Wretched

Famous quotes containing the word wretched:

    The hour when you say, “What does my happiness matter? It is poverty and filth, and a wretched complacency. Yet my happiness should justify existence itself!”
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    ...I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper. The blessing of the wretched came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.
    Bible: Hebrew, Job 29:12-17.

    Job, recounting his faithfulness.

    Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
    A sheephook, or have learn’d ought else the least
    That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
    What recks it them? What need they? They are sped.
    And when they list their lean and flashy songs
    Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,
    The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
    John Milton (1608–1674)