Stronger than pain quotes (page 62) | Quotes of famous people

“The Obama years have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Severely wanting. By the end of Obama's presidency, the U. S. standing in the world was weaker—clearly and appreciably weaker—than when he became president. The force of American power was diminished, and freedom was in retreat. By the end of Obama's presidency, was there a single part of the world where the United States was in a stronger position than when he took office? Was there an ally who was more confident or an adversary who was less so? By the end of Obama's presidency, were any important countries either friendlier or freer than they had been when he took over? The answer to all these questions: no.”

William Kristol (1952) American writer

2010s, 2017, Obama's Legacy (2017)

“One of the most remarkable changes was the extent to which indifference had come to prevail in matters of religious opinion. With regard to freedom of action, there would have been a stronger objection then than there was now in allowing the great majority of persons engaged in any particular trade to coerce the minority into their wishes. On the question of non-interference, he pointed out that the difficulties of laissez faire were now far more generally recognized than they were 40 or 50 years ago. For one reason or another there was now far less disposition to accept the doctrines of laissez faire than there was then, and they played a much smaller part in the ideal we formed of what was good for a nation.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

“Ye will not pray; ye will not shun temptation; ye will not renounce known sin; ye will not fight against evil habits! Are ye stronger than God? Can ye contend with the Eternal One? Have ye the nerve which shall not tremble, and the flesh which shall not quiver, and the soul which shall not quail, when the sheet of fire is round the globe, and thousand times ten thousand angels line the sky, and call to judgment?”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 340.

“Could I forget that the event [Mehmet Ali Ağca’s assassination attempt] in Saint Peter's Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants has been remembered for over sixty years at Fatima in Portugal? For, in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Source: [Pope John Paul II, 2005, Memory and identity: conversations at the dawn of a millennium, Rizzoli]

“But the room seemed so poor, pleading for warmth and joy. Vera Rivken's room. She had been nice to Arturo Bandini, and she was poor. I took the small roll from my pocket, peeled off two one dollar bills, and laid them on the table. Then I walked down the stairs, my lungs full of air, elated, my muscles so much stronger than ever before.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

“It is not much good talking about fundamental and irreversible changes in our society and being content with a 38 per cent Labour voting intention. … Democracy means that you need a substantially stronger moral position than this to govern effectively at all, let alone effecting a peaceful social revolution. The programme we put forward must be capable of being carried out in what may well be difficult economic circumstances.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Labour Party Conference debate on nationalisation (2 October 1973), quoted in The Times (3 October 1973), p. 5
1970s

“How rare it is for a woman to support her husband aright in his position in the world, and for husband and wife to work together in complete harmony! During these last seven years Marie has won esteem and affection from high and low alike by her friendly bearing, her sincerity of character and her beneficence; spiritually she has exercised a stronger influence than have the clergy over many ladies and women.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 16 May 1898, referring to his wife Mary

“The inextricable way pleasure and pain are mixed up with each other in this world is a mournful fact to beings who are all the time striving for pleasure alone. In the ideal world there is no pain, no misery. There is nothing but happiness. But in our world pain seems to have been the original feeling, the first one to appear in the evolution of sentiency. Pleasure is a sort of after-thought, a secondary attribute of consciousness which developed later as an aid to pain in keeping living beings straight. Pain is a whip, a penalty. Pleasure is a reward or bribe. Pain is a curse. We are all the time trying to minimize and escape it. In an ideal world the inhabitants never have any impulses that drive them to improper acts. All their impulses are good. Every act is proper and right. Ideal beings need only to live and act in order to be happy. We are not ideal beings. Our world happens to be one affording almost unlimited opportunities for improvement.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 52–53

“If you can go through life without ever experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet. And if you've gone through pain and think you know exactly why, you haven't examined all the options.”

Neil Simon (1927–2018) playwright, writer, academic

The Play Goes On (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999) p. 260

“A person who feels pleasure in producing pain in someone else in a sexual relationship is also capable of enjoying as pleasure any pain which he may himself derive from sexual relations. A sadist is always at the same time a masochist.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

"Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality" (1905), reprinted in "Essential Papers on Masochism" p.87, edited by Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Hanly, New York University press, New York and London, (1995)
1900s

“Brant felt a spasm of pain. “Uh,” she said. She closed her eyes tight until the pain went away.
“Can I do anything?” said Staefler.
“Yes,” she said. “Have my baby for me.””

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Death in Florence (1978), Chapter 4 “Queene Eileen” (p. 177).

“The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among the peoples subjected to various degrees of exploitation, and they will take up arms to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

On Development (1964)

“The old get older
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We're takin' over
Come on!”

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

"Five to One" on the album Waiting for the Sun (1968)

“I wanted to paint crows in a big spot of lonely black with a digger head and paws. But stronger was nature which forced me to make a beast, sparkling of blue and purple, a subdued pleasure for the eyes.”

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Jan Mankes, in het Nederlands:) Ik wou kraaien schilderen in een groote plek van eenzaam zwart met doodgraverskop en pooten. Maar sterker was de natuur, die me een beest deed maken flonkerend van blauw en paars, een ingetogen oogenlust.

In a letter of Mankes to Annie van Beuningen-Eschauzier, 30 Nov. 1919; in particular collection; as cited Jan Mankes – in woord en beeld, ed. Sjoerd van Faassen; Museum Bèlvédère, Heerenveen, 2015 ISBN 1877-0983, n. 22, pp. 49-50
1915 - 1920

“If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

“Wherever there is a main issue the elimination of other things which are not essential will make for a stronger result. In the earlier static abstract sculptures I was most interested in space, vectoral quantities, and centers of differing densities.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture (1933)
Source: en.wikiquote.org - Alexander Calder / Quotes / 1930s / Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture (1933)

“We are not perfect, but we are doing the best we can to pull through this crisis together, as one nation. God willing, we will come out stronger when this crisis ends and the dust settles.”

Muhyiddin Yassin (1947) Home Affairs Minister of Malaysia

As quoted in The Star - Muhyiddin: 'We are not perfect, but we are doing the best we can' https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/27/muhyiddin-039we-are-not-perfect-but-we-are-doing-the-best-we-can039, 27 March 2020
Quote

“Our way through life should not be difficult — but it is. The fact is that our lives are filled mostly with picking and choosing. "I want this, but not that." And because things are not anything other than the way they really are, we suffer. Nowhere is this more apparent and painful than when we are trying to find life after death. We so desperately want things to be the way they were. But they are not. So the longing itself becomes an additional source of suffering.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Finding Life after Death
What About the Big Stuff (2002)

“But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 236
Context: It was no different with my own life, and with Gertrude's and that of many others. Fate was not kind, life was capricious and terrible, and there was no good or reason in nature. But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us. Out of sounds, words, and other frail and worthless things, we can construct playthings — songs and poems full of meaning, consolation and goodness, more beautiful and enduring than the grim sport of fortune and destiny. We can keep the spirit of God in our hearts and, at times, when we are full of Him, He can appear in our eyes and our words, and also talk to others who do no know or do not wish to know Him. We cannot evade life's course, but we can school ourselves to be superior to fortune and also to look unflinchingly upon the most painful things.

“Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire.
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight.Truth be told I've tried my best,
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer,
And the cost was so much more than I could bear.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Fallen
Song lyrics, Afterglow (2003)

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