Stronger than pain quotes (page 95) | Quotes of famous people

“You'll never know the hurt I suffer, nor the pain I rise above, and I'll never know the same about you…”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Idiot Wind

“The resort to human flesh, often after months of ever-increasing hunger pangs, appeared to be an animallike reaction without painful emotional overtones.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin (1942) Man and Society in Calamity http://books.google.nl/books?id=KackGHJUko8C. E. P. Dutton. p. 66; as cited in: Lewis Petrinovich (2000) The cannibal within. p. 177

“I used to walk by the river
An old book under my arm
The river is the same as pain
It elapses mindlessly
And when will the week be over”

Guillaume Apollinaire book Alcools

Je passais au bord de la Seine
Un livre ancien sous le bras
Le fleuve est pareil à ma peine
Il s'écoule et ne tarit pas
Quand donc finira la semaine
"Marie", line 21; translation from Donald Revell (trans.) Alcools (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1995) p. 75.
Alcools (1912)

“"What may I do?" at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask."”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

My Fairy
Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845)

“Until every being afflicted by pain
Has reached nirvanas shores,
May I serve only as a condition
That encourages progress and joy.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

“The applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 16
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

“I have a good memory for certain things. And a very short memory for painful things — that's my favorite Martha Stewart quote, by the way.”

Reese Witherspoon (1976) American film actress and producer

Interview for Vogue magazine, November 2008.

“Hail, hieroglyphic State machine,
Contrived to punish fancy in;
Men that are men in thee can feel no pain,
And all thy insignificance disdain!”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Hymn to the Pillory (1703).

“Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 117.
The Guardian (1713)

“Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country: it's painful to begin with, but afterwards everything turns out just fine.”

Hafizullah Amin (1929–1979) politician, former Afghan head of state (1979)

As quoted in Rodric Braithwaite (2010) Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89, page 76

“There are but three events in a man's life: birth, life and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Il n'y a pour l'homme que trois événements: naître, vivre et mourir. Il ne se sent pas naître, il souffre à mourir, et il oublie de vivre.
Aphorism 48
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme

“There can be no question that the practice of vivisection hardens the sensibility of the operator and begets indifference to the infliction of pain, as well as great carelessness in judging of its severity.”

Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818–1890) American surgeon

Source: Surgical Anaesthesia (1894), p. 368

“Eschew blandness. Eschew causing others pain. We are all the target so wear bright colors and dance with those you love.”

Anne Herbert (writer) (1952) American journalist

"Handy tips on how to behave at the death of the world" in Whole Earth Review (Spring 1995), p. 88 http://archive.is/20120715140307/findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n85/ai_16816244
Context: Eschew blandness. Eschew causing others pain. We are all the target so wear bright colors and dance with those you love. Falling in love has always been a bit too much to apply to one person. Falling in love is appropriate for now, to love all these things which are about to leave. The rocks are watching, and the squirrels and the stars and the mlklk tired people in the street. If you love them, let them know, with grace and non-invasive extravagance. Care about the beings you care about in gorgeous and surprising ways. Color outside the lines. Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. This is your last chance.

“Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.”

Carl Sagan book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (1992) (co-written with Ann Druyan)
Context: Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.