Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères
Il n'y a pour l'homme que trois événements: naître, vivre et mourir. Il ne se sent pas naître, il souffre à mourir, et il oublie de vivre.
Aphorism 48
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme
Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)
Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères
Il n'y a pour l'homme que trois événements: naître, vivre et mourir. Il ne se sent pas naître, il souffre à mourir, et il oublie de vivre.
Aphorism 48
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme
“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer
Source: The Other Side of the Story
“For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Book II, ch. 1 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html <br class="br">Discourses <br class="br">Variant: For death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of pain or death.
“I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell — and rose again.”
Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist
Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage
Context: I stumbled, slipped... and all was gone
That I had gained. Once more I lay
Before the long bright Hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
Or I could tell you how I went
Across the swaying firmament,
A glittering torture of cold stars,
And how I fought in Titan wars...
And died... and lived again upon
The rack... and how the horses strain
When their red task is nearly done... I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell — and rose again.
Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician
Roots Radical http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-57534351.html, Guitar Player (December 1, 1999).
“Genius is an infinite capacity for causing pain.”
Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride
Source: The Robber Bride
“Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!”
Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) German writer
On Pain (1934)