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Suffering is admittedly one of the central problems of human existence; but this is because we have a suspicion that it is all for nothing. If we had a certainty about meaning, the suffering would be bearable. With no certainty of meaning, even comfort begins to feel futile.

— Colin Wilson Frankenstein's Castle (1980)

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Pain

More quotes by Colin Wilson

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

What can characterize the Outsider is a sense of strangeness, or unreality.

The Outsider (1956)

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

Art is naturally concerned with man in his existential aspect, not in his scientific aspect.

The Strength To Dream (1961)

Faculty X is simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present.

The Occult: A History (1971)

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A man who only becomes a husband brings pain to his parents, and a person who only becomes a son brings pain to his wife.

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A portion of life, every moment gets torn out of me hurting, and flees away.

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Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And life is perfected by death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems (1844)

If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?

Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower (1993)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Colin Wilson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.