“Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.”
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Arthur Schopenhauer261
German philosopher 1788–1860Related quotes
“Pleasures are always children, pains always have wrinkles.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist
“As the thing more perfect is,
The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.”
Dante Alighieri book Inferno
Canto VI, lines 107–108 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
"Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality" (1905), reprinted in "Essential Papers on Masochism" p.87, edited by Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Hanly, New York University press, New York and London, (1995)
1900s
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"
“Oh, are not the pleasures in life, in this daily round, trifling compared with the pains!”
Satin parva res est voluptatum in vita atque in aetate agunda praequam quod molestum est?
Amphitryon, Act II, scene 2.
Amphitryon
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer
Le mal n'est peut-être qu'un violent plaisir. Qui pourrait déterminer le point où la volupté devient un mal et celui où le mal est encore la volupté ? Les plus vives lumières du monde idéal ne caressent-elles pas la vue, tandis que les plus douces ténèbres du monde physique la blessent toujours.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part I: The Talisman
“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
Source: The Yellow Book, 1974, p.65
