world of today, it is true, though here too partially true. God is never truly absent; even in and through this dismal and Distressed age of ours he is ever present, a living power of abounding Graceeven if behind the veil, even if not patent to the sense-bound observer. Still God has to be made patent, established concretely in the physical world also, in the everyday normal human affairs. But, again, how to do it? And who is to do it? You or I in our complete, at best half-lit hazy ignorance? By running blindly full tilt against any and all atheism and denial and egoism and arrogance, shouting at them, pointing the finger of scorn at them or being physically violent upon them? It were best if we moved with as much vigour against our own selves, against the ungodly within us. If one begins seriously at home, in dealing with oneself one will be best equipped to deal with the others and the world, in the process of new-creating in oneself one will be in a position to find out exactly what lies in the way of a new creation outside.
   A deeper sense of truth and rectitude says: you have no right to break unless you have the power to make. Even an illusion you cannot and should not break if you do not know how and what to replace; you will only replace it by a greater and more disastrous illusion, you must yourself have the full vision of the truth, you must yourself realise and establish it in yourself, in your inner being as well as your outer personality. Then only you will have secured full authority (Ramakrishna's chaprash, badge) to make and unmake. If you have not the needed authority, then you must obey implicitly one who possesses the authority.

100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
  amiability, but that many have been stressed and Distressed beyond those limits
  early in their lives and consequently have developed aggressive, belligerent, or

10.07 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Coming next to Mind, the unity here too, is quite marked, clearly discernible. There is only one Mind that rules the myriad mentalities of this world. Thoughts and ideas are not in reality personal creations, they are various formulations of the one universal Mind; they enter into and possess individual minds as receptacles, and no doubt in the process undergo particular modifications in their general character. It is a very common experience to see the same or very similar ideas and thoughts expressed by individuals (or groups) living far from each other, having practically no mutual contact. We have known of "independent discoveries" of the same truth or fact and innumerable instances of this kind has history provided for us. It is not a freak of nature that we find Socrates and Buddha and Confucius as contemporaries. Contemporaries also were India's Akbar, England's Elizabeth and Italy's Leo X. Also the year 1905 has been known as Annus Mirabilis, a year of seminal importance the sowing of the seed of a new earth-lifesignificant for the whole human race, for the East and for the West, particularly for India, for Japan, for Russia and even for England. And today's world has indeed become a world of compact unity in human achievement and also alas, in human Distress!
   Now if one goes to the very source, the very root of the matter, the cardinal fact of unity is that of the supreme Consciousness, the original oneness of the one Divine Existence. It is the Ultimate One, inviolate, inviolableekam sat. That unity is transferred or translated or imaged on all the levels and strands of creation. That is the basic reality that holds together all tiered multiplicities. True, there has been side by side a movement of aberration, denial, disjunction in the multiple formulations and translations of the One. A reunion remains to be achieved conveying and embodying the basic unity.

1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  I think I am fair if I say that the first step on the Qabalah which may be called success, is when you make an actual discovery which throws light on some problem which has been troubling you. A quarter of a century ago I was in New Orleans, and was very puzzled about my immediate course of action; in fact I may say I was very much Distressed. There seemed literally nothing that I could do, so I bethought myself that I had better invoke Mercury. As soon as I got into the appropriate frame of mind, it naturally occurred to me, with a sort of joy, "But I am Mercury." I put it into Latin Mercurius sum, and suddenly something struck me, a sort of nameless reaction which said: "That's not quite right." Like a flash it came to me to put it into Greek, which gave me "' " and adding that up rapidly, I got the number 418, with all the marvellous correspondences which had been so abundantly useful to me in the past (See Equinox of the Gods, p. 138). My troubles disappeared like a flash of lightning.
  Now to answer your questions seriatum; it is quite all right to put questions to me about The Book of the Law; a very extended commentary has been written, but it is not yet published. I shall probably be able to answer any of your questions from the manuscript, but you cannot go on after that when it would become a discussion; as they say in the law-courts, "You must take the witness' answer."

1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
  We will now study the etheric body, and its ills and also its after death condition. This matter can be only briefly touched upon. All that may now be indicated is a general idea of the fundamental ailments to which the etheric may be subject, and the trend which applied medicine may later take when occult laws are better understood. One fact must here be brought outa fact but little comprehended or even apprehended. This is the significant fact that the ills of the etheric vehicle, in the case of the microcosm, will be found likewise in the Macrocosm. Herein lies the knowledge that ofttimes explains the apparent miseries of nature. Some of the great world evils have their source in etheric ills, extending the idea of the etheric to planetary conditions and even to solar. As we touch upon the causes of etheric Distress in man, their planetary and solar correspondences and reactions may perhaps be realised. We will need to bear carefully in mind when studying this matter, that all the diseases of the etheric body will appertain to its threefold purpose and be either:
  a. Functional and thereby affecting its apprehension of prana,

1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
  Second. A development of psychic faculty that again may lead to temporary Distress, but which eventually causes a recognition of the one Self in all selves, which is the goal of endeavor.
  Third. A burning away, through a gradual arousing of kundalini, and its correct geometrical progression through the etheric web. This produces a resultant continuity of consciousness which enables the initiate consciously to utilise time as a factor in the plans of evolution.

1.01 - An Accomplished Westerner, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  replete. He even had a way of jesting with a straight face, which never left him: Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence. Without it the world would have got utterly out of balance it is unbalanced enough already and rushed to a blaze long ago. 9 For there is also Sri Aurobindo the humorist, and that Sri Aurobindo is perhaps more important than the philosopher whom Western universities speak of so solemnly. Philosophy, for Sri Aurobindo, was only a way of reaching those who could not understand anything without explanations; it was only a language, just as poetry was another, clearer and truer language. But the essence of his being was humor, not the sarcastic humor of the so-called spiritual man, but a kind of joy that cannot help dancing wherever is passes. Now and then, in a flash that leaves us somewhat mystified, we sense behind the most tragic, the most Distressing human situations an almost facetious laughter, as if a child were playing a tragedy and suddenly made a face at himself because it is his nature to laugh, and ultimately because nothing in the world and no one can affect that place inside ourselves where we are ever a king.
  Indeed, perhaps this is the true meaning of Sri Aurobindo's humor: a refusal to see things tragically, and, even more so, a sense of inalienable royalty.

1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
  I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in Distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it; that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed, which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoe-strings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.
  Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.

1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
  Grief, mental Distress, tremor of the body and
  irregular breathing, accompany non-retention of

1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
  Wisdom Moon, Distressed by their narrowness of
  mind, answered them from the point of view of the

1.01 - The Dark Forest. The Hill of Difficulty. The Panther, the Lion, and the Wolf. Virgil., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
  And even as he, who, with Distressful breath,
  Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,

1.01 - To Watanabe Sukefusa, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
  In ancient China, there was a gentleman named Shu-liang who lived at a place called Han-yin with his mother, wife, and son. He was extremely quick-tempered, and would often fly off the handle, venting his spleen on his wife and mother, causing them great Distress. No matter how ferocious a tiger is, it does not devour its cubs; it cares for them lovingly, as though they were precious jewels.
  One day when Shu-liang was away on a trip, his wife accidentally hurt the son, leaving him with a scar. "Woe is me!" she lamented with tears in her eyes. "When my husb and returns, there's no telling what he will do. I would be better off flinging myself from a high cliff."a
  --
  Forty years ago, my childhood friend Watanabe Sukefusa contracted a serious illness of this nature, throwing his parents into a state of constant Distress. I was staying at a temple in Shinoda,
  Izumi Province, at the time, so I sent Sukefusa a long letter. It made a strong impression on him.

1.02 - BEFORE THE CITY-GATE, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  And see and lighten my Distress!
  Let me not vainly sing my ditty;

1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  Foe to her self, Distressing and distrest,
  She bears her own tormentor in her breast.

1.02 - Karma Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
  26. Feed the poor. Clo the the naked. Comfort the Distressed. Remove glass pieces from the road.
  27. There are three kinds of Karma, viz., Sanchita, Prarabdha and Agami or Kriyamana.

1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  three sons, and they were all in great Distress on his account, and they went into the castle gardens and
  wept at the thought that he must die. An old man came up to them and asked the cause of their grief.

1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  The proletariat among us is sunk in ignorance and overwhelmed with Distress!11 exclaimed Sri Aurobindo soon after disembarking in India.
  It was not metaphysical questions that preoccupied him, but questions of action. To act: we are in the world to act. But what action? And above all, what method of action would be the most effective? This very practical concern would remain with Sri Aurobindo from his very first days in India right up to his highest yogic realizations. I

1.02 - THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
  the extreme and most apparent example of a state of Distress which
  was beginning to be general: that state in which no one was able to

1.02 - The Refusal of the Call, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
  "Because I have called, and ye refused . . . I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when Distress and anguish cometh upon you." "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."
  Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem: "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."

1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  The reason is simple. In the practice of yoga the whole being is active and, therefore, it starts waking up every blessed thing in this world whatever may be sleeping anywhere. Even invisible forces, even distant elements may feel that some strange activity is going on in some part of the universe. We must have heard in the Epics and Puranas that even the gods are Distressed by the tapas of yogis. It means that the meditative activity of a sincere seeker can tell upon even very far and distant regions like the heavens, and not merely the corners of the earth. But our ordinary little work that is going on in a shop, a factory or an office may not be felt at all in such regions. The reason is that these ordinary activities are shallow; they are not deep enough. They do not touch the bottom of things, and therefore the reactions set up are also mild.
  But in yoga, what actually moves is the very root of our being. Our soul itself is yearning in the aspiration for the Ultimate Reality. It is not a function of a part of the psychological organs like mentation, intellection, egoism, etc. It is every blessed thing that is in us that becomes active, and we may say there is a sort of conscription of every part of our personality in this warfare called the practice of yoga. Every individual is harnessed into the army. Everyone is a soldier when this war takes place. There is no civilian at all in the practice of yoga; everyone is active like an army man everyone, and no one is excluded. Every part of the personality becomes roused, and we can imagine what reactions this can set up. You may ask me why they should set up reactions. Can this noble activity called yoga not be carried on without any adverse reactions.

1.03 - A Parable, #The Lotus Sutra, #Anonymous, #Various
   the father of the entire world, he permanently dispels fear, Distress, anxiety, ignorance, and blindness. He has attained immeasurable wisdom, insight, power, and fearlessness, as well as great transcendent powers and the power of wisdom. He has attained the perfection of skillful means and of wisdom.
  With his great mercy and compassion he incessantly and indefatigably seeks the welfare of all beings and benets them all.
  The Tathgata appears in the triple world, which is like a decaying old house on re, to rescue sentient beings from the re of birth, old age, illness, and death, anxiety, sorrow, suffering, Distress, delusion, blindness, and the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance. Thus he leads and inspires sentient beings and causes them to attain highest, complete enlightenment.
  The Tathgatas see all sentient beings burning in the re of birth, old age, illness, and death, anxiety, sorrow, suffering, and Distress. Because of the desires of the ve senses and the desire for monetary prot they also experience various kinds of suffering. Because of their attachment and pursuits they experience various kinds of suffering in the present; and in the future they will suffer in the states of existence of hell, animals, and hungry ghosts (pretas). If they are born in the heavens or in the human world they will experience a variety of sorrows such as suffering from poverty and destitution, separation from loved ones, or suffering from encounters with those they dislike.
  Although sentient beings are immersed in such sorrows, they rejoice and play. They are not aware, shocked, startled, or disgusted nor do they seek release. Running around in the burning house of the triple world, they experience great suffering and yet they do not realize it.
  --
  Since I am the father of sentient beings I must rid them of their immeasurable suffering and Distress. I will cause them to rejoice through the immeasurable and limitless pleasure of the buddha wisdom.
  O riputra! The Tathgata further thought:
  --
   save them. Why is this? Because these sentient beings have not escaped from birth, old age, illness, and death; anxiety, sorrow, suffering, and Distress; and are being burned in the blazing house of the triple world.
  How would they be able to understand the Buddhas wisdom?
  --
  Increase my Distress!
  There is nothing to enjoy now in this house.

1.03 - Master Ma is Unwell, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
  This Distress
  **He saddens people to death.
  --
  Hsueh Tau says, "This Distress is worth recounting; clear eyed
  patchrobed monks must not take it lightly." How many people

1.03 - Measure of time, Moments of Kashthas, etc., #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
  Seven Ṛṣis, certain (secondary) divinities, Indra, Manu, and the kings his sons, are created and perish at one period[5]; and the interval, called a Manvantara, is equal to seventy-one times the number of years contained in the four Yugas, with some additional years: this is the duration of the Manu, the (attendant) divinities, and the rest, which is equal to 852.000 divine years, or to 306.720.000 years of mortals, independent of the additional period[6]. Fourteen times this period constitutes a Brāhma day, that is, a day of Brahmā; the term (Brāhma) being the derivative form. At the end of this day a dissolution of the universe occurs, when all the three worlds, earth, and the regions of space, are consumed with fire. The dwellers of Maharloka (the region inhabited by the saints who survive the world), Distressed by the heat, repair then to Janaloka (the region of holy men after their decease). When the-three worlds are but one mighty ocean, Brahmā, who is one with Nārāyaṇa, satiate with the demolition of the universe, sleeps upon his serpent-bed-contemplated, the lotus born, by the ascetic inhabitants of the Janaloka-for a night of equal duration with his day; at the close of which he creates anew. Of such days and nights is a year of Brahmā composed; and a hundred such years constitute his whole life[7]. One Parārddha[8], or half his existence, has expired, terminating with the Mahā Kalpa[9] called Pādma. The Kalpa (or day of Brahmā) termed Vārāha is the first of the second period of Brahmā's existence.
  this page consists entire of footnotes

1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The sign of the immersion of the embodied soul in Prakriti is the limitation of consciousness to the ego. The vivid stamp of this limited consciousness can be seen in a constant inequality of the mind and heart and a confused conflict and disharmony in their varied reactions to the touches of experience. The human reactions sway perpetually between the dualities created by the soul's subjection to Nature and by its often intense but narrow struggle for mastery and enjoyment, a struggle for the most part ineffective. The soul circles in an unending round of Nature's alluring and Distressing opposites, success and failure, good fortune and ill fortune, good and evil, sin and virtue, joy and grief, pain and pleasure. It is only when, awaking from its immersion in Prakriti, it perceives its oneness with the One and its oneness with all existences that it can become free from these things and found its right relation to this executive world-Nature.
  Then it becomes indifferent to her inferior modes, equal-minded to her dualities, capable of mastery and freedom; it is seated above her as the high-throned knower and witness filled with the calm intense unalloyed delight of his own eternal existence.

