“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”

“To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.”

“The theory which follows is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain; and the object of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost of pain.”

“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”

“Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.”

“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.”

“There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.”

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

“And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.”

“Pleasure can only be experienced after going through pain and vice versa.”