We have seen better days. [ Shakespeare ]

Misfortune is a second master. [ Pliny the elder ]

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen.
Fallen from his high estate.
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need.
But those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes. [ Dryden ]

A soul exasperated in ills, falls out
With everything, its friend, itself. [ Addison ]

Misfortunes should always be expected. [ Johnson ]

Art is a sweet consoler in misfortune. [ Amphis ]

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

When one is past, another care we have;
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave. [ Robert Herrick ]

Welcome, misfortune, if thou comest alone. [ Spanish Proverb ]

And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice. [ Thomson ]

Misfortune, like a creditor severe.
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity
To sting thee more and double thy distress. [ Young ]

A good merchant may meet with a misfortune. [ Proverb ]

Blessed is the misfortune that comes alone. [ Italian Proverb ]

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic. [ Lady Blessington ]

Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low. [ William Shakespeare ]

Great fortune brings with it great misfortune. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Friendship is the medicine for all misfortune. [ Richelieu ]

Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience. [ Virgil ]

But strong of limb
And swift of foot misfortune is, and, far
Outstripping all, comes first to every land,
And there wreaks evil on mankind, which prayers
Do afterwards redress. [ Homer ]

He is kind who guardeth another from misfortune. [ Hitopadesa ]

What avails it that indulgent Heaven
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves.
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?
Enjoy the present; nor with needless cares
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the surest hour that life bestows.
Serene, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven. [ Armstrong ]

Rashness brings success to few, misfortune to many. [ Phaedrus ]

Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves. [ Rousseau ]

Good nature is a great misfortune if it want prudence. [ Proverb ]

Women have a divine instinctive feeling for misfortune. [ French ]

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power. [ George S. Hillard ]

It is often a comfort in misfortune to know our own fate. [ Quintus Curtius Rufus ]

Every hour of lost time is a chance of future misfortune. [ Napoleon I ]

If misfortune comes, she brings along the bravest virtues. [ Thomson ]

Whatever we cannot help, is our misfortune, not our fault. [ Proverb ]

Rashness is the fruitful but unhappy parent of misfortune. [ Thomas Fuller ]

It is the misfortune of worthy people that they are cowards. [ Voltaire ]

In times of misfortune men's understandings even are sullied. [ Hitopadesa ]

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike.
We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are. [ Balzac ]

Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend. [ Swift ]

Tears are due to misfortune, and mortal woes touch the heart. [ Virgil ]

A great fortune in the hands of a fool is a great misfortune. [ Proverb ]

The less we parade our misfortunes the more sympathy we command. [ Orville Dewey ]

It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misfortune.

Oh, give me thy hand, one writ with me in sour misfortune's book- [ William Shakespeare ]

Misfortune cannot endure wisdom, but wisdom can endure misfortune. [ Bodenstedt ]

One alleviation in misfortune is to endure and submit to necessity. [ Seneca ]

It is good to see in the misfortunes of others what we should avoid. [ Syrus ]

It has been a great misfortune to many a one that he lived too long. [ Proverb ]

The greatest misfortune of all is not to be able to bear misfortune. [ Bias ]

Our bravest lessons are not learned through success, but misadventure. [ Alcott ]

Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew Himself, or his own virtue. [ Mallet ]

It is the greatest misfortune in nature for a woman to want a confidant. [ Farquhar ]

We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of others. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune. [ Laurence Sterne ]

Not unfamiliar with misfortune myself, I have learned to succour the wretched. [ Virgil ]

Misery and misfortune is all one; and of misfortune fortune hath only the gift [ Sir P. Sidney ]

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it. [ Washington Irving ]

It is better to be unborn than untaught; for ignorance is the root of misfortune. [ Plato ]

Men do not go out to meet misfortune as we do. They learn it; and we - we divine it. [ Mme. Swetchine ]

Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way. [ Rousseau ]

Misfortune makes of certain souls a vast desert through which rings the voice of God. [ Balzac ]

After all, our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation. [ Balzac ]

The misfortune of those who have loved is that they can find nothing to replace love. [ Duclos ]

Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them. [ Colton ]

Men are prostrated by misfortune; women bend, but do not break, and martyr-like live on. [ Anna Cora Mowatt ]

All that the wisdom of the proud can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortune. [ Goldsmith ]

It is a misfortune for a woman never to be loved, but it is a humiliation to be loved no more. [ Montesquieu ]

I believe, indeed, that it is more laudable to suffer great misfortunes than to do great things. [ Stanislaus ]

The greatest misfortune one can wish his enemy is that he may love without being loved in return. [ Labouisse ]

The quivering flesh, though torture-torn, may live, but souls, once deeply wounded, heal no more. [ Ebenezer Elliott ]

How true it is that, sooner or later, the most rebellious must bow beneath the yoke of misfortune! [ De Stael ]

I will adhere to the counsels of good men, although misfortune and death should be the consequence. [ Cicero ]

When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only. [ Napoleon ]

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped. [ Johnson ]

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. [ Lowell ]

Some souls are ennobled and elevated by seeming misfortunes, which then become blessings in disguise. [ Chapin ]

It is a great misfortune not to have enough wit to speak well, or not enough judgment to keep silent. [ La Bruyere ]

Friendship is the medicine for all misfortune; but ingratitude dries up the fountain of all goodness. [ Richelieu ]

The dower of great beauty has always been misfortune, since happiness and beauty do not agree together. [ Calderon ]

It is seldom that God sends such calamities upon man as men bring upon themselves and suffer willingly. [ Jeremy Taylor ]

I do not myself believe there is any misfortune. What men call such is merely the shadow-side of a good. [ George MacDonald ]

