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Thomas Mann photo

“Beauty can pierce one like pain.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman], Pt 11, Ch. 2

Jordan Peterson photo

“Pain is the only thing that people will never deny.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Ezra Pound photo

“Pride, jealousy and possessiveness
3 pains of hell”

Ezra Pound The Cantos

Canto CXIII
The Cantos

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I never tire of reading Tom Paine.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in A Literary History of the American People‎ (1931) by Charles Angoff, p. 270
Posthumous attributions

“This writing wasn't painful. It was like being high.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 11, Making A Beast Of Himself, p. 166

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Der allgemeine Ueberblick zeigt uns, als die beiden Feinde des menschlichen Glückes, den Schmerz und die Langeweile.
Personality; or, What a Man Is
Essays

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 197

Adolphe Quetelet photo

“But is the anatomy of man not a more painful science still?”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: But is the anatomy of man not a more painful science still?—that science which leads us to dip our hands into the blood of our fellow-beings to pry with impassible curiosity into parts and organs which once palpitated with life? And yet who dreams this day of raising his voice against the study? Who does not applaud, on the contrary, the numerous advantages which it has conferred on humanity? The time is come for studying the moral anatomy of also, and for uncovering its most afflicting aspects, with the view of providing remedies.

George Herbert photo

“878. It's more paine to doe nothing then something.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“Even in Death they had a thing in common, Pain.”

Arin Paul (1980) Indian film director

On Ritwik Ghatak & Guru Dutt
WBRi Article http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/62861211-un-common-connection-ritwik-ghatak-guru-dutt-wbri-feature (2011)

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

Source: On Death and Dying (1969), Ch. 9

“Nostalgia is a fruit with the pain of distance in its pit.”

Giannina Braschi (1953) Puerto Rican writer

Assault on Time, 1981.

Seneca the Younger photo

“Pain he endures, death he awaits.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCVIII: On the Fickleness of Fortune

Menotti Lerro photo

“Often behind a great man there is great pain.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Spesso dietro un grande uomo c’è una grande sofferenza.

“We can argue about their intelligence (which we would likely define in human-centric terms anyway), their ability to understand human language, or even the extent to which they really understand and know the world around them, but there’s no argument that can convincingly show that animals don’t feel pain, and that they have no interest in avoiding that pain. If anything, animals are more sensitive to the world around them than we are, given their heightened sensory abilities.”

Bob Torres American podcaster

Source: Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (2007), p. 25

Frederick Buechner photo

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

Jimmy Carter photo

“Failure is a reality; we all fail at times, and it's painful when we do. But it's better to fail while striving for something wonderful, challenging, adventurous, and uncertain than to say, " I don't want to try because I may not succeed completely.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

“But we all must be true to our own nature. Acting as anyone other than yourself merely brings you pain and makes you appear ashamed of who and what you are. Others will feed off that shame, and soon it will be all that you are.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Kiss

Primo Levi photo

“To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.”

Primo Levi book Other People's Trades

"The Irritable Chess-Players"
Other People's Trades (1985)