1.04 - On Knowledge of the Future World., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
  The necessities of the constitution of the spirit are to know God and to contemplate his beauty and excellence. But if stupidity and blindness, which are opposed to this tendency of the spirit, become predominant, the soul will be vexed and tormented, and there will be no end to the torment. If it were not that the body is subject to maladies in the world, the fact of this blindness and stupidity would have been visible and apparent to the soul in this world also, and it would also have been the source of immense anguish, and torment would at no moment have ceased to afflict men. Just as when a person has a severe sore upon the hand or foot, if besides it should be cut with a knife or fire should be put upon it, he would not feel the pain of the knife or the fire, on account of the pain of the sore, so likewise the maladies of the body, such as hunger and thirst, or such maladies as love of possessions and family, combined with the absorbed attention of the senses to these things, prevent the soul from being conscious of its disquiet and Distress. But when in death, the torment to which the body was subject is taken away, it will be seen how excruciating is the torment of the soul. And thus also God announces in his holy word : "Ah ! if you knew it with infallible assurance. But you will see hell: you will see it with the eyes of certainty."1
  You should know, O inquirer, that the many arguments we have adduced to prove that spiritual torment is more severe than material torment, and the many illustrations of it that we have developed, are understood by intelligent and discerning minds, but the mass of the people understand nothing about them. Suppose, for example, that the sou of a prince has begun to go to school, and he is admonished that if he do not study, his father will not give him the principality. The boy does not understand the [97] import of the warning, and continues busy in playing with tops and nuts. But, if he is told instead, if you do not learn to read and write, your master will whip you or pull your ears, from that moment, understanding the force of the admonition, he leaves his sport and play, and is diligent in his studies. Since, therefore, the commonalty cannot understand the torment of being forbidden and shut out from the vision of the beauty of God, the doctors of the law and the preachers, frighten them with serpents and scorpions, and with the fire of hell; for they are not capable of understanding anything else. In the other case, how should the "look out! take care !" from the mouth of the master, with the pain of one or two boxes on the ear, have any relation or resemblance in the mind of the boy with the loss of the principality? ...

1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  failed often experienced acute personal Distress. One of them exclaimed: I cant make the suit out,
  whatever it is. It didnt even look like a card that time. I dont know what color it is now or whether its
  --
  Point of departure: it is an error to consider social Distress or physiological degeneration, or
  corruption of all things, as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most honest and compassionate age.
  --
  rejection of value, meaning, and desirability). Such Distress always permits a variety of interpretations.
  Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian moral one, that nihilism is rooted.

1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  I shall now give an example of the Mother's considerable courage in taking up the charge of a patient suffering from throat cancer. This man, a devotee, arrived from outside. He had refused all medical aid and turned down all entreaties of his relatives for the accepted treatment. He wanted only to be cured by the Mother or to die here. He was very thin, of a nervous type and his general health was poor. I was asked to supervise the case and give daily reports to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. We shall see in the chapter 'God Departs' another devotee seeking entire refuge in them and being cured of a mysterious illness that endangered her life. I must admit frankly that I was stunned by the Mother's boldness and could not have an unreserved faith. Either in this context or another, I had asked the Mother and Sri Aurobindo if they had cured cancer by their Force. The Mother replied firmly, "Not only cancer, other diseases too, pronounced incurable by the doctors. Isn't it so?" She asked Sri Aurobindo, as if looking for confirmation; he nodded. The Mother once said that there is hardly a disease that Yoga cannot cure. Sri Aurobindo also wrote, "Of course it [Yoga] can, but on condition of faith or openness or both. Even a mental suggestion can cure cancer with luck of course, as is shown by the case of the woman operated on unsuccessfully for cancer, but the doctors lied and told her it had succeeded. Result, cancer symptoms all ceased and she died many years afterwards of another illness altogether," Here was a patient, then, who came with faith in the Mother. I began to do my duty regularly. At first the patient came for Pranam to the Mother. I witnessed her intense concentration and preoccupation with the case. While listening to the report, she would suddenly go into a trance and Sri Aurobindo would intently watch over her. Once she was on the point of falling down. Sri Aurobindo stretched both his arms, exclaiming "Ah!" The Mother regained her control. Things seemed to be moving at a slow pace. If some symptoms improved, new ones appeared; the condition fluctuated from day to day. Some days passed in a comparative restfulness. Our help was mostly psychological: to give courage and instil faith. If some progress was noticed, I would with a cheerful face report it to the Mother. She would just listen quietly. Meanwhile letters from the relatives urged the patient to return. When the Mother heard about it, she replied, "If I can't cure it, there is none who can." The fight continued, it was a grim encounter, indeed. As a result of the Mother's steady Force, things looked bright and I felt we had turned the corner. The Mother kept her vigil and wasted no words. After the February Darshan, however, the picture changed for no apparent reason. The patient went gradually down-hill and in a month or two, life petered out. The patient was brought before the Mother to have her last blessings. She came down and with her soothing touch and the balm of her divine smile wiped away all his Distress and made his passage peaceful. Later when I asked Sri Aurobindo the reason for this unaccountable reversal, he replied, "After the Darshan his faith got shaken and he could not get it back." Cancer of the throat is a scourge; one cannot eat, drink or speak; breathing becomes difficult. Let us remember Sri Ramakrishna's classical example. To keep a steady faith needs a heroic will which how many can have? Besides, the family surroundings also were not very congenial.
  I remember Nishikanto, a sadhak-poet, who fell seriously ill after being cured of an equally serious illness. The Mother giving the occult reason told me that when he came to her on his birthday, she saw a definite crack in his faith. But a man of quite a different temperament, he pulled himself up, while the cancer-patient could not. "Why take up such a case at all?" one may ask. Well, it was the patient who made the choice; he had no faith in the usual medico-surgical treatment whose efficacy is at best doubtful. Here, he had at least the unique opportunity to live under the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's direct care and supervision. For a bhakta, there cannot be a greater boon. If he lives, it will be glorious; if he dies, he will have a better life in the next birth.

1.04 - THE STUDY (The Compact), #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  Then may delight and Distress,
  And worry and success,

1.05 - BOOK THE FIFTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  The crowds encreasing, and his friends Distress'd,
  Himself by warring multitudes oppress'd:

1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  add, does anyone who is unconscious of his dissociation, for a conscious situation of Distress is needed
  in order to activate the archetype of unity. From this we may conclude that the more philosophically

1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  there was great Distress in Sicily for lack of water. The drought
  had lasted six months. Every day the sun rose and set in a sky of

1.05 - War And Politics, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  It will be interesting to note here how the Mother helped people even individually in her occult manner during the War. I have learnt it from the sadhika whom I have quoted elsewhere. She said, "Once we were having a talk on the Mother's trance in her presence, She was listening to it with an amused smile. Her personal attendant said, 'You don't know what embarrassing situations I had to face sometimes. Holding in her hand a glass of water I had given her to drink, she would go into trance and her body would sway from side to side, while I was waiting and waiting. In this way at any time she would go away somewhere in her trance.' Then the Mother explained, 'During these years of the war, people used to call me in their great Distress and I appeared to them at once, leaving everything behind.'
  "'But, Mother,' I said, 'people don't know you.'

1.06 - BOOK THE SIXTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  Pale, sinking, and Distress'd with jealous fears,
  And asking for her sister all in tears.
  --
  With grief Distress'd, the mournful matron tore,
  And a beseeming suit of gloomy sable wore.

1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  of Distress. On a certain occasion, when the rain so greatly desired
  by the people did not come, the Sultan was simply driven out (in

1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  Sufficient not only unto the day, but also unto the place, is the evil thereof. Agitation over happenings which we are powerless to modify, either because they have not yet occurred, or else are occurring at an inaccessible distance from us, achieves nothing beyond the inoculation of here and now with the remote or anticipated evil that is the object of our Distress. Listening four or five times a day to newscasters and commentators, reading the morning papers and all the weeklies and monthliesnowadays, this is described as taking an intelligent interest in politics. St. John of the Cross would have called it indulgence in idle curiosity and the cultivation of disquietude for disquietudes sake.
  I want very little, and what I do want I have very little wish for. I have hardly any desires, but if I were to be born again, I should have none at all. We should ask nothing and refuse nothing, but leave ourselves in the arms of divine Providence without wasting time in any desire, except to will what God wills of us.

1.06 - On remembrance of death., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
  As of all foods bread is the most essential, so the thought of death is the most necessary of all works. The remembrance of death amongst those in the midst of society gives birth to Distress and frivolity, and even moreto despondency. But amongst those who are free from noise it produces the putting aside of cares, and constant prayer and guarding of the mind. But these same virtues both produce the remembrance of death and are also produced by it.
  As tin is distinct from silver although it resembles it in appearance, so for the discerning there is a clear and obvious difference between the natural and supernatural fear of death.

1.06 - Quieting the Vital, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Personal Distress is a sure sign of the enemy's presence. Melodrama is a favorite haunt of these forces; that is how they are able to create the greatest havoc, because they play with a very old teammate within us,
  who cannot help loving melodrama even as he cries out for relief.

1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Reason, that can alone make Life other than it now is and rescue it out of its present Distressed and ambiguous figure.
  * *

1.06 - THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
  other calamities Distressing physiological conditions are interpreted
  as "merited").--The "explanation" of pleasant sensations. These

1.078 - Kumbhaka and Concentration of Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  Together with its movement, it drags with itself all that is within us our feelings, our thoughts, our emotions and what not so that we are extrovert personalities throughout. We can think nothing inwardly; everything is outside. The moment we wake up in the morning, we begin to peep through our eyes into the external world and look at the atmosphere which is around us, incapable of knowing what is inside us. This is the great harassment that is caused by what is called the prana. Though it is the principle of life without it no one can exist and live it is also a direct medium of Distress of every kind due to the incapacity of the mind to settle in itself, which is what we call lack of peace of mind.
  The prana is different from the breath. This is also a feature that has to be observed. The prana is a very subtle tendency within us. We may say the characteristic of the total energy of the system is the prana. It is not located in any part of the body particularly. Though it has special emphasis laid in different parts of the body, it is equally distributed everywhere. Prana is nothing but the sum total of the energy of the system. Whatever our total capacity is, that is our prana-shakti. But, this capacity is outwardly directed. This is the difficulty. It is not introverted, and it is impossible to draw the prana within. We cannot hold the breath even for a few seconds, such is the strength of this outward tendency of the prana. And, from the force of this outward expression of the prana, we can also infer to what extent we are introverts or extroverts. How far we can withdraw the mind from thinking of objects, etc. can be known to some extent from the way in which this prana is functioning. Concentration is impossible for most people because they are completely sold out to the outside world. We become slaves of conditions and circumstances, and puppets in the hands of these extrovert forces.

1.07 - BOOK THE SEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  If no remorse for such Distress I feel,
  I am a tigress, and my breast is steel.

1.08 - BOOK THE EIGHTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  Where run'st thou? (thus she vents her deep Distress)
  Why shun'st thou her that crown'd thee with success?
  --
  From him the neighb'ring nations in Distress,
  In suppliant terms implore a kind redress.
  --
  And cottages Distress'd with pinching need.
  Still slumbers Erisichthon's senses drown,
  --
  Betray'd her want, and witness'd her Distress.
  Me heedless, she reply'd, whoe'er you are,

1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  O ye who are the ships of our thoughts, come to us for our passing to the other shore; O Aswins, yoke your car. It is as the ships that carry human mentality to the other shore of this darkness of ignorance, pparat tamas tirah, as the masters or helpers of their voyage that the Aswins are addressed as Nsaty. Nsa in Nsatya would then be fixed in the sense of voyage, passage or transit. Is it not from the transference of this lofty idea to a more material plane that Castor & Pollux of the Romans, Kashtri & Purudansha, are the helpers of the Distressed mariner when storm howls upon the darkened seas?
  The Aswins, then, are the gods of youthful delight & youthful strength, yuvn pitar, always young yet fathers of men, (purudansas, abundantly creating), as they are described in another sukta. They have a brilliant strength mental & physical, nar, a bright, strong & eager understanding, avray dhiy, full hands of bounty and strong fertility of creation, dasr, purudansas; an insatiable enjoyment, purubhuj; a swift speed and fiery energy in action, dravatpn rudravartan; they are the lords of bliss who give physical, vital & mental well-being to men and that inferior ease, pleasure and delight they lift into the high regions of the original & luminous Ananda supported on the ritam jyotih of Mahas of which all these things are but pallid & broken rays penetrating into this lower play of subjective light & shade which is called the triple world. Because of this double aspect of delight and the force for action & knowledge which is given by delight, of force and the delight in action & enjoyment which is sustained by force, they are twin gods and not one; it may be that Castor is more essentially the lord of delight, Polydeuces of force, but they are too like each other not to share in each others qualities. Eternal youth is the essence of their character & the bestowal, maintenance, & increase in men of the gifts which attend youth, is their function. This, if I do not err, was the subjective aspect of the great Twin Brethren to the sages of the Veda.

1.08 - The Supreme Discovery, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no Distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
  Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!

1.09 - BOOK THE NINTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  Relieve, in this our last Distress, she said,
  A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid.

1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
  31. Grief, mental Distress, tremor of the body, irregular breathing, accompany non-retention of concentration.
  Concentration will bring perfect repose to mind and body every time it is practised. When the practice has been misdirected, or not enough controlled, these disturbances come. Repetition of Om and self-surrender to the Lord will streng then the mind, and bring fresh energy. The nervous shakings will come to almost everyone. Do not mind them at all, but keep on practising. Practice will cure them and make the seat firm.

1.09 - SKIRMISHES IN A WAY WITH THE AGE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
  that he already regards his condition as one of Distress (expressed
  morally, as an injustice)? But, again I ask, what do people want? If

1.09 - Sleep and Death, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  adverse forces to vanish. By remembering, it calls upon the true vibration, which has the power to dissolve or disperse all vibrations of a lesser intensity. There is even an interesting transitory stage in which we helplessly participate in terrifying pursuits, for instance, and suddenly that fragment of ourselves remembers the light (or the Master), thus abruptly reversing the situation. On these planes we can also meet many people, known or unknown, near or far away, living or dead the ever-living whom we name as dead,101 as Sri Aurobindo says who are on the same wavelength, and we can be the witness or helpless partner of their misadventures (which may translate into unpleasant happenings on earth, as we have seen; all the blows received there will be received here; each occurrence there prepares something here). But if the fragment of ourselves having the experience with the corresponding fragment of that friend or stranger or "dead" person is able to remember the Light (that is, if it is integrated around the psychic), it becomes capable of reversing the course of events, of assisting a friend or stranger in Distress, of helping a disembodied being go through a difficult passage, get out of a dangerous place, or free himself from some unhealthy associations (there are so many places where we are prisoners). The following is an example of such an experience, chosen deliberately in negative terms and as simply as possible: X "dreams" that she is walking with a friend along the shore of a lake with seemingly marvelously clear waters, when suddenly a snake springs up from the bottom of the lake and bites her friend on the throat. She makes several attempts to protect her friend, but becomes frightened herself, is pursued by the snake, and runs "back home" (into her body). The next day she learns that her friend is ill and has completely lost her voice. She herself experiences throughout the day a series of small abortive incidents,
  within and without. If she had been actively conscious, centered,

1.09 - The Furies and Medusa. The Angel. The City of Dis. The Sixth Circle Heresiarchs., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
  Full of Distress and torment terrible.
  Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,

