“And in an infinite regress:
Tell me, why is the pain of birth
lighter borne than the pain of death?”
Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)
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Joanna Newsom 61
American musician 1982Related quotes
“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Source: The Other Side of the Story

“For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.”
Book II, ch. 1 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html
Discourses
Variant: For death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of pain or death.

“I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell — and rose again.”
Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage
Context: I stumbled, slipped... and all was gone
That I had gained. Once more I lay
Before the long bright Hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
Or I could tell you how I went
Across the swaying firmament,
A glittering torture of cold stars,
And how I fought in Titan wars...
And died... and lived again upon
The rack... and how the horses strain
When their red task is nearly done... I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell — and rose again.

Roots Radical http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-57534351.html, Guitar Player (December 1, 1999).

“Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!”
On Pain (1934)