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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"If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love."
"The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it."
"You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be a failure."
"You are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between life and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation."
"The pain of yesterday is the strength of today."
"When we start out on a spiritual path we often have ideals we think we're supposed to live up to. We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are heightens your awareness of exactly where you're stuck."
"The body's pain is so paper-thin and insignificant compared to that of the mind."
"Those spacious regions where our fancies roam, Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come, In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd, Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind; And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last The speed that spins the future and the past: And, sovereign of an undisputed throne, Awful eternity shall reign alone."
"Pain is a part of growing-up. It is how we learn."
"Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need."
"At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction."
"Affairs are loaded with romanticism, morality, mythology, and intense emotions. They're not really about sex, but about pain and fear and the desire to feel alive. They're also about betrayal."
"When I started dating I had this kind of Romeo and Juliet, fateful, romantic idea about love. It was almost that you were a victim - that there was a lot of pain involved and that was how it should be."
"I much condole with you on your late loss... pains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again."
"Illness or pain is just an extension of negative emotion. When you are no longer feeling any resistance to it, it's a non-issue."
"It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come."
"In a world of war, pain and suffering, all I want for Christmas is an underwater watch and a silver clutch rod for my dirt bike."
"There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any."
"To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings."
"The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and likewise pain."
