Quotes about pain
page 25

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo

“Pain is the kiss of Christ.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Dearly Beloved, Vol. III (1990)

Tom Petty photo

“Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain.
I feel summer creepin' in and I'm tired of this town again.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Mary Jane's Last Dance
Lyrics, Greatest Hits (1993)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
David Hume photo

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov’d for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov’d by death, and cou’d I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou’d be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one upon serious and unprejudic’d reflexion, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me… But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”

Part 4, Section 6
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

William Cowper photo
Brandon Boyd photo

“It pains me to believe that you have never stepped out of the skin you live with.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, A Crow Left of the Murder... (2004)

H. G. Wells photo
Elfriede Jelinek photo
Tokyo Sexwale photo
Marguerite Yourcenar photo

“The skirmishes with the theologians had had their charm, but he knew well that no lasting accord exists between those who seek, ponder, and dissect and pride themselves on being capable of thinking tomorrow other than they do today, and those who accept the Faith, or declare that they do, and oblige their fellow men to do the same, on pain of death.”

il [Zénon] savait fort bien qu'il n'existe aucun accommodement durable entre ceux qui cherchent, pèsent, dissèquent, et s'honorent d'être capables de penser demain autrement qu'aujourd'hui, et ceux qui croient ou affirment croire, et obligent sous peine de mort leurs semblables à en faire autant.
The Indictment, p. 317
The Abyss (1968)

Roberto Clemente photo

“I really don't know if I cried. If I did, it was tears not of pain, but of the sentiments my people are made of.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Addressing reporters at post-game press conference on Roberto Clemente Day, as quoted in "Roberto Clemente's a Man of 2 Lives ... and 2 Loves" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zbYcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NWYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2327%2C2876682 by the Associated Press, in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (July 26, 1970)
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Colin Wilson photo
Paul Klee photo
Jim Butcher photo
Upton Sinclair photo
Stephen Crane photo
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos photo

“The shame love causes is like its pain; we only feel it once. We may feign it afterwards, but we do not feel it. However, the pleasure remains, and that is indeed something.”

La honte que cause l’amour est comme sa douleur: on ne l’éprouve qu’une fois. On peut encore la feindre après; mais on ne la sent plus. Cependant le plaisir reste, et c’est bien quelque chose.
Letter 105: La Marquise de Merteuil to Cécile Volanges. Trans. Richard Aldington (1924). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_105
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Yehuda Ashlag photo
Eugene J. Martin photo

“In order to stay clear of pain, we must know and know why we feel best while having pain.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Iain Banks photo
Christopher Pitt photo
A. P. Herbert photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“Partly what you need to do is decide what your highest value is. It's the star. What are you aiming for? You can decide. But there are some criteria. It should be good for you in a way that facilitates your moving forward. Maybe it should be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, as well as for the larger community. It should cover the domain of life. There's constraints on what you should regard as a value, but within those constraints you have the choice. You have choice. The thing is that people will carry a heavy load if they get to pick the load. And they think, 'well, I won't carry any load.' Ok, fine, but then you'll be like the slead dog that has nothing to pull. You'll get bored. People are pack animals. They need to pull against a wait. And that's not true for everyone. It's not true for conscientious people. For the typical person, they'll eat themselves up unless they have a load. This is why there's such an opiate epidemic among so many dispossessed white, middle aged, unemployed men in the U. S. They lose their job, and then they're done. They despise themselves. They develop chronic pain syndromes and depression. And the chronic pain is treated with opiates. That's what we're doing. And you should watch when you talk to young men about responsibility. They're so thrilled about it. It just blows me away. Really?! That's what the counter-culture is? Grow up and do something useful. Really? I can do that? Oh, I'm so excited by that idea. No one ever mentioned that before. Rights, rights, rights, rights. Jesus. It's appalling. People have had enough of that. And they better have, because it's a non-productive mode of being. Responsibility, man. That's where the meaning in life is.”

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

Concepts

Bai Juyi photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Ritwik Ghatak photo
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock photo

“A new pain enters and the old pains of the household receive it with their silence, not with their death.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Entra una nueva pena y las viejas penas de la casa la reciben calladas, no muertas.
Voces (1943)

Charles Krauthammer photo
William Shatner photo
Conor Oberst photo

“I wanna be your happiness.
I wanna be your common sense pain.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Get-Well-Cards
Conor Oberst (2008)

Stephen Baxter photo
Harry Connick, Jr. photo

“I was in such a state while I was recovering from this surgery and the pain medication that I was on sort of took all the inhibitions out that I may have had. I found that I was ordering things online; big boxes of stuff would arrive at my house.”

Harry Connick, Jr. (1967) American singer, conductor, pianist, actor, and composer

Late Show with David Letterman TV interview, February 2007 http://www.postchronicle.com/news/entertainment/tittletattle/article_21263069.shtml

“The proper management of pain remains, after all, the most important obligation, the main objective, and the crowning achievement of every physician.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

The Management of Pain (1954)

Sylvia Plath photo
Derek Walcott photo

“The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.”

Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright

"A Far Cry from Africa" (1962)

Isaac Rosenberg photo
Demi Lovato photo

“So young when the pain had begun
Now forever afraid of being loved.”

Demi Lovato (1992) American singer, songwriter, actress, and author

For The Love Of A Daughter
Lyrics, Unbroken (2011)

George William Russell photo

“The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.
And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies
Between the pain of hell and paradise!”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Paul Cézanne photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
William Blake photo
Tom Petty photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“I couldn't stand the pain. All the doctors said there was nothing wrong with my spine because there was nothing they could see. But the chiropractors said they thought they could help and they did.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

From his 1971 World Series MVP acceptance speech, recalling the time in 1957 when he considered quitting baseball, as quoted in "Pittsburgh's Clemente Honored" https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19711021&id=66lOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tQkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7211,3919174 by United {Press International, in The Wilmington Star-News (Thursday, October 21, 1971), p. 1-D
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

“Pain lies above, not below. And they all think that pain is below. And they all want to rise.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

El dolor está arriba, no abajo. Y todos creen que el dolor está abajo. Y todos quieren subir.
Voces (1943)

Isaac Rosenberg photo
Mark Knopfler photo
John Armstrong photo

“Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.”

John Armstrong (1709–1779) British poet

Book IV, line 512.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

“Even in Death they had a thing in common, Pain.”

Arin Paul (1980) Indian film director

On Ritwik Ghatak & Guru Dutt
WBRi Article http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/62861211-un-common-connection-ritwik-ghatak-guru-dutt-wbri-feature (2011)

Thomas Moore photo

“Oh stay! oh stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain
To break its links so soon.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Fly not yet.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Bertolt Brecht photo

“And when she was finished they laid her in earth
Flowers growing, butterflies juggling over her…
She, so light, barely pressed the earth down
How much pain it took to make her as light as that!”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"To my mother" [Meiner Mutter] (May 1920), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 49
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Iain Banks photo
Cindy Sheehan photo
John Keats photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Matthieu Ricard photo
Aubrey Beardsley photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Thomas Gray photo

“Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 2
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Colin Wilson photo
Trent Reznor photo

“I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel.
I focus on the pain,
the only thing that's real.”

Trent Reznor (1965) American musician

Hurt, from The Downward Spiral (1994).
Song lyrics

Haile Selassie photo

“Although we cannot place all the blame for the dismal condition of LDCs on Keynesian economics, it bears a heavy responsibility for much of the pain and suffering in the Third World.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Bruce Bartlett, "Keynesian Policy and Development Economics" in Dissent on Keynes (1992).
1990s

James Tiptree, Jr photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
George MacDonald photo
Peter Gabriel photo

“From the pain come the dream.
From the dream come the vision.
From the vision come the people.
From the people come the power.
From this power come the change.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Fourteen Black Paintings
Song lyrics, Us (1992)

Fred Astaire photo
Stephen King photo
Thomas Aquinas photo
Lewis Morris (poet) photo

“Call no faith false which e'er hath brought
Relief to any laden life,
Cessation to the pain of thought,
Refreshment mid the dust of strife.”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

Tolerance, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Henry Rollins photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Mickey Spillane photo

“I was thinking too damn much to be careful. When I stabbed my key in the lock and turned it there was a momentary catch in the tumblers before it went all the way around and I swore out loud as I rammed the door with my shoulder and hit the floor. Something swished through the air over my head and I caught an arm and pulled a squirming, fighting bundle of muscle down on top of me.
If I could have reached my rod I would have blown his guts out. His breath was in my face and I brought my knee up, but he jerked out of the way bringing his hand down again and my shoulder went numb after a split second of blinding pain. He tried again with one hand going for my throat, but I got one foot loose and kicked out and up and felt my toe smash onto his groin. The cramp of the pain doubled him over on top of me, his breath sucking in like a leaky tire.
Then I got cocky. I thought I had him. I went to get up and he moved. Just once. That thing in his hand smashed against the side of my head and I started to crumple up piece by piece until there wasn't anything left except the sense to see and hear enough to know that he had crawled out of the room and was falling down the stairs outside. Then I thought about the lock on my door and how I had a guy fix it so that I could tell if it had been jimmied open so I wouldn't step into any blind alleys without a gun in my hand, but because of a dame who lay naked and smiling on a bed I wouldn't share, I had forgotten all about it.”

The Big Kill (1951)

Julian of Norwich photo
Camille Paglia photo
Julian of Norwich photo
William Morris photo

“A world made to be lost, —
A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"The Hill of Venus".
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Roberto Bolaño photo
Meher Baba photo
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey photo
Jacques de Molay photo
Edward O. Wilson photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 11 (p. 162)

Neville Chamberlain photo
Peter Singer photo
Georg Brandes photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo