PAIN QUOTES III
quotations about pain
There are cases in which it is necessary to inflict pain now to avoid greater pain later on, or to gain future pleasure that is worth the current pain.
SUSAN HUBBARD
The Society of S
There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Mrs. Cosway, October 12, 1786
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C. S. LEWIS
The Problem of Pain
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
JOHN KEATS
letter to George and Georgiana Keats, April 1819
Pleasure is hard to come by, but pain is everywhere these days, I must learn to subsist on it.
J. M. COETZEE
In the Heart of the Country
Pain addeth zest unto pleasure, and teachest the luxury of health.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Often pains too long retained increase even to the breaking of the heart; if they could be exhaled we should see that they do not merit the bitterness which they have caused.
FRANCOIS FENELON
attributed, Day's Collacon
But for pain, bodies would be broken to pieces on the slightest shock.
ST. PIERRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
He knew that scar, that pain, that shame, that degradation that no metaphor could contain, inscribing it on his body. And yet beyond that, he was that scar, carved by hate and smallness and fear onto the world's face. He and everyone like him, until the earth was aflame with scarred black men dying in trees of fire.
CHRIS ABANI
Graceland
Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other; and he only that knows how to accommodate himself to their periodical returns, and can wisely extract the good from the evil, knows how to live.
LAURENCE STERNE
attributed, Day's Collacon
The lessons we learn from pain are the ones that make us the strongest.
LIONEL LUTHOR
"Hidden", Smallville, 2005
Pain is an interesting and off-putting thing. Few if any things in life concentrate our attention so completely and terribly, and few things are more boring to listen to or read about.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
Just give me a pain that I'm used to.
DEPECHE MODE
"A Paint That I'm Used To"
As an enemy is made more fierce by our flight, so pain grows proud to see us truckle under it; she will surrender upon much better terms to those who make head against us.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Take courage; pain's extremity soon ends.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Pain is an outcry of sin.
ROBERT SOUTH
attributed, Day's Collacon
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
That is true nobility, true elevation of soul, when man can rise superior to any suffering and every pain, by the indwelling power given to him.
JOHANN GEORGE FORSTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
We have a bitter power who laugh at pain,
Who laugh and laugh -- for tears are shed in vain.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love