Return
Home
The
Credits
The
Cast
Act
1
Act
2
Act
3
The
Reviews
     
 

PACIFISM --- PAIN

.
.
.

PACIFISM

see: "DIPLOMACY"
see: "FOREIGN POLICY"
see: "ISOLATION"
see: "NEUTRALITY"
see: "PEACE"
see: "WAR & PEACE" for other related links

-

History, and religious and moral opinion, have so
enshrined Gandhi in this sacred matrix that in many
quarters it is blasphemous to question whether this
entire procedure of passive resistance was not simply
the only intelligent, realistic, expedient program
which Gandhi had at his disposal; and that the
"morality" that surrounded this policy ... was to
a large degree a rationale to cloak a pragmatic
program with a desired and essential moral cover.

... Gandhi did not have the guns, and if he had had
the guns, he would not have had the people to use
the guns. Gandhi records in his _Autobiography_
his astonishment at the passivity and submissiveness
of his people in not retaliating or even wanting
revenge against the British.

... The contention that it was a pragmatic, rather than
a principled decision, is based on the Declaration of
Independence of Mahatma Gandhi issued on January
26, 1930, where he discussed "the fourfold disaster to
our country." His fourth indictment against the British
reads: "Spiritually, compulsive disarmament has made
us unmanly, and the presence of an alien army of
occupation, employed with deadly effect to crush in us
the spirit of resistance, has made us think we cannot ...
even defend our homes and families ..." These words
more than suggest that if Gandhi had had the weapons
for violent resistance and the people to use them this
means would not have been so unreservedly rejected
as the world would like to think.

--Saul Alinsky (1909—1972)
American community organizer and writer.
_Rules for Radicals_ [1971], Vintage Books, pp. 38-9

& note:

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,
history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole
nation of arms, as the blackest.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
_An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth_, p. 446 [1927]

-

-

Timur returned to Khorasan with a fixed
purpose of taking revenge on [the city of] Seistan
whose inhabitants went out to him asking for
peace and agreement, which he granted them on
condition that they should hand over their arms
to him, of which they produced the whole
equipment which they had, hoping in this way
to escape from their extremity; and he put them
on oath and ordered them to swear plainly that
no further weapons were left in the city.

And as soon as they had given this guarantee, he
drew the sword against them and billeted upon
them all the armies of death. Then he laid the
city waste, leaving in it not a tree or a wall and
destroyed it utterly, no mark or trace remaining.

--Ahmed Ibn Arabshah (1388—1450)
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_, p. 256 [2004].

-

[Refusing to be drafted to fight in Vietnam:]
I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.
--Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay) (b. 1942)
American heavyweight boxer.
At a press conference in Miami, Florida [February 1966].

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.
--Hilaire Belloc (1870—1953)
British poet, essayist, historian, and novelist.
"The Pacifist" [1938]

Resist not evil: but whoever shall smite thee
on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
--Bible
"Matthew" 5:39

I fear War more than Fascism.
--Vera Brittain (1893—1970)
English writer.
March 1936, as quoted in _Vera Brittain: A
Feminist Life_ by Deborah Gorham [2000 ed.].
(Brittain had campaigned against British
rearmament, which finally began in 1935.)

-

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."

I didn't raise my son to be a soldier
To go fighting in some far-off foreign land
He may get killed before he's any older
For a cause that he will never understand
Why should he fight another rich man's battle
While they stay at home and while their time away
Let those with most to lose
Fight each other if they choose
For I didn't raise my son to be a soldier

I didn't raise my son to be a soldier
To go fighting heathens round the Horn
If God required to prove that boys are bolder
They'd have uniforms and guns when they were born
Why should we have wars about religion
When Jesus came to teach us not to kill
Do Zulus and Hindoos
Not have the right to choose
For I didn't raise my son to be a soldier

I didn't raise my son to be a soldier
I raised him up to be a gentleman
To find a sweet young girl and love and hold her
Bring me some grandchildren when they can
Why can't we decide that the Empire
Is just as large as it requires to be
And I'd rather lose it all
Than to see my laddie fall
For I didn't raise my son to be a soldier

--Alfred Bryan, 'I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be a Soldier’
Sung by Cecilia John (1877—1955) in Australian Women’s Peace Army
anti-war demostrations until banned by the Australian Government
under the Australian War Precautions Act of 1915.

-

For the best part of twenty years the youth of Britain and America have
been taught that war was evil, which is true, and that it would never
come again, which has been proved false. For the best part of twenty
years, the youth of Germany, of Japan and Italy, have been taught that
aggressive war is the noblest duty of the citizen and that it should be
begun as soon as the necessary weapons and organization have been
made. We have performed the duties and tasks of peace. They have
plotted and planned for war. This naturally has placed us, in Britain,
and now places you in the United States at a disadvantage which only
time, courage and untiring exertion can correct.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55].
Speech to the United States Congress [26 December 1941].

[W]hen Hitler overran the Netherlands and forced
the surrender of France, Congress passed a law
conscripting young men for a year's training. When,
in August 1941, this draft act was about to expire,
Roosevelt wanted it renewed. The isolationists
raised a storm against him, partly from disillusion
with the last American effort to "save the world
for democracy"; partly from the conviction that
to go into Europe again would, as one Senator
put it, "plow under every fourth American boy";
partly from a deep resentment at Roosevelt's
secret order to the Navy to convoy Allied
merchantmen. The United States was, in truth,
very nearly a secret belligerent. The Germans
knew it, and so did the Congress. In August 1941
the House Armed Services Committee met to
hold hearings on extending the draft and to bring
the question of the war-making power to a
showdown. Things were going very badly for the
Administration till at last it brought up its big
gun: the Army Chief of Staff, General George
Catlett Marshall, a flinty lifetime soldier as
impressive for his restraint under a bombardment
of rhetoric as he was for the disheartening
statistics he quoted. (It was Marshall who publicly
equated the American army with the standing army
of Sweden.) It is probable that, without him,
the United States would have found itself four
months later with nothing but its small volunteer
army. For, when the renewal act went to the
floor of the House, it was passed by 203 to 202.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]

-

I doubt whether any of these people [pacifists], with their academic
or dogmatic hatred of war, detest it as much as I do. They probably
have not seen bodies rotting on the ground and smelled the stench
of decaying human flesh.

[...] What separates me from the pacifists is that I hate the Nazis
more than I hate war.

--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890—1969)
American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII,
NATO commander, American President [1953-61].
Letter to Arthur Eisenhower [18 June 1943].

-

A pacifism which can see the cruelties only of occasional
military warfare and is blind to the continuous cruelties
of our social system is worthless.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule.
Quoted in Richard Paul Janaro & Darwin
E. Gearhart _Human Worth_ [1973].

That this House will in no circumstances
fight for its King and Country.
--D.M. Graham (1911—1999)
Oxford pacifist.
(Motto worded by Graham for a debate at the Oxford Union
[9 February 1933]; passed by 275 votes to 153 - ODTQ.)

He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the
pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world
safer for children to grow up in.
--Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
American writer.
_The Lathe of Heaven_ [1971]

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by
his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them
for the injury.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_, ch. I "Introductory" [1859]

There are historic situations in which refusal to defend
the inheritance of civilization, however imperfect, against
tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even
worse than war.
--Reinhold Niebuhr (1892—1971)
American theologian.
In D. B. Robertson (ed.) _Love and Justice: Selections from
the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr_ [1957, 1976 ed.].

For forty-some years the ban-the-bomb bums, unilateral disarmament
goonies, nuclear-freeze sleaze, peace creeps, and no-nukes kooks
bragged about the horrors of atomic war. There was no end to their
end of the world. They painstakingly detailed Armageddon, polished
the Apocalypse, rubbed and loved a radioactive holocaust that made
the Jonathan Edwards sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
sound like a vacation postcard from Cozumel. "Better red than dead!"
they shrieked. They could have gone to Stalin's Russia, Mao's China,
or Pol Pot's Cambodia and been both.
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
_The CEO of the Sofa_ [2001]

-

[Of Britain's pacifists in 1942:]
Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary
common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one
side, you automatically help out that of the other.
Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such
a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not
with me is against me.'
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
In _All Propaganda Is Lies 1941-1942_, ed. by Peter Davison [1998].


