quotations about pain
There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
Pain is an outcry of sin.
ROBERT SOUTH
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
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
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
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
When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN
Persuasion
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
Just give me a pain that I'm used to.
DEPECHE MODE
"A Paint That I'm Used To"
It is pain that changes our lives.
STEVE MARTIN
Shopgirl
Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book
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
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
A person who feels pleasure in producing pain in someone else in a sexual relationship is also capable of enjoying as pleasure any pain which he may himself derive from sexual relations. A sadist is always at the same time a masochist.
SIGMUND FREUD
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
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
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"
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
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow isles of pain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Solitude"
Physical pain is necessary to the progress of the human race.
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
attributed, Day's Collacon