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)

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

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“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.

“You feel your strength in the experience of pain.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

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

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

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

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

“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.”

Kristin Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

“Joy came always after pain.”

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) French poet

“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

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

Virgil quote: “Who knows?
Better times may come to those in pain.”

Quotes about pain

“Contrary to what some might believe, writing does not generate enjoyment or pleasure in itself, quite the opposite; And yet, I feel the need to write fiction as if I have a feeling that I will find something in the middle of my narrative journey, no matter how painful it may be.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

Pleasure, Feeling

“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

Feeling, Home

“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

Time

“Nobody knows me, nobody knows one thing about me Everyone doubts me But, I'ma make it all come true, and I do it for you I know all about the pain that you go through”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song Quote We Think Too Much, Album: Hellboy

“Pain is just a consequence of love.”

Ariana Grande (1993) American singer-songwriter

My Everything (2014)

Love

“There is nothing that can take the pain away. But eventually you will find a way to live with it. There will be nightmares. And every day when you wake up, it will be the first thing you think about. Until one day, it will be the second thing.”

Raymond Reddington

The Blacklist

Way, Thinking

“I am an optimist... I choose to be. There is a lot of darkness in our world, there is a lot of pain and you can choose to see that or you can choose to see the joy. If you try to respond positively to the world, you will spend your time better.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

World, Joy, Time

“In life there are going to be some things that make it hard to smile. Through all the rain and pain you got to keep your sense of humor and smile for me now. Remember that.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Life, Smile, Sense

“If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

People, Art

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

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

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

Ernest Hemingway book Men Without Women

Disputed <br class="br">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/.

Hurtful, Relationship, Love, Forgetting

“Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Life, Art, Flowers

“There's gon' be some stuff you gon' see
that's gon' make it hard to smile in the future.
But through whatever you see,
through all the rain and the pain,
you gotta keep your sense of humor.
You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit.
Remember that.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Smile, Sense, Future

“My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh.
But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Relationship

“At this stage, some people might advise me to focus on pleasure and avoid any kind of pain—But where can we hide from pain when it finds us unprepared?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People, Pleasure

“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”

Milton H. Erickson (1901–1980) American psychiatrist

Happy, Success, Cute, Life

“Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs— and the journey to get there— before finally leaving their miserable world, only too often after a painful death.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

The Ten Trusts (2003), p. xv

Love, Death, People, World

“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.

Hate, Love, Personality, Sadness

“Pain has become your motto in life and heaven your final goal.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder.
I sob, I sob.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Tear

“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)

Love, Feeling

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, People, Truth, Soul

“Patience is of two kinds: patience over what pains you, and patience against what you covet.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Patience

“EVERY STUDENT MUST CHOOSE ONE OF TWO PAINS: THE PAIN OF SELF-DISCIPLINE OR THE PAIN OF REGRET OF NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.”

Ahmed Omaar

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

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

Moving On, Secret, Joy

“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.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

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

“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)

“Like the old Indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in which most is not true. I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children, all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he could prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike not from malice but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now. MJ.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Handwritten note published in People (12 October 1987)

Children, People, Truth, World

“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

Dead, Stupidity

“Listen,
if stars are still lit it means there is someone who needs them.
It means someone wants to love,
Why then do we feel so much pain and heaviness of heart?
are we waiting for something, regretting anything?
To whom I can strech out my hand in the somber desert?
Who will accompany me on the empty night?
Who will give me a fiery day?
Who will bring back the sea that left?
No hope here. Torment is certain.
Without sacredness in the emptiness of this world of ours,
the heart of man fades like a flower.
Suddenly, the shuddering of the heavens penetrating my soul,
Oh never let the parting sun, no star is ever lost we once have seen, the long rains will continue to fall.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: Song THE HEART OF MAN

Soul, Waiting, Night, Making love

“Finally, the benefits of knowing thyself are —You won’t be clouded by the love of life, flatterers can’t arouse your mind, good/bad will appear to be the same before your eyes, pleasure and pain will lose their meanings, the sense of sins and death will vanish away and you will end up having the sense of immortality.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Pleasure, Appearance, Death, Sense

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

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Forgetting, Pleasure, Life, Feeling

“We are born to live, we are born to understand, we are born to carry a cursed pattern and be transformed by pain.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Understanding

“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.

Motivational, Success, For women, Depressing

“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

Learning

“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.

Sad, Music, Feeling

“The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

Life, Beauty, Soul, Flowers

“Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

World, Music, Freedom, Suffering

“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

Pleasure, Motivation

“Is it painful to be the person who waits? Or is it more painful to be the person who makes others wait? Either way, there's no need to wait anymore. That's what is most painful." - Osamu Dazai”

Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) Japanese author

Source: Run, Melos! and Other Stories

Way, Waiting, Personality

“I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Quoted in "Standing Up for Freedom," Academy of Achievement.org (2005-10-31)

Life, Hope, Optimism, Thinking

“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.

People, Tear, Anger, Happiness

“When anything is blocking my head or there's worry in my life, I just go sit on Mars or something and look back here at Earth. All you can see is this tiny speck. You don't see the fear. You don't see the pain. You don't see thought. It's just one solid speck. Then nothing really matters. It just doesn't.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

As quoted in an interview in Vanity Fair (August 2000).

Life, Fear

“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. <br class="br">2008

Death, Democracy, Imagination, Lying

“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

Men, Patience

“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/

Sad, Music, Feeling

“The conscience has a long memory as does the person you inflicted pain upon to create the memory in the first place.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1978

Personality, Memory

“Suffering and Pain are two of many excruciating roadblocks in your internal Maze.
The only way out of the Maze of Misery is to Forgive.
It won't be easy at all…
but the path you chose at the time…led you to here.
Forgiving is the Key to set you Free!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Forgiveness, Time, Suffering, Way

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Music, Feeling, Communication

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life

“In every friendship hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Moving On, Friendship, Heart

“And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Way

“I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Thinking, Painting, Happiness

“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

Cats, Success

“My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 156

For Men, Fear, Idea

“Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Science, Cry

“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

“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge

Happiness

“The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

World, Time, Joy, Happiness

“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.

Time

“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.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

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

Hurtful, Hate, People, Imagination

“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

Failure, Reality, Time

“Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful…He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain…Also — in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Vol. II, p. 7
Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

Hate, Sport, Passion

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

William Wordsworth The Solitary Reaper

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

Nature, Loss

“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)

Life, World

“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

World, Feeling, Thinking, Suffering

“This passage from nothingness to real being, this quitting of oneself is a birth accompanied by pain, for by it natural love is excluded. All grief except grief for sin comes from love of the world. In God is neither sorrow, nor grief, nor trouble. Wouldst thou be free from all grief and trouble, abide and walk in God, and to God alone. As long as love of the creature is in us, pain cannot cease.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon VII : Outward and Inward Morality
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)

Love, God, World, Birth

“Yeah. The guy's up against massive challenges, dealing with consequences, and figuring how to get what he wants and what he believes is right. He's living his worst nightmare, and he's doing everything he can. He's a damn good lawyer and he knows the system, but he's having to pull jokers out of his sleeve and win certain things on sheer willpower and gamble and meddle, you know? So that's what dramas allow, more so than a comedy. It's real-life consequences. The blows, the punches really hurt. The bullets really land. The people really bleed. People really cry. People really enjoy victory. People really feel pain and defeat. You can love harder. You can cry harder. You can be more angry, harder. That's what dramas allow.”

Matthew McConaughey (1969) American actor

" Exclusive interview with Matthew Mcconaughey http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/7774937/exclusive-interview-with-matthew-mcconaughey?page=all" on hollywood.com, March 18, 2011: On playing Mick Haller in the The Lincoln Lawyer

Love, Life, People, Guy

“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, <br class="br"> Chris Cornell official Twitter, April 18, 2009, http://archive.is/3yjSP, no https://twitter.com/chriscornell/status/1553316027, <br class="br">On depression and suicide

Suicide

“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=

For Men, Men, Boy, Suffering