1.10 - The Yoga of the Intelligent Will, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Certainly self-discipline, self-control is never easy. All intelligent human beings know that they must exercise some control over themselves and nothing is more common than this advice to control the senses; but ordinarily it is only advised imperfectly and practised imperfectly in the most limited and insufficient fashion. Even, however, the sage, the man of clear, wise and discerning soul who really labours to acquire complete self-mastery finds himself hurried and carried away by the senses. That is because the mind naturally lends itself to the senses; it observes the objects of sense with an inner interest, settles upon them and makes them the object of absorbing thought for the intelligence and of strong interest for the will. By that attachment comes, by attachment desire, by desire Distress, passion and anger when the desire is not satisfied or is thwarted or opposed, and by passion the soul is obscured, the intelligence and will forget to see and be seated in the calm observing soul; there is a fall from the memory of one's true self, and by that lapse the intelligent will is also obscured, destroyed even. For, for the time being, it no longer exists to our memory of ourselves, it disappears in a cloud of passion; we become passion, wrath, grief and cease to be self and intelligence and will. This then must be prevented
  The Yoga of the Intelligent Will
  --
   claim for the satisfaction of the restless and energetic mind by a constant activity, the claim made by the practical or the kinetic man, which is here enjoined. "Fixed in Yoga do thy actions, having abandoned attachment, having become equal in failure and success; for it is equality that is meant by Yoga." Action is Distressed by the choice between a relative good and evil, the fear of sin and the difficult endeavour towards virtue? But the liberated who has united his reason and will with the Divine, casts away from him even here in this world of dualities both good doing and evil doing; for he rises to a higher law beyond good and evil, founded in the liberty of self-knowledge. Such desireless action can have no decisiveness, no effectiveness, no efficient motive, no large or vigorous creative power? Not so; action done in Yoga is not only the highest but the wisest, the most potent and efficient even for the affairs of the world; for it is informed by the knowledge and will of the Master of works:
  "Yoga is skill in works." But all action directed towards life leads away from the universal aim of the Yogin which is by common consent to escape from bondage to this Distressed and sorrowful human birth? Not so, either; the sages who do works without desire for fruits and in Yoga with the Divine are liberated from the bondage of birth and reach that other perfect status in which there are none of the maladies which afflict the mind and life of a suffering humanity.
  The status he reaches is the Brahmic condition; he gets to firm standing in the Brahman, brahm sthiti. It is a reversal of the whole view, experience, knowledge, values, seeings of earthbound creatures. This life of the dualities which is to them their day, their waking, their consciousness, their bright condition of activity and knowledge, is to him a night, a troubled sleep and darkness of the soul; that higher being which is to them a night, a sleep in which all knowledge and will cease, is to the self-mastering sage his waking, his luminous day of true being, knowledge and power. They are troubled and muddy waters disturbed by every little inrush of desire; he is an ocean of wide being and consciousness which is ever being filled, yet ever motionless in its large poise of his soul; all the desires of the

1.11 - BOOK THE ELEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  And in Distress, for refuge, flies to pray'rs.
  O father Bacchus, I have sinn'd, he cry'd,

1.11 - Higher Laws, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
  nowhere, my opinion is here. Nevertheless I am far from regarding myself as one of those privileged ones to whom the Ved refers when it says, that he who has true faith in the Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that exists, that is, is not bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has remarked, that the Vedant limits this privilege to the time of Distress.
  Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to think that

1.11 - Legend of Dhruva, the son of Uttanapada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
  The boy, having heard the speech of his step-mother, quitted his father, and repaired in a passion to the apartment of his own mother; who, beholding him vexed, took him upon her lap, and, gently smiling, asked him what was the cause of his anger, who had displeased him, and if any one, forgetting the respect due to his father, had behaved ill to him. Dhruva, in reply, repeated to her all that the arrogant Suruci had said to him in the presence of the king. Deeply Distressed by the narrative of the boy, the humble Sunīti, her eyes dimmed with tears, sighed, and said, "Suruci has rightly spoken; thine, child, is an unhappy fate: those who are born to fortune are not liable to the insults of their rivals. Yet be not afflicted, my child, for who shall efface what thou hast formerly done, or shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone. The regal throne, the umbrella of royalty, horses and elephants, are his whose virtues have deserved them: remember this, my son, and be consoled. That the king favours Suruci is the reward of her merits in a former existence. The name of wife alone belongs to such as I, who have not equal merit. Her son is the progeny of accumulated piety, and is born as Uttama: mine has been born as Dhruva, of inferior moral worth. Therefore, my son, it is not proper for you to grieve; a wise man will be contented with that degree which appertains to him: but if you continue to feel hurt at the words of Suruci, endeavour to augment that religious merit which bestows all good; be amiable, be pious, be friendly, be assiduous in benevolence to all living creatures; for prosperity descends upon modest worth as water flows towards low ground."
  Dhruva answered; "Mother, the words that you have addressed to me for my consolation find no place in a heart that contumely has broken. I will exert myself to obtain such elevated rank, that it shall be revered by the whole world. Though I be not born of Suruci, the beloved of the king, you shall behold my glory, who am your son. Let Uttama my brother, her child, possess the throne given to him by my father; I wish for no other honours than such as my own actions shall acquire, such as even my father has not enjoyed."

1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "Another day I learnt of a good man named Dina Mukherji, living at Baghbazar near the bridge. He was a devotee. I asked Mathur to take me there. Finding me insistent, he took me to Dina's house in a carriage. It was a small place. The arrival of a rich man in a big carriage embarrassed the inmates. We too were embarrassed. That day Dina's son was being invested with the sacred thread. The house was crowded, and there was hardly any place for Dina to receive us. We were about to enter a side room, when someone cried out: 'Please don't go into that room. There are ladies there.' It was really a Distressing situation. Returning, Mathur Babu said, 'Father, I shall never listen to you again.' I laughed.
  "Oh, what a state I passed through! Once Kumar Singh gave a feast to the sadhus and invited me too. I found a great many holy men assembled there. When I sat down for the meal, several sadhus asked me about myself. At once I felt like leaving them and sitting alone. I wondered why they should bother about all that. The sadhus took their seats. I began to eat before they had started. I heard several of them remark, 'Oh!

1.11 - Woolly Pomposities of the Pious Teacher, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Above all, do not avoid, or slur, unwelcome trains of thought or Distressing problems. Don't say "he passed on" when you mean "he died," and don't call a spade a bloody shovel!
  Thresh out such matters with Osiris' flail; on the winnowing-fan of Iacchus!

1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
  All their delusive stratagems being thus foiled, the gods were more perplexed than ever. Alarmed at their discomfiture, and afflicted by the devotions of the boy, they assembled and repaired for succour to Hari, the origin of the world, who is without beginning or end; and thus addressed him: "God of gods, sovereign of the world, god supreme, and infinite spirit, Distressed by the austerities of Dhruva, we have come to thee for protection. As the moon increases in his orb day by day, so this youth advances incessantly towards superhuman power by his devotions. Terrified by the ascetic practices of the son of Uttānapāda, we have come to thee for succour. Do thou allay the fervour of his meditations. We know not to what station he aspires: to the throne of Indra, the regency of the solar or lunar sphere, or to the sovereignty of riches or of the deep. Have compassion on us, lord; remove this affliction from Our breasts; divert the son of Uttānapāda from persevering in his penance." Viṣṇu replied to the gods; "The lad desireth neither the rank of Indra, nor the solar orb, nor the sovereignty of wealth or of the ocean: all that he solicits, I will grant. Return therefore, deities, to your mansions as ye list, and be no more alarmed: I will put an end to the penance of the boy, whose mind is immersed in deep contemplation."
  The gods, being thus pacified by the supreme, saluted him respectfully and retired, and, preceded by Indra, returned to their habitations: but Hari, who is all things, assuming a shape with four arms, proceeded to Dhruva, being pleased with his identity of nature, and thus addressed him: "Son of Uttānapāda, be prosperous. Contented with thy devotions, I, the giver of boons, am present. Demand what boon thou desirest. In that thou hast wholly disregarded external objects, and fixed thy thoughts on me, I am well pleased with thee. Ask, therefore, a suitable reward." The boy, hearing these words of the god of gods, opened his eyes, and beholding that Hari whom he had before seen in his meditations actually in his presence, bearing in his hands the shell, the discus, the mace, the bow, and scimetar, and crowned with a diadem, the bowed his head down to earth; the hair stood erect on his brow, and his heart was depressed with awe. He reflected how best he should offer thanks to the god of gods; what he could say in his adoration; what words were capable of expressing his praise: and being overwhelmed with perplexity, he had recourse for consolation to the deity. "If," he exclaimed, "the lord is contented with my devotions, let this be my reward, that I may know how to praise him as I wish. How can I, a child, pronounce his praises, whose abode is unknown to Brahmā and to others learned in the Vedas? My heart is overflowing with devotion to thee: oh lord, grant me the faculty worthily to lay mine adorations at thy feet."

1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  He was consulted. He confirmed Dr. Sanyal's previous diagnosis and said that the gland had enlarged. Sri Aurobindo remarked that he too had the same feeling. "But what is the remedy?" he asked. Surgical intervention was the only radical cure, but Dr. Sen knew that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo would not approve of it. Not to speak of an operation, the mere use of a catheter was not favoured. One night the urine flow stopped altogether. I ran in a panic to call Sen, as there were signs of some Distress. In my absence, the urine had started flowing. He seemed to have asked for me and on learning that I had gone to fetch the doctor, he remarked, "Why? Has he lost his head?" I was so happy to learn of the release of the obstruction that even my "loss of head" did not matter. Then he said to me, "Why have you unnecessarily troubled this poor fellow? You see, I had a dream in which I was freely passing water, but when I woke up, I found this obstruction. Nothing more. Do you understand?" His tone was very sweet. Then I understood that it was his look of surprise and concern that had given me the impression of Distress. But obstruction was obstruction and one had to relieve it. Nevertheless all of us were happy. Next day when the Mother learnt the story, she too made a remark to the same effect. She said, "Having passed so many years with Sri Aurobindo, you still get frightened?" "What to do, Mother?" I replied humbly. "We are dealing with no other person than Sri Aurobindo." "That is exactly why you should never be afraid. Don't you know that his mighty Force is always with you and helping you? No, fear has no place at all, especially among you who are serving him." I felt ashamed but uplifted as well.
  The Darshan was now upon us. A letter had arrived from an astrologer stating that Sri Aurobindo would be subject to a grave malady which might even threaten his life. We simply pooh-poohed the idea, but Sri Aurobindo did not pass it off so lightly. He asked, "Will you enquire what exactly he has written? I feel that he has caught some truth." Sometime previously Dr. Manilal was also told by an astrologer that Sri Aurobindo was going to leave his body and if Dr. Manilal wanted to see his Guru, he had better rush to Pondicherry. When he reported this prediction to Sri Aurobindo, he simply smiled. There were quite a number of predictions about this time to the same effect. Surendra Mohan Ghose has narrated a similar one published in Mother India which I have already described at some length in the previous chapter. Still, I was not a little surprised to find Sri Aurobindo giving credence to such seemingly wild forecasts. For his view with regard to astrology was that its predictions were often uncertain, more especially about the Yogis, since they can change their own and others' destiny. The predictions of Narayan Jyotishi, a famous astrologer of Calcutta, about him had all come true, except the one about a serious illness at the age of 63. But that too, it was said, would be overcome by his yogic force, and he would live up to a ripe old age. Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri,
  --
  The symptoms grew more serious and a partial obstruction to the flow of urine made us think of mechanical intervention. When it became complete and was causing Distress, Dr. Sen and we had no other alternative but to pass a catheter, much against his will. It was followed by immediate relief. We felt light and cheerful. Then a wire was sent to Dr. Sanyal to come down at once. He had been forewarned to be ready for such an emergency call. Our joy was unfortunately short-lived, for in the wake of the intervention crept in the dark shadow of the fever, a not unusual complication, but all the same it brought a cold shiver. At this juncture, Sanyal's arrival acted like warm sunshine.[3]
  We apprised him of the whole clinical picture since his last visit. He approached Sri Aurobindo, did pranam but found him "seemingly unconcerned, with eyes closed, like a statue of massive peace". Then he opened his eyes, recognised him and gave him a serene smile. The doctor asked him regular professional questions to which he answered, "Trouble? Nothing troubles me, and suffering one can be above it." I mentioned the urinary difficulties. "Well, yes; I had some difficulties, but they were relieved and now I don't feel anything," he replied reassuringly. Sanyal told the Mother that there was a mild kidney infection, but nothing serious. We were consoled. But he wondered how, after Sri Aurobindo had cured himself, there could be this recrudescence.
  --
  On 3rd December, the temperature again dropped to normal. Thinking that Sri Aurobindo was improving, Sanyal proposed to leave that evening. The Mother heard him gravely, but gave no reply. He took the hint and added quickly, "I would rather stay for a few more days, Mother." A smile lit up her face. In the afternoon the picture rapidly changed. The temperature shot up, respiratory Distress showed itself for the first time. Sri Aurobindo refused to take any liquid. At the Mother's persuasion he sipped some fruit juice and immediately lapsed into a trance. Almost the whole day he remained in that condition. The Mother, owing to this set-back, did not go to the Playground.
  Then, for the first time, the Mother said, "He is losing interest in himself." To our request for some energetic measure, she now replied, "It all depends on him." The long night passed in Distress alternating with an indrawn condition. He would wake up, however, only when we wanted to give him a drink. Sometimes he even expressed a choice in the matter.
  On the next day, he emerged from the depth and wanted to sit up. In spite of our objection, he strongly insisted. We noticed after a while that all the Distressing breathing symptoms had magically vanished and he looked his normal self. We were so happy at this sudden change and thought that at last our prayer had been heard. Then he moved to the chair. We boldly asked him now, "Are you not using your force to cure yourself?" "No!" came the stunning reply. We could not believe our ears; to be quite sure, we repeated the question. No mistake! Then we asked, "Why not? How is the disease going to be cured otherwise?" "Can't explain; you won't understand," was the curt reply. We were dumbfounded.
  At last the clue to a part of the enigma was found, the reason why the disease had come back and progressed. But the big mystery as to his strange attitude and non-intervention still remains. The increasing gravity of the disease was visible in three clear stages concomitant with the completion of Savitri, the Darshan and the School Anniversary, each progressive stage followed by a deeper and deeper trance. It was probably at the second stage that the Mother remarked, "Each time I enter his room, I see him pulling down the Supramental Light." Evidently, he had fixed the date of his departure and was pulling down the highest Light before the curtain fell. We misinterpreted the Mother's words to mean that the descending Light was meant to cure him. After an hour in the chair he went back to bed, serene and majestic in poise. Sanyal even held a brief talk about Bengal's pitiable plight. But the Mother knew the truth behind the appearance.
  --
  By 5 p.m. there was a respite and he called for the commode. In view of the Distress, we requested him not to move out of the bed, but he firmly insisted. He knew evidently what he was doing while we always looked through our medical glasses. There was a thorough purposive clearance of the bowels though he had taken very little food for many days. He then walked to the big cushion chair; again a self of calm repose. Alas, but for a brief instant. The respiratory Distress returned with redoubled force. He went to his bed and plunged deep within himself. It was during this period that he often came out of the trance, and each time leaned forward, hugged and kissed Champaklal who was sitting by the side of his bed. Champaklal also hugged him in return. A wonderful sight it was, though so strangely unlike Sri Aurobindo who had rarely called us even by our names in these twelve years. We knew that Champaklal particularly longed for some tender outward expression. But Sri Aurobindo's impersonal nature kept at bay all personal touches except during our birthday or Darshan pranams when he would pat and caress our heads. Now Champaklal had his heart's yearning gratified to the full extent. But on what grounds? Was it the repayment of God's debt to his "servant" for his lifelong dedicated service without the expectation of any other meed than perhaps some occasional look or touch or word? For my part too, I can count a few glowing touches that shine like stars on a dark night. First of all, soon after the completion of Savitri, as I would enter his room in the morning, he would cast a moment's quiet glance at me leaving me in wonderment but happy. Then, when I did pranam on my birthday, 17th November, and the last Darshan day, he was unusually tender and caressed and pressed my head for a long time. But the climax of the wonder came when I was massaging his right leg. He was quietly lying down in bed; I was within the reach of his right hand. As I bent down, I suddenly felt a quick touch of his palm on my head. At once I looked up; all was as before. His gaze was elsewhere as if he knew nothing about it. I was utterly mystified. That these were indications of his imminent withdrawal became clear only after he had left the body. I am sure my other colleagues also received either vivid or veiled tokens.
  Even a non-attendant, Amal Kiran, reported a last act of Grace that was his good fortune: "My turn to go up to the Darshan of November 24, 1950, came. As soon as my wife and I appeared at the door of the long Meditation Room upstairs, at the other end of which was the small room where Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were sitting, the Mother leaned towards Sri Aurobindo and said something. At once he started smiling. All through the Darshan the smile was on his lips, and my wife tells me that until I disappeared into the next room on my way out, he was looking in my direction and smiling. Such a thing had never happened at any other Darshan I had attended. This was just eleven days before he passed away.