The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects
or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and
prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there
is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted
motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration
of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying
that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the
writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not
by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost
entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do
not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used
in defense of western countries.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
"Notes on Nationalism" [May 1945]

-

-

Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good
unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes
a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and
sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or
anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the
oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no
less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a
man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see
those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to
exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and
this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth
of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged
indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the
deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech [1910]


The pacifist is surely a traitor to his country and
to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
In a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [27 July 1917].

-

The pacifist thinks that the alternative to war is
peace; it is not. Sometimes the alternative is
oppression. Sometimes certain God-given rights
and liberties can be preserved only by resistance
to that which would destroy them. And to defend
certain basic God-given rights and liberties is not
immoral but righteous.
--Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979)
Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular
preacher to appear on television.
_A Declaration Of Dependance_ [1941]

I renounce war and never again will
I support or sanction another.
--Rev. Dick Sheppard (1880—1937)
English Anglican priest and pacifist.
In a [16 October 1934] letter to the _Manchester
Guardian_ which invited readers to send a postcard
with the identical message - 100,000 Britons did so.

For God's sake, do not drag me into another war! ... I am sorry
for the Spaniards — I am sorry for the Greeks — I deplore the
fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning
under the most detestable tyranny; Baghdad is oppressed — I do
not like the present state of the Delta — Tibet is not comfortable.
Am I to fight for all these people? ... Am I to be champion of the
Decalogue and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make
all men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and
I am afraid the consequence will be that we shall cut each other's
throats. No war, dear Lady Grey! no eloquence; but apathy,
selfishness, common sense, arithmetic!
--Sydney Smith (1771—1845)
English clergyman and essayist; in 1802 cofounded "The Edinburgh Review."
Letter to Lady Grey [19 February 1823].

... However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to
understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all
wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there
should be room for national, or communist, self-determination
in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular
clarity. But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound
up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in
a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million
people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans
coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility
today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia
lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come
much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of
this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam
capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause;
however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That
small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize
the nation's courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real
defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West
hope to stand firm in the future?
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918—2008)
Russian novelist.
Speech at Harvard University [1978].

-

(BATTERED SOUL comes in, supported by
two angels)

GOD: In my name, what happened to you? Did
you run into a comet on your way up?

BATTERED SOUL: No, Lord. I'm a pacifist.

GOD: A what?

BATTERED SOUL: A pacifist. I believe in Jesus
and peace.

GOD: So you are a Christian?

BATTERED SOUL: O, no. I really do believe in
peace.

--C. E. S. Wood (1852—1944)
American author, civil libertarian, and soldier.
_Heavenly Discourse_ [1927] "A Pacifist Enters Heaven—In Bits"

-

The high contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of
their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for
the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as
an instrument of national policy in their relations with one
another.
--Kellogg-Briand Pact, Article 1, signed in Paris [27 August 1928].
The Pact had 64 signatures, including Japan, Germany & Italy.


TOPICAL

Peace is what those (true pacifists) are struggling for and there
can be no nobler goal than this, but may I ask one questions here?

Where do you live!? A stupid and irrelevant question? I don't think
so. Which peace are you seeking? Yours or that of the world, and
which order you are trying to maintain? That of your countries or of
the whole world? Do you really think that it's such a wonderful and
peaceful world that no one should be allowed to mess with? [...]

Just think again about all the pain and sufferings in this world and
this time imagine yourself picking the bones of your sons, daughters
or brothers from a mass grave after loosing their track in a dark
night 20 or 30 years ago and knowing that they didn't even die
peacefully, NO, they were tortured, raped and treated like animals
and forced to beg for mercy to have it as a bullet in the head. This
happened, and not only in Iraq and is still happening elsewhere in
this ‘wonderful' world. [...]

I hope you have a stronger heart as you explain to those people that
you stood against their salvation and allowed their misery to
continue because you think your politicians lied to you about the
reasons for this war. Try to tell them that this was the doing
of America not Saddam and that's why you stood against her when
she tried to remove him and give them freedom AND peace, the
peace of mind and heart!!

Again my stupid question: where do you live? As we, who support
this war against dictatorship and terrorism, live in this world, this
ugly world we are trying to change as persistently as you try to
keep it as it is with the same strength and persistence. So… where
do you live?

--"Ali"
"A stupid question"
[31 March 2004]

-

... I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest,
and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness
the usual opportunists--or better the usual parasites--exploit the word
Peace. That in the name of the word Peace, by now more debauched
than the words Love and Humanity, they absolve one side alone of its
hate and bestiality. That in the name of a pacifism (read conformism)
delegated to the singing crickets and buffoons who used to lick Pol
Pot's feet they incite people who are confused or ingenuous or
intimidated. Trick them, corrupt them, carry them back a half century
to the time of the yellow star on the coat. These charlatans who care
about the Palestinans as much as I care about the charlatans. That is
not at all.
--Oriana Fallaci (1929—2006)
Italian journalist and author.
"I Stand with Israel: I Stand with the Jews"
Originally published in _Corriere della Sera_ [2002]

-

The artists, musicians, and entertainers have also railed against
the war. In the therapeutic mindset, the refinement and talent
of a Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Bruce Springsteen,
or John Fogerty earn respect when they weigh in on matters
of state policy.

But in the tragic view, they can be little more than puppets of
inspiration. Their natural gifts are not necessarily enriched by
real education or learning. Indeed, they are just as likely to be
high-school or college dropouts and near illiterates, albeit with
good memories, voices, and looks. The present antics of these
influential millionaire entertainers should remind us why Plato
banished them — worried that we might confuse the inspired
creative frenzies of the artisans with some sort of empirical
knowledge. But you can no more sing, or write, or act al
Qaeda away than the equally sensitive novelists and
intellectuals of the 1930s or 1940s could rehabilitate Stalin.

--Victor Davis Hanson (b. 1953)
American military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
"The Therapeutic Choice" [15 October 2004]

-

... Confronted with such a foe — which gladly murders
Algerians and Egyptians and Palestinians if they have
any doubts about the true faith, or if they happen to
be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, or
if they happen to be female — exactly what role does
a "peace movement" have to play? A year or so ago,
the "peace movement" was saying that Afghanistan
could not even be approached without risking the
undying enmity of the Muslim world; that the
Taliban could not be bombed during Ramadan; that
a humanitarian disaster would occur if the Islamic
ultra- fanatics were confronted in their own lairs.
Now we have an imperfect but recovering Afghanistan,
with its population increased by almost two million
returned refugees. Have you ever seen or heard any
of those smart-ass critics and cynics make a self-
criticism? Or recant?
--Christopher Hitchens (1949—2011)
British journalist, author, and literary critic.
"Chew On This My Leftist Comrades" [21 January 2003]




PAIN

.
.

see: "CRUELTY"
see: "GRIEF"
see: "HEALTH"
see: "HURTING (SOMEONE)"
see: "MISERY"
see: "PUNISHMENT"
see: "SICKNESS"
see: "SORROW"
see: "SUFFERING"
see: "UNHAPPINESS"

-

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in
the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky
and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me
most were the very things that connected me with all the people
who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
--James Baldwin (1924—1987)
American author and playwright.
Quoted in "Life" (mag.) [24 May 1963].

& note:

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person
who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by
human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll
be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been
just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.
Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll
learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have
something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's
a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's
history. It's poetry.
--J.D. Salinger (1919—2010)
American novelist and short-story writer.
_Catcher in the Rye_ [1951], ch. 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini.

