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“If it is so painful to love and to be charged with this electric current, how much more painful must it be to a woman and to be the current, and to inspire love.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago (1957)

“Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 254

“In order to stay clear of pain, we must know and know why we feel best while having pain.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

“Mucius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

“All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger.”

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

Source: I, Robot

“Disharmony and conflict are always to everyone’s loss and anguish. We stand again today to forge ahead toward a stronger nation.”

Josefa Iloilo (1920–2011) President of Fiji

Fiji Day address, 10 October 2005 (excerpts)

“The smell of the ocean was stronger now, rank and enveloping, as if the bottom of the sea had turned over and littered the shore with its dead.”

T.C. Boyle (1948) American novelist and short story writer

Acts of God (1989)

“And I can't go on this way,
With it stronger every day,
But being too shy to say
That I really love you.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Too Shy To Say
Song lyrics, Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974)

“The man of Hope, Barack Obama. America is stronger because of President Obama's leadership, and I'm better because of his friendship.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

“Anti-GLBT sentiment is a primary tool for organizing the far-right and it is stronger then ever as a means to split communities and reinforce constituencies.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

America...You Kill Me

“I have always thought that he more limited the means, the stronger the expression. That may explain the choice of a small palette.”

Pierre Soulages (1919) French painter and engraver

Quoted in Cultural Hermeneutics: Essays after Unamuno and Ricoeur https://books.google.com/books?id=qBb8CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT180&lpg=PT180&dq=The+more+limited+the+means+are,+the+stronger+the+expression+will+be.+soulages&source=bl&ots=Z6zlqNBJ5Z&sig=m-Dv6ErGf9KmcjngVgOdJQXZxEk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicmcvE9cLcAhVoZN8KHbVlDwEQ6AEwAnoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=The%20more%20limited%20the%20means%20are%2C%20the%20stronger%20the%20expression%20will%20be.%20soulages&f=false

“Given the rigor and detailing that was needed to write the book—through the process the concepts I wrote about kept getting stronger.”

Divya S. Iyer (1984) Indian bureaucrat

Source: Quoted in The Better India https://www.thebetterindia.com/208078/kerala-ias-hero-upsc-tips-civil-service-exam-syllabus-india/

“As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.”

June Jordan (1936–2002) Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist

"Life After Lebanon" (1984), later published in On Call : Political Essays (1985), and Some of Us Did Not Die : New and Selected Essays of June Jordan (2002)

“…I finally understood what true love really meant. …that love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

John Tyree, Epilogue, p. 275
Source: 2000s, Dear John (2006)

“Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“As the possibility of a relationship had faded, Emma had endeavored to harden herself to Dexter's indifference and these days a remark like this caused no more pain than, say, a tennis ball thrown sharply at the back of her head.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Introduction", item 3
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“I had rather be esteemed a Fool for some by the Hazard of one Month's journey, than to prove myself one certainly for six Years by past, if the Business be now lost for some want of a little Pains and Care.”

George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (1578–1632) English politician and coloniser

To Thomas Wentworth, cited by Luca Codignola in The Coldest Harbour of the Land (Québec, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988), p. 43.
Context: [B]eing bound for a long Journey to a Place which I have had a long Desire to visit, and have now the Opportunity and Leave to do: It is Newfoundland I mean, which imports me more than in Curiosity only to see; for I must either go and settle it in a better Order than it is, or else give it over, and lose all the Charges I have been at hitherto for other Men to build their Fortunes upon. And I had rather be esteemed a Fool for some by the Hazard of one Month's journey, than to prove myself one certainly for six Years by past, if the Business be now lost for some want of a little Pains and Care.

“There is nothing more painful in the world than Aly when she makes her big eyes. She makes her big hurt eyes, there's nothing you can do. She just kills you.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

DVD commentary for Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 2-14 "Innocence"

“For what would I be otherwise but sport,
In love with one who does not care for me?
I will hide pain in smiles, sooner than be
The common talk. It is a bitter art
To sing a happy song with a sad heart.”

Christine de Pizan De triste cuer chanter joyeusement

Car en mon cuer porte couvertement Le dueil qui soit qui plus me puet desplaire, Et si me fault, pour les gens faire taire, Rire en plorant et très amerement De triste cuer chanter joyeusement. Rondeau "De triste cuer chanter joyeusement", line 8; Maurice Roy (ed.) Œuvres Poétiques de Christine de Pisan (1886) vol. 1, p. 154, as translated by http://www.brindin.com/pfpistri.htm by Sheenagh Pugh.