Quotes

Ricky Gervais photo

“That’s the best thing about being dead. It’s like being stupid. It’s only painful for others.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter
Axel Munthe photo

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“Love is awful. It's awful. It's painful. It's frightening. … Love isn't something that weak people do.”

movie Fleebag

Love is awful. It's awful. It's painful. It's frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself, distance yourself from the other people in your life. It makes you selfish. It makes you creepy, makes you obsessed with your hair, makes you cruel, makes you say and do things you never thought you would do. It's all any of us want, and it's hell when we get there. So no wonder it's something we don't want to own. I was taught if we're born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it. People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it's easy. But I'm not sure that's true. It takes strength to know what's right. And love isn't something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think that what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.

Marya Hornbacher photo

“In truth, you like the pain. You like it because you believe you deserve it.”

Marya Hornbacher (1974) American journalist

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Joaquin Phoenix photo

“There will never be a scenario in which the infliction of fear and pain on a vulnerable individual creates a benefit to humankind.”

Joaquin Phoenix (1974) American actor, music video director, producer, musician, and social activist

"The War on Animals" (foreword), Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), p. 27 ISBN 978-1590566381

Lewis Gompertz photo

“Axiom 8. That the importance of any action is measured by the degree of pleasure or pain that it causes or prevents.”

Lewis Gompertz (1783–1861) Early animal rights activist

Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)

Prevale photo

“An example of life? In work, in friendship, in love, in pleasure and in pain: always, unconditionally and simply be yourself.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Un esempio di vita? Nel lavoro, nell'amicizia, nell'amore, nel piacere e nel dolore: sii sempre, incondizionatamente e semplicemente te stesso.
Source: prevale.net

Spider Robinson photo

“Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.”

Spider Robinson (1948) Canadian author

"Callahan's Law", as expressed in The Callahan Chronicals (1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)], Part IV : Earth … and Beyond, "Post Toast", p. 388. On the back cover of Callahan's Legacy (1996) this is modified into "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased (and bad puns are appreciated).

“You need to study history, Doctor. All great changes are based on pain and destruction.”

Source: Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005), Ch. 35

Jane Austen photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation. In fact they are not its brains but its shit.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Letter from Lenin to Gorky https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/g2aleks.html, Sept. 15, 1919
1910s
Source: The Letters Of Lenin

Abraham Lincoln photo

“My earlier views on the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.”

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

Letter to Judge J. A. Wakefield, after the death of Lincoln's son Willie in 1862, as cited in Abraham Lincoln: was he a Christian? (1893), p. 292 http://books.google.com/books?id=x8BHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=%22unsoundness+of+the+Christian+scheme%22, by John Eleazer Remsburg. Historian Merrill Daniel Peterson states in Lincoln in American Memory (1994), p. 227 http://books.google.com/books?id=D_FjY_ARcGoC&lpg=PA227&vq=%22Judge%20J.%20A.%20Wakefield%22&pg=PA227, that the letter has never actually been produced to verify the statement and that there's no correspondence with Wakefield noted in the Collected Works.
Misattributed

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Those were men in whom great strength and knowledge served the will to evil and fed upon it. Whether the wizardry that serves a better end may always prove the stronger, we do not know. We hope.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 3, "Hort Town" (Ged)

Tucker Carlson photo

“But is diversity our strength? The less we have in common, the stronger we are? Is that true of families? Is it true in neighborhoods or businesses? Of course not. Then why is it true of America? Nobody knows. Nobody’s even allowed to ask the question.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

[Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution, Tucker, Carlson, 2018, 978-1501183669, Free Press]; [Guess who said it: Tucker Carlson or a far-right shooter, Nathan, Robinson, August 10, 2019, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/10/tucker-carlson-fox-news-united-states-race]
2010s, 2018, Ship of Fools

Tertullian photo
Austen Chamberlain photo