Stronger than pain quotes (page 181) | Quotes of famous people

“The Infinite, from which comes the impulse that lead us to activity, is not the highest Reason, but higher than reason; not the highest Goodness, but higher than goodness.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 2 : Religion
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

“Nobody can overthrow the fascist dictator by being nicer than him. The reason for this is: by definition everybody is always already nicer than the fascist dictator.”

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 3, Chapter 8, “The Wrath of Diana” (p. 337).
Jack Glass (2012)

“Most people are even less original in their dreaming than in their waking life; their dreams are more monotonous than their thoughts and oddly enough, more literary.”

W. H. Auden book Forewords and Afterwords

"Walter de la Mare", p. 393
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“The major abstraction is the idea of man
And major man is its exponent, abler
In the abstract than in his singular,
More fecund as principle than particle”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Be Abstract

“Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

“Confusing ‘Character’ with ‘Temperament’”
Clearing the Ground (1986)
Context: Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters.
We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable. Of course, the optimum for a person is to possess both an easy temperament and a strong character, but this is a rare combination, and few of us are that lucky. The people who get things done tend to be prickly, and the people we enjoy being with tend to be accepting, and there seems to be no way to get around this. Obviously, there are many combinations of character and temperament, in varying degrees, so that this is only a rough generalization — but I think it is one worth remembering when we make personal judgments.

“Usefulness may turn out to be the hardest test of fitness for survival, more important than aggression, more effective, in the long run, than grabbiness.”

Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator

"The Tucson Zoo", p. 10
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: Maybe altruism is our most primitive attribute out of reach, beyond our control. Or perhaps it is immediately at hand, waiting to be released, disguised now, in our kind of civilization as affection or friendship or attachment. I can’t see why it should be unreasonable for all human beings to have strands of DNA coiled up in chromosomes, coding out instincts for usefulness and helpfulness. Usefulness may turn out to be the hardest test of fitness for survival, more important than aggression, more effective, in the long run, than grabbiness.

“There are greater and better things in us all, than the world takes account of, or than we take note of; if we would but find them out.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 191
Context: We all not only have better intimations, but are capable of better things than we know. The pressure of some great emergency would develop in us powers, beyond the worldly bias of our spirits; and Heaven so deals with us, from time to time, as to call forth those better things. There is hardly a family so selfish in the world, but that, if one in it were doomed to die—one, to be selected by the others,—it would be utterly impossible for its members, parents and children, to choose out that victim; but that each would say, "I will die; but I cannot choose." And in how many, if that dire extremity had come, would not one and another step forth, freed from the vile meshes of ordinary selfishness, and say, like the Roman father and son, "Let the blow fall on me!" There are greater and better things in us all, than the world takes account of, or than we take note of; if we would but find them out.

“He doesn't know birds live
In another time than man.
He doesn't know a tree lives
In another time than birds”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Birth" (1947), trans. Peter Dale Scott
Daylight (1953)
Context: He doesn't know birds live
In another time than man.
He doesn't know a tree lives
In another time than birds
And will grow slowly
Upward in a gray column
Thinking with its roots
Of the silver of underworld kingdoms.

“Intuitions are convictions arising out of a fullness of life in a spontaneous way, more akin to sense than to imagination or intellect and more inevitable than either.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 1, letter 37.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“Proposition 11. The diameter of the moon is less than 2/45ths, but greater than 1/30th of the distance of the centre of the moon from our eye.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

“There is an affected humility more unsufferable than downright pride, as hypocrisy is more abominable than libertimsm. Take care that your virtues be genuine and unsophisticated.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

“Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him, with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Discourse
Essays (1625)

“Oh, the alcoholic afternoons
when we sat in your room
they meant more to me
than any, than any living thing on earth”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the song "These Things Take Time"
From songs

“The irony of her story is merely that her love became, in the end, her motive rather than her goal, the doorway rather than the house.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 22 (p. 192)

“Is there anything more terrible than perpetual motion, than doing and doing and doing, without a reason, without a consciousness, without a change, without an end?”

T. H. White book The Book of Merlyn

The Book of Merlyn (1977)

“Fun I love, but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

1790s, Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)

“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, he who rules his own spirit than he who takes a city.”

book Bible

Source: Proverbs 16:32, AMP

“We should be less concerned about the missile gap than the intelligence gap... less worried about the missile race than the intelligence race.”

Max Lerner (1902–1992) American journalist and educator

Quoted in Max Lerner, Writer, 89, Is Dead; Humanist on Political Barricades By Richard Severo, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/06/arts/max-lerner-writer-89-is-dead-humanist-on-political-barricades.html (6 June 1992)

“She loves him more than he would ever know.
He loves her more than he would ever show.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

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