Pain Quotes

400+ Sourced quotes

I duly acknowledge that I have gone through a long life, with fewer circumstances of affliction than are the lot of most men. Uninterrupted health, a competence for every reasonable want, usefulness to my fellow-citizens, a good portion of their esteem, no complaint against the world which has sufficiently honored me, and above all, a family which has blessed me by their affections, and never by their conduct given me a moment's pain.

Thomas Jefferson

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites - day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.

There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.

Arthur Schopenhauer

When, wrapped in storm, shall I be battling
The billows, while the shrouds are rattling,
And roam the sea's expanse unpent,
Quit of the shore's dull element?
'Tis time to seek the southern surges
Beneath my Afric's sunny sky,
And, there at home, for Russia sigh,
Lamenting in new songs and dirges
The land that knew my love, my pain,
Where long my buried heart is lain.

Alexander Pushkin

Insects sting, not in malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics: they desire our blood, not our pain.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Resentment gratifies him who intended an injury, and pains him unjustly who did not intend it.

One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.

William Shakespeare

Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.

We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant.

Albert Einstein

Life, for Colin, was one long brace against pain and disappointment, and everybody apart from his wife was an enemy until proven otherwise.

There is only one antidote to mental suffering, and that is physical pain.

The Heart asks Pleasure — first —
And then — Excuse from Pain—
And then — those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering —
And then — to go to sleep —
And then — if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die —.

Emily Dickinson

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

Everyone's childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other or can completely understand. By this I don't know if I'm just giving up with this conclusion or resigning myself - or maybe for the first time connecting with reality. How do we know the pain or another's earlier years, let alone all that he drags with him since along the way at best a lot of leeway is needed for the other - yet how much is unhealthy for one to bear. I think to love bravely is the best and accept - as much as one can bear.

Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.

As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery.

Dante Alighieri

Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.