Pain Over Pleasure Quotes & Sayings

Great beauty and youth capture our attention, excite a deep pleasure; however, why shouldn't our souls gaze at a countenance over which the years have passed? Isn't there a story there, one unknown, full of pain or beauty, which pours its reflection into the features, a story we can read with some compassion or at least get a slight hint of its meaning? The young point toward the future; the old tell of a past. — Adalbert Stifter

My house was built by a partnership called Desire and Ignorance; they often work together, and always with disastrous consequences. It's surprising they aren't more talked of in the press. They are great survivors but incompetent builders. Desire is famous only for pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, while Ignorance casts a veil over all his unexamined assumptions and makes wrong ones every hour. Together, they created the psychological reality where I live. Hardly a surprise, therefore, if it's unfit for purpose! — Simon Parke

The writer's advantage, in some respects, over those whose expression lies in other fields, is in the privilege of a double - sometimes a triple - living. Pleasure multiplied in the mirrors of words, and pain siphoned off in words. — Josephine Winslow Johnson

We do not know what love is. We know the symptoms of it, the pleasure, the pain, the fear, the anxiety and so on. We try to solve the symptoms, which becomes a wandering in darkness. We spend our days and nights in this, and it is soon over in death. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

My purpose in life. (Her Son)
You are the making, the centre and the skin of my life. I couldn't adore anyone more.
No one in this World can say that they educated me, changed me, yield me, broke me down, rebuilt me and strengthen me the way you can and have: and did it with love.
You're the only one I can say I've had the pleasure of crying over, getting my heart stamped on by, living through the pain and recovering after it.
Everything we've been through we will and have always come out on top: it's you and me kid.
You are my Muse, my Heart, my Life and my Soul, and no matter the changes in life,
my love, my dedication, my heart and my soul will never.
Thank you for the ups and downs, thank you for my crazy smile and lets continue to face the World as we always have ... together. — Ellie Williams

God felt Day tilt his hips upward; driving God in deeper and he knew his lover was crossing over that thin line between pain and indescribable pleasure. God's balls had practically crawled up inside of him. He tried to think about anything that might ward of his orgasm, but Day's ass was squeezing him so damn tight, it was impossible not to focus on the sensation. God — A.E. Via

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain. — Aldous Huxley

What happened was pain and pleasure and shock and satisfaction all rolled into one. Pain as he withdrew and thrust over and over again past the soreness of her newly opened womanhood. Pleasure because it was more wonderful, more exhilirating, than any other sensation she had ever experienced. Shock because she had not expected such a deep and vigorous and prolonged invasion of her body. Satisfaction because now, before it was too late, he was her lover. Because she would always be able to remember him as her lover — Mary Balogh

The preponderance of pain over pleasure is the cause of our fictitious morality and religion. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Pleasure and pain are immediate; knowledge, retrospective. A steel ball, suspended on a string, smacks into its brothers and nothing happens: no shock of recognition, no sudden epiphany. We go about our business, buttering the toast, choosing gray socks over brown. But here's the thing: just because we haven't understood something doesn't mean we haven't been shaped by it. — Mark Slouka

All action must be performed with detachment. Regard pain, pleasure; gain, loss; victory, defeat as equal. Battle for battle's sake with your mind completely on what you must do. With this knowledge there is no waster even in the first attempt. There are no impediments. — Meera Uberoi

Pain? Yes, of course. Racing without pain is not racing. But the pleasure of being ahead outweighed the pain a million times over. To hell with the pain. What's six minutes of pain compared to the pain they're going to feel for the next six months or six decades. You never forget your wins and losses in this sport. YOU NEVER FORGET. — Brad Alan Lewis

All the overpowering blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery. — Jane Austen

You mentioned something about needing resuscitation?" Her pussy quivered as she mentally visualized him breathing life into her kitty and easing the tension inside her. Her knees buckled and she forced them to straighten. Unable to find her voice she gave a quick, tight nod. He flashed her a bad-boy grin, and in a low, barely controlled voice, he said, "I believe a little mouth to mouth is in order." Mitch's hand slipped between their bodies and cupped her passion-drenched sex. Pleasure engulfed her and she nearly orgasmed right there, on the spot, all over his hand. She clamped her thighs together and leaned into him, her nipples crushed into his chest and tightening to the point of pain. She made a sexy noise and shifted. He sank to his knees, and shot her a glance, all traces of humor gone from his eyes. "Or, rather, a little mouth to kitty." — Cathryn Fox

