quotations about pain
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
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Remains in Verse and Prose
Pain is a coward. He flees when faced by the irresistible power of the will-to-live, which is more strongly rooted in the flesh than the intensest passion is rooted in the spirit.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
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
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
Merely to live without a pain
Is little gladness, little gain,
Ah, welcome joy tho' mixt with grief--
The thorn-set flower that crowns the leaf.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Thorn and Rose"
Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
A Defence of Poetry
Pain is the best cure for error.
JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL ZSCHOKKE
"Harmonius", Tales from the German of Heinrich Zschokke
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
When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN
Persuasion
You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
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
When we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom; we think even the noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping up our change.
GEORGE ELIOT
Janet's Repentance
There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
R. D. LAING
attributed, The Quotable Quote Book
Physical pain is necessary to the progress of the human race.
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
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
Pain is just another form of information.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
Pain was exhausting in its inane imperviousness to everything. There was nothing, no persuasion or bribe you could bring to it. It was a monolithic idiot, the dumbest thing in the universe given complete control over the smartest, a heartbreaking inversion.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising