Understanding Your Pain Quotes & Sayings

So at family gatherings ... I try to stick to the acceptable script. Indeed, I discover that the less I say, the happier everyone seems to be with me. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been better off as a paraplegic or afflicted by some tragic form of cancer. The invisibility and periodicity of my disorder, along with how often I border on normalcy, allows them to evade my need for their understanding. And because our most enduring family heirloom is avoidance and denial of pain and suffering, I don't need much prompting to shut myself down in their presence. — Kiera Van Gelder

Pain wastes the Body, Pleasures the Understanding. — Benjamin Franklin

Inner healing involves moving from darkness to the light. "Light" is a word that has different meanings yet is generally understood as love and understanding. Love nurtures the emotional body; understanding fills the voids created by pain. — Deepak Chopra

Now, as I look back on my life, I can honestly say I wouldn't change it. The pain and suffering have brought me psychological understanding and spiritual strength. I still feel the pain when I reflect on those experiences, but while once they would throw me deeper and deeper into anxious despair, now they feed my desire to keep growing. (3) — Marie Balter

Did we have some understanding? That I was going to follow your nonmedical orders? Because I don't recall that in my personal life, I'm obligated to do everything you tell me."
"Guess you're not obligated to use your brain in your personal life, either."
"I filled your truck up with gas, you old pain in the ass."
"I didn't get caught in that piece of shit foreign job of yours, you obstinate little strumpet."
And she laughed at him so hard, tears came to her eyes and she had to leave, laughing all the way back to her cabin.
-Mel and Doc — Robyn Carr

It can make us stronger, more compassionate, more understanding - more like Jesus - if we allow it to. And the more clutter we get rid of in our life here - the more we will be able to enjoy heaven - when we get there. So, pain can have a purpose. — Janette Oke

Years ago I read that grief is the place where love and pain converge.
For a long time they stood there and simply clung to each other. They didn't feel the need to kiss, and she believed that was because what they shared transcended the physical. This understanding-that they'd both lost what they'd treasured most-brought them together in a more profound way than mere attraction.
But I don't know what my instinct's saying, she muttered. Yes, you do. Just relax, sit back and listen to your inner voice. — Debbie Macomber

When you are enlightened, your physical body will still feel pain if you get hurt, but you will not be overwhelmed even by extreme physical pain, because your mind is filled with light, love and understanding. — Frederick Lenz

If you could read some of the stories that we had before us of parents of children dying of, let's say, bone cancer. Or people who dealt with family members drowning in their own bodies, in the end, suffering without any hope of modern medical science easing their pain or offering any comfort. With the absolute knowledge that they were going to die anyway. I can't quite comprehend how we could want those people to continue to suffer that extreme agony on the understanding that it is the will of a creator or some other philosophical concept. — Kelvin Ogilvie

And if we dare to look into those eyes, then we shall feel their suffering in our hearts. More and more people have seen that appeal and felt it in their hearts. All around the world there is an awakening of understanding and compassion, and understanding that reaches out to help the suffering animals in their vanishing homelands. That embraces hungry, sick, and desperate human beings, people who are starving while the fortunate among us have so much more than we need. And if, one by one, we help them, the hurting animals, the desperate humans, then together we shall alleviate so much of the hunger, fear, and pain in the world. Together we can bring change to the world, gradually replacing fear and hatred with compassion and love. Love for all living beings. — Jane Goodall

Harness the imagination: Sometimes curbing her, sometimes giving her rein, for she is the whole of happiness. She sets to rights even the understanding. She sinks to tyranny, not satisfied with mere faith, but demanding works. Thus she becomes the mistress of life itself. She does so with pleasure or with pain, according to the nonsense presented. She makes people contented or discontented with themselves. By dangling before some nothing but the specter of their eternal suffering, she becomes the scourge of these fools. To others she shows nothing but fortune and romance, while merrily laughing. Of all this she is capable if not held in check by the wisest of wills. — Baltasar Gracian

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender. Not all pain and suffering, certainly. If that were the case, the whole world would be tender, since no one escapes pain and suffering. To these elements must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Together they lead to wisdom and tenderness. — Brennan Manning

The leaf has the appearance of being born and dying, but it is not caught in either. The leaf falls to the earth without any idea of dying, and is born again by decomposing at the foot of the tree and nourishing the tree. The cloud has the appearance of dying in becoming rain, but it feels no sorrow or pain.
[...] When we have awakened understanding, birth is a continuation and death is a continuation[.] — Thich Nhat Hanh

Little world, full of scars and gashes, ripened with another's pain,
Your flowers feed on carrion
so do your birds;
Men feed on each other because you taught them life was cheap,
Flowing from your endless womb without pain or understanding.
No midwife caresses your flesh or bathes clean your progeny,
Life spurts from you, little world,
and you regard it with disdain.
Only bruised men sense your cruelty,
men whose life has lost its meaning. — James Kavanaugh

Pause and remember - You alone are responsible for taking an interest in your own growth. Understanding your deepest fears and pain is what will move you forward. If you can do this, you will be rewarded with not only a deeper connection with yourself, but also with others. — Jennifer Young

People aren't supposed to be able to fathom eternity. It's an amount of time beyond all human comprehension. But ever since everything ended, I think I'm getting closer to understanding it. These little tastes of it in the way hell stretches around us, making pain endless and moments like this one rare and fleeting. Making moments like this one everything. — Courtney Summers

We are not 'everything,' but neither are we 'nothing.' Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox's extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed. Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to 'blame' for our errors - neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else. Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing. — Katherine Ketcham

The experience of losing a loved one impels us toward a deeper understanding of life. Everyone fears and is saddened by death. That is natural. But by struggling to overcome the pain and sadness that accompanies death, we become sharply aware of the dignity and preciousness of life and develop the compassion to share the sufferings of others as our own. — Daisaku Ikeda

Because whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us. No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people. My illness proved that. As well as my understanding that Generose's lost daughter belongs to all of us. It is up to all of us to find her; it is up to us to do our best to make her whole again. There is only one daughter, one father, one mother, one son, one aunt or uncle, one dog, one cat, donkey, monkey, or goat in the universe, after all: the one right in front of you. — Alice Walker

We shall be remembered in history as the most cruel, and therefore the most unwise, generation of men that ever yet troubled the earth: the most cruel in proportion to their sensibility, the most unwise in proportion to their science. No people, understanding pain, ever inflicted so much: no people, understanding facts, ever acted on them so little. — John Ruskin

It has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience. — William Styron

The pain of leaving those you grow to love is only the prelude to understanding yourself and others. — Shirley Maclaine

Great pain, when it is honored from the heart, opens into great understanding. — Jack Kornfield

But it's in that disappointment, in that confusion, in that pain - the pain that comes from things not going how I wanted them to - that I find the same thing happening, again and again. I come to the end of myself, to the end of my power, the end of my strength, the end of my understanding, only to find, in that place of powerlessness, a strength and peace that weren't there before. — Rob Bell

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt. — Samuel Johnson

Then answer me this ... how can you know the good without the understanding of evil? How can you know happiness without experiencing the misery, pleasure without the pain? These things are essential parts of life that need to be faced and endured. — Stephanie Hudson

If you want to have peace of soul, learn to forgive. Jesus' secret was His ability to see into people's hearts. Seeing their anguish and pain helped Him to understand their nastiness. So He could pity them rather than become angry with them. That is what we have to do: try to understand the pain in people's lives ... and not take personally what they do to us. — Joseph F. Girzone

I used to hold you as my everything,
And so I built my castles in your lands,
But you proved to me your inadequacies,
With this, how will my castles stand? — Terrence Alonzo Craft

She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make her internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it. — Richelle Mead

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

I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this
and I have, countless times, in just about every act I've committed
and coming face to face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing ... — Bret Easton Ellis

To understand suffering, you must go beyond pain and pleasure. Your own desires and fears prevent you from understanding and thereby helping others. In reality there are no others, and by helping yourself you help everybody else. If you are serious about the suffering of mankind, you must perfect the only means of help you have, yourself. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Allowing a person or thing to leave your life, without further pain is the basis of humanity. Everything else is the reason (theology). — Shannon L. Alder

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if to love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: to melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; to rest at noon and meditate love's ecstasy; to return home at eventide with gratitude; and then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips. — Kahlil Gibran