-

Pain, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a
physical basis in something that is being done to the body,
or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of
another.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Devil's Dictionary_ [1911]

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him;
he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case
of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any
considerable time.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.
_A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our
Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful_ [1756]

[Describing what labor pains feel like:]
Take your bottom lip and pull it over your head.
--Carol Burnett (b. 1933)
American television actress.
Quoted by Bill Cosby in _Fatherhood_[1986].

Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal
your energy and keep you from love.
--attributed to Leo [Felice Leonardo] Buscaglia (1925—1998)
American professor and author of inspirational books.

Courage takes many forms. There is physical courage,
there is moral courage. Then there is a still higher type
of courage — the courage to brave pain, to live with it,
to never let others know of it and to still find joy in life;
to wake up in the morning with an enthusiasm for the
day ahead.
--Howard Cosell (1918—1995)
American sports journalist and author.
_Like It Is_ [1974]

There is no greater pain than to recall the happy time in misery.
--Dante Alighieri (1265—1321)
Italian poet, literary theorist, and moral philosopher.
_La Divina Commedia_ (The Divine Comedy), canto 5, l. 121 [c. 1310-21]

^

Alexander Procofieff De Serversky (1894—1974)
Russian-born American aviator and aeronautical
engineer.

De Serversky was visiting a fellow aviator in the
hospital. The young man had just had his leg
amputated; de Serversky, who had been walking
on an artificial limb for some time, tried to cheer
him up. 'The loss of a leg is not so great a calamity,'
he said. 'Look at me, I dance, I fly, I drive a car, I
go everywhere. And another thing: if you get hit
on a wooden leg it doesn't hurt a bit! Try it!' The
patient raised his walking-stick and brought it
down on de Serversky's leg with considerable
force. 'You see,' said de Serversky cheerfully. 'If
you hit an ordinary man like that, he'd be in bed
for five days.' With these words he took leave
of the young man and limped out into the corridor,
where he collapsed in excruciating pain. The
aviator had struck him on his good leg.

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
--Emily Dickinson (1830—1886)
American poet.
In "Poems, First Series" [1890].

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large
intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men
must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821—1881),
Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer.
_Crime and Punishment_, ch. V, pt. III [1866]

Listen, you son of a bitch, life isn't all a godamn
football game! You won't always get the girl!
Life is rejection and pain and loss.
--Frederick Exley (1929—1992)
Amerian author.
_A Fan's Notes_ [1968]

If I were to choose between pain and
nothing, I would always choose pain.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
_The Wild Palms_ [1939]

This hurts me more than you.
--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]

^

Bret Harte (1836—1902)
American writer.

Bret Harte once attended a lecture in Richmond, Virginia,
suffering from a miserable headache. Afterward, to clear
his head, he took a walk with a Richmond friend, who
expatiated on the city's wholesome air and location,
adding proudly that its mortality statistics reflected
only one death per day. Harte, still in agony with his
headache, exclaimed, 'Heavens, let's hope today's
candidate is already dead.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Love causes more pain than pleasure. Pleasure is only
illusory. Reason would command us to avoid love, if
it were not for the fatal sexual impulse — therefore
it were best to be castrated.
--Karl von Hartmann (1842—1906)
German metaphysical philosopher.
_Philosophe des Unbewursten_ [1869]

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have
insight into much and power over nothing.
--Herodotus (484—c.425 BC)
Greek author of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world.
Attributed in Connie Robertson
_The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 168 [1998].

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is
unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of
much praise.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Francis Hopkinson [13 March 1789].

It's odd that you can get so anesthetized by your own
pain or your own problem that you don't quite fully
share the hell of someone close to you.
--Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson (1912—2007)
First Lady of the U.S. [1963—1969].
_A White House Diary_ [1970]

The trick is not how much pain you feel — but
how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain.
Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not
to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.
--Erica Jong (b. 1942)
American novelist.
_How To Save Your Own Life_ [1977]

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent
him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and
appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the
words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses!
How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths
of affliction!
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
In an address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural
Society, Milwaukee, Wis. [30 September 1859].

