Without Pain Quotes & Sayings

This, then, is the human problem: there is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain. By remembering the past we can plan for the future. But the ability to plan for the future is offset by the "ability" to dread pain and to fear of the unknown. Furthermore, the growth of an acute sense of the past and future gives us a corresponding dim sense of the present. In other words, we seem to reach a point where the advantages of being conscious are outweighed by its disadvantages, where extreme sensitivity makes us unadaptable. — Alan W. Watts

Let me tell you a little bit about demons. They love pain and other people's misery. They lie when it suits them and don't see anything wrong with it. They corrupt and kill and destroy, all without conscience. You just don't have the capacity for something as honorable as loving another person. — Brenna Yovanoff

41. The Means to attain Happy Life

MARTIAL, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The richesse left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind:

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life;
The household of continuance:

The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom join'd with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night;
Contented with thine own estate
Ne wish for death, ne fear his might. — Henry Howard

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here. — Paulo Coelho

Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence. — Marquis De Sade

I'd just like to be able to walk without pain or run without a limp. — Mike Comrie

All of the pleasures of this present physical life can be continued into the next life as well, since we will have a body which is similar to our present physical body, but so much more glorious and wonderful and supernatural. We will be able to eat, drink, be merry and have fun without ever suffering pain or sickness or weariness or death. — David Berg

Results have not been encouraging. We seem up against a dilemma built into Nature, much like the Heisenberg situation. There is nearly complete parallelism between analgesia and addiction. The more pain it takes away, the more we desire it. It appears we can't have one property without the other, any more than a particle physicist can specify position without suffering an uncertainty as to the particle's velocity - — Thomas Pynchon

And that wreched creature without hands or feet, who had to be put to bed and fed like a child, that pitiable remnant of a man, whose almost vanished life was nothing more than one scream of pain, cried out in furious indignation: 'What a fool one must be to go and kill oneself!' - 'Joy of Life — Emile Zola

Of course, being open and vulnerable will lead us to, sometimes, experience pain. But what is pain? It is simply a feeling. It is not forever. If you get pain from some person or thing too many times, you can always walk away. To risk a lifetime without pleasure simply to avoid pain is ludicrous. — Vironika Tugaleva

She was doing impressively well, he said. She was mentally sharp and physically strong. The danger for her was losing what she had. The single most serious threat she faced was not the lung nodule or the back pain. It was falling. Each year, about 350,000 Americans fall and break a hip. Of those, 40 percent end up in a nursing home, and 20 percent are never able to walk again. The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness. Elderly people without these risk factors have a 12 percent chance of falling in a year. Those with all three risk factors have almost a 100 percent chance. — Atul Gawande

With mindfulness we have the choice of responding with compassion to the pain of craving, anger, fear and confusion. Without mindfulness we are stuck in the reactive pattern and identification that will inevitably create more suffering and confusion. — Noah Levine

I felt wrapped in a fog of dull pain that hurt only enough to remind me that it, too, was without purpose, and there seemed no point to going through the empty motions of breakfast, the long slow drive to work, no reason at all beyond the slavery of habit. But — Jeff Lindsay

The guide showed us a coffee-colored piece of sculpture which he said was considered to have come from the hand of Phidias, since it was not possible that any other artist, of any epoch, could have copied nature with such faultless accuracy. The figure was that of a man without a skin; with every vein, artery, muscle, every fibre and tendon and tissue of the human frame, represented in detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely to look that way, unless his attention were occupied with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, and yet there was a fascination about it some where. I am sorry I saw it, because I shall always see it, now. I shall dream of it, sometimes. I shall dream that it is resting its corded arms on the bed's head and looking down on me with its dead eyes; I shall dream that it is stretched between the sheets with me and touching me with its exposed muscles and its stringy cold legs. — Mark Twain

Pain is the feeling. Suffering is the effect the pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself. — James Frey

Seraphina had found nothing but an end, she thought, a horribly easy end to pain. Her own wouldn't be easy, because she would have to live with it. Live without Michael. And finally accept that she would live without her dream. — Nora Roberts

Loss is a strange thing. It comes without a warning. It rips your heart to shreds and lets you learn to live with the pieces. It never lets you heal, but eventually, the memories you carry will help you learn to live with the pain of knowing that you will never see your loved one again. — J.C. Reed

A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering anaesthetic, as the pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed. — John Harvey Kellogg

If something happens that causes you Pain, remind yourself that you can't get the Rainbow without a little Rain.-RVM — R.v.m.

Those were the words I thought were going to put everything back together again: but they didn't. I was hurt, angry and lost. I couldn't look at my husband without feeling pain. I didn't want him to touch me, or hold me, or comfort me. It was gone. He stood there, waiting for me to say something, anything that would let him know we still had a chance. — Courtney Giardina

He suspected that any life form that inflicted unnecessary pain tended to find its consciousness eroding. Without consciousness to reflect back upon life, all life might lose its sense of purpose. — Frank Herbert

When pain has been intertwined with love and closeness, it's very difficult to believe that love and closeness can be experienced without pain. — Gloria Steinem

The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books. — Lois Lowry

We want gain without pain; we want the resurrection without going through the grave; we want life without experiencing death; we want a crown without going by way of the Cross. But in God's economy, the way up is down. — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Because of the war on drugs, pain patients are treated with skepticism and pain doctors live in fear of being prosecuted for overprescribing. The end result is that addicts still get their opioids without much trouble, while genuine patients often can't find treatment. Those who do must typically be tracked in a database and must schedule frequent, expensive doctor visits for surveillance like urine testing. — Maia Szalavitz

Gratitude brings a peace that helps us overcome the pain of adversity and failure. Gratitude on a daily basis means we express appreciation for what we have now without qualification for what we had in the past or desire in the future. A recognition of and appreciation for our gifts and talents which have been given also allows us to acknowledge the need for help and assistance from the gifts and talents possessed by others. — Robert D. Hales

Real peace comes only when you stop chasing it. When you relax your driving desire for comfort, real fulfillment arises. When you drop your hectic pursuit of gratification, the real beauty of life comes out. When you seek to know the reality without illusion, complete with all its pain and danger, that is when real freedfom and security are yours. — Henepola Gunaratana

Forgiveness isn't for the person making the error. It's for the person wronged. It's so you can move on without the pain, anguish, resentment. You need to forgive and mean it. Only then will you be able to move on. — Leddy Harper

If you want to experience love, then you have to be ready for pain. One doesn't come without the other. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have to worry about losing you. If you want laughter, expect tears. — Harlan Coben

He'd know about the role of mirror neurons in the brain, special cells in the premotor cortex that fire right before a person reaches for a rock, steps forward, turns away, begins to smile.Amazingly, the same neurons fire whether we do something or watch someone else do the same thing, and both summon similar feelings. Learning form our own mishaps isn't as safe as learning from someone else's, which helps us decipher the world of intentions, making our social whirl possible. The brain evolved clever ways to spy or eavesdrop on risk, to fathom another's joy or pain quickly, as detailed sensations, without resorting to words. We feel what we see, we experience others as self. — Diane Ackerman

Being on the path means we again meditate with joy. We deal with the suffering of life and the pain of existence without perfect enlightenment with a smile. — Frederick Lenz

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol

I'm too intense. I feel too much. And when I experience certain sensations, I act. Even if the situation is one I should probably walk away from. But you know what?" She was feeling a little better. "I'm never going to walk away, not from any of it. I can't. I am what I am. I'm intense, just as my fiance said. I feel everything around me, and I'm glad about that. I can't imagine life without the depth, without the magic that accompanies the pain. — Tara Taylor Quinn

Without a doubt, the next few minutes would be the most hellishly exciting in my life. Grinding pain and killer fatigue waited just beyond the word, "Partez." But I tried to ignore those prespects, and concentrate on the priceless feelings that also awaited. I thought about the perfect strokes we would take, and about the merciless surge of power we would unleash in the last 500 meters. — Brad Alan Lewis

I could beat my mike stand into the stage, but I was still in pain. Maybe fans liked it, but sometimes people forget you're a person and they're more into the entertainment value. It's taken a long time to turn that around and give a strong show without it being a kamikaze show. — Axl Rose

Someday you'll get hurt by someone just by making you stupid, but someday because of those people you are grown, without pain you'll never be successful. — Ha Kin

Jesus points to this when he says, "Be ye whole, even as your Father in Heaven is whole."1 The New Testament's "Be ye perfect" is a mistranslation of the original Greek word, which means whole. This is to say, you don't need to become whole, but be what you already are - with or without the pain-body. — Eckhart Tolle

You will see. Pain and love, they are married. But without pain, love would not be powerful like it is. — Shannon Mayer

Warmth stole into Murdoch's voice at the memory, and Farah's heart clenched at the picture of her Dougan not yet a man, and yet not a boy, regaling a room full of hardened prisoners about the graveyard capers and bog adventures of a ten-year-old girl in the Scottish Highlands. "He described ye so many times, I feel as though any of us would have recognized ye had we seen ye on the streets. He told us of yer kindness, yer innocence, yer gentle ways and boundless curiosity. Ye became something of a patron saint to us all. Our daughter. Our sister. Our... Fairy. Without even knowing it, ye gave us- him- a little bit of sunshine and hope in a world of shadow and pain. — Kerrigan Byrne

I know that look. It comes in the quiet moments, like this one. I know you're thinking that this is all your fault and that I would be better off without you. But here's the thing you need to understand. You are my peace and my home. You are the everything. The pain isn't real. The hearts are. — Brodi Ashton

Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humilation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler. — Georges Bernanos

Sometimes I forget this insoluble mess and dream: he'll save me, we'll travel; we'll hunt in the deserts, we'll sleep on the pavements of strange cities, carelessly, without his guilt, without my pain. Or else I'm going to wake up and all the human laws and customs of this world will have changed - thanks to some magical power - or this world, without changing, will let me feel desire and be happy and carefree.
What did I want from him who hurt me more than I thought it was possible for two people to hurt each other? I wanted the adventures found in kids' books. He couldn't give me these because he wasn't able to. Whatever did he want from me? I never understood. He told me he was just average: average regrets, average hopes. What do I care about all that average shit that has nothing to do with adventure? — Kathy Acker

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

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

In the artifacts that are conscious, memories of vanished lives still flicker. Tissues that were changed without dying hold the moment that a boy heard his sister was leaving home. They hold multiplication tables. They hold images of sexuality and violence and beauty. They hold the memories of flesh that no longer exists. They hold metaphors: mitochondria, starfish, Hitler's-brain-in-a-jar, hell realm. They dream. Structures that were neurons twitch and loop and burn and dream. Images and words and pain and fear, endless. — James S.A. Corey

He and his wife loved each other and brought each other daily pain. Everything else he was doing in his life, even his longing for Lalitha, amounted to little more than flight from circumstance. He and Patty couldn't live together and couldn't imagine living apart. Each time he thought they'd reached the unbearable breaking point, it turned out that there was still further they could go without breaking. — Jonathan Franzen

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

Had I been too selfish? I had never known my mother, but I knew my life as it had been without her: the ship, the sea, the myths, the maps . . . and, yes, Kashmir. The pain I felt at the thought of losing him - the same pain that kept me at arm's length - gave me a hint of my father's own struggle. — Heidi Heilig

Without that forgiveness, that peace, no heart is ever happy. There is always an inner struggle. Pain. Only when God has been invited in-to manage one's life, to direct one's thinking, to be in control-can one ever get away from all the conflicts inside. We have to stop struggling against His will before we can find real joy. — Janette Oke

She would never, she thought, be allowed to enjoy a moments pleasure without an eternity of pain. — Tonya Hurley

You always know more than you think you know without being aware of it. You always remember best what has hurt most.
Memory is a reflex of the pain. Knowledge is the memory of the pain combined with the unconsciousness which we 'rationalize' via dreams or by means of reading literature. It is impossible to learn from someone else's experience unless we don't assume this experience as our own's, which we can achieve only by living it anew and from scratch. We can not live our lives at someone else's expense. Only life fraught with dangers and risks and lived as your own's deserves its name. Only selfish people do not live their lives as if they do not belong entirely to them. Cowardice equals a life that you refuse to live at its fullest and at its most dangerous. — Martin Walser

Stigmata of Love
A light which lives on what the flames devour,
a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch,
a crucifixion by a single wound,
a sky and earth that darken by each hour,
a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns
a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch,
a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef,
a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest
this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns
is where I dream of you stealing my rest,
haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief.
I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. — Federico Garcia Lorca

There are no words and there is no singing, but the music has a voice. It is an old voice and a deep voice, like the stump of a sweet cigar or a shoe with a hole. It is a voice that has lived and lives, with sorrow and shame, ecstasy and bliss, joy and pain, redemption and damnation. It is a voice with love and without love. I like the voice, and though I can't talk to it, I like the way it talks to me. It says it is all the same, Young Man. Take it and let it be. — James Frey

There is No Pleasure without Pain — A. Dragonblood

I couldn't keep living this lie for a minute more. I've been sober for two hundred and eighty-three days. My sobriety requires me to apologize to you, but my heart can't take another day without you knowing how much I still love you, and how deeply sorry I am for the pain I've caused you. — Kindle Alexander

But as you are surely aware, forgiveness doesn't mean you let the forgiven stomp all over you once again. Forgiveness means you've found a way forward that acknowledges harm done and hurt caused without letting either your anger or your pain rule your life or define your relationship with the one who did you wrong. — Cheryl Strayed

Our generation, like the one before us, must choose. Without the threat of the Cold War, without the pain of economic ruin, without the fresh memory of World War II's slaughter, it is tempting to pursue our private agendas
to simply sit back and let history unfold. We must resist the temptation. — William J. Clinton

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) — Elizabeth Goudge

No one wants to get hurt but without pain how can we win? — Debasish Mridha

LUKE: O, what is life, and what our purpose here?
Are living creatures made for pain and strife,
Do we but walk our days upon the ground
To perish without memory or fame?
If so, what shall we seek whilst we yet like?
Is brave adventure worthy of our time,
Or should we seek the principle of pleasure? — Ian Doescher

I'd just killed some of the best riders in the world - and I was clean. I'd taken nothing - no EPO, no cortisone, no testosterone, no painkillers, no caffeine. I had justified to myself that I was a great rider without drugs - yet perversely given myself the green light to dope again. I'd proved what I could do clean - how much more could I do if I was doped? — David Millar

A world without women would be a pain in the ass. — Mr. Bean

I'm so sorry. God, baby. What were you doing? You ... God." He took a shaky breath. "You couldn't breathe. He hit you so hard and you went down and fuck, sweetheart. I've never been that scared in my life."
I was able to breathe again without pain and I had to fix this. This wasn't Green's fault. I didn't know he wasn't going to be able to stop. I thought he would stop from hitting Krit if I was in front of him. "He was gonna hit you," I said, wincing from the pain in my throat.
Krit went still a minute, and then his hold on me tightened. — Abbi Glines

What lasts in the reader's mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse. — Isaac Asimov

Love frees us of all pain, or of any restraint.
Once a circle that ever widens without end.
Various colors it shines in our lives to paint
Excelsis, glorious manifestation to befriend. — Ana Claudia Antunes

In truth, it's usually failure, disappointment, and frustration that motivate people to reexamine that which they've taken for granted. It's rare to find big change without significant bad news ... In that sense, the pain of failure creates the largest opportunities for progress. — Judith M Bardwick

The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination. — Joseph Campbell

