“The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.”

“The greatest satisfaction comes not from chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, but from the radical acceptance of life as it is, without fighting and clinging to passing desires.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

“Neither pleasure nor pain should enter as motives when one must do what must be done.”

Julius Evola (1898–1974) Italian philosopher and esotericist

“I numbered years of pain and distress,
And but fourteen days of happiness.
Mortal, nor pleasure, nor wealth, nor power,
Are more than the toys of a passing hour;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

“The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

“Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“By feeling the sunshine, or pleasure, we end up forgetting all of our miseries, or pains in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright