“To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.”

“Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

“When Fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

“Come, then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

“Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

“Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

“Pleasure has desire in it. Desire is pain. There is no satisfaction. So pleasure is pain.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

“I don't regret my painful times, i bare my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that that smile dimmed by tears”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you with ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead