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“You can never escape me. Bullets don't harm me. Nothing harms me. But I know pain. I KNOW pain. Sometimes I share it. With someone like you.”

Frank Miller book Batman: Year One

Source: Batman: Year One

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain-they're just the only ones who let it out. Then the other people don't have to.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

“Empathy for women is an attribute of masculinity. When men play the protector role they are trying to save a woman from grief or pain. If they had no glimpse of her grief or pain, they wouldn’t know when to protect.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 33.

“All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise — for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Mythopoeia (1931)

“To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Source: Lacon (1820) Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)

“Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Lord of the Silver Bow

“I am looking for the human who admits his flaws
Who shocks the adversary
By being kinder not stronger
What would that be like?
We don't even know”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

Source: Honeybee: Poems Short Prose

“The whole summer lay ahead of us-time to rest, time to wait. And when the future comes-no matter what comes with it-I'll be smarter. I'll be stronger. I'll be ready.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

“In a democracy, it is the people who are sovereign. Therefore, with regard to the promotion of democracy at the local, country and regional levels, civil society must have a stronger voice in all political processes.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas 2013 Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
2013

“Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker
A little bit harmful for me.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Song lyrics, Poses (2001)

“We must make this campaign an exceedingly active one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Source: Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (1891), Ch. 22 : The Last Happy Days — Chancellorsville — 1863, p. 429
Context: We must make this campaign an exceedingly active one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength. A defensive campaign can only be made successful by taking the aggressive at the proper time. Napoleon never waited for his adversary to become fully prepared, but struck him the first blow.

“I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter I-V, Chapter III, Part I.

“The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Early Art
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

“I’m learning, Maia thought. They keep making mistakes and I keep getting stronger.
At this rate, someday I may actually gain control over my life.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 27 (p. 531)

“We have an aura about us which becomes stronger when you have faith in yourself. And when your aura is strong, evil dare not touch you.”

Lydia Canaan Lebanese singer-songwriter

As quoted in an interview with Sudha Chandran, Gulf Today/Panorama, November 24, 2000

“On the whole, I don't have any friends. Friends come and go; I've lost my trust factor. I believe I have people who think they're my friend. And I believe that there are people probably in their heart who are friends toward me or are friends to me. But they're not my friends, because what I learned is that fear is stronger than love.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Vibe magazine interview (June 1996)

“A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.”

Francis Galton (1822–1911) British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics

Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), p. 80
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)

“Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot understand this history of ours without understanding communism. We cannot get rid of this specter by saying it was just “human stupidity,” or “human corruptibility.” The specter is stronger than the spells we cast on it. It might come back to life.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Introduction to My Correct Views on Everything