Quotes & Sayings About Inevitable Pain

Pain from problems and disappointments, etc., is inevitable in life, but suffering is a choice determined by whether you choose to compare your experience and pain to something better and therefore feel unlucky and bitter or to something worse and therefore feel lucky and grateful! — Viktor E. Frankl

People persuade themselves they deserve easy lives, that being human makes us somehow exempt from pain. The theory works fine until we face the inevitable challenges. Our conditioning of denial in no way equips us to deal with the difficult times that not one of us escapes.
Cleo's motto seemed to be: Life's tough and that's okay, because life is also fantastic. Love it, live it - but don't be fooled into thinking it's not harsh sometimes. Those who've survived periods of bleakness are often better at savoring good times and wise enough to understand that good times are actually great. — Helen Brown

You'll reach a comfort zone in your life and start to wonder how you got there, how did you miss the sign posts that directed your real inner truth? Don't feel so guilty, you know when your meant to know and I guess that's the thing they don't teach you; when growing up, pain is inevitable but staying the same is a choice. Don't question why your feeling ready for something new, question why you stayed the same for so long. — Nikki Rowe

See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Then there are all of those children, the ones who aren't resilient. The ones who slowly, quietly die. I think the difference is that the kids who bounce back learn to bear a little bit more than they thought they could, and they soon understand that the secret to surviving foster care is to accept finite disappointments while never losing infinite hope. I think that was how Donald survived as long as he did, by never losing his faith in the wish that tomorrow would be better. But as time went by, day after day, the tomorrows never got better; they got worse, and he simply gave up. In the way he saw the world, pain was inevitable, but no one ever explained to him that suffering was optional. — John William Tuohy

The emergence of pessimistic philosophies is by no means a
sign of great and terrible misery. The emergence of pessimistic
philosophies is by no means a sign of great and terrible
misery. No, these question marks about the value of all
life are put up in ages in which the refinement and
alleviation of existence make even the inevitable mosquito
bites of the soul and the body seem much too bloody and
malignant and one is so poor in real experiences of pain
that one would like to consider painful general ideas as
suffering of the first order.
There is a recipe
against pessimistic philosophers and the excessive sensitivity
that seems to me the real "misery of the present age"
but this recipe may sound too cruel and might
itself be counted among the signs that lead people
to judge that "existence is something evil."
Well, the recipe against this "misery" is: misery — Friedrich Nietzsche

If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing. — Larry Crabb

The meaning of pain is different for different people ... It depends on their age, their experience and their knowledge. But the intensity of it is the same, young or old ... and unfortunately it is inevitable ... just like failure, that results in more pain ...
It's a vicious cycle. — Shreyas Tripathy

Was it a strain so heavy that L's back curved under all its weight? Was it an agony so terrible as to leave the indelible dark circles around his eyes? Was it a feeling so bitter that every bite he took needed to be coated in sugar? The chronically rounded shoulders, the inevitable dark circles, the eccentric tastes
L suppressed the pain of being a champion of justice, but the evidence of the pain was molded into his very body. — M..

Throughout life it is inevitable that we will experience both pain and pleasure. Learning how to handle them leads to harmony and happiness. In meditation, if we are unable to handle pain or boredom, then that pain or boredom becomes our master. Then we spend our entire life trying to avoid being bored or feeling pain. However if we can handle our mind, then we know that we can handle boredom and pain. — Sakyong Mipham

Rather than seek God - the goal of the brahmins - Gotama suggested that you turn your attention to what is most far from God: the anguish and pain of life on this earth. In a contingent world, change and suffering are inevitable. Just look at what happens here: creatures are constantly being born, falling ill, growing old, and dying. These are the unavoidable facts of our existence. As contingent beings, we do not survive. And — Stephen Batchelor

As you pass through life pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Anon — Gemma Jackson

Pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. — Terrence S.M. Popp

Pain is inevitable but so is joy. Too many of us resort to abject fear or anger due to our sufferings or unknowns in life. Remain steadfast by approaching discovery and love so you can embrace the present moment. The past can serve as nothing more than a lesson and the future can serve as nothing more than a notion. — Adam Starks

We had always talked easily and well, and as we carried our drinks away, I asked him what he thought there was in us that forced us to tell stories to ourselves about our own lives - to make up stories that had such an arbitrary resemblance to our actual living. Why did we pick certain dots and connect them and not others? Why did we find it so irresistible to make ourselves into tragic figures with tragic flaws which were responsible for our pain? Maybe unfortunate things just happened; maybe there was just bad luck. Why did it seem like our greatest failures were caused by perversions in our souls?