1.12 - THE FESTIVAL AT PNIHTI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Mani Sen said good-bye to the invited brahmins and Vaishnavas with suitable gifts of money. He offered five rupees to Sri Ramakrishna. The latter said that he could not possibly accept any money. But Mani insisted. The Master then asked him in the name of his guru not to press him. Mani requested him again to accept the offering. Sri Ramakrishna asked M., in a Distressed voice, whether he should take the money. The disciple made a vehement protest and said, "No, sir. By no means."
  Friends of Mani Sen gave the money to Rkhl , requesting him to buy some mangoes and sweets for the Master. Sri Ramakrishna said to M.: "I have definitely said to Mani that I would not accept the money. I feel free now. But Rkhl has accepted it. His is now the responsibility."

1.12 - The Sacred Marriage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  the Malmyz district in Russia were Distressed by a series of bad
  harvests. They did not know what to do, but at last concluded that

1.1.4 - The Physical Mind and Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  This going out of the mind and this siege of thoughts is a difficulty which everybody has to meet for a time or often when he wants to concentrate within. You should not allow it to depress you or make you hopeless or lead you to think that there is some special disability in you from which others do not suffer. One has to keep ones poise, recognise it as an inherent difficulty of the nature of mind (physical mind), one which has to be overcome and will be overcome in time. In that way one feels the pressure of these obstacles less and gets over it sooner than if one gets Distressed or upset by them or takes them for a sign of incapacity for the Yoga.
  ***

1.14 - The Victory Over Death, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  In short, we must replace the program automatically fed into the cells and the whole inexorable ribonucleic code that keeps secreting its little Distress signals and glandular calls with a conscious program, a call for light, a solar code in that rattle of valves and pistons and wandering enzymes which, while they make up for our weaknesses and plug the holes of our incapability to absorb directly the great current of restorative Harmony, lock us up in a dungeon of microscopic energy that is soon exhausted and decomposed.
  A new spiritual training of the body has to be invented.

1.16 - The Season of Truth, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  The secrets are simple, we have said, and we wonder if that difficult transmutation, that complex alchemy, those thick manuals and mysterious initiations, those educated austerities and spiritual exercises, those meditations and retreats and tortured breathing, that whole labor of the spirit are not actually the labor of the mind trying to make it difficult, tremendously difficult, so it can inflate itself further, and then glory in untying the enormous knot it had itself tied. If things are too simple, it does not believe in them, because it has nothing to do because it yearns to do, at all costs. That is its food and livelihood its ego's livelihood. But that mental inflation and pontification may hide from us an utter simplicity, a supreme facility, a supreme nondoing that is the art of doing well. We have had to do and do again, tramp around the trails of the mind to individualize a fragment of that formidable, immense Consciousness-Force, that universal Energy-Harmony, to make it self-conscious, as it were, in one form and in billions of forms. But has not the time come, at the end of the little flame's long journey, to break the mold that helped us to grow and rediscover the totality of Consciousness and Energy and Harmony in one small center of being, a little point of matter, in one clear little note, and to let That do, That change our eyes, That permeate our tissues, That widen our substance to let a supreme Child who runs over the great prairies of the world play in us and for us, if we want, because he is us? This difficult transmutation may not be so difficult after all. It must be as simple as truth, simple as a smile, simple as a child at play. Perhaps everything hinges simply on whether we wish to take the path of difficulty the path of the mind desperately inflating itself to try to blow itself up to the size of the universe, the path of the buts and whys and hows and all the implacable laws that choke us time and again in our mental straitjacket or the path of an unknown little something stealing through the air, sparkling in the air, winking at every street corner and every encounter, in everything, all the trifles of the day, as though carrying us along in an indescribable golden wake in which everything is easy and simple and miraculous we are right in the midst of the miracle! We are in the full supramental season. It is knocking at all our closed windows, at our countries, our hearts, our crumbling systems, our shaky laws, our faltering wisdoms, in our thousands of ills that keep coming out, our thousands of little lies abandoning the skiff in Distress it is softly slipping its golden skiff beneath the old specious appearances, it is growing its unexpected buds beneath the old rags, awaiting a tiny little crack to spring out into the open, a tiny little call. The transmutation is not difficult; it is all there, already done, only waiting for us to open our eyes to the unreality of misery and falsehood and death and our impotence to the unreality of the mind and the laws of the mind. It is waiting for our radical saltus into that future of truth, our mass uprising against the old cage, our general strike against the Machine. Oh! let us leave it to the elders, the old elders of the old world, the old believers in misery and suffering and the bomb and the gospel and the millions of gospels that struggle for a share of the world, to run their old squeaky machine for a few more days, to quarrel over borders, argue over reforms of the rot, debate agreements of disagreement, stockpile bombs and false knowledge and libraries and museums, preach good and evil, preach the friend and the enemy, preach country and no-country, build more and more machines and supermachines and rockets to the moon and misery for every pocketbook let us leave to them the last convulsions of the falsehood, the last cries of the rot, we who do not care about countries, borders, machines and all that walled-in future, we who believe in a light and inexpressible something that is pounding at the doors of the world and pounding in our hearts, in a completely new future, completely clear and vibrant and marvelous, without borders, without laws, without gospels, beyond all their possibilities and impossibilities, their good and evil, their small countries and small thoughts we who believe in Truth, in the supreme beauty of Truth, the supreme joy of Truth, the supreme power of Truth. We are the sons of a more marvelous Future which is already there, which will spring out into the open by our cry of trust, sweeping away all the old machinery like an unreal dream, a nightmare of the mind, an old windbag filled with only as much air as we still consent to lend it. The transmutation has to be done in our hearts, the last revolution to be carried out, the supramental revolution of the human species as others had launched the human revolution among the apes its great rebellion against the Machine, its general strike against mental knowledge, mental power and mental fabrications against the mental prison its mass defection from the old groove of pain, and its calling out for what has to be, its simple cry for truth amidst the rubble of the mental age: the truth, the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth.
  Then Truth shall be.

1.17 - Legend of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
  khya philosophy: internal, as bodily or mental Distress; external, as injuries from men, animals, &c.; and superhuman, or inflictions by gods or demons. See S. Kārikā, ver. 1.
  [8]: The construction of the text is elliptical and brief, but the sense is sufficiently clear. The order of the last pāda is thus transposed by the commentator: 'Whence (from feeling pleasure) the abandonment of enmity is verily the consequence.'

1.17 - M. AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  M: "Grief and Distress of mind disappear if one has these experiences but once."
  Proper time for spiritual unfoldment
  MASTER: "That is true. Distress of mind disappears for ever. I shall tell you a few things about yoga. But you see, the mother bird doesn't break the shell until the chick inside the egg is matured. The egg is hatched in the fullness of time. It is necessary to practise some spiritual discipline. The guru no doubt does everything for the disciple; but at the end he makes the disciple work a little himself. When cutting down a big tree, a man cuts almost through the trunk; then he stands aside for a moment, and the tree falls down with a crash.
  "The farmer brings water to his field through a canal from the river. He stands aside when only a little digging remains to be done to connect the field with the water. Then the earth becomes soaked and falls of itself, and the water of the river pours into the canal in torrents.

1.17 - SUFFERING, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  Many sufferings are the immediate consequence of moral evil, and these cannot have any good effects upon the sufferer, so long as the causes of his Distress are not eradicated.
  Each sin begetteth a special spiritual suffering. A suffering of this kind is like unto that of hell, for the more you suffer, the worse you become. This happeneth to sinners; the more they suffer through their sins, the more wicked they become; and they fall continually more and more into their sins in order to get free from their suffering.

1.20 - HOW MAY WE CONCEIVE AND HOPE THAT HUMAN UNANIMIZATION WILL BE REALIZED ON EARTH?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
  and chaotic human dispersal which so Distresses us, of this force of
  auto-unification emerging from the psychic energies released by

1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  A man, harrowed by Distress at home, puts on an ochre robe and goes away to Benares. For many days he does not send home any news of himself. Then he writes to his people: 'Don't be worried about me. I have got a job here.'
  "There is always trouble in family life. The wife may be disobedient. Perhaps the husb and earns only twenty rupees a month. He hasn't the means to perform the 'rice-eating ceremony' for his baby. He cannot educate his son. The house is dilapidated.

1.22 - On Prayer, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
  You pray in your Distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
  For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

1.22 - THE END OF THE SPECIES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
  common Distress the men of the future will form,
  in some way, but one single consciousness; and

1.24 - Describes how vocal prayer may be practised with perfection and how closely allied it is to mental prayer, #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  are Distressed and strive to calm themselves, they are unable to do so and incapable of attending to
  what they are saying, however hard they try, nor can they fix their understanding on anything: they

1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Who but your Mother Durga will save you in Distress?
  Thou art the heavens and the earth, and Thou the nether world; From Thee have the twelve Gopalas and Hari and iva sprung.

1.25 - DUNGEON, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  Art thou a man, then pity my Distress!
  FAUST

1.26 - FESTIVAL AT ADHARS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  Then I shall never be Distressed.
  O Vina, sing His name but once;

1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
  We should not be Distressed if in asking the Lord for something we remain for a time unheard. It would have pleased the Lord if all men in a single moment had become dispassionate, only His foresight told Him that this would not be for their good.
  All who ask and do not obtain their requests from God, are denied for one of the following reasons: either because they ask at the wrong time, or because they ask unworthily and vaingloriously, or because if they received they would become conceited, or finally, because they would become negligent after obtaining their request.

1.30 - Describes the importance of understanding what we ask for in prayer. Treats of these words in the Paternoster: Sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum. Applies them to the Prayer of Quiet, and begins the explanation of them., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  to me once in great Distress, saying that she did not know how to practise mental prayer, and that
  she could not contemplate but could only say vocal prayers. She was quite an old woman and had

1.31 - Continues the same subject. Explains what is meant by the Prayer of Quiet. Gives several counsels to those who experience it. This chapter is very noteworthy., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  they dare not stir. Speaking is a Distress to them: they will spend a whole hour on a single repetition
  of the Paternoster. They are so close to God that they know they can make themselves understood
  --
  and quite without Distress: their whole desire is the hallowing of this name. They seem not to be
  in the world, and have no wish to see or hear anything but their God; nothing Distresses them, nor
  does it seem that anything can possibly do so. In short, for as long as this state lasts, they are so

1.35 - Describes the recollection which should be practised after Communion. Concludes this subject with an exclamatory prayer to the Eternal Father., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  happen, for the devil will try to oppress and Distress your heart, knowing what great harm he can
  do in this way), the devil will make you think that you can find more devotion in other things and

1.36 - Treats of these words in the Paternoster Dimitte nobis debita nostra., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  if it is highly esteemed or no. That is not quite correct: it does care, for honour Distresses much
  more than dishonour and it prefers trials to a great deal of rest and ease. For anyone to whom the
  --
  may cause them some momentary Distress, but they will hardly have felt it when reason will
  intervene, and will seem to raise its standard aloft, and drive away their Distress by giving them the
  joy of seeing how God has entrusted them with the opportunity of gaining, in a single day, more
  --
  enable them to serve God better. If they are not well born, it Distresses them when people think
  them better than they are, and it causes them no Distress to disabuse them, but only pleasure. The
  reason for this is that those to whom God grants the favour of possessing such humility and great
  --
  even though such suffering brings Distress-is very quickly seen in anyone to whom the Lord has
  granted this grace of prayer as far as the stage of union. If these effects are not produced in a soul

1.38 - Treats of the great need which we have to beseech the Eternal Father to grant us what we ask in these words: Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Explains certain temptations. This chapter is noteworthy., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  then there come days when a single word Distresses me and I long to leave the world altogether,
  for everything in it seems to weary me. And I am not the only person to be like this, for I have

1.39 - Continues the same subject and gives counsels concerning different kinds of temptation. Suggests two remedies by which we may be freed from temptations.135, #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  how wicked we are, we can see clearly that we deserve to be in hell, and are Distressed by our
  sinfulness, and rightly think that everyone should hate us, yet, if our humility is true, this Distress
  is accompanied by an interior peace and joy of which we should not like to be deprived. Far from
  --
  of Distress only disturbs and upsets the mind and troubles the soul, so grievous is it. I think the devil
  is anxious for us to believe that we are humble, and, if he can, to lead us to distrust God.

1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  If you would know what is the Divine Grace, it is necessary first to realise that it is something which contradicts the law of the world, for it is outside its normal rule and not of its nature. There is here something which does not seem to govern at all the cosmic action, but only to intervene, and yet it is always there; an element without which this universe would be either a tremendous machine or a fortuitously and yet inexorably ordered chance. For to our observation all here is a process, a mechanism of Ignorance and Inconscience manifesting a precarious consciousness Distressed by a nostalgia of Truth that exists somewhere and yet seems to be unseizable and unrealisable, - a mechanism of Law that controls a frightening whirl of Forces, a mechanism of implacable justice measuring things by a mysterious and to us unintelligible balance, a mechanism of evolution with matter and inconscience as its starting point, a precarious and groping life and consciousness as its highest realised term and as its final uncertain poise some possibility of the Divine.
  Our senses can discover no visible presence of the Divine, our intellect can do without any idea of its intervention - but it is another experience than that of the intellect and the senses which once it is there will no longer let us escape from the Presence or refuse to see the intervening Will or Grace.

1.41 - Speaks of the fear of God and of how we must keep ourselves from venial sins., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
  station, for people will not Distress him in a matter about which they know him to feel so strongly
  as giving offence to God. I really do not know the reason for this but I do know that it very commonly

1.47 - Lityerses, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  father or guardian. Khonds in Distress often sold their children for
  victims, "considering the beatification of their souls certain, and

1.52 - Killing the Divine Animal, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  great deal of Distress. I observed that some of the people were
  possessed by demons, some were wounded by wild animals, some were

1.62 - The Fire-Festivals of Europe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  fire at irregular intervals in seasons of Distress and calamity,
  above all when their cattle were attacked by epidemic disease. No

1.75 - The AA and the Planet, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
      He will be sore Distressed.
      All they understand not that thou and I are fashioning a boat of mother-of-pearl. We will sail down the river of Amrit even to the yew-groves of Yama, where we may rejoice exceedingly.

19.15 - On Happiness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Victory breeds enmity, the victim lies in Distress;
   The tranquillised soul dwells in happiness abandoning victory and defeat.

1917 11 25p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   O Lord, because in an hour of cruel Distress I said in the sincerity of my faith: Thy Will be done, Thou camest garbed in Thy raiment of glory. At Thy feet I prostrated myself, on Thy breast I found my refuge. Thou hast filled my being with Thy divine light and flooded it with Thy bliss. Thou hast reaffirmed Thy alliance and assured me of Thy constant presence. Thou art the sure friend who never fails, the Power, the Support, the Guide. Thou art the Light which scatters darkness, the Conqueror who assures the victory. Since Thou art there, all has become clear. Agni is rekindled in my fortified heart, and his splendour shines out and sets aglow the atmosphere and purifies it.
   My love for Thee, compressed so long, has leaped forth again, powerful, sovereign, irresistibleincreased tenfold by the ordeal it has undergone. It has found strength in its seclusion, the strength to emerge to the surface of the being, impose itself as master on the entire consciousness, absorb everything in its overflowing stream.

1951-03-12 - Mental forms - learning difficult subjects - Mental fortress - thought - Training the mind - Helping the vital being after death - ceremonies - Human stupidities, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Yes, it is for this reason that in all countries and in all religions, it is recommended that for a period of at least seven days after someones death, people should gather and think of him. Because when you think of him with affection (without any inner disorder, without weeping, without any of those distraught passions), if you can be calm, your atmosphere becomes a kind of beacon for him, and when he is attacked by hostile forces (I am speaking of the vital being of course, not the psychic being which goes to take rest), he may feel altogether lost, not know what to do and find himself in great Distress; then he sees through affinity the light of those who are thinking of him with affection and he rushes there. It happens almost constantly that a vital formation, a part of the vital being of the dead person (or at times the whole vital if it is well organised) takes shelter in the aura, the atmosphere of the people or the person who loved him. There are people who always carry with them a part of the vital of the person who is gone. That is the real utility of these so-called ceremonies, which otherwise have no sense.
   It is preferable to do this without ceremonies. Ceremonies are, if anything, rather harmful, for a very simple reason: When you are busy with a ceremony, you think more about that than about the person. When you are busy with gestures, movements, with the following of a ritual, you think much more of all that than of the person who is dead. Moreover, people perform these ceremonies most of the time for that very reason, for they are almost always in the habit of trying to forget. The fact is that one of the two principal occupations of man is to try to forget what is painful to him, and the other is to try to seek amusement in order to escape boredom. These are the two principal occupations of humanity, that is, humanity spends half of its time in doing nothing true.

1969 10 29, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   186The contri butions of evil to the good of the world and the harm sometimes done by the virtuous are Distressing to the soul enamoured of good. Nevertheless be not Distressed nor confounded, but study rather and calmly understand Gods ways with humanity.
   Sri Aurobindo means that there is a height in the consciousness where the ordinary notions of good and bad lose all their value.1

1.A - ANTHROPOLOGY, THE SOUL, #Philosophy of Mind, #unset, #Zen
  The self-possessed and healthy subject has an active and present consciousness of the ordered whole of his individual world, into the system of which he subsumes each special content of sensation, idea, desire, inclination, etc., as it arises, so as to insert them in their proper place, He is the dominant genius over these particularities. Between this and insanity the difference is like that between waking and dreaming: only that in insanity the dream falls within the waking limits, and so makes part of the actual self- feeling. Error and that sort of thing is a proposition consistently admitted to a place in the objective interconnection of things. In the concrete, however, it is often difficult to say where it begins to become derangement. A violent, but groundless and senseless outburst of hatred, etc., may, in contrast to a presupposed higher self-possession and stability of character, make its victim seem to be beside himself with frenzy. But the main point in derangement is the contradiction which a feeling with a fixed corporeal embodiment sets up against the whole mass of adjustments forming the concrete consciousness. The mind which is in a condition of mere being, and where such being is not rendered fluid in its consciousness, is diseased. The contents which are set free in this reversion to mere nature are the self-seeking affections of the heart, such as vanity, pride, and the rest of the passions - fancies and hopes - merely personal love and hatred. When the influence of self-possession and of general principles, moral and theoretical, is relaxed, and ceases to keep the natural temper under lock and key, the, earthly elements are set free - that evil which is always latent in the heart, because the heart as immediate is natural and selfish. It is the evil genius of man which gains the upper hand in insanity, but in distinction from and contrast to the better and more intelligent part, which is there also. Hence this state is mental derangement and Distress. The right psychical treatment therefore keeps in view the truth that insanity is not an abstract loss of reason (neither in the point of intelligence nor of will and its responsibility), but only derangement, only a contradiction in a still subsisting reason; - just as physical disease is not an abstract, i.e. mere and total, loss of health (if it were that, it would be death), but a contradiction in it. This humane treatment, no less benevolent than reasonable (the services of Pinel towards which deserve the highest acknowledgement), presupposes the patient's rationality, and in that assumption has the sound basis for dealing with him on this side - just as in the case of bodily disease the physician bases his treatment on the vitality which as such still contains health.
  (c) Habit[7]

1.ac - A Birthday, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Worry, starvation, illness and Distress?
  Each moment was a mine of happiness.

1.anon - But little better, #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  and Distress.
  "The two endeavorers from the tribe of Ghaiz bin Murrah

1f.lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   Indeed, I flatter myself that even in the midst of our Distress, utter
   bewilderment, and soul-clutching horror, we scarcely went beyond the

1f.lovecraft - The Dreams in the Witch House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  marks of murderous hands, and on his left ankle was a Distressing
  rat-bite. His clothing was badly rumpled, and Joe's crucifix was

1f.lovecraft - The Horror at Martins Beach, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   curiously awaited a sight of the hapless being whose Distress had been
   so great; eager to see the rescue made by the massive rope.

1f.lovecraft - The Last Test, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   gently what was Distressing him, and waited anxiously for his reply,
   hoping to hear that Suramas treatment of the poor Thibetan had
  --
   Whats Distressing me? Good God, Georgina, what isnt? Look at the
   cages and see if you have to ask again! Cleaned outmilked drynot a

1f.lovecraft - The Lurking Fear, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   Tobey they were truly Distressed; for they wanted to help us, yet knew
   that these victims had gone as wholly out of the world as their own

1f.lovecraft - The Night Ocean, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   they contain. I knew the time with an intuitive Distress of spirita
   recognition too deep for me to explain. Throughout those daylight hours

1f.lovecraft - The Shunned House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   ardent, some whisperedand their evident Distress when virtually driven
   from the village down the bay, had moved the sympathy of the town

1.fs - The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
  Can I take part in such Distress?
  Poor martyr,most devoutly, "Yes!"

1.hs - To Linger In A Garden Fair, #Hafiz - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  'Tis but to teach him wisdom through Distress,
  Else Pardon and Compassionate Mercy were

1.jk - Calidore - A Fragment, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  A hand heaven made to succour the Distress'd;
  A hand that from the world's bleak promontory

1.jk - Endymion - Book IV, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  A woman's sigh alone and in Distress?
  See not her charms! Is Phoebe passionless?

1.jk - Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil - A Story From Boccaccio, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  And Isabella's was a great Distress,
  Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove

1.jk - Sonnet IX. Keen, Fitful Gusts Are, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent Distress,
  And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd;

1.jk - Sonnet. On Peace, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  Soothing with placid brow our late Distress,
  Making the triple kingdom brightly smile?

1.jk - The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies - A Faery Tale .. Unfinished, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  Crept silently, and waited in Distress,
  Knowing the Emperor's moody bitterness;

1.jlb - The Golem, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
  That I engender this Distressing son?
  Inaction is wisdom. I left off being wise.

1.jwvg - Prometheus, #Goethe - Poems, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  To feel compassion for Distress.
  Who help'd me

1.mm - Of the voices of the Godhead, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German O soaring eagle! darling lamb! O glowing spark! Set me on fire! How long must I endure this thirst? One hour is already too long, A day is as a thousand years When Thou art absent! Should this continue for eight days I would rather go down to Hell -- (Where indeed I already am!) Than that God should hide Himself From the loving soul; For that were anguish greater than human death, Pain beyond all pain. The nightingale must ever sing Because its nature is love; Whoso would take that from it Would bring it death. Ah! Mighty Lord! Look on my need! Then the Holy Spirit spoke to the soul -- "Come, noble maid! Prepare thyself, Thy Lover comes!" Startled but inwardly rejoicing She said: "Welcome, faithful messenger, Would that it were ever so! I am so evil and so faithless That I can find no peace of mind Apart from my Love. The moment it seems that I cool But a little from love of Him, Then am I in deep Distress And can do nothing but seek for Him lamenting." Then the messenger spoke: "Thou must purify thyself, Sprinkle the dust with water, Scatter flowers in thy room." And the exiled soul replied: "When I purify, I blush, When I sprinkle, I weep, When I pray, then must I hope, When I gather flowers, I love. When my Lord comes I am beside myself For there cometh with Him such sweet melody That all carnal desire dieth within me: And His sweet music puts far from me All sorrow of heart. The mighty voice of the Godhead Has spoken to me in powerful words Which I have received With the dull hearing of my misery -- A light of utmost splendor Glows on the eyes of my soul Therein have I seen the inexpressible ordering Of all things, and recognized God's unspeakable glory -- That incomprehensible wonder -- The tender caress between God and the soul, The sufficiency in the Highest, Discipline and understanding, Realization with withdrawal, According to the power of the senses, The unmingled joy of union, The living love of Eternity As it now is and evermore shall be." Then were seen four rays of light Which shot forth all at once From the noble crossbow of the Trinity From the Divine Throne through the nine Choirs. There none is so poor nor so rich That he is not met by Love; The rays of the Godhead illuminate him With inconceivable light; The humanity of the Son greets him In brotherly love; The Holy Spirit flows through him With the miraculous creative power Of everlasting joy! The undivided Godhead welcomes him With the glory of His Divine Countenance And fills him with the blessedness Of His life-giving breath. Love flows from God to man without effort As a bird glides through the air Without moving its wings -- Thus they go whithersoever they will United in body and soul Yet in their form separate -- As the Godhead strikes the note Humanity sings, The Holy Spirit is the harpist And all the strings must sound Which are strung in love. There was also seen That sublime vessel In which Christ dwelt nine months on earth In soul and body, As it ever shall remain Only without the great glory Which at the last day The heavenly Father will give to all The bodies of the redeemed. This our Lady must also lack So long as the earth floats above the sea. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
1.pbs - Adonais - An elegy on the Death of John Keats, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  Leave me not!" cried Urania: her Distress
  Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.

1.pbs - Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  To find refuge from Distress
  In friendship's smile, in love's caress?

1.pbs - Rosalind and Helen - a Modern Eclogue, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
     Which goaded him in his Distress
     Over the world's vast wilderness.
  --
     Had tended me in my Distress,
     And died some months before. Nor less

1.pbs - The Cenci - A Tragedy In Five Acts, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  I grieve thus to Distress you, but the Count
  Must answer charges of the gravest import,

1.pbs - The Mask Of Anarchy, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  Where the murmur of Distress
  Echoes, like the distant sound

1.pbs - The Revolt Of Islam - Canto I-XII, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
   'Ye turn to Heaven for aid in your Distress;
    Alas, that ye, the mighty and the wise,

1.pbs - Verses On A Cat, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  A cat in Distress,
  Nothing more, nor less;
  --
  All the modes of Distress
  Which torture the tenants of earth;

1.rb - Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  So that I faint not under my Distress.
  But wherefore should I scruple to avow

1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fifth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  Conceding to a Lydian King's Distress
  The cause of his long errorone mistake

1.rb - Sordello - Book the First, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  Whose artless wonder quite precludes Distress,
  Secure beside in its own loveliness,

1.rb - Sordello - Book the Third, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  And satiate with receiving. Some Distress
  Was caused, too, by a sort of consciousness

1.rt - Broken Song, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  His voice quakes with Distress, like a lamp guttering in a breeze.
  He abandons the words of the song and tries to salvage the tune,

1.rt - The Homecoming, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  It was an immense relief to the mother to get rid of Phatik. She had a prejudice against the boy, and no love was lost between the two brothers. She was in daily fear that he would either drown Makhan some day in the river, or break his head in a fight, or run him into some danger or other. At the same time she was somewhat Distressed to see Phatiks extreme eagerness to get away.
  Phatik, as soon as all was settled, kept asking his uncle every minute when they were to start. He was on pins and needles all day long with excitement, and lay awake most of the night. He bequeathed to Makhan, in perpetuity, his fishing-rod, his big kite and his marbles. Indeed, at this time of departure his generosity towards Makhan was unbounded.

1.rt - Unending Love, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  Shy sweetness of meeting, the same Distressful tears of farewell-
  Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

1.rwe - May-Day, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
  Soothe pain, and age, and love's Distress,
  Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds.

