Wretched

Famous quotes containing the word wretched:

    Since time immemorial, one the dry earth, scraped to the bone, of this immeasurable country, a few men travelled ceaselessly, they owned nothing, but they served no one, free and wretched lords in a strange kingdom. Janine did not know why this idea filled her with a sadness so soft and so vast that she closed her eyes. She only knew that this kingdom, which had always been promised to her would never be her, never again, except at this moment.
    Albert Camus 1013–1960, French-Algerian novelist, dramatist, philosopher. Janine in Algeria, in The Fall, p. 27, Gallimard (9157)

    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)

    From what I have said of the natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon earth; but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans, being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous, but with the necessary conveniences so much sought after in Europe; they are happy in not knowing the use of them.
    James, Captain Cook (1728–1779)