If only you would understand the silent speech and the real pain within the innermost man of they that suffer in silence, you would never keep silent to their suffering. So many people can't speak everything about how they are suffering for the sake of dignity and confidentiality. Though they smile, they smile out of a deep pain within. When you look at someone suffering, just see how he is suffering and in so far as you can, be the joy to the innermost man of the person to the best of your ability. Don't wait for his words, just look and see! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him. — Criss Jami

Sometimes My blessings come to you in mysterious ways: through pain and trouble. At such times you can know My goodness only through your trust in Me. Understanding will fail you, but trust will keep you close to Me. — Sarah Young

Thundering, roaring, are the storms of life. Momentary hardships that, unveiled, reveal a purpose beyond carnal reasoning. The pain can get intense, the hurt can be severe, but one must look beyond themselves for conclusive answers. One must not examine their situations using finite logic to try to discover the deeper meaning behind the circumstance or its outcome. One must look beyond the surface of their own intellect, and see through the walls of their own understanding. The blueprint of life has been masterfully designed in such a way, that all things - no matter how they may seem - have a purpose; and that purpose will ultimately bring
about a greater good overall. The spiritual realm is truly realities base; and it is from there that truth derives. The mystery of the storm is revealed - cause and effect - the past, the present, and the future. — Calvin W. Allison

The crucial importance of human expectations has far-reaching implications for understanding the history of happiness. If happiness depended only on objective conditions such as wealth, health and social relations, it would have been relatively easy to investigate its history. The finding that it depends on subjective expectations makes the task of historians far harder. We moderns have an arsenal of tranquillisers and painkillers at our disposal, but our expectations of ease and pleasure, and our intolerance of inconvenience and discomfort, have increased to such an extent that we may well suffer from pain more than our ancestors ever did. — Yuval Noah Harari

Pain by itself is merely pain,
but the experience of pain couples with an understanding
that the pain serves a worthy purpose as suffering.
Suffering can be endured because
there is a reason for it that is worth the effort.
What is more worthy of your pain than the evolution of your soul? — Gary Zukav

Your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain. — Albert Einstein

Life has two choices: create or destruct. These choices are the backbone for all, within oneself and outside oneself. Too many ways of thinking are described by too many people that have no idea. If you're attached to your ways then detach, so you can change. Use this detachment in your writing, relationships, and understanding of life. Our future as individuals, as nations, and as mankind can only go one way. It's our choice whether we want the painful path or the peaceful path. — Mark Donnelly

Listening is a very deep practice. You have to empty yourself. You have to leave space in order to listen especially to people we think are our enemies - the ones we believe are making our situation worse. When you have shown your capacity for listening and understanding, the other person will begin to listen to you, and you have a change to tell him or her of your pain, and it's your turn to be healed. This is the practice of peace. — Nhat Hanh

We need this help from the outside because we don't know how to to do this for ourselves. We start with a deep deficit - a chasm really - when it comes to understanding and being tolerant of ourselves, and that's even before we go forth to do battle with the rest of the world. As soon as someone judges, criticizes, dismisses, or ignores, the cycle of pain and reactivity ramps up, compounded by shame, remorse, and rejection. The act of validation, simply saying, 'I can see things from your perspective,' can short-circuit that emotional detour. — Kiera Van Gelder

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you were wrong? Maybe, you only saw your point of view and you never once put yourself in the other person's shoes. Maybe, walking away from the senseless drama and spiteful criticism isn't the best thing to do. Maybe, for just once in your life you could wear another person's confusion, pain or misunderstanding. Maybe, your future doesn't require explaining yourself or offering an explanation for your indifference, but your character and reputation does. What if one day you find out that you didn't have all the information you thought you did? What if you find out that your presence was needed for healing? What if you only knew half of it and the other half was just your fear and anger translating everything you experienced? What if you were wrong? What if the same thing happened to you? — Shannon L. Alder

And you finally get there, you reach a point where you refuse to feel anymore pain and the desire to chase happiness out weighs any choice that gives you reason to question where you're headed. — Nikki Rowe

Life is a harsh, twisted paradox.
On one hand, you wish for no pain or suffering or misery on anyone. Yet you hope to see your children grow into individuals of compassionate and kind character. And it seems that pain, suffering, and misery adequately humble an individual, cultivating empathy and understanding for others in similar plights. While a life of ease and comfort and pleasure often fosters extravagant and selfish habits, spurring pride and blinded vision. Still, you pray for no pain or suffering on your children.
Life is a harsh, twisted paradox. — Richelle E. Goodrich

For that is the meaning of a farewell in the full, important sense of the word: that the two people, because they part, come to an understanding of how they have seen and experienced each other. What succeeded between them and what failed. That takes fearlessness: you have to be able to endure the pain of dissonance. It is also about acknowledging what was impossible. Parting is also something you do with yourself: to stand by yourself under the look of the other. The cowardice of a farewell resides in the transfiguration: in the attempt to bathe what was in a golden light and deny the dark. What you forfeit in that is nothing less than the acknowledgement of your self in those features produced by darkness. — Pascal Mercier

As your prospective of the world increases, not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules or atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large such as cloud formations, river deltas, cloud formations, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed — Karl Ove Knausgard

To believe you're being psychically attacked gives you an understanding of your illness that no Western doctor can provide; this can be reassuring when you've exhausted the Western doctor tool kit, and the doctors are sending you to acupuncturists for pain relief. — Heidi Julavits

Speaking for the nation as a whole entails understanding and feeling the pain, as well as understanding the aspiration of the different cultural, social and political make-up of the nation. — David Blunkett

Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained too, an understanding of solitude and its joy. — Lois Lowry

Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a "keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved." People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believeing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren't bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person. — Will Bowen

A positive attitude is important, but it is only part of the story. Understanding how to surmount pain, doubt, and failure is a vital component in winning the game of life. — Chin-Ning Chu

There is nothing that exists outside or inside to punish us or take a note of every action of ours, but it's our own understanding towards life, that allows us to experience, different pain and pleasures of life. — Roshan Sharma

The emergence and blossoming of understanding, love, and intelligence has nothing to do with any tradition, no matter how ancient or impressive-it has nothing to do with time. It happens on its own when a human being questions, wonders, inquires, listens, and looks without getting stuck in fear, pleasure, and pain. When self-concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open. — Toni Packer

But we are stronger for what's happened to us. I am stronger, even if I couldn't see it at first. We have been given the gift of understanding that we can come through struggle and pain. We have built new families in place of the ones that cast us out. We have learned that life is one journey, and the purpose is not to reach some treasure at the end of it, but to find the courage to decide which paths to take, who to travel with, and to let things fall into place as they should and will. — Alexandra Bracken

Understanding like the eye; whilst it makes us see and perceive all things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own subject. — John Locke

Which knew and understood and did not shy away from the understanding that there would be pain. Which could accept shattering, could reassemble itself, could stand taller than before. — Nick Harkaway

Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet. The basics are still there. Beauty, food and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding. Later, possibly not yet, you are going to need others who will encourage you to make new beginnings. Welcome them. They will help you move on, to cherish happy memories and confront the painful ones with more than bitterness and anger. — Rosamunde Pilcher

All at once, she was confronted with the full understanding of it. And if she admitted it to herself, she could only be left with the grotesque truth. She didn't want to let go of the pain. She didn't want it to be lessened. She wanted to carry it. And whatever path she took from this point forward would serve to take it away. — Dorothy Gravelle

Being strong means allowing yourself to cry over the things you can't change; laugh when things are funny; smile when you're happy. It means understanding where your breaking point is, and yet, going further and still remaining whole. Strong people push themselves to the limits of pain and joy. They fall to their knees in agony, then they lift up their faces to find the beautiful morning rays shining down on them, and they rise to their feet. Being strong means never giving up, no matter how crushed you are, and finding happiness in the smallest parts of life. — D. Nichole King

Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice. — Anthony Burgess

The pain of being alone is completely out of this world, isn't it? I don't know why, but I understand your feelings so much, it actually hurts. — Masashi Kishimoto

Pain - physical, emotional and spiritual pain - is more than just a condition that needs to be silenced, numbed or "fixed." Pain in all its forms is also a message, a kind of distress signal to our hearts and minds. There are times when it's really important to tune into that message and just listen to it. When we don't listen, our understanding of the world gets more and more distorted, and we become capable of doing things we very often regret. — Karyn Kusama

I try to go through it [emotional pain]; understanding is going to take me to a better place. And I do hot yoga. — Patricia Velasquez