And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? Yes, far more so than in other States. And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? That will be the chief reason. And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? That we acknowledged, and very rightly. Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? Certainly. And — Plato

there are some broad strokes that can be fairly applied to most of us: We seek connection with others; We are saddened by loss, and try to avoid it; We dislike rejection; We like recognition and attention; We will do more to avoid pain than we will do to seek pleasure; We dislike ridicule and embarrassment; We care what others think of us; We seek a degree of control over our lives; — Gavin De Becker

You've got the wrong girl."
"On the contrary ... " the voice murmured, "I've got exactly the girl I want." Her body turned to ice. Her mind fought for calm. There were people only yards away, yet she was alone ...
"You're bleeding." Lips closed over hers. A kiss so passionate that time faded and stopped ... so passionate, it sucked her breath away ... Searing heat swept through her- pain and pleasure throbbing through her veins. With a helpless moan, she leaned into him and realized with a shock the kiss had ended. — Richie Tankersley Cusick

Power among humans is not simply the physical force with which one material body may move another; it is the force to distract, detour, maneuver, and command. Every pleasure we indulge in and every pain we suffer exerts power over others. — Alphonso Lingis

And when he ran the blades over her she felt light as a feather, floating happily into that place where pain and pleasure walked hand in hand, fully clear and conscious and she looked out to the darkness that lay outside of their artificial day. All too soon it was gone, her vision dimming and her breaths evening as she found somewhere darker which centred around the golden light of her Master's voice as he spoke to her. — Astrid Knowles

Cup check, she heard Bradley Grayson, an arrogant freshman lacrosse player, yell as he slammed his forearm, without warning, into Sam Wolfe's groin.
Sam, naked, bent over and clutched himself, thrusting his large, pale, Sasquatch-like hairy, pimply ass right in her face.
This was every girl's greatest fear come to life. The Gates of Hell had opened. She would never, she thought, be allowed to enjoy a moment's pleasure without an eternity of pain in exchange. For little Damen, she'd have to endure a LOT of Sam. The metaphor was not lost of Charlotte.
And it got worse. As Same clenched, a tiny involuntary puff of sulfurous gas escaped. For the first time ever, she was glad to be dead, for no other reason than his butt smelled as bad as it looked ... Was it even possible to die twice? — Tonya Hurley

It is important to warm and caress every portion of the curved surface, into the groove and up over the base of the spine. Pause around the open lips of the vagina to see if she is wet and, if so, she is ready for the first strike. Spanking is sexual, sensual, erotic. It has absolutely nothing to do with causing pain. It is about ultimate pleasure. — Chloe Thurlow

I'm scared," she told him softly, her voice wobbling. "Every time I love, I get hurt."
"Sometimes love is about hurting, Violet." He brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheeks, dashing away her tears. "But the pleasure in love is greater than the pain. So much greater. You just have to be willing to take that leap. — Jessica Clare

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

It is one of history's greatest ironies that, over the centuries, the pursuit of pleasure has resulted in more pain than enjoyment. — Mardy Grothe

When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. — Jane Austen

When a hand comes down across your bottom, the sting is quickly followed by a prickling numbness. The pain vanishes and the heat generated from those slaps sends lines of electric fire through all the tissues and nerve endings, ripples of warmth that gather in a wave of sensations, a million tiny kisses that lap over your clitoris and take you to a breath-taking orgasm. That's why girls like spanking and spanking girls is a unique pleasure. — Chloe Thurlow

Outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it's even more insidious than most vices because we don't even consciously acknowledge that it's a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it's a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive masturbation. And, — Tim Kreider