'Perhaps it's evolutionary,' he said. ' If we saw ourselves in realistic proportions - how tiny we are, and how little ability we have to avoid the suffering that's an inevitable part of life - maybe we would be too discouraged to survive.'

'Or maybe,' I said, 'the truth is so diffuse that our minds cannot even hold on to it. — Sheila Heti

Jillian," I whispered, "I know you don't know who I am. But I love your brother, and I know you do too. So ... do you think you could wake up? Do you think you could at least try?"
For far too long she gave me no response. I'd just about given up - hung my head and prepared myself for the inevitable, impossible job of comforting Joshua - when Jillian whispered back.
"I guess. Since you asked so nicely."
In spite of everything, a quiet laugh escaped my lips.
"Thank God. Because I have a feeling you'd be a huge pain in the ass if you died. — Tara Hudson

Pain is inevitable, it eventually touches us all. Suffering is optional. — Sean Stephenson

I understand there are inevitable things that we have to go through: heartbreak, family problems. I don't feel like some Quixotic idiot who says, 'We don't have to feel pain.' No! Let's feel it, let's make it work for ourselves. But I want us all to be able to get past it. — Drew Barrymore

Long for me as I for you, forgetting, what will be inevitable, the long black aftermath of pain. — Malcolm Lowry

Pain in life is inevitable but suffering is not. Pain is what the world does to you, suffering is what you do to yourself [by the way you think about the 'pain' you receive]. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. [You can always be grateful that the pain is not worse in quality, quantity, frequency, duration, etc] — Gautama Buddha

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Inner peace is accomplished by understanding and accepting the inevitable contradictions of life - the pain and pleasure, success and failure, joy and sorrow, births and deaths. Problems can teach us to be gracious, humble, and patient. — Richard Carlson

Gratitude based on a faith that everything that happens or doesn't happen in your life is for your own best interests. That we live in a purposeful universe. Life is always for you; it is never against you. It is a fact that blessings sometimes come wrapped in fear, pain, and tears. In choosing to practice unconditional gratitude you are choosing to trust the process, to honor your feelings and to place your faith in an outcome of inevitable grace. — William Holden

Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional — Barbara Johnson

Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. — Tim Hansel

It is time, therefore, that you should apply for aid to such helpful Spirits. But will you have the strength of mind, the courage to endure the approach of Beings so different from mankind? I know that their coming produces certain inevitable effects, as internal tremors, the revulsion of the blood from its ordinary course; but I also know that these terrors, these revulsions, painful as they undoubtedly are, must appear as nothing compared with the mortal pain of separation from an object loved greatly and exclusively. — William Beckford

You believe I'm this way because I made a choice to
extinguish the light in people's lives? Because it revealed my darkness, therefore my pain of self-awareness? Au contra ire, Padre. Think of me as an inevitable stage in human evolution.
My pure entropy simply conflicts with your naive vision of goodness. Extremes such as you and I have to be locked in combat. It is as natural for evil to hate good as it is for good to hate evil. Wouldn't you agree? — David McCaffrey

But now, this time, finally, he felt the anguish and pain thrusting out from deep inside, consciously, knowingly; an emotional agony boiled up within, churned and frenzied by the overwhelming realisation that things should not have been this way; that there was nothing inevitable about this outcome. — Martin Andrews

Pain is inevitable. It is actually a great opportunity for growth, but when we blame or fail to take responsibility for our suffering, the pain becomes stagnant, and stagnant pain can have a compounding effect if left unchecked. — Romany Malco

I clasped his face in both hands as I kissed him. "You don't know how I need you, how I love you, how I always have," I whispered in his ear. Maybe he would find me more charming on account of what's befallen me - the unexpected horror I've seen, the inevitable pain I've endured. It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater luster to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit. — Anne Rice

You see, pain itself is not the enemy. Pain is inevitable in this bumper-car life where you will continue to collide with a fallen world that you cannot control. Unhealed pain, however, will become your greatest foe if your broken heart is not made whole again after each collision. And dearest friend, there is only One who can take the shattered pieces of your heart and put it back together so that it flourishes even in the worst situations. — Christa Black Gifford

You can wait as long as you like, pretty one, it won't make any difference. He will never see you as anything more than some victim he has to protect. Why he thinks it his duty to protect you from the inevitable, I do not know ... unless he knows something we do not ... — Charlotte Munro

Pain and suffering
Is inevitable in this world
Yet we choose to survive.
I'm not scared of anyone anymore
And I can say
I've learned all I can from mice
Be a lion when you talk to me. — Monique Koll

The pain started years ago, but I'd lived with it for so long at that point that I'd accepted it as an inevitable part of me. — Ashley D. Wallis

I suppose that's an inevitable part of human existence, but in the bosom of a close family it can, at least, be endured. For the homeless, there is no relief. Without family or friends there's only the pain. — Peter Kirby

EMOTIONAL PAIN is an inevitable reality of life..while it gives discomfort, it is also a dynamic force to 'awareness'. Pain is a very human way of 'demanding change'.Whenever you feel pain about something, you need to CHANGE something! It is that simple... — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Pain is inevitable in life but sufferings and miseries are optional. — Debasish Mridha

Yet a period's character does affect individual character. Psychology, the study of what happens in our minds, is tightly interwoven with culture, the name we give to our beliefs, practices, and social behaviors. The scholar Andrew Delbanco goes so far as to define culture as a collective psychological notion. "Human beings need to organize the inchoate sensations amid which we pass our days - pain, desire, pleasure, fear - into a story," Delbanco writes. "When that story leads somewhere and thereby helps us navigate through life to its inevitable terminus in death, it gives us hope. And if such a sustaining narrative establishes itself over time in the minds of a substantial number of people, we call it culture. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

And I wished I could believe him. I wished with all that I had. And when you're eleven, you're on the cusp between still believing wishing worked if you wanted something hard enough and understanding the world is teeth and sharp edges. I wished. I did. I promise you with all that I have that I did.
But I knew the teeth. The sharp edges. And they were bigger than wishing. I was only eleven, but I was the product of my upbringing too.
Maybe that's why I was able to be the one to leave. Maybe I'd been looking for a reason and latched on to the first one that came, no matter how hard it was. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that it's easier to leave someone before they leave you. Because eventually, everyone leaves.
It's inevitable. — T.J. Klune

Compared to bipolar's magic, reality seems a raw deal. It's not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it's the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity - the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don't understand, we say. They just don't get it. They'll never be artists. — David Lovelace

What they don't tell you about the illusion
is that I am as much lion as I am lion tamer.
And I got good at inflicting pain the same way I got good
at soothing it.
This, we call unfortunate,
but inevitable. — Ashe Vernon

Hope is a merciless tormentor. It's the sound of trickling water to parched lips. The prospect of love to the unlovable. A miracle cure to the parents of a dying child. It holds up victory over the inevitable and beckons us to crawl further over slicing shards, all the while pulling back, remaining just out of reach. It makes agony out of mere pain by pretending a different outcome could have been. It laughs at mankind's embrace of it after millennia of disappointment. — Robert Liparulo

Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional. Physical pain is a fact that comes with living, just as illness or financial woes or broken relationships are facts. But misery is a state of mind, a reaction to the facts, that can be controlled or altered by an act of will ... — Barbara

She wasn't afraid of difficulties; what frightened her was being forced to choose one particular path.
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live and she was always thinking that, in future, she might regret the choices she made now.
'I'm afraid of committing myself,' she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none.
Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic dissappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pain, loss and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes in order not to see the bad things in life. — Paulo Coelho

I was poisoning myself with alcohol and medicating myself. I was trying to numb things. I was trying not to feel things, and that's ridiculous. It's one of the dumbest things you can do, because all you're doing is postponing the inevitable. Someday you'll have to look all those things in the eye rather than try to numb the pain. — Johnny Depp

Pain isn't a lot of fun, at least not for most folks, but it is utterly unique to life. Pain - physical, emotional, and otherwise - is the shadow cast by everything you want out of life, the alternative to the result you were hoping for, and the inevitable creator of strength. From the pain of our failures we learn to be better, stronger, greater than what we were before. Pain is there to tell us when we've done something badly - it's a teacher, a guide, one that is always there to both warn us of our limitations and challenge us to overcome them.
For something no one likes, pain does us a whole hell of a lot of good. — Jim Butcher

And for the first time he realized the pain inevitable in any human relationship - pain suffered and pain inflicted. How foolish we were to be afraid of loneliness. — Graham Greene

