Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena.
Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.
Suffering occurs in the lives of sentient beings in numerous manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned, from their own points of view, with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.
Read more about Suffering: Terminology, Philosophy, Religion, Arts and Literature, Social Sciences, Biology, Neurology, Psychology, Health Care, Relief and Prevention in Society, Uses
Other articles related to "suffering, sufferings":
... Saint Paul speaks of joy in suffering in Colossians "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake" ... of joy in overcoming the sense of the uselessness of suffering ... Faith in sharing in the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person "completes what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" the certainty that in the ...
... Victims and Values A History and a Theory of Suffering ... The Importance of Suffering the value and meaning of emotional discontent ... Suffering, Politics, Power A Genealogy in Modern Political Theory ...
... describes the Four Noble Truths using traditional canonical phrases suffering (dukkha) is birth, aging, sickness, death.. ... the origin of suffering (dukkhasamudaya) is craving (tanha).. ... the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodha) is.. ...
... People make use of suffering for specific social or personal purposes in many areas of human life, as can be seen in the following instances ... In arts, literature, or entertainment, people may use suffering for creation, for performance, or for enjoyment ... Entertainment particularly makes use of suffering in blood sports, violence in the media, or violent video games ...
... Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an ... Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena ... Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental ...
Famous quotes containing the word suffering:
“The Red Cross in its nature, it aims and purposes, and consequently, its methods, is unlike any other organization in the country. It is an organization of physical action, of instantaneous action, at the spur of the moment; it cannot await the ordinary deliberation of organized bodies if it would be of use to suffering humanity, ... [ellipsis in original] it has by its nature a field of its own.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“I am convinced that ... we have reestablished confidence. Wages should remain stable. A very large degree of industrial unemployment and suffering which would otherwise have occurred has been prevented.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)