Compassion does not have to be a face-to-face relationship. Forgiveness does not imply friendship. Understanding why someone has inflicted pain on us is how we set ourselves free of the past, not how we excuse someone's behaviour so they can continue to abuse us. — Vironika Tugaleva

I tried to photograph the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humor, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth; and the fullest and most intense moments in the lives of these characters as simple as they are irresistible, with all their inner strength, as a personal challenge that gave me strength and understanding and in which I invested all my heart. — Cristina Garcia Rodero

And I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I. — Joan Didion

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 surprising; we cannot understand why we have been abandoned in love ... why we are unable to sleep at night ... Identifying reasons for such discomforts does not spectacularly absolve us of pain, but it may form the principal basis of a recovery. While assuring us that we are not uniquely cursed, understanding grants us a sense of the boundaries to, and bitter logic behind, our suffering. 'Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.' - Proust — Alain De Botton

There's a secret to get through loss, pain and grief. If we're alone we can't see who we are. When we join the club, other people become the mirror. Through them, we see ourselves and gain an understanding of what we're going through. Then slowly, real slowly, we learn to accept who we see in the mirror. Then you become the mirror for them; by being honest about who you are, you'll help them learn to love and accept themselves. — Melody Beattie

As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, & Understanding? — Elvis Costello

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding ... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy — Kahlil Gibran

Don't look for a life virtually free from discomfort, pain, pressure, challenge, or grief, for those are the tools a loving Father uses to stimulate our personal growth and understanding. — Richard G. Scott

But here is the thing about anger: People hold onto it because letting go means dealing with pain. It is a coping strategy that seems to show strength and confidence, but in reality it shows how much you care about someone's actions, which leads to this question: Why is this person's respect so important to you? — Shannon L. Alder

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.
What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings. — Byron Katie

Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. — Kahlil Gibran

May our spirit fill us with understanding of victory and defeat, the gift of collaboration, the wisdom to choose the right path, and opportunities that inspire hope. — Celeste Cooper

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being ... In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself. — Dalai Lama

I firmly believe that usually, the person who hurt you doesn't realize what they've done or how much it hurt you. So, continue to pray for the person or situation that caused your pain and anger. Ask God to give you understanding about why they did what they did. — Joyce Meyer

I participate in BDSM, but I wasn't abused as a child. I don't hate women, or particularly enjoy hurting women. Sometimes I make them feel pain, but it's consensual, it serves a purpose - to get them off - and they can indicate that they wish me to stop at any time. I do like the power I get from total submission, and the trust that my partner puts in me to give me everything, from her mind to her body, while expecting nothing in return - except the understanding that I won't violate that trust. — Nenia Campbell

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips. — Kahlil Gibran

I can suffer alone, or I can hold on to God in my pain. I can be meek and trust Him to make something good out of it. Only Jesus can heal the wounds, only Jesus can fill up those dark places with light, with understanding. Only He can quench our thirst for hope. — Susan May Warren

When you pick a flower, you become so besotted in its beauty; you dare not judge how it became that way, let it be the same lesson for humans; Spread your light, not your pain. — Nikki Rowe

I also forgive myself. May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart. Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion. Instead of rebellion, I choose the music from my violin. Instead of grief, I choose forgetting. Instead of vengeance, I choose victory. — Paulo Coelho

Cherish the beauty and cherish the pain, both will give you experience and you will never be the same — Nikki Rowe

Katz had read extensively in popular sociobiology, and his understanding of the depressive personality type and its seemingly perverse persistence in the human gene pool was that depression was successful adaptation to ceaseless pain and hardship. Pessimism, feelings of worthlessness and lack of entitlement, inability to derive satisfaction from pleasure, a tormenting awareness of the world's general crappiness: for Katz Jewish paternal forebears, who'd been driven from shtetl to shtetl by implacable anti-Semites, as for the old Angles and Saxons on his mother's side, who'd labored to grow rye and barley in the poor soils and short summers of northern Europe, feeling bad all the time and expecting the worse had been natural ways of equilibriating themselves with the lousiness of their circumstances. Few things gratified depressives, after all, more than really bad news. This obviously wasn't an optimal way to live, but it had its evolutionary advantages. — Jonathan Franzen