Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless. If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. – Socrates