quotations about pain
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Shake hands with Pain, give greeting unto Grief,
Those angels in disguise, and thy glad soul
From height to height, from star to shining star,
Shall climb and claim blest immortality.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Immortality"
Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
A Defence of Poetry
Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters--pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do; on the one hand the standard of right and wrong; on the other, the chain of causes and effects are fastened to their throne.
JEREMY BENTHAM
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Physical pain is necessary to the progress of the human race.
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
attributed, Day's Collacon
If thou take pain in what is good, the pains vanish, the good remains; if thou take pleasure in what is evil, the evil remains, and the pleasure vanishes. What art thou the worse for pains, or the better for pleasure when both are past?
FRANCIS QUARLES
Enchiridion
The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and consequently, endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case the cruelty of torment is much greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to when enduring the last extreme of pain, their happiness consisting entirely in present enjoyment.
THOMAS CHALMERS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.
DJUNA BARNES
Nightwood
Pain sends out long tentacles
And sucks.
When I have given up struggling
He takes me into his arms.
EVELYN SCOTT
"Hectic"
Pain for the old was no longer a surprise.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
Pain is the deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and holy than any other.
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM
Remains in Verse and Prose
People come and go, pain comes and goes. But so does joy. And if our hearts are closed because we don't want to suffer, they won't be open enough to recognize the joy as it flies by.
GENEEN ROTH
Good Housekeeping, December 2008
Don't forget that in the midst of all your pain and heartache, you are surrounded by beauty, the wonder of creation, art, your music and culture, the sounds of laughter and love, of whispered hopes and celebrations, of new life and transformation, of reconciliation and forgiveness.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
Pain is always new to the sufferer, but loses its originality for those around him.
ALPHONSE DAUDET
La doulou
Pain is the best cure for error.
JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL ZSCHOKKE
"Harmonius", Tales from the German of Heinrich Zschokke
Pain is just another form of information.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN
Persuasion
Nature has placed in the front part of man, as he moves, all those parts which when struck cause him to feel pain; and this is felt in the joints of the legs, the forehead and the nose, and has been so devised for the preservation of man, because if such pain were not felt in these limbs they would be destroyed by the many blows they receive.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
If I call it pain, and try to touch it
With my hands, my own life,
It lies still and the music thins,
A pulse felt for through garments.
TRACY K. SMITH
"Duende"
Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to kindness and wisdom we make promises only; pain we obey.
MARCEL PROUST
Sodom and Gomorrah