Stronger than pain quotes (page 77) | Quotes of famous people

“A utopia of judicial reticence: take away life, but prevent the patient from feeling it; deprive the prisoner of all rights, but do not inflict pain; impose penalties free of all pain. Recourse to psycho-pharmacology and to various physiological ‘disconnectors’, even if it is temporary, is a logical consequence of this ‘non-corporal’ penalty.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter One, The Spectacle of the Scaffold

“We all acquire two types of scars; one is visible for all to see and the other resides deep within us. Both possess pain but others can only determine if the external scars have healed. The emotional scars within are usually more painful and can linger for years.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

“Is pain a promise? I was schooled in pain,
And found out what I could of all desire;
I weep for what I'm like when I'm alone
In the deep center of the voice and fire.I know the motion of the deepest stone.
Each one's himself, yet each one's everyone.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Sententious Man," ll. 31-36
Words for the Wind (1958)

“Only God Can Judge Me
That which does not kill me can only make me stronger. I don't see why everybody feel as though that they gotta tell me how to live my
life”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“I identified with both women. But Emma had a stronger message for the women I want to speak to now— women who work. I wanted to tell them that choosing to work doesn't make them oddballs and isn't antisocial.”

Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) American actress

On her decision to play Emma, in The Turning Point (1977). Interview People magazine, quoted in "Anne Bancroft" http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/09/18/anne_bancroft/index2.html at Salon.com (18 September 2001).

“Please forgive my accuser…and, actually, thank God for him. I am trusting that his action will make me, my wife and family, and ultimately all of you, stronger. He didn't violate you; I did.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

In a letter to New Life Church; published in Colorado Springs Gazette, November 5, 2006.

“Our courage and our resolve will be tested. And so too will our imagination. Because our world is changing. And if we are prepared to imagine and to shape it in new ways, we will find ourselves stronger, more free - a better, closer community.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008), Church of Scotland (May 25, 2009)

“Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain,
Have something in them that surpasses the human.
They lead a life of such innocence,
That the heavens owe them some recognition:
That they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down
Is hardly the result of common virtues.”

Pierre Corneille Polyeucte

Sans doute vos chrétiens, qu'on persécute en vain,
Ont quelque chose en eux qui surpasse l'humain:
Ils mènent une vie avec tant d'innocence,
Que le ciel leur en doit quelque reconnaissance;
Se relever plus forts, plus ils sont abattus,
N'est pas aussi l'effet des communes vertus.
Sévère, act V, scene vi.
Polyeucte (1642)

“I became a vegetarian 3 years ago. … The best thing about being a vegetarian for me, number one is I know I'm not harming any animals. … The number two thing is increased strength. I'm a lot stronger than I was when I was eating meat. … Most of your most powerful animals in the wild are vegetarian, so I'm trying to get my strength to that level. I don't know if I'll make it or not, but elephants are vegetarians. They're pretty big, so…”

Michael Clarke Duncan (1957–2012) American actor

"Michael Clarke Duncan's Exclusive Interview With PETA", video on PETA's YouTube channel (10 May 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGh2_qgYJd8.

“In this uncertain space between birth and death, especially here at the end of the world in Moonlight Bay, we need hope as surely as we need food and water, love and friendship. The trick, however, is to remember that hope is a perilous thing, that it's not a steel and concrete bridge across the void between this moment and a brighter future. Hope is no stronger than tremulous beads of dew strung on a filament of spider web, and it alone can't long support the terrible weight of an anguished mind and a tortured heart.”