She was forever tilted sideways by the notion that pain was inevitable, chance was cruel, and all human ingenuity should go towards the making of a good cup of tea. — Colum McCann

I should have known better than to open myself to such inevitable pain. When did I forget to stay aloof and unattached? When did I let my armor soften, leaving me vulnerable? This is what I get for playing human. The — Jessica Khoury

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. - UNKNOWN I — Lori Deschene

It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too-real chest, making his widower's rememberences that much more convincing and his pain that much more real. — Jonathan Safran Foer

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

Pain is inevitable, but misery is a choice, — Catherine Leggitt

I quickly pulled away and walked to the edge of the water. Staring up at the darkened sky through tear filled eyes, I awaited the inevitable storm. With a heavy heart, I took in a long, sad breath. The time had come for me to end this. No delaying any longer, no excuses - it was now or never.
A searing pain tore through my chest. Though my heart had already made its choice long ago, the inevitable pain of having to let him go was something I had avoided until now. But I could no longer afford to be selfish and keep them both. It wasn't fair to either of them and I loved them far too much to continue putting my own wants and desires first. — Christi Anna

Because fulfillment is an illusion, the wise must devote themselves to avoiding pain rather than seeking pleasure, living quietly, as Schopenhauer counseled, 'in a small fireproof room' - advice that now struck Nietzsche as both timid and untrue, a perverse attempt to dwell, as he was to put it pejoratively several years later, 'hidden in forests like shy deer.' Fulfillment was to be reached not by avoiding pain, but by recognizing its role as a natural, inevitable step on the way to reaching anything good. — Alain De Botton

And he felt a crazy desire to join the forlorn ones, to throw himself into inevitable defeat, to live his life as he saw it in spite of everything, to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under the cover of which greed and fear filled with more and yet more pain the already unbearable agony of human life. As — John Dos Passos

Pain is inevitable, from this perspective, but suffering is an optional extra, resulting from our attachments, which represent our attempt to try to deny the unavoidable truth that everything is impermanent. — Oliver Burkeman

I watched him skip down the trail and felt annoyed by all this joy; then I wondered why I couldn't be that joyful. Maybe everything really was attitude. I had mastered self-pity and realized maybe it was time to work on joy. Doesn't the Dalai Lama say happiness is a decision? Pain is inevitable, suffering a choice. Could it be that I simply suffered from a bad attitude? Maybe I needed to try harder to enjoy all of it even if it wasn't exactly fun. — Suzanne Roberts

Magine a trust in yourself, or another person, or in life itself, that doesn't need to be proved or demonstrated, that is able to contain uncertainty. People sometimes put their trust in a spiritual leader and are terribly betrayed if that person then fails to live up to ideals. But a real trust of faith would be to decide whether to trust someone, knowing that betrayal is inevitable because life and personality are never without shadow. The vulnerability that faith demands could be matched by an equal trust in oneself, the feeling that one can survive the pain of betrayal. — Thomas Moore

Sometimes you can sense when Change is in the air and before you know it, Change is staring you right in your face. At that very moment, you get to choose if you will embrace it and adjust or fight it and prolong the inevitable but rest assured Change will have its way sooner or later. The only difference in choosing Change or fighting it ... is simply the pain attached to the fight. — Sanjo Jendayi

Nowhere has God promised anyone, even His children, immunity from sorrow, suffering, and pain. This world is a "vale of tears," and disappointment and heartache are as inevitable as clouds and shadows. Suffering is often the crucible in which our faith is tested. Those who successfully come through the "furnace of affliction" are the ones who emerge "like gold tried in the fire. — Billy Graham

For me, the good death includes being prepared to die, with my affairs in order, the good and bad messages delivered that need delivering. The good death means dying while I still have my mind sharp and aware; it also means dying without having to endure large amounts of suffering and pain. The good death means accepting death as inevitable, and not fighting it when the time comes. This is my good death, but as legendary psychotherapist Carl Jung said, "It won't help to hear what I think about death." Your relationship to mortality is your own. — Caitlin Doughty

Pain in life is inevitable. — Sunday Adelaja

Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori 'Conception is sin, birth is pain, life is toil, death is inevitable. — Niall Ferguson