Long ago, He'd warned her that He could become aroused in only one of two ways - by inflicting pain or inflicting humiliation. Some nights pain might not be enough for Him. Some nights He would humiliate her for His own pleasure. He then promised to refrain from that particular side of His sadism as much as possible. But now and again it appeared, unbidden. During a beating she'd realized she'd had a painfully full bladder and instead of excusing her to the bathroom He'd kicked a bucket into the center of the room and uttered the order, "Go." When her period had started a few days early and she'd woken up to blood on His white sheets, He'd stood over her at the bathtub while she'd had to scrub the stains out, crying with mortification the entire time. — Tiffany Reisz

I have seen a land shining with goodness, where each man protects his brother's dignity as readily as his own, where war and want have ceased and all races live under the same law of love and honour.
I have seen a land bright with truth, where a man's word is his pledge and falsehood is banished, where children sleep safe in their mother's arms and never know fear or pain.
I have seen a land where kings extend their hands in justice rather than reach for the sword; where mercy, kindness, and compassion flow like deep water over the land, and men revere virtue, revere truth, revere beauty, above comfort, pleasure or selfish gain. A land where peace reigns in the hill, and love like a fire from every hearth; where the True God is worshipped and his ways acclaimed by all. — Stephen R. Lawhead

He fucks me. It's powerful. Brutal. Hips slam into me from behind as he fills me deeply, over and over. Skin slapping noises echo through the room as he drives me into the table so hard it starts to move. I grip onto the edge of it, trying to hold on, trying to stay still, but he makes it impossible. Pain and pleasure merge inside of me, consuming me, and it doesn't take long before I start to grow numb. Tingles encompass me. My mind blanks out. Nothing exists except his cock inside of me, him on top of me, slamming into me from behind. I cry out with every deep thrust, incoherent noises, like everything inside of me is being purged. — J.M. Darhower

Becoming aware of the intense suffering of billions of animals, and of our own participation in that suffering, can bring up painful emotions: sorrow and grief for the animals; anger at the injustice and deception of the system; despair at the enormity of the problem; fear that trusted authorities and institutions are, in fact, untrustworthy; and guilt for having contributed to the problem. Bearing witness means choosing to suffer. Indeed, empathy is literally 'feeling with.' Choosing to suffer is particularly difficult in a culture that is addicted to comfort
a culture that teaches that pain should be avoided whenever possible and that ignorance is bliss. We can reduce our resistance to witnessing by valuing authenticity over personal pleasure, and integration over ignorance. — Melanie Joy

When his hand came down across my bottom the first time I thought I was going to die. But the pain passed, transmuted as if my some alchemical wizardry, and for a moment I experienced a surreal satisfaction in being bent over in this way without rights or choices, past or future. In pain you are living in the present and as the pain passes there is pleasure from having endured the pain. — Chloe Thurlow

The Devil had granted my wish to watch him sleep, but granted it in his usual cruel fashion, making a pain of a pleasure. Yet pleasure there was. I still desired to watch over him, be his dragon against Botts. — Maria McCann

The last few hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne: "but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering- — Jane Austen

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live. — M. Scott Peck

Alice cold make no sense of the despair into which she had fallen. She had always held that happiness should be defined as an absence of pain rather than the presence of pleasure. So why, with a decent job, good health, and a roof over her head, did she regularly and so childishly collapse into moist sobs? — Alain De Botton

Souls spread over the planet and leave no mountain unclimbed, no valley undiscovered, no sea unsailed, ventured even into outer space.
Souls mingle and leave no relationship unattempted, no emotion unfelt, no pleasure and pain unexplored.
Souls plunge into their minds and leave no tale untold, no image unpainted, no melody unheard.
Souls transcend their fantasies and leave no idea unthought, no natural law undescribed, no wisdom undefined.
Souls even pass over the thinkeable and witness ineffable realms of other worlds and their inhabitants.
Curiosity, the drive to experience, the urge of urges, the world's innermost desire. We, souls, are its foremost scouts. We are the embodiment of the purpose of existence. — Stefan Emunds

I see stars. I see heaven. I see every good thing I ever forgot. I feel the pain mixed with the pleasure. And his hard body - muscled and sweaty from confessions, and lust, and need - weighs me down. My throat stops drawing in air and my chest stops rising. And in that same moment the darkness takes over.
In that same moment ... We come. — J.A. Huss

Real scratching is superior to masturbation, in my opinion. One can masturbate up to the age of seventy, and even beyond, but in the end it becomes a mere habit. Whereas to scratch myself properly I would have needed a dozen hands. I itched all over, on the privates, in the bush up to the navel, under the arms, in the arse, and then patches of eczema and psoriasis that I could set raging merely by thinking of them. It was in the arse I had the most pleasure, I stuck in my forefinger up to the knuckle. Later, if I had to shit, the pain was atrocious. But I hardly shat any more. — Samuel Beckett

... Or he could choose life. At that pivotal moment, it occurred to him that with all his
schooling in theology he had, perhaps, missed the entire point of his studies, the very
crux of the gospel he had professed to believe. That the measure of a person's heart, the
barometer of good or evil, was nothing more than the extent of their willingness to
choose life over death. That the path of God was, simply, the path of life, abundant and
eternal. And this is where he failed, for to choose life is to choose sorrow as well as joy,
pain as well as pleasure. When Hunter had buried Rachel, he buried along with her his
heart, lest it might heal and feel and grow again. And in so doing he had chosen more
than death, he had chosen damnation itself, for damnation is nothing more than to stop
a thing in its eternal progression. In that first flight from West Chester he had run not
only from the horror and pain of death but from life itself.
— Richard Paul Evans

India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion
and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age — Jawaharlal Nehru

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love's song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain! — Oscar Wilde

Here may I live what life I please, Married and buried out of sight, - Married to pleasure and buried to pain, - Hidden away amongst scenes like these, Under the fans of the chestnut trees; Living my child-life over again, With the further hope of a fallen delight, Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees. — Violet Fane

I know what you're doing," he whispered to Raphael, whose movements only became more fervent, and the thought slipped from the boy's mind so that he became dazed and undone with pleasure, staring up at the ceiling, watching as it blurred and became indistinct, and he felt the rising rush of pleasure, until he cried out in a sharp gasp.
And the pleasure went on and on, as it did, unbearably, until either Raphael took pity on him, or he pushed his Genitor away. Whichever it was, the pleasure that was leaking into pain, stopped, and he was lifted and laid down on the stone, cold and hard under his spine, and Raphael was bent over him, kissing up this time, up to his lips, flicking his tongue at them, and whispering: "Don't question my love for you. Ever again. — Carmen Dominique Taxer

It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the sense; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he likes it. — W. Somerset Maugham

Obviously, some part of us loves feeling 1) right and 2) wronged. But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it's even more insidious than most vices because we don't even consciously acknowledge it's a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it's a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive masturbation. — Tim Kreider

Human life
that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. — Oscar Wilde

The woman had gasped beneath his heavy body. He rubbed against her, lubricated by the warm, sticky liquid, but as her body gradually grew cold, he felt as though they'd been glued together. She seemed to be see-sawing between agony and ecstasy, but finally Satake pressed his lips over hers to quiet the groans-of pain or pleasure-that were leaking from her mouth. He found the hole that he had made in her side and worked his finger deep into the opening. Blood was pumping from the wound, staining their sex a gruesome crimson. He wanted to get further inside, to melt into her. As he was about to come, he pulled his lips from her and she whispered in his ear: "I'm finished ... finished."
"I know," he'd said, and he could still hear the exact sound of his own voice. — Natsuo Kirino

He actually made damnation seem attractive. She had heard of men who rejected gods, who professed not to believe, but here was a believer who refused to grovel, a man who stood up to Shiva, to Buddha, to the gods of his own race, whoever they might be, who stood right up to them and demanded an accounting for a system in which pleasure must be paid for with pain, a system in which the only triumph over suffering was hard-won oblivion, a system that offered its captive audience little choice in matters concerning duration of performance. — Tom Robbins

The major difference between heroin and alcohol is that, contrary to popular belief, heroin has no physically harmful effect. Alcohol is physically harmful to the brain, to the liver, to the nerve endings, eventually perhaps even to the stomach and intestines. Both drugs seem equally addicting, and why a person chooses one over another is probably based on experience, on availability, on legality, and on some personal idiosyncrasy not yet understood. What we do know is that the drugs work to relieve the pain and provide pleasure — William Glasser