Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It’s a painful religion. We’re all gluttons for punishment.

Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.

Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.

Yet all three animals were keyed to a tenseness of living that was almost painful, and scarcely ever would it come to them to be more alive than they were then in their seeming petrifaction.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

I spent my twenties not really participating in the work force in any real way. I acted a tiny bit, but that was just because it was the only way I knew how to make money, and I sublet my apartment and lived in the woods and just tried to figure out who I was and what I wanted, what my real desire was and not just what I was used to doing, and it was a really confusing and painful, but really rich and amazing time.

When people are struggling, thats a painful place to be in, to not know who you are and where you belong and what you desire.

Memories have to be our most painful blessing.

It’s not a small world! It’s a painful, ugly world!

A lengthy and painful discussion followed. It lasted through tea and dinner. It was revealed to Lady Beatrice that, though she had been sincerely mourned when Mamma had been under the impression she was dead, her unexpected return to life was something more than inconvenient. Had she never considered the disgrace she would inflict upon her family by returning, after all that had happened to her? What were all Aunt Harriet’s neighbors to think?

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans – anything except reason

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.

He had learned to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future.

There was a lot of pain, and a lot of disappointment. I felt like I was not only disappointing myself and my spouse, but all the people who’d hung a lot of hope on us. I felt like a complete loser and failure.

If we can have drones, we can have brown people on TV, and the world won’t end! We need to catch up. We are painfully behind.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage

The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

Imaginary pains are by far the most real we suffer, since we feel a constant need for them and invent them because there is no way of doing without them.

Failure is painful when your opponent is laughing, but there is a pride in facing defeat without running away.

Remember that you will never reach a higher standard than you yourself set. Then set your mark high, and step by step, even though it be by painful effort, by self-denial and sacrifice, ascend the whole length of the ladder of progress.

They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. 

I’ll take one shot for my pain One drag for my sorrow Get messed up today I’ll be ok tomorrow

Pain is part of the sport.

We take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy than in endeavoring to think so ourselves

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

To say “no” is painful, but much better than a “yes” that brings regrets.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.

My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh.

Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease from pain.

I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed most cruel to me he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest tenderest love has been manifested to me.

Courage is not limited to the battlefield or the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody’s looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you’re misunderstood.

I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.

You in the club just to party. I’m there, I get paid a fee.

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

The enemy of development is this pain phobia – the unwillingness to do a tiny bit of suffering

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her feel alive, because it was worth feeling.

For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety.