Stronger than pain quotes (page 85) | Quotes of famous people

“He willeth that we set our hearts in the Overpassing : that is to say, from the pain that we feel into the bliss that we trust.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 81

“Hopes rise and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Gerald "Ching" Tyrrell, (11 November 1956), p. 28
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)
Context: Hopes rise and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street.

“I see the pain on your face when you say the word intellectual, because it has so many syllables in it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

From an interview with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report"
Television and radio

“Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Context: Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.
We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.

“Judging itself brings the pain of being judged. The wicked judge mistakes this for another crime of the accused and lengthens his sentence.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#441
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1996)
Context: I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I cain't.

“Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

I stood tip-toe upon a little Hill; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come into contact with a new idea.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

John Nuveen, as quoted in The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (2005) by Marshall Shelley, p. 303
Misattributed

“The breathing of the air,
The song of the sweet nightingale,
The grove and its beauty
In the serene night,
With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains. ~ 39”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

“But nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Message from the Queen, read by the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, St Thomas's Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue. 22 September 2001. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1341155/Grief-is-price-of-love-says-the-Queen.html

“The proper management of pain remains, after all, the most important obligation, the main objective, and the crowning achievement of every physician.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

The Management of Pain (1954)

“Man has two sets of needs: his need as an animal to avoid pain and his need as a human to grow psychologically.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: Work and the nature of man, 1966, p. 71

“If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

St. 1
"Stanzas on Freedom" (1843)
Context: If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?

“I was also pained to notice an institution which I certainly did not expect to find in this country – I mean caste.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

Your rich people are really Brahmins, and your poor people are Sudras.
Speech at Hannover Square Rooms on the occasion of a Soiree held to bid him farewell on 12th September 1870.