quotations about pain
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
In medical nomenclature, pains are said to be of various degrees and kinds. A pain may be slight, or it may be agonizing, with all the intervening grades of moderate, severe, violent, intense, excruciating, etc. Various figurative expressions are also used to designate the several varieties of pain, such as pungent, stinging, cutting, lancinating, tearing, rending, splitting, boring, gnawing, etc. Pains are also said to be heavy, dull or obtuse, sharp or acute, aching, throbbing, smarting, pricking, pulsating, burning, etc.
JOEL SHEW
The Hydropathic Family Physician
It's impossible to go through life unscathed. Nor should you want to. By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Inheritance
But for pain, bodies would be broken to pieces on the slightest shock.
ST. PIERRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.
JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET
attributed, Building a Life of Value
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"
Pain for the old was no longer a surprise.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
Pain is only what you allow it to be.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Ashes
Pain addeth zest unto pleasure, and teachest the luxury of health.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
attributed, Day's Collacon
The lessons we learn from pain are the ones that make us the strongest.
LIONEL LUTHOR
"Hidden", Smallville, 2005
Just give me a pain that I'm used to.
DEPECHE MODE
"A Paint That I'm Used To"
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
Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book
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
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
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
When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN
Persuasion
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
There is such a thing as anesthesia of pain, engendered by pain too exquisite to be borne.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.
J. M. COETZEE
Waiting for the Barbarians