Are you conscious of a growing failure of your bodily powers? Do you expect to suffer long nights of languishing and days of pain? O be not sad! That bed may become a throne to you. You little know how every pang that shoots through your body may be a refining fire to consume your dross
a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your soul. Are the eyes growing dim? Jesus will be your light. Do the ears fail you? Jesus' name will be your soul's best music, and His person your dear delight. Socrates used to say, "Philosophers can be happy without music;" and Christians can be happier than philosophers when all outward causes of rejoicing are withdrawn. In Thee, my God, my heart shall triumph, come what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed Spirit, my heart shall be exceeding glad, though all things should fail me here below. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

His eyes were still closed and his body rocked gently to the music, but his face was almost ... desolate. His words matched his face, as he sang about how each day was a struggle, and never seeing my face caused him physical pain. He sang that "my face was his light, and he felt drenched in darkness without it." Tears fell freely after I heard that line. — S.C. Stephens

By our Heavenly Father and only because of God, only because of God. We're like other couples. We do not get along perfectly; we do not go without arguments and, as I call them, fights, and heartache and pain and hurting each other. But a marriage is three of us. — Barbara Mandrell

HAPPY EVER AFTER is a concept I'll never believe in. I would be content to sample some little taste of happiness today, tonight, right now. Though I know without a doubt that tomorrow will come saturated with pain. Life is like that. At least my life. And honestly, I cant think of anyone whose life is any different. The price tag for joy is misery. [ ... ] — Ellen Hopkins

Our Ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles.

One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal.

One cannot live without the other, each is the other's hope, meaning & strength. — Gemma B. Benton

when you get up every day, remember your time is the most precious asset you have and you are taking a step forward to reclaim your freedom. You are pushing against the drag that holds you back. Be cognizant of the price you may have to pay to achieve your goals. Know that these are down payments into the new and free you. Celebrate them. Without the pain, there is no coming alive. — K.J. Kilton

If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time. Some — Thich Nhat Hanh

Carl Jung never said: "There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
What Dr. Jung said in two separate and unrelated statements was:
Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain. ~Carl Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology, P. 193
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 99. — C. G. Jung

We should listen less to the opinions of those who either overtly promote or stubbornly reject complementary and alternative medicine without acceptable evidence. The many patients who use complementary and alternative medicine deserve better. Patients and healthcare providers need to know which forms are safe and effective. Its future should (and hopefully will) be determined by unbiased scientific evaluation. — Edzard Ernst

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without. — Robert Penn Warren

NICUs are like the bowels of the technological underworld. They are places where infants are literally held captive for weeks and months and subjected to all manner of painful and torturous medical procedures, most of the time without being given any form of pain relief whatsoever. — Jeanice Barcelo

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened the next tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss ... — Robert Browning

People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change. — Anthony De Mello

For he alone, as the only all-gracious Son of an all-gracious Father, in accordance with the purpose of his Father's benevolence, has willingly put on the nature of us who lay prostrate in corruption, and like some excellent physician, who for the sake of saving them that are ill, examines their sufferings, handles their foul sores, and reaps pain for himself from the miseries of another, so us who were not only diseased and afflicted with terrible ulcers and wounds already mortified, but were even lying among the dead, he has saved for himself from the very jaws of death. For none other of those in heaven had such power as without harm to minister to the salvation of so many. — Eusebius

Some words we use all the time are difficult to define when we actually have to think about them. We use the word "evil" all the time but when asked to define what we are talking about, it can be quite difficult.

Think about evil as you would think of counterfeit currency. A counterfeit is the corruption of something real. You can have real currency without the existence of any counterfeits. You cannot, however, have counterfeits without the real thing existing first. Evil is dependent on the existence of goodness but goodness is not dependent on evil. Goodness was there first. It is an absolute. Evil must always be thought of in relationship with absolute goodness. — Jon Morrison

Bound for your distant home"

Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I've known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, 'When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.'

