Pain Quotes

This is another small page with no flagged entries. Suman Pokhrel, Shakespeare, Cesare Pavese, Sarah Williams and Sanu Sharma lead. The sourced lines vary a great deal. Shelley’s Julian and Maddalo (1819) says those who inflict must suffer, for they see the work of their own hearts. Edward Young’s Night-Thoughts (1742) has the neat paradox that a man of pleasure is a man of pains. Cesar Chavez’s Plan of Delano (1965) is a statement from a farm workers’ march, not a reflection: our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich.

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If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more?
No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight—they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves.

Cesare Pavese This Business of Living (1935)

One’s strategy in trying to defend or to attack the claim that God exists obviously depends on what is meant by “God.” It may be objected that it is not so difficult to isolate what might be called the popular conception of God. The problem of suffering is of crucial importance because it shows that the God of popular theism does not exist.

Walter Kaufmann The Faith of a Heretic (1963)

How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of sadness, jealousy and much other ill-feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural; undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot be returned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to be caused by the unsatisfied desire.

Charles Webster Leadbeater The Masters and the Path (1925)

It may seem to be a long way from Blake's innocent talk of love and copulation to De Sade's need to inflict pain. And yet both are the outcome of a sexual mysticism that strives to transcend the everyday world. Simone de Beauvoir said penetratingly of De Sade's work that 'he is trying to communicate an experience whose distinguishing characteristic is, nevertheless its will to remain incommunicable'. De Sade's perversion may have sprung from his dislike of his mother or of other women, but its basis is a kind of distorted religious emotion.

Colin Wilson The Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963)

Real cases of suffering ... tend to go unheard. This is not only because people who are genuinely suffering typically lack the resources with which to publicize their condition, but also because ... many forms of suffering deprive people of the very ability to express, sometimes even think, the fact that they are suffering.

Jamie Mayerfeld Suffering and Moral Responsibility (1999)