Dean Koontz book Seize the Night

Source: Seize the Night (1999), Chapter 4; musings of Christopher Snow

“We can never say it enough. The United States and the United Kingdom enjoy a truly special relationship. We celebrate a common heritage. We cherish common values.... Above all, our alliance thrives because it advances our common interests.... When the United States and the United Kingdom stand together, our people—and people around the world—are more secure and they are more prosperous. In short, the United States has no closer ally and no stronger partner than Great Britain.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102011166?q=barack+obama&p=par Statement made by U.S. President Barack Obama at a joint press conference with Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom in July 2010
2010

“Find in yourself the strength and wisdom to show love and care to everyone, near you, regardless of the region they live in, ethnicity or religion. Be wise and don't be fooled by provocation, be united under the idea of brotherhood, unity and love to the Ukraine! Russians, Ukrainians and all the other Slavic people, are historically brother nations. A brother can't go against his brother, it's a curse and grief. There is a force stronger than weapons in this world, it is love.", Tymoschuk about the 2014 political crisis in Ukraine and the Russo-Ukrainian war, 2014.”

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (1979) Ukrainian footballer

http://www.ua-football.com/ukrainian/ukrainians/5314b4c0.html

“The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sara Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women.”

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist

The Progress of Fifty Years (1893)
Context: The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sara Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women. The Anti-Slavery Society rent itself in twain over the subject. The Church was moved to its very foundation in opposition.

“You wait and you wait, you try to see things through the eyes of the enemy, and when it eventually happens it is all suddenly different. Many people at home believe their sailors fight for Kings and country, to protect their loved ones, and so they do. But when the guns begin to thunder, and the enemy is right there alongside rising above the smoke like the devil's fury, it is John who calls for Bill, one messmate seeking another, as the bonds of sailormen are stronger than symbols beyond their ship.”

Douglas Reeman (1924–2017) British author

A Tradition of Victory, Cap 11 "So Little Time"

“An American has a stronger sympathy with this country than any other observer, and nourished as he is in the very bosom of liberty, he cannot but be deeply afflicted to see that in almost every event, this struggle must terminate in despotism. Yet such is the melancholy spectacle, which presents itself to my mind, and with which it has long been occupied. I eanestly wish and pray, that events may prove all my reasonings to have been fallacious, and all my apprehensions vain. I am, &c.”

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) American politician

1790s, First Letter to Thomas Pinckney (1792)

“And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter XII (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

“The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne.”

William Styron book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), III
Context: This general unawareness of what depression is really like was apparent most recently in the matter of Primo Levi, the remarkable Italian writer and survivor of Auschwitz who, at the age of sixty-seven, hurled himself down a stairwell in Turin in 1987. Since my own involvement with the illness, I had been more than ordinarily interested in Levi’s death, and so, late in 1988, when I read an account in The New York Times about a symposium on the writer and his work held at New York University, I was fascinated but, finally, appalled. For, according to the article, many of the participants, worldly writers and scholars, seemed mystified by Levi’s suicide, mystified and disappointed. It was as if this man whom they had all so greatly admired, and who had endured so much at the hands of the Nazis — a man of exemplary resilience and courage — had by his suicide demonstrated a frailty, a crumbling of character they were loath to accept. In the face of a terrible absolute — self-destruction — their reaction was helplessness and (the reader could not avoid it) a touch of shame.
My annoyance over all this was so intense that I was prompted to write a short piece for the op-ed page of the Times. The argument I put forth was fairly straightforward: the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time — and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases — most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.

“The only justifiable stopping place for for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 4, Reason, p. 120

“We live in an age where people are constantly trying to find remedies for pain, instead of learning how to sublimate it into divine music, the way Begum Akhtar did. For, the mercurial diva from Lucknow sang the poetry of Ghalib and many others in a manner that would make even pain seem desirable.”

Begum Akhtar (1914–1974) Indian musician

By Namita Devidayal in Pain gave the singer her song, 10 October 2009, 2 January 2014, Times of India http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-10-10/mumbai/28060204_1_begum-akhtar-music-lovers-divine-music,

“We know what goes on in the act of love, and those of us who are writers despair of ever finding verbal equivalents for the pain and pleasure of excitation fulfilled in what Rabelais’s translator Urquhart called ‘venerean ecstasy’. A mechanical description of the act tells us nothing, any more than a scientifically accurate account of mastication will convey the flavour of roast duck.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Flame Into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence (1985)

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