“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet
A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)
“There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.”
Hymn 66, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II.
Attributed from postum publications, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1773)
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Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish …" by Isaac Watts?
Isaac Watts47
English hymnwriter, theologian and logician 1674–1748Related quotes
George Lyman Kittredge (1860–1941) American scholar, literary critic, and folklorist
as remembered by William S. Burroughs, in: Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw. The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012, p. 61.
“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer
Source: The Other Side of the Story
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters
"Advice to a Lady in Autumn", published in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. I. (1763), printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer
Le mal n'est peut-être qu'un violent plaisir. Qui pourrait déterminer le point où la volupté devient un mal et celui où le mal est encore la volupté ? Les plus vives lumières du monde idéal ne caressent-elles pas la vue, tandis que les plus douces ténèbres du monde physique la blessent toujours.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part I: The Talisman
“Our days and nights
Have sorrows woven with delights.”
François de Malherbe (1555–1628) (1555–1628) French poet, critic, and translator
To Cardinal Richelieu. Longfellow's translation.
“Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.”
Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534), Chapter 54 : The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.
Context: p>Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.
Sound bodies lined
With a good mind,
Do here pursue with might
Grace, honour, praise, delight.Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,
All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.
This is the glorious place, which bravely shall
Afford wherewith to entertain you all.
Were you a thousand, here you shall not want
For anything; for what you'll ask we'll grant.
Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,
Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,
Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,
And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.</p
“A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound
Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 549
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)
Context: Man, who wert once a despot and a slave,
A dupe and a deceiver! a decay,
A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day.
Amos Tversky (1937–1996) Israeli psychologist
attributed, but source not available.