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“These movies belonged to the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—that period of great, unsustainable, and hedonistic prosperity, driven by the burning of Earth’s reserves of perishable oil, which culminated in the False Tribulation, and the wars, and the plagues, and the painful dwindling of inflated populations to more reasonable numbers.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 29

“We are alike in many ways, you and I. There is a darkness in us. Darkness, pain, death. They radiate from us. If ever you love a woman, Rand, leave her and let her find another. It will be the best gift you can give her.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

al'Lan Mandragoran to Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1993)

“Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Phantastes (1858)

“Citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offences, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable.”

A. P. Herbert book Uncommon Law

"Is It a Free Country?"
Uncommon Law (1935)

“Fear is unnatural. Lightning and thunder are unnatural. Pain, death, reality, these are all unnatural. We can't bear these things as they are. We know too much. So we resort to repression, compromise and disguise. This is how we survive the universe. This is the natural language of the species.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

White Noise (1984)

“I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Goethes Gespraeche (December 13, 1813)

“As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Attribution to Pythagoras by Ovid, as quoted in The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 260; also in Vegetarian Times, No. 168 (August 1991), p. 4

“Human needs to go through the abyss of pains and loss, because the more we suffer-the better. Con người cần phải được đau khổ, bởi có đau khổ mới hiểu được giá trị của hạnh phúc.”

Linh Nga (1982) American-Vietnamese film director, film producer, actress, screenwriter, and news anchor

Vnexpress. Van Hoa page http://vnexpress.net/gl/van-hoa/2006/09/3b9eec76/ 2002

“Not all who betray feel guilt and remorse. They often proclaim the betrayed deserved the punishment for past actions. A rationalization intended to ensnare the ignorant and offer warrant. Remember. The betrayer was either attempting to gain something for themselves, or to inflict pain upon you; or both.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1982

“Admitting to where you are feels simultaneously like pain and like relief. The energy required to resist where you are is exhausting. Admitting to where you are feels like letting yourself float downstream after swimming upstream against river rapids for years.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“I was using Smalltalk and I never actually go through this boundary of sort of simulating the class structure in my head so that I can program itself. It was painful, I used to chose the changelog to find things, I regret you did it.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

“We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: "In the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past."”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Alternate translation: We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things used to be so much better, life today is worse than it used to be.
Мы хлопочем, чтобы изменить жизнь, чтобы потомки были счастливы, а потомки скажут по обыкновению: прежде лучше было, теперешняя жизнь хуже прежней.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)