Stronger than pain quotes (page 109) | Quotes of famous people

“We celebrate this history, this heritage, as an immigrant nation. And we are strong enough to acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that we haven’t always lived up to our own ideals.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)
Context: We celebrate this history, this heritage, as an immigrant nation. And we are strong enough to acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that we haven’t always lived up to our own ideals. We haven’t always lived up to these documents. [... ] We succumbed to fear. We betrayed not only our fellow Americans, but our deepest values. We betrayed these documents. It’s happened before. And the biggest irony of course was -- is that those who betrayed these values were themselves the children of immigrants. How quickly we forget. One generation passes, two generation passes, and suddenly we don’t remember where we came from. And we suggest that somehow there is “us” and there is “them,” not remembering we used to be “them.”

“Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself…or success as a team. You have to share the pain… and the responsibility… and if you do then you will also share in the rewards.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

Speech at Tufts University http://www.tufts.edu/home/feature/?p=commencement2007&p4=4
2007

“Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto V, stanza 9.
Marmion (1808)

“The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned.”

Tanith Lee book The Castle of Dark

Source: The Castle of Dark (1978), Chapter 12 “Lir: The Walled Town” (p. 102)

“Always Sir Arthur lost so much blood that it was a marvel he stood on his feet, but he was so full of knighthood that knightly he endured the pain.”

Thomas Malory book Le Morte d'Arthur

Book IV, ch. 9
Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469) (first known edition 1485)

“If pains be to be taken to give him a manly air and assurance betimes, it is chiefly as a fence to his virtue when he goes into the world under his own conduct.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 70
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

“When I lump all my sins together and confess them en masse, I neglect to feel the pain or embarrassment or shame that should be elicited in me.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

“From Pamplona, I'm the loon
scared of the laughter of the cunning Moon,
under the crepe of world-pain that won't pass…
For – o terror! – all is under a jar of glass.”

Tristan Corbière (1845–1875) French poet

Je suis le fou de Pampelune,
J'ai peur du rire de la Lune,
Cafarde, avec son crêpe noir...
Horreur ! tout est donc sous un éteignoir.
Heures, http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Heures second stanza, from Les Amours jaunes (1873).

““Don’t be sentimental,” he chided. “Memories aren’t enough.”
It was fruitless to argue the niceties of that: he was telling her that he was in pain; he didn’t want platitudes or metaphysics.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part Twelve “Stalking Paradise”, Chapter i “A Chapter of Accidents”, Section 4 (p. 517)
(1987), BOOK THREE: OUT OF THE EMPTY QUARTER

“The fire of hell is called eternal, only because it never ends. Still, there is change in the pains of the lost…Hence in hell true eternity does not exist, but rather time.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 10, art. 3, ad 2
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

“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)

“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.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

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

“The world would be in better shape if people would take the same pains in the practice of the simplest moral laws as they exert in intellectualizing over the most subtle moral questions.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Es stände besser um die Welt, wenn die Mühe, die man sich gibt, die subtilsten Moralgesetze auszuklügeln, zur Ausübung der einfachsten angewendet würde.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 30.

“I know this in no way alleviates the enormous amounts of pain and loss experienced by those who have suffered from the tsunami, but I hope it can make a difference.”

Sandra Bullock (1964) American actress and producer

In a brief statement (4 January 2005), upon donating one million dollars to the relief efforts of the American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/ in response to the tsunamis at the end of 2004. This was her second million dollar gift to the American Red Cross; she had also donated a million dollars after the terrorists attacks of September 11th, 2001.