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“Keep me alive. Keep me alive long enough for me to conquer the animal within myself. Long enough for me to learn to partner myself with a woman who is better and stronger than me. Long enough for me to reconcile myself with my brothers. Long enough to be as good a man as my father, and as good as my mother, too.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Call Of Earth (1992)

“The U. S. was never stronger, North Korea never weaker than in 1994, yet even then the fear of an artillery attack on Seoul prevented an air-strike on Yongbyeon. You can put it another way and say that the very success of the nuclear program, the fact that it has gone this far, proves that it was never necessary for North Korea’s security in the first place.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with the Reuters War College (April 2017)

“Making the rich poorer does not make the poor richer, but it does make the state stronger—and it does increase the power of officials and politicians, power more menacing, more permanent and less useful than market power within the rule of law. Inequality of income can only be eliminated at the cost of freedom. The pursuit of income equality will turn this country into a totalitarian slum.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Keith Joseph, Stranded on the Middle Ground? Reflections on Circumstances and Policies (Centre for Policy Studies, 1976).
1970s

“It is the Path by which, to use a simile often used, instead of going round and round the mountain by an ever-climbing spiral, man climbs straight up the mountainside regardless of cliff and precipice, regardless of gulf and chasm, knowing there is nothing that can stop the Eternal Spirit, and that no obstacle is stronger than the strength that is omnipotence, because it has its source in Omnipotence itself.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

“What Hubble discovered was the expansion of the universe…. We are not expanding. Nor is Brooklyn. Nor is earth. Nor is the solar system. Nor, in fact, is the Milky Way galaxy. Nor even those aggregates of thousands of galaxies that we call "galaxy clusters." These collections of matter are bound together by chemical and gravitational forces between their constituents—forces that are stronger than the force of expansion.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

The Origin of the Universe (1997)

“[On dealing with physical and emotional pain] … a friend taught me before I gave birth…“don't try to take your mind away from the pain. Go right into the centre of the pain”, because when she did that she found the pain dissipated. It's true for me anyway, but it's not always possible, I admit. It has become a valuable exercise to apply to different things in life, of not avoiding or disregarding pain or bad feelings. I just have to remember that nothing in life is ever stagnant and that this grief or ache is going to change because everything in life changes.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview in Viva Magazine (Dec 2009, p. 76) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/press/viva.html.

“[P]leasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good: pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure.”

Jeremy Bentham book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 10: Of Motives

“It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

“It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

“The sweetness of love is short-lived, but the pain endures.”

Thomas Malory (1405–1471) English writer, author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur''

“You feel your strength in the experience of pain.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“Don't make light of any man's pain.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: When Demons Walk

“There is no relationship in life that comes with the promise of zero pain.”

Obert Skye Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want

Source: Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want

“pain is absurd because it exists, nothing more.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”

Louis Zamperini (1917–2014) Italian-American middle distance runner

“Well, the rain had stopped but the pain was still there.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

“Come, see the true
flowers
of this pained world.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho

“There's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

“Church of painful love - unfulfilled, unrequited & unattained”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories