Death Is Better Than Pain Quotes & Sayings

Death is a stage. A transience. A passage to a later life. If Kanya meditates on this idea long enough, she imagines that she will be able to assimilate it, but the truth is that Jaidee is dead and they will never meet again and whatever Jaidee earned for his next life, whatever incense and prayers Kanya offers, Jaidee will never be Jaidee, his wife will never be returned, and his two fighting sons can only see that loss and suffering are everywhere.
Suffering. Pain is the only truth. But it is better for young ones to laugh a while and feel the softness, and if this desire to coddle a child ties a parent to the wheel of existence so be it. A child should be indulged. This is what Kanya thinks as she rides her bicycle across the city toward the Ministry and the housing that Jaidee's descendants have been placed in: a child should be indulged. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Sacrificing earth to paradise is like leaving your fortune to a corpse. I'm not that stupid. Duped by the Infinite! I am nothing; I call myself Count Nothing, the senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Will I after my death? No. What am I? A little dust surrounding an organism. What do I have to do on this earth? I have the choice of pain or pleasure. Where will pain lead me? To nothing. But I will have suffered. Where will pleasure lead me? To nothing. But I will have enjoyed. My choice is made. I must eat or be eaten, and I choose to eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. That's my philosophy. — Victor Hugo

No one who had never been depressed like me could imagine that the pain could get so bad that death became a star to hitch up to, a fantasy of peace someday which seemed better than any life with all this noise in my head. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Cool morning shadows sadly shift across the floor
Each time we say goodbye it's harder than before
Even after all the pain of parting still we find
That we must mourn the death of the dreams we leave behind
As I turn my back on all that means the most to me
The sounds and smells, the light that dances on the sea
The greatest gamble is to act on the belief
That only the slave who leaves it all is truly free
The sacrifice that we both lay before His feet
A thousand moments that belonged to us
That now will never be
By faith we hold a better dream inside our hearts
A time when our family will never have to be apart
Till then we struggle with just what it really means
And we will mourn the death of our beautiful dreams
Mourn the death of our beautiful dreams — Michael Card

If you eat a destroying angel, for the rest of the day you'll feel fine. Later that night, or the next morning, you'll start exhibiting cholera-like symptoms - vomiting, abdominal pain, and severe diarrhea. Then you start to feel better. At the point where you start to feel better, the damage is probably irreversible. Amanita mushrooms contain amatoxin, which binds to an enzyme that is used to read information from DNA. It hobbles the enzyme, effectively interrupting the process by which cells follow DNA's instructions. Amatoxin causes irreversible damage to whatever cells it collects in. Since most of your body is made of cells,4 this is bad. Death is generally caused by liver or kidney failure, since those are the first sensitive organs in which the toxin accumulates. Sometimes intensive care and a liver transplant can be enough to save a patient, but a sizable percentage of those who eat Amanita mushrooms die. — Randall Munroe

Discipline
I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.
I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.
I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.
The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.
I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me. — Meryl Gordon

Revenge is best left to fantasy," Munroe said. "It feels better there. In real life you can eventually learn to deal with the pain and trauma, learn to cope on some level, you know? But you can never undo death, and even if you think they deserve it, killing doesn't take away your pain, just puts you on dangerous ground that can collapse out from beneath you at any time. — Taylor Stevens

The saddest thing about these imagined deathbed conversions is that, even if they were real, they could hardly be seen as victories for Christ. They are stories in which the final pain of a fatal disease, or the fear of imminent death and eternal punishment, is identified as the factor necessary for otherwise rational people to believe in the supernatural.

If mental torture is required to effect a conversion, what does that say about the reliability of the fundamental premises of Christianity to begin with? Evangelicals would be better advised to concentrate on converting the living. Converting the deceased suggests only that they can't convince those who can argue back. They should let the dead rest in peace. — Lawrence M. Krauss

But it isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that. People know they are in a society dead or dying. They are refusing emotion because at the end of every emotion are property, money, power. They work and despise their work, and so freeze themselves. They love but know that it's a half-love or a twisted love, and so they freeze themselves.
It is possible that in order to keep love, feeling, tenderness alive, it will be necessary to feel these emotions ambiguously, even for what is false and debased, or for what is still an idea, a shadow in the willed imagination only ... or if what we feel is pain, then we must feel it, acknowledging that the alternative is death. Better anything than the shrewd, the calculated, the non-committal, the refusal of giving for fear of the consequences ... — Doris Lessing

My father was in terrible pain towards the end because of his bed sores, and he did go into hospice, and I think that was better in some ways. You know, I think his death was peaceful, and it was all right. He was just in terrible pain. — Roz Chast

He wasn't in a lot of pain, was he?" he asks. "Not that I could tell." He was convulsing but not in pain. I doubt he was feeling much. "That's my biggest fear. That he'll be in a lot of pain when it happens. It scares me to death." "So you've thought about it," I blurt out. I want to take it back immediately, but it's too late. "Thought about it." He snorts. "It's all I ever fucking think about. Ever." His voice cracks on the last word. "I'm his big brother. I'm supposed to be able to save him from anything that could hurt him. But I can't save him from this." I just listen because there's nothing I can say to comfort him. A teardrop rolls down his cheek, and he brushes it away with a hurried swipe. "He knows how much you care," I say. It's probably the wrong thing to tell him. "The fucker better know how I feel about him. I'd die for every last one of them. I wish it was me instead of him. I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat." "He wouldn't let you." It's the truth. — Tammy Falkner

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one. — Dean Koontz

Why is it that people talk about death, as if it is a part of life, when it is entirely separate? Someone passes on into the never ending void, where the living aren't allowed. We can't see, hear, touch or feel those who have succumbed to the eternal sleep, but we comfort ourselves with thoughts of a grander plan. We tell ourselves that they are in a better place, but what could be greater than breathing the same air, as those loved ones? Their pain may be gone, but pleasure can only be when it is stark against the hurt that life brings? — J.D. Stroube

We continued talking as my purchases were rung up - about the first
Christmas, the sadness of ending up in a cemetery on a holiday, and the
pain of getting through that first year.
"They tell me it gets better," she said with a sigh.
"Can I give you a hug?" I asked shyly before I turned to go. She nodded eagerly, and one small sob escaped her as I squeezed her shoulders tightly.
I might look back on that first Christmas and remember it as the year
I did so many things so badly, the year I forgot to feed my family.
Or I might just remember it as the Christmas I learned what it meant to reach out to a hurting stranger. — Mary Potter Kenyon

I have come to understand that death, for the sick, is not so hard to endure. For us, eventually, our pain ends, we go to a better place. But for those left behind, their pain only magnifies." Poppy — Tillie Cole

We have reached a stage in evolution which is not the final stage. We must pass through it quickly, for if we do not, most of us will perish by the wa y, and the others
will be lost in a forest of doubt and fear. Envy therefore, evil as it is, and terrible as are its effects, is not wholly of the devil. It is in part the expression of a heroic pain, the pain of those who walk through the night blindly, p erhaps to a better resting-place, perhaps only to death and destruction. To find the right road out of this despair civ ilised man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to tran scend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe. — Bertrand Russell

Oh, ye infidel philosophers, teach me how to find joy in sorrow, strength in weakness, and light in darkest days; how to bear buffeting and scorn; how to welcome death, and to pass through it into the sphere of life, and this not for me only, but for the whole world that groans and travails in pain; and till you can do this, speak not to me of a better revelation than the Bible. — Henry Ward Beecher

To be a leader, you do not need a crown or robes of office. All you need to do is to write your chapter in the story, do deeds that heal some of the pain of this world, and act so that others become a little better for having known you. Live so that, through you, our ancient covenant with God is renewed in the only way that matters: in life. Moses' last testament to us at the very end of his days, when his mind might so easily have turned to death, was: choose life. — Jonathan Sacks

What is clear is that he was self-aware and prepared to live with unresolved contradictions, approaching the crises of life with a sense of hope tempered by a recognition that he, at least, was not fated to live to see the end of heartbreak, failure, disappointment, and death. "We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy," he had written - as the Heart, not the Head. "It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce." Jefferson believed that the future could be better than the past. He knew, though, that life was best lived among friends in the pursuit of large causes, understanding that pain was the price for anything worth having. — Jon Meacham

I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.
But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart. — Mitch Albom

The others were trying to spare you from pain. The truth can be devastating. We spend much of our lives protecting ourselves from it and shielding others as well. We use lies to take the edge off life. We dream of a better tomorrow. We hide from our regrets and inadequacies. We try to exaggerate the good and downplay the bad. We even mange to hide from the inescapable reality that sooner or later we and everyone we love is going to die. — Brandon Mull

Are there not a thousand forms of sorrow? Is the sorrow of death the same as the sorrow of knowing the pain in a child's future? What about the melancholy of music? Is it the same as the melancholy of a summer dusk? Is the loss I was feeling for my father the same I would have felt for a man better-fit to the world, a man who might have thrown a baseball with me or taken me out in the mornings to fish? Both we call grief. I don't think we have words for our feelings any more than we have words for our thoughts. — Ethan Canin

There is too much pain in the world,in all shapes and forms.That is what these people represent.Pain from losing their homes,the death of a loved one,failing an exam,having a leg amputated,not getting a resident permit after years of hoping for a better life ... That's what binds them,That's what they potray.Pain. — Esther Verhoef

The greatest tragedy in your life will not be the death of a loved one or a natural disaster; those things hurt like hell and devastate to the core. But loss like that is part of life. What's not necessary and is therefore most tragic is the demise of your truest identity, your dying before you're dead, the moments when you let the words and judgments of others define who you are instead of rising above that pain to be the person you were meant to be. No matter what has happened in your past, you are still capable of becoming a better version of who you are at this moment. Think right. Believe the voice inside of you that speaks the truth. You are a divine marvel. Act like it. Live like it. — Toni Sorenson

Michel's death made my father question his faith, but it had the opposite effect on me. Amidst all the searing emotional pain I was feeling, I had a moment of revelation: despite all the torment and confusion we suffer in this valle lacrimarum, a divine sense of the universe exists, one we cannot comprehend. With this revelation came an oddly empowering sense that my life, like everyone else's, is in God's hands. This awareness hasn't absolved me of the need to struggle for a better world and a better self, but it has helped me deal with things I cannot change, including death. It also helped reaffirm the core of the Christian beliefs I retain to this day. — Justin Trudeau

All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil - every evil except dishonour and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it. — C.S. Lewis

It takes practice to stand with others facing pain of death, and it helps if you don't have to do it all alone. We should practice on the small stuff so that we will be better able to stand together for what we believe and for what we love, who may someday need our support. — Megan McKenna

Our lives are a flicker of light in the shadowy darkness of eternity. Disease, famine, war, death, sorrow... Life is a cycle of pain, perhaps the one thing we should do with our short lives is to try to leave the world a better place than we entered it?'"

~Vexis Zaelwarsh - Low Priestess to Avanti
-Deathsworn Arc 4: Rise of the Archmage — Martyn Stanley

When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death. — Clarence Darrow

Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep with a mixture of angst and gratitude all at the same time. It is finally ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years. — Connie Kerbs

The saddest thing is there won't be anyone to miss us when we're gone. No family, no friends, no one waiting at home."
"It's better that way," I said. "It'll be easier for me, knowing my death doesn't add to anyone's pain."
"If you can't give anyone pain, then you can't give them joy either. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

Am I better off living through death,
Or dying an invisible ghost?
Am I better off speaking in silence,
Or screaming so loud no one will hear?
I fake a smile,
But it's killed by you,
I fake a soul,
But that dies, too.
So I fake my life,
What else can I do?
Take me in, spit me out,
And I scream and scream and shout,
But you can't hear my pain,
My blood's nothing but a worthless stain.
I fake a smile,
But it's killed by you.
I fake a soul,
But that dies, too.
So I fake my life,
What else can I do?
And if one day I wake up gone,
Maybe people will see through,
But until then the lies will rule.
And sometimes I think
I'm better off dead,
But then I realize
I already am. — Olivia Rivers

I can't bear the thought of oblivion, Asriel," she continued. "Sooner anything than that. I used to think pain would be worse - to be tortured forever - I thought that must be worse . . . But as long as you were conscious, it would be better, wouldn't it? Better than feeling nothing, just going into the dark, everything going out forever and ever? — Philip Pullman

Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will's foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it.
'It would be merciful to kill it,' said Tialys.
'How do you know?' said Lyra. 'It might still like being alive, in spite of everything.'
'If we killed it, we'd be taking it with us,' said Will. 'It wants to stay here. I've killed enough living things. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead.'
'But if it's in pain?' said Tialys.
'If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad's.'
They moved on. — Philip Pullman