1.stav - In the Hands of God, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD Original Language Spanish I am Yours and born of You, What do You want of me? Majestic Sovereign, Unending wisdom, Kindness pleasing to my soul; God sublime, one Being Good, Behold this one so vile. Singing of her love to you: What do You want of me? Yours, you made me, Yours, you saved me, Yours, you endured me, Yours, you called me, Yours, you awaited me, Yours, I did not stray. What do You want of me? Good Lord, what do you want of me, What is this wretch to do? What work is this, This sinful slave, to do? Look at me, Sweet Love, Sweet Love, look at me, What do You want of me? In Your hand I place my heart, Body, life and soul, Deep feelings and affections mine, Spouse -- Redeemer sweet, Myself offered now to you, What do You want of me? Give me death, give me life, Health or sickness, Honor or shame, War or swelling peace, Weakness or full strength, Yes, to these I say, What do You want of me? Give me wealth or want, Delight or Distress, Happiness or gloominess, Heaven or hell, Sweet life, sun unveiled, To you I give all. What do You want of me? Give me, if You will, prayer; Or let me know dryness, And abundance of devotion, Or if not, then barrenness. In you alone, Sovereign Majesty, I find my peace, What do You want of me? Give me then wisdom. Or for love, ignorance, Years of abundance, Or hunger and famine. Darkness or sunlight, Move me here or there: What do You want of me? If You want me to rest, I desire it for love; If to labor, I will die working: Sweet Love say Where, how and when. What do You want of me? Calvary or Tabor give me, Desert or fruitful land; As Job in suffering Or John at Your breast; Barren or fruited vine, Whatever be Your will: What do You want of me? Be I Joseph chained Or as Egypt's governor, David pained Or exalted high, Jonas drowned, Or Jonas freed: What do You want of me? Silent or speaking, Fruitbearing or barren, My wounds shown by the Law, Rejoicing in the tender Gospel; Sorrowing or exulting, You alone live in me: What do You want of me? Yours I am, for You I was born: What do You want of me? [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila: Volume Three, Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD / Translated by Otilio Rodriguez, OCD <
1.wb - The Divine Image, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   Original Language English To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love All pray in their Distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love Is God, our Father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love Is man, His child and care. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his Distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity and Peace. And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk or Jew; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. [2071.jpg] -- from Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry, Edited by Patrick Laude / Edited by Barry McDonald <
1.wby - A Dialogue Of Self And Soul, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  The ignominy of boyhood; the Distress
  Of boyhood changing into man;

1.wby - An Image From A Past Life, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  From vague Distress
  Or arrogant loveliness,

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun distress

The noun distress has 4 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
                  
1. (4) distress, hurt, suffering ::: (psychological suffering; "the death of his wife caused him great distress")
2. (3) distress ::: (a state of adversity (danger or affliction or need); "a ship in distress"; "she was the classic maiden in distress")
3. distress ::: (extreme physical pain; "the patient appeared to be in distress")
4. distress, distraint ::: (the seizure and holding of property as security for payment of a debt or satisfaction of a claim; "Originally distress was a landlord's remedy against a tenant for unpaid rents or property damage but now the landlord is given a landlord's lien")

--- Overview of verb distress

The verb distress has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
                  
1. straiten, distress ::: (bring into difficulties or distress, especially financial hardship)
2. distress ::: (cause mental pain to; "The news of her child's illness distressed the mother")


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun distress

4 senses of distress                          

Sense 1
distress, hurt, suffering
   => pain, painfulness
     => feeling
       => state
         => attribute
           => abstraction, abstract entity
             => entity

Sense 2
distress
   => adversity, hardship, hard knocks
     => misfortune, bad luck, tough luck, ill luck
       => fortune, destiny, fate, luck, lot, circumstances, portion
         => condition
           => state
             => attribute
               => abstraction, abstract entity
                 => entity

Sense 3
distress
   => pain, hurting
     => symptom
       => evidence, grounds
         => information
           => cognition, knowledge, noesis
             => psychological feature
               => abstraction, abstract entity
                 => entity

Sense 4
distress, distraint
   => seizure
     => appropriation
       => acquiring, getting
         => act, deed, human action, human activity
           => event
             => psychological feature
               => abstraction, abstract entity
                 => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun distress

2 of 4 senses of distress                      

Sense 1
distress, hurt, suffering
   => anguish, torment, torture
   => self-torture, self-torment
   => tsoris
   => wound

Sense 2
distress
   => anguish
   => pressure
   => throe


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun distress

4 senses of distress                          

Sense 1
distress, hurt, suffering
   => pain, painfulness

Sense 2
distress
   => adversity, hardship, hard knocks

Sense 3
distress
   => pain, hurting

Sense 4
distress, distraint
   => seizure




--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun distress

4 senses of distress                          

Sense 1
distress, hurt, suffering
  -> pain, painfulness
   => growing pains
   => unpleasantness
   => mental anguish
   => suffering, hurt
   => distress, hurt, suffering

Sense 2
distress
  -> adversity, hardship, hard knocks
   => ill-being
   => catastrophe, disaster
   => extremity
   => distress
   => affliction
   => victimization
   => nadir, low-water mark

Sense 3
distress
  -> pain, hurting
   => ache, aching
   => agony, suffering, excruciation
   => arthralgia
   => burn, burning
   => causalgia
   => colic, intestinal colic, gripes, griping
   => chest pain
   => chiralgia
   => distress
   => dysmenorrhea
   => glossalgia, glossodynia
   => growing pains
   => hemorrhoid, haemorrhoid, piles
   => keratalgia
   => labor pain
   => mastalgia
   => melagra
   => meralgia
   => metralgia
   => myalgia, myodynia
   => nephralgia
   => neuralgia, neuralgy
   => odynophagia
   => orchidalgia
   => pang
   => pang, sting
   => photalgia, photophobia
   => pleurodynia, pleuralgia, costalgia
   => podalgia
   => proctalgia
   => referred pain
   => renal colic
   => smart, smarting, smartness
   => sting, stinging
   => stitch
   => tenderness, soreness, rawness
   => thermalgesia
   => throb
   => torture, torment
   => ulalgia
   => urodynia

Sense 4
distress, distraint
  -> seizure
   => confiscation, arrogation
   => distress, distraint
   => impoundment, impounding, internment, poundage
   => impress, impressment
   => recapture




--- Grep of noun distress
adult respiratory distress syndrome
distress
distress call
distress signal
distressfulness
distressingness
fetal distress
foetal distress
respiratory distress syndrome
respiratory distress syndrome of the newborn



IN WEBGEN [10000/208]

