Help on What a Quote Means (non-Buffy) - Everyone's Opinion

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FiveByFiveB

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For this school project I'm doing, I have to ask a couple people about a certain quote. Didn't feel like asking people I know in "real life" (plus, you guys are soo much smarter & profound about everything), so I decided to take advantage of the Buffy Boards community. I need you to tell me what you think the quote means, what it's trying to say or just how you feel about it. Any number of people can reply, and it doesn't matter if everyone has a different interpertation of the quote. Reply with just one sentence or a whole explanation if you'd like. I'd really aprreciate any help I could get.😎 🙂

Quote:
I do not believe sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
 
I take that quote to mean that everyone in life suffers at some point...there are definately different degrees and types of suffering (ie holocaust victim vs a broken heart), but everyone suffers. Therefore if everyone one learned from experiences which caused them pain, then no one in the world would ever suffer again because we would never repeat our mistakes or follow the same path. We would be wise and empathetic. However, looking at the world today I agree with the author that suffering alone does not teach us. How many abused women stay in their relationships or consistently return to their abusive spouses? How many minority groups or religions suffer intolerance just to be intolerant when they find power? How many wars have to be fought until the international community says enough is enough? Or on a more personal level, how many of us chose the same "wrong" type of guy/girl to enter into another doomed relationship with?

Suffering does not teach. Suffering alone simply leads to more suffering.
 
Wow, that is really good! Thank you so much for relpying. 😀
 
I interpret it to mean that if we had just pure suffering, we couldn't learn because we would have nothing to compare that to. We would not learn because we would not be able to compare suffering to happiness and joy. If there was just suffering, we would never know anything else.

The second statement is saying that everyone suffers at some point in their lives, whether it be for a long time or for as little as a day or perhaps an hour. Suffering cannot be avoided as some point in our lives.

I hope that helps! 🙂
 
I think that suffering can teach us, but the test for having learned isn't how much you've suffered, but what you do with what you've gone through.

One person can suffer a lot, and never really learn any of life's lessons from it. Another person can suffer at a lesser degree (there is no real measurement for degrees of suffering, but for argument's sake, assume you can measure "suffering") and learn a great deal. It isn't just the suffering that matters, it's also what you do while you're suffering, or after you've suffered. Are you stronger for it? Did it provide you with some valuable lessons?

I happen to think that every life experience can be approached as a tool for learning, but it's not a gaurantee. It takes a certain amount of wisdom to turn our trials into great learning experiences.
 
Of course it helps, queenofbuffdom86! (I especially liked what you said about 'never knowing anything else'.)😎

Diminished_9th, I'm glad you had a unique view on this; that suffering does teach. Glad somebody brought that up. Thank you. :: tu ::

And I'd like to thank OzLover for her PM! (I couldn't PM you back - it said your mailbox was full.)🙂
 
Suffering is ubiquitous. It is an emotion that everyone has constant access to; it can be a sense of failure or disappointment or the outright emotional and/or physical pain experienced at any given point in life. Succinctly, it is a part of the human condition. But it is not the only part. What Lindbergh is saying is that suffering alone cannot lend itself to wisdom. Life, experience, contemplations...everything our lives are comprised of help us to define what it [life] all means. Suffering is one part of the paradigm. So much more is needed to understand--on any level--who and what we are.

🙂
 
I do not believe sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As it says, suffering alone doesn't mean anything, you won't learn from it, I think she is trying to say that there is more needed ... sorry, but I don't know what!
 
Thank you so much JenniLou, and thanks for at least trying Allycat! Lol.

My sister asked me to put her quote up as well, so anyone who wants to answer both, that'd be great.
My sister's quote:
To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. - Chinese proverb
 
"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back." - Chinese proverb

Hmm, difficult. Especially since I disagree, it says that if you want to do something, or if your life is going to a certain point, that in order to know what's ahead you have to talk to people who have already went in that direction in their lifes, but that's easier said then done. If you don't know where you are going and you want to know where, ask someone who been there ... how? since you don't know where you're going, you won't know who to ask!
 
yeah, basically, ask someone who's already been there/done that 🙂
learn from others experiences?

there thats my indepth analysis 🙂
 
Suffering: I think that it means that suffering is living and just because you live doesn't mean that you know about life. So, just because you suffer doesn't mean that you know about suffering. Life is more than suffering. Just because you suffer doesn't mean you know everything about life.

Did I make any sense?

Chinese Proverb: I think that it means that your never alone. Your not the first to have done what you want to do. Ask people who have been there, done that. Get advice. Don't ever think that you know more than people who have experience. No matter how much you learn, you can always learn more.

I hope I was some help, sis!
 
Definitely, and sis, you got a weird way of looking at it - but I like it. 😛

Robbie the Gunn, you never cease to amaze me.
 
Thanks sis! I have a weird way of looking at everything. Just ask me my view of why we have to go to school sometime!
 
We don't learn from suffering, but we do learn from dealing with it, what we do to end it. It is never the symptons in life that teach us, but how we deal with the cause.

the other quote - the road....
the road ahead has been walked by many others before and listening to all their experiences can prepare you for it. However, don't forget, that if you do not know where you are going, any raod will do.
 
Originally posted by FiveByFiveB

Robbie the Gunn, you never cease to amaze me.
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i'll take that as a compliment? 🙂

shouldn't it be all french are monkeys instead?

no offence french peeps
 
I believe that suffering can teach, from first hand experience my suffering (even though not great compared to some people's problems) has lead to compassion towards others who are suffering as I know how bad one can feel. Afterall, aren't most local charity appeals launched because tradegy has struck?

However, suffering does not always lead to compassion, it can lead to violence when suffering is too great or the person does not know how to deal with it or get help from others. (I think this would relate to Faith in Buffy as she didn't know how to ask others for help).

I was also thinking that personality will effect how a person reacts to suffering. Afterall, they do say that pyschopaths are mentally incapable of mercy.
 
Originally posted by Robbie the Gunn
i'll take that as a compliment? 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes, it was a compliment.

shouldn't it be all french are monkeys instead?

no offence french peeps
Click to expand...
I continue to stay true to the Oz quote that all monkeys are French, not the other way around.🙂 We keep bringing this up; poor French are taking a beating here.😉


Originally posted by Razoxane
I was also thinking that personality will effect how a person reacts to suffering. Afterall, they do say that pyschopaths are mentally incapable of mercy.
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Interesting. Personality...that's a good perspective.
- And I guess we can safely say that Faith isn't so much a pyschopath anymore. Kudos to her for that. :: tu ::
 
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