Quotes about complaining

12 real sentences about complaining, left by people who came before us, from c. 18th–17th century BC to c. 1911, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.

Belshunu Bêlshunu

c. 18th–17th century BC · Babylonia

What is the reason that my lord has neglected me for five months? The house where I am imprisoned is a starvation-house. Now have I made the jailer carry a letter to my lord.

A letter on a clay tablet · in place of the original: the English translation by C. H. W. Johns (1904)

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Hesiod Ἡσίοδος

c. 700 BC · Boeotia, ancient Greece

I wish I were not living among the men of the fifth age, but had either died before or been born after. For now it is truly a race of iron.

μηκέτʼ ἔπειτʼ ὤφελλον ἐγὼ πέμπτοισι μετεῖναι ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλʼ ἢ πρόσθε θανεῖν ἢ ἔπειτα γενέσθαι. νῦν γὰρ δὴ γένος ἐστὶ σιδήρεον

Works and Days, lines 174–176

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Nameless people 詩經無名氏

c. 7th century BC · Zhou China · Read as a song comparing the masters who take the taxes to a big rat

Big rat, big rat, do not eat my millet! Three years I have served you, and you have never cared for me. I am going to leave you and go to that happy land.

碩鼠碩鼠，無食我黍！三歲貫女，莫我肯顧。逝將去女，適彼樂土。

"Big Rat" (Shuo shu), Airs of Wei, in the Book of Songs

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Confucius 孔子

5th century BC · Lu, Spring and Autumn China · On finding a pupil napping

Zai Yu slept in the daytime. The Master said: "Rotten wood cannot be carved, and a wall of dung cannot be trowelled. What is the use of scolding Yu?"

宰予晝寢。子曰：「朽木不可雕也，糞土之牆不可杇也。於予與何誅？」

Analects, book 5 (Gongye Chang)

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Sulpicia

late 1st century BC · Rome

My hateful birthday is here, to be spent in gloom in the tiresome country, and without Cerinthus. What is sweeter than the city?

Inuisus natalis adest, qui rure molesto et sine Cerintho tristis agendus erit. Dulcius urbe quid est?

Tibullus, book 3, poem 14 (a poem of Sulpicia)

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Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca

c. AD 64 · Roman Empire

Listen: noise of every kind is ringing all round me. I live right above a bathhouse. Now picture every sort of sound that can make one hate one's own ears.

Ecce undique me varius clamor circumsonat: supra ipsum balneum habito. Propone nunc tibi omnia genera vocum quae in odium possunt aures adducere

Letters to Lucilius 56

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Li Bai 李白

c. 753 · Tang China

Draw a sword to cut the water, and the water flows on. Raise a cup to drown your sorrow, and the sorrow sorrows more. Life in this world never goes as one wishes. Tomorrow I shall let down my hair and go off in a little boat.

抽刀斷水水更流，舉杯銷愁愁更愁。人生在世不稱意，明朝散髮弄扁舟。

"At Xie Tiao's Tower in Xuanzhou, a Farewell to the Collator Shu Yun," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Li He 李賀

c. 810 · Tang China

In Chang'an there is a young man. At twenty his heart has already rotted.

長安有男兒，二十心已朽。

"For Chen Shang," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Al-Maarri أبو العلاء المعري

early 11th century · Maarra, Syria

All of life is weariness. I marvel only at one who wants still more of it.

تعب كلها الحياة فما أعجب إلا من راغب في ازدياد

The elegy "Of no use, in my belief," Divan of al-Maarri

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Nameless singers 蔓橫淸類無名氏

before 1728 · Joseon Korea

A window, let me cut a window, a window in this breast of mine. A lattice window, a slatted window, a lift-up window, a swing-out window, with hinges male and female and a hook and staple, knocked in tight with a great big hammer: let me cut a window in this breast of mine. Then now and again, when it is all too stifling, I could open and shut it.