Quotes about pain

A collection of quotes on the topic of disease, suffering, death, pain.

Best quotes about pain

“It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.”

Anton LaVey (1930–1997) Founder of the Church of Satan, author of the Satanic Bible

The Nine Satanic Sins (1987)

George Orwell photo

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

Source: 1984

Charles Bukowski photo

“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: We don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.
Source: From a letter to William Packard from 1985 (published in Reach for the Sun - the 3rd volume of Bukowski correspondence)
Context: Sex, love, duty, God, family are not to be bargained with against happiness, and we don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.

Jim Morrison photo
C.G. Jung photo

“There's no coming to consciousness without pain.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Kenji Miyazawa photo

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey”

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) Japanese poet and author of children's literature
Bob Dylan photo

“Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Time Out of Mind (1997), Not Dark Yet

“Pain was good. If I hurt, it meant I wasn't dead.”

Source: Hunted

Guillaume Apollinaire photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo

“The pain passes but the beauty remains.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

As quoted in: Instituto Nacional de Previsión (Spain) (1974). 6.o Congreso Internacional de Medicina Fisica: 2-6 julio 1974. p. 424
Renoir replied to Matisse, who had asked him why he persisted in painting at the expense of such torture.
undated quotes

Quotes about pain

José Baroja photo
Lil Peep photo

“I don't feel much pain Got a knife in my back, and a bullet in my brain I’m clinically insane Walkin' home alone, I see faces in the rain”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song The Way I See Things, Album: LiL PEEP; PART ONE

Lil Peep photo

“Runnin' away from you takes time and pain And I don't even want to So, I'm gettin' high all week without you Poppin' pills, thinkin' about you”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song U Said, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1

Lil Peep photo
Ariana Grande photo

“Pain is just a consequence of love.”

Ariana Grande (1993) American singer-songwriter

My Everything (2014)

Tom Hiddleston photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Louis Zamperini photo

“One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”

Louis Zamperini (1917–2014) Italian-American middle distance runner
Ernest Hemingway photo

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too”

Disputed
Source: Claimed to be from Men Without Women, but it does not appear in that work. May have originated in a 2011 blogpost by Marc Chernoff entitled 30 things to stop doing to yourself http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/.

Daisaku Ikeda photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Charlie Chaplin photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Milton H. Erickson photo
Jane Goodall photo
Freddie Mercury photo

“I'm possessed by love — but isn't everybody? Most of my songs are love ballads and things to do with sadness and torture and pain.
In terms of love, you're not in control and I hate that feeling. I seem to write a lot of sad songs because I'm a very tragic person. But there's always an element of humour at the end.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_07-19-1985_-_The_Sun.

Virginia Woolf photo
Jennifer Aniston photo

“The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Oprah Magazine (2004)

Jordan Peterson photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Marcus Aurelius photo

“If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.”

Variant: If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Source: Meditations

Eminem photo

“Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds, it's like adrenaline: The pain is such a sudden rush for me!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Stan"
2000s, The Marshall Mathers L.P. (2000)

Michael Jackson photo
Ricky Gervais photo

“That’s the best thing about being dead. It’s like being stupid. It’s only painful for others.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Jeff Buckley photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Aristotle photo

“Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.”

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

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

Padre Pio photo
Kurt Cobain photo
Julius Evola photo

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

Julius Evola (1898–1974) Italian philosopher and esotericist

Source: Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul

Osamu Dazai photo
Rosa Parks photo
Osamu Tezuka photo

“I am convinced that comics should not only make people laugh. For this in my stories found tears, anger, hatred, pain and end not always happy.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Quoted in Helen McCarthy, Osamu Tezuka: God of manga , translated by Fabio Deotto, Edizioni BD, 2010, back cover.

Heath Ledger photo
Dilma Rousseff photo

“Any comparison between the military dictatorship and democracy can only come from those who do not value the Brazilian democracy. (…) I am proud to have lied. Lying under torture is not easy. In the face of torture, a person with dignity lies. Enduring torture is very difficult (…) The pain is unbearable; you can not imagine how. I am proud to have lied, because I saved my comrades from the same torture and from death.”

Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil

Responding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiyezo1fLRs to Senator José Agripino Maia - former member of ARENA, ruling party of the military dictatorship - in a Senate hearing, May 7. He suggested that, for having lied when she was interrogated by the political police, she could also have been lying about the leak of data of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's personal expenditures.
2008

Julius Caesar photo

“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

Julius Caesar (-100–-44 BC) Roman politician and general

Disputed
Original: (la) Qui se ultro morti offerant facilius reperiuntur quam qui dolorem patienter ferant.

Quoted in many works without citation

Axel Munthe photo

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

Fernando Pessoa photo
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Terry Pratchett photo
David Lynch photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Only the insane equate pain with success."
"The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die."
_Cheshire Cat”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
Thomas Hardy photo
Alan Lightman photo
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy photo

“It has been said that time heals all wounds, I don't agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but is never gone.”

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy

Variant: It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

James Baldwin photo

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time

Jimmy Carter photo

“Failure is a reality; we all fail at times, and it's painful when we do. But it's better to fail while striving for something wonderful, challenging, adventurous, and uncertain than to say, " I don't want to try because I may not succeed completely.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Mark Twain photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain
That has been, and may be again.”

The Solitary Reaper.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

James Clerk Maxwell photo

“The world may be utterly crazy
And life may be labour in vain;
But I'd rather be silly than lazy,
And would not quit life for its pain.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Part III Poems, Tune, Il Segreto per esser felice (March 24, 1858)
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)

Richard Rohr photo

“So much is happening on earth that cannot be fixed or explained, but it can be felt and suffered. I think a Christian is one who, along with Jesus, agrees to feel, to suffer the pain of the world.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 129

Meister Eckhart photo
Matthew McConaughey photo
Chris Cornell photo

“If you knew someone who was terminally ill and in grave pain, would you participate in an assisted suicide? I would.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Chris Cornell official Twitter, April 18, 2009, http://archive.is/kqUNK, no https://twitter.com/chriscornell/status/1552596343,
Chris Cornell official Twitter, April 18, 2009, http://archive.is/3yjSP, no https://twitter.com/chriscornell/status/1553316027,
On depression and suicide

Emil Zátopek photo

“It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.”

Emil Zátopek (1922–2000) Czech Olympic long-distance runner

Attributed in "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ("Swifter, Higher, Stronger"), an unsigned article from Khaleej Times, 8 August 2008 (Galadari Printing and Publishing Co.) http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/weekend/2008/August/weekend_August25.xml&section=weekend&col=

Teal Swan photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“Lost touch with my soul…
I had no where to turn…
I had no where to go.
In My Fear,
I Unearthed My Backbone.
In Deep Pain,
I Discovered My Strength.
In My Denial,
I Detected My Durability.
I crashed down, and I tumbled…
But I did not crumble.
I got through all the Anguish…
I was not meant to be broken.
I did Not Vanquish.
I'm Still Here.
I was not meant to be broken.
From the Nightmare
I was never Awoken.
It took all I had in Me.
I was not meant to be broken.
To become the person I was meant to be.
Put through a whole lot of stress.
Entangled in this Mess.
I was not meant to be broken.
They watched as each blow hit.
Oh how I shall never forget.
Hit me harder with a smile on your face.
Wish for me to fall lower
in place.
Rock Bottom is awefully low for Me.
I'll fight you harder
and then you will see…
I was not meant to be broken.
I tried so hard to make you see.
But all you said to me was leave.
I was not meant to be broken.
They say doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the sign of insanity.
You never looked at the results.
You destroyed My Vanity.
Never prepared for the Hell that I would see.
Never taught how to Be Me
in your
Twisted World.
Can't you see?
I was not meant to be broken.
The Green Eyed Monster.
Evil childhood wishes.
Come alive before your eyes
like a Snake that Hisses.
The sad thing is this…and this much I'll say.
They will never come back again the Days
you have Missed.
It could have been sweet.
It should have been bliss.
But instead all I got was a poisoned kiss.
I was not built to break.
I was not meant to be broken.”

José Baroja photo
Jim Morrison photo
James Frey photo
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo
Johnny Cash photo
Terry Pratchett photo
George Orwell photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“It takes courage… to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Orhan Pamuk photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Frederick Buechner photo
George Orwell photo
Virginia Woolf photo
James O'Barr photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Aristotle photo

“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
George Orwell photo
Ayn Rand photo
George Orwell photo