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me ....... — Alexander Pushkin

It is possible to avoid pain? Yes, but you'll never learn anything. Is it possible to know something without ever having experiencing it? Yes, but it will never truly be part of you. — Paulo Coelho

The sun had burned off whatever morning fog and low clouds had gripped the city, and now a glorious fall day was upon them. Warm sunlight caressed his face as cool ocean breezes carried the sound of gulls and the tang of salt. He remembered the stab of pain he had felt when he had thought he would not see the day, and the terror and panic that had gripped him as rough hands had placed him upon the gallows returned. Erik felt a choking sensation in his own chest, and suddenly, without any ability to control it, he began to weep. Roo — Raymond E. Feist

It wasn't until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can't be as bad as that workout. — Henry Rollins

I don't even know how to thank you, Gavin. You've accepted me with every fragile weakness I have, loving me no less than a woman without faults. A woman without fears. Every look, touch, and kiss you've given without judgment of any kind. You've healed every exposed wound, old scar, and piece of pain I brought into this relationship without expecting anything in return. You've shown me what a racing heart feels like, shown me mere thoughts could easily cease with a single kiss. You've shown me what it is to feel truly, wholeheartedly, until the end of time loved. How do I thank you for all of this? — Gail McHugh

In the central cases of physical pain, then, it appears that at least part of what is bad about our condition is the way it makes us feel. Here there seem to be no problems with a purely mental state account, no counterpart to the experience machine that could bring us to think that we are being deceived by mere appearances. [ ... ] If I am suffering physical pain then I can be quite wrong about the organic cause of my affliction, or even about whether it has one, without that error diminishing in the slightest either the reality of my pain or its impact on the quality of my life. — L. W. Sumner

So we may well believe that the King's men were shriven on the night before they fought. Something of the young man's vision had penetrated to his captains and his soldiers. Something of the new ideal of the Round Table which was to be born in pain, something about doing a hateful and dangerous action for the sake of decency
for they knew that the fight was to be fought in blood and death without reward. They would get nothing but the unmarketable conscience of having done what they ought to do in spite of fear
something which wicked people have often debased by calling it glory with too much sentiment, but which is glory all the same. This idea was in the hearts of the young men who knelt before the God-distributing bishops
knowing that the odds were three to one, and that their own warm bodies might be cold at sunset. — T.H. White

Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which leaves you gasping from shock and laughing moments later: this is both the beauty and unique nature of her storytelling. With brilliance and courage, the author's brave and candid chronicle travels where no other memoir about mental illness and addiction has gone before. The Third Sunrise is an incredible triumph and Natalie Jeanne Champagne is without a doubt the most important new voice in this genre. — Andy Behrman

I certainly couldn't have survived my childhood without books. All that deprivation and pain
abuse, broken home, a runaway sister, a brother with cancer
the books allowed me to withstand. They sustained me. I read still, prolifically, with great passion, but never like I read in those days: in those days it was life or death. — Junot Diaz

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta

I can feel sympathy for his loss and his pain without affecting who I am and my opposition to all that Viktor Kain is and stands for. When we lose our empathy for others and allow our enmity to spiral downward and twist into mindless hate, we are no better than the Viktor Kains of the world. Compassion is our strength, not our weakness." She paused. "And it is a treasure that is meant to be shared. Do you understand? — Lisa Shearin

But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's a great shame, she thinks, that the heart cannot feel joy without also feeling pain, that it cannot know love without also knowing loss. — Menna Van Praag

Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space. — Chuck Palahniuk

A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn't find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me. — Haruki Murakami

It can be a great temptation to rest on the field and let the opponent have a play without making him pay for every inch. I must hold his pain where it is. Mine does not matter ... The punishment I inflict, his fatigue, and that he is up against something that he does not comprehend is everything. — Jim Harbaugh

Life's uncontrollable, unpredictable, and a hell of a mess. Without fear, loss, and the wrong choice we made, we wouldn't be who we were. And while some of our decisions had broken us, the pain glued us together. Without the passion, we wouldn't have surrendered and conquered what we never thought could be ours. — J.C. Reed