He might have known that she would do this; she had never cared for him, she had made a fool of him from the beginning; she had no pity, she had no kindness, she had no charity. The only thing was to accept the inevitable. The pain he was suffering was horrible, he would sooner be dead than endure it; and the thought came to him that it would be better to finish with the whole thing: he might throw himself in the river or put his neck on a railway line; but he had no sooner set the thought into words than he rebelled against it. His reason told him that he would get over his unhappiness in time; if he tried with all his might he could forget her; and it would be grotesque to kill himself on account of a vulgar slut. — W. Somerset Maugham

In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of spring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitable winter. Wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a dark, infinitely deep, cold pit from which neither Kirilov nor Abogin nor the red half-moon could escape ... — Anton Chekhov

Pain is inevitable in life; you can't avoid it. You can only feel it. Realize its true nature without emotional attachment and then transcend yourself and your emotions beyond that level. Pain will not go away, but you find that it is not hurting you that much. — Debasish Mridha

Pain is inevitable. Misery is a choice. — Christopher Reeve

There are pieces of me, small pieces, still in love with a fiction. A ghost living inside a living boy I cannot begin to fathom. The ghost who sat by my bed while I dreamed in pain. The ghost who kept Samson from my mind as long as he could, I know, delaying an inevitable torture.

The ghost who loves me, in what poisoned way he can.

And I feel that poison working in me. — Victoria Aveyard

I think there comes a point when the outcome of a battle is inevitable but the fighting has not ended. Then the enemy becomes exhaustion and pain. A common enemy. Does the soldier holding in his entrails and facing the death reaper, care any longer what he fought for?" said Quain. — Adrian G. Hilder

She moved nearer, leaned her shoulder against me - and we were one, and something flowed from her into me, and I knew: this is how it must be. I knew it with every nerve, and every hair, every heartbeat, so sweet it verged on pain. And what joy to submit to this 'must'. A piece of iron must feel such joy as it submits to the precise, inevitable law that draws it to a magnet. Or a stone, thrown up, hesitating a moment, then plunging headlong back to earth. Or a man, after the final agony, taking a last deep breath - and dying. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Urging humans to be superhumans, on pain of death and torture, is the urging of terrible self-abasement at their repeated and inevitable failure to keep the rules. — Christopher Hitchens

Pain and suffering are inevitable in our lives, but misery is an option — Chip Beck

Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals. — Henepola Gunaratana

Tragedy depends on the way you see it. If you chose to be a victim of the world, anything which happens to you will feed that dark side of your soul, where you consider yourself wronged, suffering, guilty and deserving punishment. If you choose to be an adventurer, the changes - even the inevitable losses, since everything in this world changes - can cause some pain, but will soon thrust you forward, forcing you to react. — Paulo Coelho

I don't really enjoy experiencing pain. No one does. But we will become less human if we learn to detach ourselves from one another to the point that when we experience death of a beautiful being (our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers, our soul mates, our friends etc.) that it will not bother us that we will not feel. But see that's suppression. It will bother us somewhere deep inside. So, love someone. Hold them tight. Don't fear the loss. Fear the part of being too afraid to love someone. Love Everyone. It's inevitable: we all die. Thats the ugly part of life. But Love and being alive is so beautiful and so strong that the love, the memories stay even in death. Life is love, life is being alive to feel pain. The love the beautiful love always remains. Love. Life. Joy. Peace — Jill Telford

A universal truth of bicycling is this - pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. — Robert Penn

We meditate alone but live our lives with other people; a gap is inevitable. If our path is to lead to less suffering, nd much of our suffering is with other people, then perhaps we need to reexamine our sole commitment to these individual practices ... As our individual pracitce deepens, it may yiled true ease. But whether we practice meditation in seclusion or independently alongside other meditators at a meditation group or retreat, individual meditation approaches the confusion and pain of our relational lives only indirectly. — Greg Kramer

It takes two to tango, and if you dance too long, implosion is inevitable. — Allie Burke

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind. — Eckhart Tolle

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War's roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life's fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying. — Jack Kornfield

Pain is inevitable; lives come with pain. Suffering is not inevitable. If suffering is what happens when we struggle with our experience because of our inability to accept it, then suffering is an optional extra [p. 19]. — Sylvia Boorstein

Perhaps a reign of powerful women is necessary to make, or unmake when need be, powerful men. Women would not waste so readily and uselessly the lives they had such care and pain in bearing. Why should they submit to the massacre of the innocent, one generation after another ... and allow them to be brought up as live-stock for the inevitable killing? — Natalie Clifford Barney