Quotes

Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“No one ever found out what was happening inside me. How the pain was eating me away. No one ever came to my rescue, or stood up for me.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Tupac Shakur photo
Rocky Marciano photo

“Roland La Starza was tough, but Ezzard Charles was the toughest man I ever fought. I learned what pain was all about when I fought him.”

Rocky Marciano (1923–1969) American boxer

Reminiscing about his opponents; quoted in "Sept. 17, 1954: Marciano vs Charles" by Eliott McCormick, in The Fight City (17 September 2019) https://www.thefightcity.com/sept-17-1954-marciano-vs-charles-ii-rocky-marciano-ezzard-charles-heavyweight-championship-joe-louis-jersey-joe-walcott/

Gabrielle Zevin photo
Ben Harper photo

“You can run away from home
But you can't run away from your pain
I sit here alone
There's always someone else to blame.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

Up to You Now.
Song lyrics, White Lies for Dark Times (2009)

George W. Bush photo

“In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Angelus Silesius photo
Cole Porter photo

“You're the pain in my —
The hurricane in my —
Supersensitive heart, dear.
Still I love you, I know,
And the reason is merely because
You irritate me so!”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"You Irritate Me So"
Let's Face It (1941)

“Whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for; we are not permitted to mock Jehovah, asking that of Him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire.”

Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 469.

Hassan Rouhani photo
Parker Palmer photo

“One of the hardest things we must sometimes do is to be present to another person's pain without trying to fix it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery.”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 61-63

Miguel de Unamuno photo
Alexander Blok photo

“O, my Russia! O, wife! The long road is clear to us to the point of pain. Our road – like a Tatar arrow of ancient will has pierced our breast.”

Alexander Blok (1880–1921) poet

"On Kulikovo Field" (1908); translation from Sarah Pratt Nikolai Zabolotsky (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000) p. 53.

Bertrand Russell photo

“No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: A fresh look at empiricism, 1927-42 (G. Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 217
Attributed from posthumous publications

Ronald Reagan photo

“We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Samuel Johnson photo

“Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

July 28, 1763, p. 128
On Thomas Sheridan
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I