quotations about pain
Politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain.... You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods.
MARIA EDGEWORTH
The Flowerpot
You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape possible except by perverting or mutilating one's nature.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Mill on the Floss
There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain.
JAMES BALDWIN
Giovanni's Room
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
JOHN DRYDEN
Alexander's Feast
The pains of life serve, by contrast, to multiply enjoyment; they constitute the foil which sets off and heightens the flashing brightness of the gem.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Lord, help us to accept the pains and conflicts that come to us each day as opportunities to grow as people and become more like you.
MOTHER TERESA
A Gift for God
There is no tyrant as merciless as pain.
STEPHEN KING
Duma Key
Pain and illness, the deaths of those one loves, and discomforts and disappointments mar the happy norm, but they do not alter the fact that happiness is the norm, nor affect the tendency of the continuum to restore it, to heal it, after any disturbance.
JEAN LIEDLOFF
The Continuum Concept
I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, June 6, 2013
Pain is very often a maimed creature without a mouth.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Guardian, November 14, 2008
The worst pain ... isn't the pain you feel at the time, it's the pain you feel later on when there's nothing you can do about it. They say that time heals all wounds, but we never live long enough to test that theory.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The Cave
One peculiarity of pain is, that it is not always located at the seat of the disease. A patient may have a pain which appears to be in the liver, the stomach, or between the ribs, but which is owing wholly to a diseased condition of the spinal column. In dysmanorrhea, the pain is often wholly in the back, whereas the womb only is affected. The same also may be said of after-pains. The pain arising from an inflammation of the hip-joint is felt most in the knee, which part is, in such cases, usually perfectly sound.
JOEL SHEW
The Hydropathic Family Physician
Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain
Clings cruelly to us.
JOHN KEATS
Endymion
It would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Pain ... has a structure. It has a floor plan. It has designs more intricate than a chambered nautilus, features more baroque than the most buttressed Gothic cathedral.... it is a poem.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others gives rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.
DEAN KOONTZ
Velocity
Pain is, in many respects, a useful index in disease; it enables us not only to ascertain the true nature of a malady, but also to point out the best and most effectual means of curing it.
JOEL SHEW
The Hydropathic Family Physician
Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.
BOB DYLAN
"Not Dark Yet"
Of all the things we can feel with our minds and bodies, severe pain is the purest, for it drives everything else from our awareness and focuses us as perfectly as we can ever be focused.
DEAN KOONTZ
Dark Rivers of the Heart
In every culture, [there are those] shamans or medicine men who endured incredible physical pain, because it's a door opening to the subconsciousness. And the way we can actually control the pain -- it's how to control everything. This is the key.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC
The Guardian, May 12, 2014