Pain quotes
8.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside pain — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The messaging campaign that stigmatized the term feminist definitely worked on me when I was a teenager. I always believed in equality, but there's such intense pressure to be cool and not alienate boys, to not be a pain in the ass - to not be "that kind of woman.""
"For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain, And twins ev'n from the birth are Misery and Man!"
"The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain."
"Daily there have to be many troubles and trials in every house, city, and country. No station in life is free of suffering and pain, both from your own, like your wife or children or household help or subjects, and from the outside, from your neighbors and all sorts of accidental trouble."
"When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine - like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing."
"But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties."
"Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard."
"The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth."
"We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free."
"I think all of the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can't stop thinking about a certain topic - a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it."
"It's such a pain in the ass to write a book, I can't imagine writing one if I'm not interested in the subject."
"When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure."
"A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, and suchlike accidents; but as to death, we can experience it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it"
"I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain."
"Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable"
"The body grows by food and work, the mind by use, and the soul through joy and pain."
"Sometimes in the news, "luck" is just a matter of "capitalizing on someone else's pain."
"Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone, While pain and guilt still linger here below, Blindness and numbness--these please me alone; Then do not wake me, keep your voices low."
"Which was how Britteny ended up nestled next to Mickey, under the shelter of a painter's drop cloth. She felt no pain. She saw no light. She heard, but barely. Her heart was still and silent. Yet she did not die."
"I cry and pray and try to find the positive or the lesson for my pain."
