Quotations on Pain

Quotations on Pain (28)

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RACISM, HATE, PAIN, BIGOTRY
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
Baldwin, James Notes of A Native Son

PAIN, SUFFERING
When we cling to pain we end up punishing ourselves.
Leo F. Buscaglia
HEADACHE, PAIN, MIND BODY
"When the head aches, the whole body is out of tune."
Cervantes
Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
Charlie Chaplain
SINE-WAVE, DUES, OPPOSITES, RESPONSIBILITY, CHANGE, REPERCUSSION, YIN YANG
"Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow."
Colton

PAIN, SECONDARY-GAIN, SUFFERING,
"A miserable slave is he who makes himself a garment of his Pain."
D' Annunzio Gabriele 1864-?
MUSCLE, PAIN, BREATH, ESCAPE, SUFFERING, SHAKING
Great pain urges all animals, and has urged them during endless generations, to make the most violent and diversified efforts to escape from the cause of suffering. Even when a limb or other separate part of the body is hurt, we often see a tendency to shake it, as if to shake off the cause, though this may obviously be impossible. Thus a habit of exerting with the utmost force al the muscles will have been established, whenever great suffering is experienced. As the muscles of the chest and vocal organs are habitually used, these will be particularly liable to be acted on, and loud, harsh screams or cries will be uttered. But the advantage derived from outcries has here probably come into play in an important manner; for the young of most animals, when in distress or danger, call loudly to their parents for aid, as do the members of the same community for mutual aid.
Charles Darwin, Expression of The Emotions In Man And Animals


EMOTION, FEELING
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 liberty to die.
Emily Dickinson 1830-1886 Poems

PAIN
"We no other pains endure Than those that we ourselves procure."
Dryden, Spencer
HEALING
"He who would ease the pain of his wound , should pay his doctor well.
Isn't it so doctor? And he who would be cured should pay him badly."
Firenzuola, Agnolo ,b.1493 , I Lucidi, (Cornelio)/hd
"Every protective self deception is a crevice in our psyche with a little demon lurking in it, ready to become an episode of unexplained anxiety when life threatens. The self deceptions which are designed to protect us from pain actually end up delivering more pain. We fortify our deceptions to protect them from the natural corrections of daily life."
Roger Gould, TRANSFORMATIONS

SUICIDE
the Gordian knot of pleasure and of pain can only be severed by the stroke that terminates existence.
Madame De Stael-Holstein Reflections on Suicide

RECOVERY
The greatest faculties of the soul are developed only by suffering, and this purification of ourselves restores us after a time, to happiness; for the circle closes up again, and carries us back to those days of innocence which preceded our faults.
Madame De Stael-Holstein Reflections on Suicide
How short a step it is from joy to pain.
Victor Hugo
RIDICULOUS, LIFE
The human drama is as absurd as it is painful.
Eugene Ionesco 1909-1994 (reverse accent over second e)

PERSPECTIVE/ATTITUDE:
The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is also mean and ugly.
What can be more base and unworthy than the pining, puling, mumping mood, no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered? What is more injurious to others? What less helpful to others as a way out of difficulty? It but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it and increases the total evil of the situation.
William James 1842-1910/hl
HAPPINESS
"The real test of a happy life is to see how much pain and loss and frustration can be endured and absorbed without spoiling the joy of it."
Jones Rufus ,1863-1948/hl
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain:
The heart can ne'er a transport know,
That never feels a pain.
Lyttleton

ADVERSITY, PAIN, TROUBLES
Virtue shuns ease as a companion. She demands a rough and thorny path.
Montaigne

Self discipline is a self-enlarging process. The pain of giving up is the pain of death, but death of the old is birth of the new The pain of death is the pain of birth, and the pain of birth is the pain of death. For us to develop a new and better idea, concept, theory or understanding means that an old idea, concept theory or understanding must die.
M. Scott Peck, TRLT

LOVE
"There is no pleasure like the pain of being loved, and loving."
Praed: Legend of the Haunted Tree

IMAGINATION
Except pain of body and remorse of conscience, all our evils are imaginary.
Rousseau

DELIGHT, MEMORY, INHIBITION
"Most happy he whose least delight sufficeth to deprive
Remembrance of all pains which him opprest."
Spenser, Edmund

How can you really feel anything if you're not allowing yourself to feel the pain. it is part of being human and alive to feel all kinds of feelings.
Barbara Streisand, in TV interview

DRIVES, FEELINGS
One does not learn the pain of hunger or the pleasure of eating. Nor does one learn to be afraid or to be joyous.
Sylvan S. Tomkins, Affect Imagery Consciusness, Volume 1 The Positive Affects

COGNITION, PERCEPTION
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 ANTONINUS

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.
WILLIAM STYRON

One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
SOPHOCLES