Wikipedia - Acute respiratory distress syndrome -- Human disease
Wikipedia - A Damsel in Distress (1937 film) -- 1937 film by George Stevens
Wikipedia - A Damsel in Distress (novel) -- 1919 novel by P.G. Wodehouse
Wikipedia - Anguish -- Extreme pain, distress or anxiety
Wikipedia - Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress -- 2015 album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Wikipedia - Banglar Jubo Shakti -- A country-wide campaign by TMC to help people of west bengal in distress
Wikipedia - Bat-Signal -- Distress signal device to call Batman
Wikipedia - Beauties in Distress -- 1918 film
Wikipedia - Beractant -- Drug for neonatal respiratory distress syndrome
Wikipedia - Business Under Distress -- 1931 film
Wikipedia - By Heresies Distressed -- Novel by David Weber
Wikipedia - CQD -- Morse code distress call in the early 20th century
Wikipedia - Crocodile cracking -- Distress in asphalt pavement
Wikipedia - Damsel in distress -- Theme in storytelling, stock character; a noble Lady in need of rescue, traditionally from dragons
Wikipedia - Distress (1929 film) -- 1929 film
Wikipedia - Distressed personality type
Wikipedia - Distressing -- Treating objects such as furniture or clothing to make them look old, worn, weathered, or lived-in
Wikipedia - Distress (medicine)
Wikipedia - Distress signal -- Internationally recognized means for obtaining help
Wikipedia - Distress tolerance
Wikipedia - Diver rescue -- Rescue of a distressed or incapacitated diver
Wikipedia - Duress code -- Covert distress signal
Wikipedia - Emergency locator beacon -- Radio-frequency beacon used to locate airplanes, vessels, and persons in distress
Wikipedia - Emergency position-indicating radiobeacon station -- A distress radiobeacon, a tracking transmitter that is triggered during an accident
Wikipedia - Empathic distress
Wikipedia - Gender dysphoria -- Distress due to a mismatch between gender identity and sex assigned at birth
Wikipedia - Girls in Distress -- 1939 film
Wikipedia - Homesickness -- Distress caused by being away from home
Wikipedia - Ladies in Distress -- 1938 film by Gus Meins
Wikipedia - Lifeboat (rescue) -- boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress
Wikipedia - Mayday -- Emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal
Wikipedia - Mental disorder -- Distressing thought or behavior pattern
Wikipedia - Negligent infliction of emotional distress
Wikipedia - Neurosis -- Class of mental disorders involving distress without psychosis
Wikipedia - Pan-pan -- distress signal used in radiotelephone communications
Wikipedia - PASS device -- Device used to set off an alarm when a firefighter is in distress
Wikipedia - Personal distress
Wikipedia - Psychological distress
Wikipedia - Remorse -- Distressing emotion experienced by a person who regrets actions they have done in the past
Wikipedia - Search and rescue -- Search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger
Wikipedia - Ship in Distress (1925 film) -- 1925 film
Wikipedia - Ship in Distress (1929 film) -- 1929 film
Wikipedia - Social Interaction Anxiety Scale -- Self-report scale that measures distress when meeting and talking with others
Wikipedia - Spiritual distress -- Disturbance in one's belief system
Wikipedia - SS Californian -- Steamship that ignore Titanic distress signal
Wikipedia - Subjective units of distress scale
Wikipedia - Sympathy -- Perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being
Wikipedia - Vulture fund -- fund that invests in distressed assets
Wikipedia - Woman in Distress -- 1937 film by Lynn Shores
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/110320.Damsels_in_Distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1555056.The_Delicate_Distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156781.Distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17788889-damsel-distressed
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2050710.Dragons_in_Distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21971156-distressed-damsels-and-masked-marauders
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30509033-distress-signals
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31305475-polar-distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36388616-damsels-of-distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/392832.Damsel_in_Distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42107994-a-knight-in-distress
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6230463-distress-investing
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8044096-confederates-distressed
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/AnimeAndManga
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/FairyTales
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/Literature
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/LiveActionTV
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/Music
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/Pinball
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/VideoGames
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/Webcomics
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/WebOriginal
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/WesternAnimation
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DistressedDude/Literature
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DistressedDude/LiveActionTV
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/DamselsInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ImageLinks/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/DamselInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/DamselsOfDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/DragonInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CovertDistressCode
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DamselInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DamselOutOfDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DCupDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeliberatelyDistressedDamsel
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DistressBall
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DistressCall
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DistressedDamsel
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DistressedWoodchopping
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentsInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/DamselInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TropeCo/DistressedDamsel
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoExamples/DamselInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoExamples/DistressedDude
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/LadsInDistress
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/ErikaAndThePrincesInDistress
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Distressed
JFK(1991) - The November 22, 1963, assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy shocked the nation and the world. The brisk investigation of that murder conducted under the guidance of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren distressed many observers, even though subsequent careful investigations have been unable...
Big Bird Brings Spring to Sesame Street(1987) - Fed up with winter and snow, Big Bird buys some flowers to cheer himself up. But when he sees his friends in distress from the weather, he is eager to help out and before he knows it, a brilliant change in the weather puts a smile on his beak.
Poochie(1984) - Poochie, the pink pup with a heart of gold, journeys to Cairo to help a young boy in distress. Accompanying Poochie is his micro-Chip sidekick
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro(1979) - Tracking the legendary counterfeits known as "Gothic Bills," international thief Arsene Lupin III arrives at the Duchy of Cagliostro. Once there, he nearly rescues a damsel in distress from the Regent's guards. Following his failure, Lupin takes it upon himself to save her from captivity.
Alien (1979) ::: 8.4/10 -- R | 1h 57min | Horror, Sci-Fi | 22 June 1979 (USA) -- After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. Director: Ridley Scott Writers:
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) ::: 7.2/10 -- Dance of the Vampires (original title) -- The Fearless Vampire Killers Poster -- A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress. Director: Roman Polanski Writers:
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) ::: 8.0/10 -- Not Rated | 2h 11min | Drama | 22 June 1966 (USA) -- A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use their young houseguests to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other over the course of a distressing night. Director: Mike Nichols Writer:
Wild Tales (2014) ::: 8.1/10 -- Relatos salvajes (original title) -- Wild Tales Poster -- Six short stories that explore the extremities of human behavior involving people in distress. Director: Damian Szifron Writers:
https://dreamfiction.fandom.com/wiki/Distressal
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dancers_in_Distress
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Iroha_in_Distress
https://ftl.fandom.com/wiki/Dense_Asteroid_Field_Distress_Call
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Automated_distress_signal
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_beacon
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_call
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_signal
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_signal_relay
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gastrointestinal_distress
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Priority_1_distress_call
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Radio-interference_distress_call
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Respiratory_distress
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_Distress_Call!
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_beacon
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_Call
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_call
https://siren.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_Call
https://starbeam.fandom.com/wiki/Delores_in_Distress
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_beacon
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_signal
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_signal/Legends
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Droids_in_Distress
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Droids_in_Distress_(book)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_call
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Distress_signal
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Doctor_in_Distress
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Timey-wimey_distress_beacon
Argento Soma -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi -- Argento Soma Argento Soma -- In the year 2059, the earth has been plagued by aliens for several years. In an effort to learn more about these aliens, Dr. Noguchi and his assistants Maki Agata and Takuto Kaneshiro try to revive the professor's experiment, a large Bio-Mechanical alien named Frank. During this process the alien comes to 'life' and the lab is subsequently destroyed leaving Takuto the only survivor and the alien disappearing into the wilderness. While Frank roams the wilderness he meets Hattie, an emotionally distressed young girl whose parents are killed in the first 'close encounter' war. Oddly enough she is able to communicate with Frank and soon after they are taken into custody by a secret agency known only as 'Funeral'. Meanwhile, Takuto wakes up in a hospital bed with his life in shambles, and his face disfigured. Motivated by vengeance and heart break, Takuto accepts an offer from the mysterious 'Mr. X' and receives a new identity as a ranking Funeral officer named Ryu Soma. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Sentai Filmworks -- 22,382 6.79
Chocolat no Mahou -- -- SynergySP -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Supernatural Drama Magic Shoujo -- Chocolat no Mahou Chocolat no Mahou -- Chocolatier Chocolat Aikawa and her enigmatic acquaintance Cacao Theobroma run a shop named Chocolat Noir, which is famous for its specially crafted chocolates, known to miraculously grant wishes. A variety of troubled individuals find themselves in front of the shop, seeking its merchandise, but these chocolates are expensive—each customer must pay with their most precious belonging. -- -- Although Chocolat seems to be a lady who would have no problems of her own, due to her ability to grant wishes, beneath her mysterious facade is a distressed young girl who has not settled a score from her past... -- -- OVA - Mar 3, 2011 -- 6,757 6.19
Clamp Gakuen Tanteidan -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Mystery Comedy Shoujo -- Clamp Gakuen Tanteidan Clamp Gakuen Tanteidan -- The CLAMP school, with its integrated curriculum from kindergarten to post-graduate studies, was founded by the largest of Japanese business empires, the House of Imonoyama. Funded entirely out of its own deep pockets, it was hoped that the school would be a haven for young men and women on whose shoulders our future would rest. -- -- The School is open to any talented individual, irrespective of his or her lineage or financial standing and is known to count scores of singularly talented pupils. It is furthermore also famous for its harboring of a remarkable percentage of party animals. Not even the bright and talented minds of CLAMP School can keep the campus free of crimes and mysteries. Or can they? Join Nokoru, Suoh and Akira, our case-cracking kid detectives, as they save the day and even the odd damsel in distress! -- -- (Source: Bandai Entertainment) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Maiden Japan -- TV - May 3, 1997 -- 11,755 6.89
Coppelion -- -- GoHands -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Seinen -- Coppelion Coppelion -- In 2016, a meltdown of a nuclear power plant creates a big catastrophe in Tokyo. 20 years later, the city has become a ghost town due to the high levels of radiation. From that area a distress signal is received. The Self Defense forces dispatch three girls from the special unit Coppelion to search for survivors. But why aren't they wearing any protection against radiation? -- -- (Source: MU, edited) -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- TV - Oct 2, 2013 -- 107,782 6.48
Coppelion -- -- GoHands -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Seinen -- Coppelion Coppelion -- In 2016, a meltdown of a nuclear power plant creates a big catastrophe in Tokyo. 20 years later, the city has become a ghost town due to the high levels of radiation. From that area a distress signal is received. The Self Defense forces dispatch three girls from the special unit Coppelion to search for survivors. But why aren't they wearing any protection against radiation? -- -- (Source: MU, edited) -- TV - Oct 2, 2013 -- 107,782 6.48
Digimon Adventure 02 -- -- Toei Animation -- 50 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Kids -- Digimon Adventure 02 Digimon Adventure 02 -- Taichi Yagami and his friends have moved on to junior high, but by that time, they have lost contact with their Digimon partners. Taichi is therefore surprised to suddenly receive a distress call summoning him to the Digital World. Once there, he learns that Digimon are living in fear of the mysterious Digimon Emperor, who is somehow suppressing their ability to Digivolve! -- -- In the real world, Hikari Yagami and Takeru Takaishi reunite in the same fifth grade class. They share three schoolmates: Daisuke Motomiya, who reminds them both of Taichi; Miyako Inoue, a technical wizard; and Iori Hida, Miyako's neighbor. When these three children receive "D-3" Digivices, they—along with Hikari and Takeru, who still possess their own original Digivices—comprise the new generation of "Chosen Children" who must save the world once again. With the power of the Armored Digi-Eggs, they must thwart the Digimon Emperor's plans to spread his influence over the entire Digital World. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Flatiron Film Company, Saban Entertainment -- 192,995 7.24
Eat-Man -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen Super Power -- Eat-Man Eat-Man -- Meet Bolt Crank, mercenary extraordinaire, and the man who eats metal! Through his travels, he stops along the way to make a few bucks and occasionally rescue damsels in distress. His taste for metal gives him quite an edge as he becomes capable of generating an assortment of weapons from his hand! It's a strange ability, but it seems to come in handy, so to speak. Bolt has an edge over his adversaries, but will that be enough? -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Discotek Media -- 8,418 6.43
Ged Senki -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Adventure Magic Fantasy -- Ged Senki Ged Senki -- Calamities are plaguing the land of Earthsea and dragons have been seen fighting above the clouds—something which has never happened before. Sparrowhawk, a powerful Archmage, sets out to uncover the mystery behind these concerning events and meets Prince Arren along the way. Arren is the fugitive heir to the Kingdom of Enlad and a seemingly quiet and distressed lad. Wandering aimlessly in an attempt to escape the dark presence haunting him, he decides to tag along Sparrowhawk on his journey. -- -- However, their arrival in the seaside settlement of Hort Town is met with unexpected trouble—Lord Cob, a powerful evil wizard obsessed with eternal life, stands in their way. Forced to confront him, the pair joins forces with Tenar—an old friend of Sparrowhawk—and Therru, the ill-fated orphan girl she took in. But the enemy's cunning hobby of manipulating emotions may just prove to be catastrophic for the young prince. -- -- Set in a magical world, Ged Senki goes beyond the classical battle between the forces of good and evil, as it explores the inner battles of the heart. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Walt Disney Studios -- Movie - Jul 29, 2006 -- 111,570 6.92
Ged Senki -- -- Studio Ghibli -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Adventure Magic Fantasy -- Ged Senki Ged Senki -- Calamities are plaguing the land of Earthsea and dragons have been seen fighting above the clouds—something which has never happened before. Sparrowhawk, a powerful Archmage, sets out to uncover the mystery behind these concerning events and meets Prince Arren along the way. Arren is the fugitive heir to the Kingdom of Enlad and a seemingly quiet and distressed lad. Wandering aimlessly in an attempt to escape the dark presence haunting him, he decides to tag along Sparrowhawk on his journey. -- -- However, their arrival in the seaside settlement of Hort Town is met with unexpected trouble—Lord Cob, a powerful evil wizard obsessed with eternal life, stands in their way. Forced to confront him, the pair joins forces with Tenar—an old friend of Sparrowhawk—and Therru, the ill-fated orphan girl she took in. But the enemy's cunning hobby of manipulating emotions may just prove to be catastrophic for the young prince. -- -- Set in a magical world, Ged Senki goes beyond the classical battle between the forces of good and evil, as it explores the inner battles of the heart. -- -- Movie - Jul 29, 2006 -- 111,570 6.92
Gundam vs Hello Kitty -- -- - -- 3 eps -- - -- Sci-Fi Space Comedy Kids Fantasy Mecha -- Gundam vs Hello Kitty Gundam vs Hello Kitty -- While preparing for a tea party, Hello Kitty receives a distress signal from Haro. She travels to the Universal Century timeline to help Amuro Ray and the Gundam end the One Year War. -- -- Cross-promotion to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gundam and the 45th anniversary of Hello Kitty. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- ONA - Mar 29, 2019 -- 3,496 6.38
Interstella5555: The 5tory of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Music -- Adventure Drama Music Sci-Fi -- Interstella5555: The 5tory of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem Interstella5555: The 5tory of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem -- This music video is the visual realization of "Discovery", an album by Daft Punk. It tells the story of a band of four extraterrestrial musicians who are kidnapped and brought back to Earth by an evil manager. Their only hopes lie with a space pilot from their home planet who, after receiving a distress call broadcasted during the abduction, seeks out to rescue them. -- Music - Dec 1, 2003 -- 59,669 8.14
Kai Byoui Ramune -- -- Platinum Vision -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Psychological Supernatural Shounen -- Kai Byoui Ramune Kai Byoui Ramune -- As long as hearts exist inside people, there will always be those who suffer. And then something "strange" enters their mind and causes a strange disease to manifest itself in the body. The illness, which is called a "mystery disease" is unknown to most, but certainly exists. There is a doctor and apprentice who fights the disease, which modern medicine cannot cure. -- -- His name is Ramune. He acts freely all the time, is foul-mouthed, and doesn't even look like a doctor! However, once he is confronted with the mysterious disease, he is able to quickly uncover the root cause of his patients' deep-seated distress and cure them. And beyond that... -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- 41,336 7.15
Kobato. -- -- Madhouse -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Fantasy Romance -- Kobato. Kobato. -- The friendly and sincere Kobato Hanato has a wish to go to a particular place no matter what. To fulfill this desire, she is tasked with helping people in their times of distress. For each mended broken heart, a small candy-like fragment is produced and fills a special bottle. Once the bottle is full, her wish will be granted. -- -- As Kobato carries out her mission alongside her stuffed toy companion, Ioryogi, she encounters various people troubled by their different situations. From a child struggling with his parents, a high school girl troubled about romance, and everything in between, Kobato's naturally sweet smile and outgoing personality are ready to brighten their day! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 6, 2009 -- 142,415 7.97
Kuuchuu Buranko -- -- Toei Animation -- 11 eps -- Novel -- Comedy Psychological Drama Seinen -- Kuuchuu Buranko Kuuchuu Buranko -- The world of psychology is far from strange to the unusual Dr. Ichirou Irabu, a resident psychiatrist of Irabu General Hospital. He and his charming nurse Mayumi run through several patients, each suffering from a mental illness that harms their everyday life. -- -- Patients should be wary of the seductive Mayumi, with her spellbinding looks and devilishly short pink nurse uniform. On the other hand, the doctor seems to have three separate personalities: a child with an oversized lab coat; an intelligent, youthful man with feminine traits; and a selfish, outgoing green bear. While curing his patients in questionable ways, Dr. Irabu often tries to gain something from them outside of his profession—and in doing so, occasionally forgets his role as a doctor. -- -- As each patient struggles to face the nature of their distress, an obvious yet invisible thread ties their paths together. -- -- 75,563 7.96
Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro -- -- Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Mystery Seinen -- Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro -- Arsene Lupin III discovers that the spoils from his latest casino robbery are actually "Gothic Bills," legendary counterfeits that are nigh impossible to distinguish from genuine bills. Together with colleague Daisuke Jigen, he heads to the small nation of Cagliostro to investigate the origin of these counterfeits. Upon arrival, they save a girl from a high-speed chase who turns out to be Clarisse d' Cagliostro, the daughter of the late Duke d' Cagliostro. She is running from a sinister plot by Count Cagliostro to steal her family's treasure through a forced marriage. -- -- Natural flirt Lupin dislikes seeing a girl in distress and seeks to remedy the situation. Goemon Ishikawa XIII, Fujiko Mine, and Kouichi Zenigata also join the fray, each with their own motivations. As everyone converges at Cagliostro Castle, Lupin reminisces about his visit there 10 years ago, and the castle's secrets emerge from the depths. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Manga Entertainment -- Movie - Dec 15, 1979 -- 86,889 8.15
Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro -- -- Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Mystery Seinen -- Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro -- Arsene Lupin III discovers that the spoils from his latest casino robbery are actually "Gothic Bills," legendary counterfeits that are nigh impossible to distinguish from genuine bills. Together with colleague Daisuke Jigen, he heads to the small nation of Cagliostro to investigate the origin of these counterfeits. Upon arrival, they save a girl from a high-speed chase who turns out to be Clarisse d' Cagliostro, the daughter of the late Duke d' Cagliostro. She is running from a sinister plot by Count Cagliostro to steal her family's treasure through a forced marriage. -- -- Natural flirt Lupin dislikes seeing a girl in distress and seeks to remedy the situation. Goemon Ishikawa XIII, Fujiko Mine, and Kouichi Zenigata also join the fray, each with their own motivations. As everyone converges at Cagliostro Castle, Lupin reminisces about his visit there 10 years ago, and the castle's secrets emerge from the depths. -- -- Movie - Dec 15, 1979 -- 86,889 8.15
Memories -- -- Madhouse, Studio 4°C -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Drama Horror Psychological Sci-Fi -- Memories Memories -- Memories is a compilation of three standalone short films encompassing different genres. -- -- Magnetic Rose -- In the far reaches of space, after tracing a distress signal to a large abandoned space station, a pair of engineers—Heintz Beckner and Miguel Costrela—find a derelict mansion and decide to explore on foot. Their investigation reveals a dark secret surrounding the fate of Eva Friedel, a renowned opera singer with a tragic history. Hallucinations soon begin to plague them, and they must fight to retain their sanity in order to escape the station alive. -- -- Stink Bomb -- Hapless lab technician Nobuo Tanaka consumes some pills at his laboratory to cure a cold. Unknown to him, however, the pills are actually experimental drugs that enhance his flatulence to a lethal degree. As the toxic gas escaping him kills everyone in his vicinity, he is ordered by his superiors to retreat to the company headquarters in Tokyo. The journey to the city is made all the more arduous as Nobuo struggles with his deadly odor while the police, military, and foreign adversaries are hot on his trail. -- -- Cannon Fodder -- In a fortress city filled to the brim with cannons, a young boy wishes to surpass his father by becoming a revered artillery officer. Despite no proof of an enemy nation, he cannot resist the urge to partake in the daily bombardment routines organized by the city. Whether at school or just before bedtime, he only dreams of someday firing a cannon for the sake of his homeland. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment -- Movie - Dec 23, 1995 -- 83,342 7.73
Memories -- -- Madhouse, Studio 4°C -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Drama Horror Psychological Sci-Fi -- Memories Memories -- Memories is a compilation of three standalone short films encompassing different genres. -- -- Magnetic Rose -- In the far reaches of space, after tracing a distress signal to a large abandoned space station, a pair of engineers—Heintz Beckner and Miguel Costrela—find a derelict mansion and decide to explore on foot. Their investigation reveals a dark secret surrounding the fate of Eva Friedel, a renowned opera singer with a tragic history. Hallucinations soon begin to plague them, and they must fight to retain their sanity in order to escape the station alive. -- -- Stink Bomb -- Hapless lab technician Nobuo Tanaka consumes some pills at his laboratory to cure a cold. Unknown to him, however, the pills are actually experimental drugs that enhance his flatulence to a lethal degree. As the toxic gas escaping him kills everyone in his vicinity, he is ordered by his superiors to retreat to the company headquarters in Tokyo. The journey to the city is made all the more arduous as Nobuo struggles with his deadly odor while the police, military, and foreign adversaries are hot on his trail. -- -- Cannon Fodder -- In a fortress city filled to the brim with cannons, a young boy wishes to surpass his father by becoming a revered artillery officer. Despite no proof of an enemy nation, he cannot resist the urge to partake in the daily bombardment routines organized by the city. Whether at school or just before bedtime, he only dreams of someday firing a cannon for the sake of his homeland. -- -- Movie - Dec 23, 1995 -- 83,342 7.73
Papa to Kiss in the Dark -- -- TNK -- 2 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Romance Yaoi -- Papa to Kiss in the Dark Papa to Kiss in the Dark -- Munakata Mira is in love with his father, the famous Hollywood actor Munakata Kyousuke. Unknown to the public, both of them are father and son as well as lovers. When Mira turns 15 and enters high school, he faces trouble with his childhood friend falling in love with him. Also, finding out he is adopted only distresses him further. Then there's the problem of Kyousuke probably marrying a famous actress, whose son seems to have an interest in Mira. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Nov 23, 2005 -- 44,450 6.00
Rec -- -- Shaft -- 9 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Seinen -- Rec Rec -- After being stood up for a movie date, marketing employee Fumihiko Matsumaru is about to throw away his tickets when he is stopped by a girl who implores him to let her accompany him instead. Thanks to his upbeat and eccentric companion Aka Onda, an aspiring voice actress, Fumihiko enjoys his evening. While walking home together, they find out that they live in the same neighborhood. Mere hours later, Fumihiko wakes up from a nightmare and hears sirens outside his window. Going outside to check the situation, he sees that Aka's apartment has burned down, along with all her possessions. Fumihiko invites the distressed Aka to stay at his place, leading to them sleeping together. -- -- In the aftermath of that fateful night, their personal and professional lives become inextricably intertwined. Not only do they begin living together platonically despite their one-night stand, they also discover that Aka will be voicing the mascot Fumihiko designed for his company's newest product. While trying to keep their live-in relationship under wraps for fear of scrutiny, the two begin to support each other throughout the difficulties in their respective careers. -- -- 100,360 7.33
Seto no Hanayome OVA -- -- Gonzo -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Parody Romance School Shounen -- Seto no Hanayome OVA Seto no Hanayome OVA -- The Seto no Hanayome OVAs are new stand alone shorts with characters from the series and also two new ones. It is now the third year of school, San and Luna's dads are still being over protective. All the while Nagasumi has his hands full trying to keep everyone around him under control and rescuing damsels in distress. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Nov 3, 2008 -- 46,931 7.87
Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 -- -- Wit Studio -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Fantasy Military Mystery Shounen Super Power -- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 -- Seeking to restore humanity's diminishing hope, the Survey Corps embark on a mission to retake Wall Maria, where the battle against the merciless "Titans" takes the stage once again. -- -- Returning to the tattered Shiganshina District that was once his home, Eren Yeager and the Corps find the town oddly unoccupied by Titans. Even after the outer gate is plugged, they strangely encounter no opposition. The mission progresses smoothly until Armin Arlert, highly suspicious of the enemy's absence, discovers distressing signs of a potential scheme against them. -- -- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 follows Eren as he vows to take back everything that was once his. Alongside him, the Survey Corps strive—through countless sacrifices—to carve a path towards victory and uncover the secrets locked away in the Yeager family's basement. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 1,244,399 9.11
Slayers -- -- E&G Films -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy -- Slayers Slayers -- Powerful, avaricious sorceress Lina Inverse travels around the world, stealing treasures from bandits who cross her path. Her latest victims, a band of thieves, wait in ambush in a forest, thirsting for revenge. When Lina is about to effortlessly pummel her would-be attackers, the swordsman Gourry Gabriev suddenly announces his presence. Assuming Lina to be a damsel in distress, the foolish yet magnanimous man confronts the brigands in order to rescue her. After defeating them posthaste, the oblivious cavalier decides to escort Lina to Atlas City. Though not very keen on this idea, she ends up accepting his offer. -- -- However, without realizing it, Lina has chanced upon a mighty magical item among her most recent spoils. Now two mysterious men are hunting the young magician and her self-proclaimed guardian to obtain this powerful object for apparently nefarious purposes. This way they begin their adventure, one where the fate of the world itself may be at stake. -- -- 119,032 7.75
Slayers -- -- E&G Films -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy -- Slayers Slayers -- Powerful, avaricious sorceress Lina Inverse travels around the world, stealing treasures from bandits who cross her path. Her latest victims, a band of thieves, wait in ambush in a forest, thirsting for revenge. When Lina is about to effortlessly pummel her would-be attackers, the swordsman Gourry Gabriev suddenly announces his presence. Assuming Lina to be a damsel in distress, the foolish yet magnanimous man confronts the brigands in order to rescue her. After defeating them posthaste, the oblivious cavalier decides to escort Lina to Atlas City. Though not very keen on this idea, she ends up accepting his offer. -- -- However, without realizing it, Lina has chanced upon a mighty magical item among her most recent spoils. Now two mysterious men are hunting the young magician and her self-proclaimed guardian to obtain this powerful object for apparently nefarious purposes. This way they begin their adventure, one where the fate of the world itself may be at stake. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Enoki Films, Funimation -- 119,032 7.75
Star Fox Zero: The Battle Begins -- -- Wit Studio -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action Sci-Fi Space -- Star Fox Zero: The Battle Begins Star Fox Zero: The Battle Begins -- Andross, an ape exiled from the Lylat Planetary System by General Pepper seeks revenge by attacking the planet Corneria and its innocence, kidnapping Pepper in the process. Meanwhile, it's another usual day for Team Star Fox, a gang of space mercenaries: Lazing around, getting angry at video games, and being lectured by their mentors. But all of that changes once they receive a distress call from a familiar face. -- -- Meet Fox McCloud, son of the deceased James McCloud, as he and his top-notch crew—Slippy Toad, Falco Lombardi and Peppy Hare—fight back against Andross's robotic army in style, and attempt to save Corneria from the skies. -- ONA - Apr 20, 2016 -- 3,467 6.20
Ten Count -- -- - -- ? eps -- Manga -- Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Ten Count Ten Count -- Corporate secretary Shirotani suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. One day he meets Kurose, a therapist who offers to take him through a ten-step program to cure him of his compulsion. As the two go through each of the ten steps, Shirotani 's attraction to his counselor grows. -- -- (Source: SuBLime) -- TV - ??? ??, ???? -- 22,458 N/AKimi wa Kanata -- -- Digital Network Animation -- 1 ep -- Original -- Drama Fantasy -- Kimi wa Kanata Kimi wa Kanata -- Mio has feelings for her childhood friend Arata, but can't convey her feelings. One day, as they continue their delicate relationship, the two fight over something trivial. After letting tensions settle, Mio goes to make up with him in the pouring rain. While on her way, she gets into a traffic accident. When she regains consciousness, a mysterious and unfamiliar world appears before her eyes. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- Movie - Nov 27, 2020 -- 22,390 N/AArgento Soma -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi -- Argento Soma Argento Soma -- In the year 2059, the earth has been plagued by aliens for several years. In an effort to learn more about these aliens, Dr. Noguchi and his assistants Maki Agata and Takuto Kaneshiro try to revive the professor's experiment, a large Bio-Mechanical alien named Frank. During this process the alien comes to 'life' and the lab is subsequently destroyed leaving Takuto the only survivor and the alien disappearing into the wilderness. While Frank roams the wilderness he meets Hattie, an emotionally distressed young girl whose parents are killed in the first 'close encounter' war. Oddly enough she is able to communicate with Frank and soon after they are taken into custody by a secret agency known only as 'Funeral'. Meanwhile, Takuto wakes up in a hospital bed with his life in shambles, and his face disfigured. Motivated by vengeance and heart break, Takuto accepts an offer from the mysterious 'Mr. X' and receives a new identity as a ranking Funeral officer named Ryu Soma. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Sentai Filmworks -- 22,382 6.79
Zombie Clay Animation: Life of the Dead -- -- Studio Binzo -- 4 eps -- Original -- Comedy Horror -- Zombie Clay Animation: Life of the Dead Zombie Clay Animation: Life of the Dead -- Clay animation about a guy stuck in a room during zombie apocalypse. -- OVA - ??? ??, 2011 -- 292 N/A -- -- The Girl and the Monster -- -- - -- ? eps -- Original -- Comedy Horror -- The Girl and the Monster The Girl and the Monster -- A girl quietly reads a book in her room. Suddenly, a monster comes crawling out from under her bed! Is it friend or foe? -- ONA - Jul 26, 2019 -- 291 N/A -- -- Heisei Matsue Kaidan: Ayashi -- -- DLE -- 2 eps -- Original -- Comedy Historical Parody Horror Supernatural -- Heisei Matsue Kaidan: Ayashi Heisei Matsue Kaidan: Ayashi -- A Matsue City collaboration anime with Eagle Talon. Yoshida book-ends the story as horror tales, both modern and historical, originated within the city are narrated by another person. -- ONA - Mar 17, 2017 -- 289 N/A -- -- 3-bu de Wakaru Koizumi Yakumo no Kaidan -- -- - -- 7 eps -- Book -- Historical Horror Parody Supernatural -- 3-bu de Wakaru Koizumi Yakumo no Kaidan 3-bu de Wakaru Koizumi Yakumo no Kaidan -- Stories from Patrick Lafcadio Hearn's book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. The Greek-American author was known as Koizumi Yakumo in Japan and is renowned for collecting and publishing stories of Japanese folklore and legends. -- -- The shorts were made for a Matsue City tourism promotion, as Hearn taught, lived, and married there. His home is a museum people can visit. -- ONA - May 9, 2014 -- 287 N/A -- -- Kimoshiba -- -- Jinnis Animation Studios, TMS Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Original -- Comedy Horror Kids Supernatural -- Kimoshiba Kimoshiba -- Kimoshiba is a weird type of life form with the shape of an oversize shiba inu, loves eating curry (particularly curry breads), and works at a funeral home. Similar life forms include yamishiba and onishiba. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 284 N/A -- -- Ehon Yose -- -- - -- 50 eps -- Other -- Historical Horror Kids -- Ehon Yose Ehon Yose -- Anime rakugo of classic Japanese horror tales shown in a wide variety of art styles. -- TV - ??? ??, 2006 -- 279 N/A -- -- Higanjima X: Aniki -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Fantasy Horror Seinen Vampire -- Higanjima X: Aniki Higanjima X: Aniki -- A new episode of Higanjima X that was included in Blu-ray. -- Special - Aug 30, 2017 -- 277 N/A -- -- Yamiyo no Jidaigeki -- -- Sunrise -- 2 eps -- - -- Historical Horror -- Yamiyo no Jidaigeki Yamiyo no Jidaigeki -- Tales include: -- -- The Hill of Old Age, which tells of a conspiracy hatched against Japan's unifier, Oda Nobunaga. -- -- Seeing the Truth, about the assassin sent to murder Nobunaga's successor leyasu Tokugawa. -- -- The broadcast was a part of the Neo Hyper Kids program. -- -- (Source: Anime Encyclopedia) -- Special - Feb 19, 1995 -- 275 N/A -- -- Youkai Ningen Bem: Part II -- -- Topcraft -- 2 eps -- Original -- Demons Horror -- Youkai Ningen Bem: Part II Youkai Ningen Bem: Part II -- For 1982 a 26-episode TV series sequel to Youkai Ningen Bem was planned. Because the original producers disbanded, the animation was done by Topcraft. 2 episodes were created and the project shut down without airing on television. The episodes were released to the public on a LD-Box Set a decade later. 2,000 units were printed and all were sold out. -- Special - Oct 21, 1992 -- 268 N/A -- -- Kaibutsu-kun: Kaibutsu Land e no Shoutai -- -- Shin-Ei Animation -- 1 ep -- - -- Comedy Horror Kids Shounen -- Kaibutsu-kun: Kaibutsu Land e no Shoutai Kaibutsu-kun: Kaibutsu Land e no Shoutai -- Based on the shounen manga by Fujiko Fujio. -- -- Note: Screened as a double feature with Doraemon: Nobita no Uchuu Kaitakushi. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- Movie - Mar 14, 1981 -- 266 N/A -- -- Ushiro no Hyakutarou -- -- - -- 2 eps -- - -- Horror School Supernatural -- Ushiro no Hyakutarou Ushiro no Hyakutarou -- Horror OVA based on the manga by Jirou Tsunoda. The title roughly means "Hyakutarou behind". -- -- A boy named Ichitarou Ushiro deals with various horrifying phenomena with the help of his guardian spirit Hyakutarou. -- -- 2 episodes: "Kokkuri Satsujin Jiken", "Yuutai Ridatsu". -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- OVA - Aug 21, 1991 -- 254 N/A -- -- Zombie Clay Animation: I'm Stuck!! -- -- Studio Binzo -- 4 eps -- Original -- Comedy Horror -- Zombie Clay Animation: I'm Stuck!! Zombie Clay Animation: I'm Stuck!! -- Spin-off series of Zombie Clay Animation: Life of the Dead. -- ONA - Mar 2, 2014 -- 247 N/A -- -- Shou-chan Sora wo Tobu -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Horror Sci-Fi -- Shou-chan Sora wo Tobu Shou-chan Sora wo Tobu -- An anime version of Ikkei Makina's horror novel of the same name. It aired at the same time as the live-action adaptation. -- Movie - Nov 14, 1992 -- 235 N/A -- -- Matsue Kankou Taishi Sanri ga Iku! Matsue Ghost Tour -- -- DLE -- 2 eps -- Original -- Comedy Historical Parody Horror -- Matsue Kankou Taishi Sanri ga Iku! Matsue Ghost Tour Matsue Kankou Taishi Sanri ga Iku! Matsue Ghost Tour -- An accompaniment to Heisei Matsue Kaidan: Ayashi. This ghost tour takes a more realistic approach featuring Yoshia (the fictional Eagle Talon character), Kihara Hirokatsu (horror and mystery novelist), Chafurin (voice actor and Shimae Prefecture ambassador), and Frogman (Ryou Ono's caricature; real-life director of the anime studio DLE). The quartet travels around Matsue City exploring horror/haunted real life locations talking about the history and how it became a paranormal focus. -- -- The end of the episode promotes ticket sale and times for a real ghost tour watchers can partake in. -- ONA - Mar 16, 2017 -- 227 N/A -- -- Yamiyo no Jidaigeki (OVA) -- -- Sunrise -- 2 eps -- - -- Historical Horror -- Yamiyo no Jidaigeki (OVA) Yamiyo no Jidaigeki (OVA) -- A direct sequel that was put straight to video. -- -- The Ear of Jinsuke, about a wandering swordsman saving a damsel in distress from evil spirits. -- -- Prints from the Fall of the Bakufu, features a tomboy from a woodcut works charged with making a print of the young warrior Okita Soji. -- -- (Source: Anime Encyclopedia) -- -- OVA - Aug 2, 1995 -- 227 N/A -- -- Inunaki-mura x Taka no Tsume-dan -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Other -- Comedy Horror Parody -- Inunaki-mura x Taka no Tsume-dan Inunaki-mura x Taka no Tsume-dan -- A collaboration between the live-action horror film Inunaki-mura slated to be released in theaters February 7, 2020 and the Eagle Talon franchise. The film is based on the urban legend of the real-life abandoned Inunaki Village and the old tunnel that cut through the area. -- ONA - Jan 17, 2020 -- 226 N/A -- -- Echigo no Mukashibanashi: Attaten Ganoo -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Demons Horror Kids -- Echigo no Mukashibanashi: Attaten Ganoo Echigo no Mukashibanashi: Attaten Ganoo -- A collection of four folk tales from Koshiji (from 2005, part of Nagaoka), Niigata prefecture (Echigo is the old name of Niigata). -- -- Episode 1: The Azuki Mochi and the Frog -- A mean old woman tells an azuki mochi to turn into a frog, if her daughter-in-law wants to eat it. The daughter-in-law hears this, and... -- -- Episode 2: Satori -- A woodcutter warms himself at the fire of deadwood, when a spirit in the form of an eyeball appears in front of him. The spirit guesses each of the woodcutter's thoughts right... -- -- Episode 3: The Fox's Lantern -- An old man, who got lost in the night streets, finds a lantern with a beautiful pattern, which was lost by a fox spirit. The next day, he returns it reluctantly, and what he sees... -- -- Episode 4: The Three Paper Charms -- An apprentice priest, who lost his way, accidentally puts up at the hut of the mountain witch. To avoid being eaten, he uses three paper charms to get back to the temple... -- -- (Source: Official site) -- OVA - May ??, 2000 -- 221 N/A -- -- Jigoku Koushien -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Sports Comedy Horror Shounen -- Jigoku Koushien Jigoku Koushien -- (No synopsis yet.) -- OVA - Feb 13, 2009 -- 220 N/A -- -- Nanja Monja Obake -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Kids Horror -- Nanja Monja Obake Nanja Monja Obake -- An anime made entirely in sumi-e following a child fox spirit and his morphing ability for haunting but he ends up getting scared himself. -- Special - Dec 6, 1994 -- 215 N/A -- -- Heisei Matsue Kaidan -- -- DLE -- 7 eps -- Original -- Horror Parody Supernatural -- Heisei Matsue Kaidan Heisei Matsue Kaidan -- A Matsue City collaboration anime with Eagle Talon. Yoshida book-ends the story as modern horror tales, originated within the city, are narrated by another person. The shorts are meant to promote the Patrick Lafcadio Hearn's Ghost Tour offered by the city. -- -- Some episodes feature biographical segments of the Matsue Kankou Taishi Sanri ga Iku! Matsue Ghost Tour group. -- ONA - Apr 9, 2015 -- 211 N/A -- -- Akuma no Organ -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Music -- Music Horror Demons -- Akuma no Organ Akuma no Organ -- Music video for Devil's Organ by GREAT3. From Climax E.P. (2003) -- Music - ??? ??, 2003 -- 210 5.16
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_distrest_poet.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Distrest_Poet
Acute respiratory distress syndrome
A Damsel in Distress (1937 film)
Angels of Distress
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
Beauties in Distress
Business Under Distress
Damsel in Distress
Damsel in distress
Damsels in Distress (film)
Damsels in Distress (plays)
Distress
Distress (1946 film)
Distressed securities
Distressed swimmer
Distress in cancer caregiving
Distressing
Distress (medicine)
Distress signal
Doctor in Distress
Doctor in Distress (song)
Fetal distress
Girls in Distress
Global Maritime Distress and Safety System
I, being born a woman and distressed
In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death
Infant respiratory distress syndrome
Intentional harassment, alarm or distress
Intentional infliction of emotional distress
International distress frequency
Mental distress
National Distress System
Negligent infliction of emotional distress
Paradise in Distress
Respiratory distress syndrome
Romeo's Distress
Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 190509
Ship in Distress (1925 film)
Ship in Distress (1929 film)
Spiritual distress
Subjective units of distress scale
The Distress, Gypsys Rhapsodie
The Distrest Poet



convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favorites
Savitri -- Savitri extended toc
Savitri Section Map -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa - Aurobindo - Ramakrishna - Maharshi - Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School - Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration - Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - study
subjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null - Savitri - SA O TAOC - SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel - TLD - TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs


change css options:
change font "color":
change "background-color":
change "font-family":
change "padding":
change "table font size":
last updated: 2022-05-01 15:04:53
108961 site hits