Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Sharing your troubles makes them grow, so keep sad stories to yourself.
In plain terms
Recounting your problems makes them worse.
What can you take from it?
Keep personal troubles private to avoid making them bigger.

Where it applies

  • personal crisis
  • friendship
  • self-care

Putting it to work

  • listen without retelling
  • process emotions privately

Questions to consider

  • Does sharing problems help or hurt?
  • When is it okay to complain?

Another view

Sharing troubles can sometimes lead to support and relief.

More from Elbert Hubbard

  1. A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

    Permalink to quote #8
  2. Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation.…

    Permalink to quote #10
  3. Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things rea…

    Permalink to quote #7

Related quotes

  1. Words have the power to release pent-up emotions as well as to define them in rational and meaningful terms.

    Jeffrey CohenJeffrey Cohen quote #1
  2. I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.

    Samuel RichardsonSamuel Richardson quote #6
  3. Everybody's at war with different things: I'm at war with my own heart sometimes.

    Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur quote #6