It is a curious phenomenon of the human mind ... that
past pain is painless in recall, but pleasure past and
lost is excruciating to remember.
--Judith Merril (1923—1997)
American science fiction author, anthologist, and humanist.
_Daughters of Earth_ [1968]

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to
say that he is one who never inflicts pain.
--John Henry Newman (1801—1890)
English theologian and leader of the
Oxford movement, later Cardinal.
_The Idea of a University_ [1873], Discourse V, pt. VIII

There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined,
or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his
way and deteriorated.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_Beyond Good and Evil_ [1887]

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you:
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
"Rιsumι" [1926]

Often the most loving thing we can do when a friend
is in pain is to share the pain – to be there even when
we have nothing to offer except our presence and
even when being there is painful to ourselves.
--Scott Peck (1936—2005)
American author.
_The Different Drum_, p. 97 [1987]

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne;
no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
--William Penn (1644—1718)
Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw
the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as
a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe.
"No Cross, No Crown" [1669 pamphlet]

[Explaining why he still painted when his hands were twisted with arthritis:]
The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
--Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841—1919)
French painter.
Quoted in Sisley Huddleston _Paris Salons, Cafιs, Studios_ [1928].

Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is
increased; thus do we refute entropy.
--Spider Robinson (b. 1948)
American-born Canadian science fiction author.
_The Callahan Chronicals_, pt. 6 "Earth and Beyond" [1997]

The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.
"Personality, or What a Man Is" in
_The Wisdom of Life; Counsels and Maxims_ [tr. by T. Bailey Saunders, 1890].

-

One pain lessened by another's anguish.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Romeo and Juliet_, I, ii [1595-96]


For there was never yet a philosopher that
could endure the toothache patiently.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Much Ado About Nothing_, V, i [1598-99]

-

Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.
--William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
Irish poet and dramatist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
"Vacillation" in _The Winding Stair and Other Poems_ [1933]

-

They do say, Mrs M, that verbal insults hurt more than
physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will
soon discover when I stick this toasting fork into your
head.
--dialogue, "Sense and Senility" Black Adder [Edmund]

-----

anodyne [AN-uh-dyn], adjective:
1. Serving to relieve pain; soothing.
2. Not likely to offend; bland; innocuous.
noun:
1. A medicine that relieves pain.
2. Anything that calms, comforts, or soothes disturbed feelings.

enervate (verb) ['en-κr-veyt]
Deprive someone of vitality or energy.

excruciate (verb) [ek-'skru-shi-eyt]
To inflict severe physical or mental pain
on; torture physically or mentally.

impassible [im-PASS-uh-buhl], adjective:
1. Incapable of suffering; not subject to harm or pain.
2. Unfeeling or not showing feeling.

schadenfreude (noun) ['shahd-n-froi-dκ]
Pleasure in the misfortune of others.


end page



| PACIFISM - PAIN | PAINTING - PARENTING | PARIS - PASSPORTS | PAST (THE) - PATRIOTISM | PEACE - PERCENTAGES | PEOPLE | PERCEPTIONS - PERSUASION | PESSIMISM - PHILOSOPHY | PHONIES - PHYSICS | PIANO - PLANS | PLACES | PLANTS - POETRY | POISON - POLITICAL PARTIES | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 1 A - L) | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 2 M - Z) | POLLS - POPES | POPEYE - POTENTIAL | POVERTY | POWER | PRACTICALITY - PRAYER | PREACHERS - PREPARED (BE) | PRESENT (THE) - (THE) PRESS | PRETENSION - PRIVACY | PROBLEMS - PROGRESSIVES | PROGRESS - PROPAGANDA | PROPOSALS - PUBLIC (THE) | PUBLIC OPINION - PUNCTUATION | PUNISHMENT - PURPOSE | QUALITIES - QUIPS | QUIRKS - QUOTATIONS |
| H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q |
| Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews |
 
     



Copyright © 2012, someworthwhilequotes.com. All rights reserved.