Those who first study fate, and say, Fate is the only cause of fortune and misfortune, terrify themselves. [ Hitopadesa ]

Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish, I confess that to my misfortune it is soft. [ Ovid ]

Friendships which are born in misfortune are more firm and lasting than those which are formed in happiness. [ D'Urfey ]

It is a masterpiece to draw good out of evil, and by the help of virtue to improve misfortune into blessings. [ Seneca ]

There is no heart without remorse, no life without some misfortune, no one but what is something stained with sin. [ James Ellis ]

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others. [ Burke ]

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel's face. [ St. Jerome ]

You pity a man who is lame or blind; but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune. [ Sydney Smith ]

There are some vile and contemptible men who, allowing themselves to be conquered by misfortune, seek a refuge in death. [ Agathon ]

There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it in expecting evil before it arrives? [ Seneca ]

The fact that God has prohibited despair gives misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves hope free to dare all things. [ Madame Swetchine ]

There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world; and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room. [ George Eliot ]

Misfortune, when we look upon it with our eyes, is smaller than when our imagination sinks the evil down into the recesses of the soul. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

No greater misfortune can befall a man than to be the victim of an idea which has no hold on his life, still more which detaches him from it. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

We should learn, by reflecting on the misfortunes which have attended others, that there is nothing singular in those which befall ourselves. [ Melmoth ]

To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair. [ Pascal ]

What man's life is not overtaken by one or more of those tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on rocks to shelter as best we may? [ Thackeray ]

It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one; a great deal may arouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure. [ Lord Greville ]

Even out of a cloudless heaven the flaming thunderbolt may strike; therefore in thy days of joy have a fear of the spiteful neighbourhood of misfortune. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity. [ Jeremy Collier ]

The good man, even though overwhelmed by misfortune, loses never his inborn greatness of soul. Camphor-wood burnt in the fire becomes all the more fragrant. [ Sataka ]

Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. Beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. [ Richter ]

Happy is the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power. [ Seneca ]

The diamond of character is revealed by the concussion of misfortune, as the splendor of the precious jewel of the mine is developed by the blows of the lapidary. [ F. A. Durivage ]

There is but one misfortune for a man, when some idea lays hold of him which exerts no influence upon his active life, or still more, which withdraws him from it. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

In misfortune, in error, and when the time appointed for certain affairs is about to elapse, a servant who hath his master's welfare at heart ought to speak unasked. [ Hitopadesa ]

Life is thickly sown with thorns. I know no other remedy than to pass rapidly over them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us. [ Voltaire ]

The misfortune is that when man has found honey, he enters upon the feast with an appetite so voracious that he usually destroys his own delight by excess and satiety. [ Knox ]

In misfortune we often mistake dejection for constancy; we bear it without daring to look on it; like cowards, who suffer themselves to be murdered without resistance. [ Rochefoucauld ]

If all men would bring their misfortunes together in one place, most would be glad to take his own home again, rather than to take a proportion out of the common stock. [ Solon ]

Woman has a smile for every joy, a tear for every sorrow, a consolation for every grief, an excuse for every fault, a prayer for every misfortune, and encouragement for every hope. [ Sainte-Foix ]

Then was I as a tree whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night, a storm or robbery, call it what you will, shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves, and left me bare to weather. [ Shakespeare ]

Misfortunes are, in morals, what bitters are in medicine: each is at first disagreeable; but as the bitters act as corroborants to the stomach, so adversity chastens and ameliorates the disposition. [ From the French ]

The misfortune in the state is that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern, and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account. [ Goethe ]

Grief or misfortune seems to be indispensable to the development of intelligence, energy, and virtue. The proofs to which the people are submitted, as with individuals, are necessary then to draw them from their lethargy, to disclose their character. [ Fearon ]

I may grieve with the smart of an evil as soon as I feel it, but I will not smart with the grief of an evil as soon as I hear of it. My evil, when it Cometh, may make my grief too great; why, then, should my grief, before it comes, make my evil greater? [ Arthur Warwick ]

When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments; when to those of our own sect, we call them trials: when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things. [ Shenstone ]

There is a Russian proverb which says that misfortune is next door to stupidity; and it will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, improvidence, or want of application. [ Samuel Smiles ]

Oh! woe to him who first had the cruelty to ridicule the name of old maid, a name which recalls so many sorrowful deceptions, so many sufferings, so much destitution! Woe to him who finds a target for his sarcasm in an involuntary misfortune, and who crowns white hair with thorns! [ E. Souvestre ]

Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain! [ Thackeray ]

My May of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. [ William Shakespeare ]

A literary career is a more thorny path than that which leads to fortune. If you have the misfortune not to rise above mediocrity, you feel mortified for life; and if you are successful, a host of enemies spring up against you. Thus you find yourself on the brink of an abyss between contempt and hatred. [ Voltaire ]

There is no security in a good disposition if the support of good principles - that is to say, of religion, of Christian faith - be wanting. It may be soured by misfortune, it may be corrupted by wealth, it may be blighted by neediness, it may lose all its original brightness, if destitute of that support. [ Southey ]

Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. 'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty, too. I would not despair unless I saw misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity. [ Collier ]

The world produces for every pint of honey a gallon of gall, for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain, for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompass the happy man. Felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth: her gardens are the skies. [ Robert Burton ]

The man who will share his purse with you in the days of misfortune and distress, and like the good Samaritan, be surety for your support to the landlord, you may admit to your confidence, incorporate into the very core of your heart, and call him friend; misfortunes cannot shake him from you; a prison will not conceal you from his sight. [ J. Bartlett ]