Miscellany - A little of everything.

Sometimes we all forget just how great we are (and there are far too few people who remind us of that fact).

You're only given a little spark of madness. You musn't lose it. (Robin Williams)

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.  (Albert Einstein)

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. (Carl Zwanzig)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. (Salvor Hardin)

Ohhh! The Infinite Value of the Humble Gospel Helpers!  Thousands of people who have no gifts as leaders are Number One Helpers. How grand revival work moves along when Red-Hot Platoons of Fire-Baptized Helpers crowd around God's Heroic Leaders of the Embattled Host!  (Brother Godbey)

No gift that serves others is little.

One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop. (G.M. Weilacher)

Here are we -- and yonder yawns the universe. (H.P. Lovecraft)

Don't be too worthwhile. Always keep a few character defects handy. People love to talk about your frailties. If you must be noble, keep it to yourself. (Edward D. Stone)

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

God gives and forgives, people get and forget.

You know you're in trouble when the strange noise from your car is the mechanic laughing underneath it. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Football combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings. (George Will)

It is a happy talent to know how to play. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Drive On. We'll sweep up the blood later! (Katherine Hepburn)

It has been my experience that people who have no vices have very few virtues. (Abraham Lincoln)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Edmund Burke)

Only when we walk in the dark can we see the stars.

A man said to the Universe, "Sir, I exist!"

"However," the Universe replied, "The fact has not created within me a sense of obligation."

Has it ever occured to you that there might be a difference between having an open mind and having holes in one's head? (Richard Schultz)

We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and.' (Sir Arthur Eddington)

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough. (Bede Jarrett)

When the game is done, the King and the Pawn go into the same box. (Italian Proverb)

"If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee."  (Lady Astor to Winston Churchill)

"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."  (Winston Churchill, in reply)

Die, v.:  To stop sinning suddenly. (Elbert Hubbard)

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live. (Henry Van Dyke)

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. (Mark Twain)

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. (Galileo Galilei)

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? (Kelvin Throop III)

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. (Samuel Johnson)

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. (Chinese Proverb)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward. (Baltasar Gracian)

Whines are the product of sour grapes.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but one capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Remember - if it never rained, there would be no rainbows.

Three Wise Women Would Have...

Asked directions,

Arrive on time,

Helped deliver the baby,

Cleaned the stable,

Made a casserole,

Brought practical gifts and

There would be Peace on Earth.

I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. (Donald Trump)

A good neighbor doubles the value of a house.

I saw the lightning's gleaming rod

Reach forth and write upon the sky

The awful autograph of God.

(Joaquin Miller, "The Ship in the Desert")

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. (Mark Twain)

"Hallo, Rabbit," [Pooh] said, "is that you?"

"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens." (A. A. Milne)

There wouldn't be a sky full of stars if we were all meant to wish on the same one. (Frances Clark)

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. (Turkish Proverb)

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.

An after-dinner speech is like the horns of a bull - with a point here... and a point there... and an awful lot of bull in between. (Castilian Proverb)

The history of the world is but the biography of great men. (Thomas Carlyle)

A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water. (Nancy Reagan or Carl Sandburg)

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. (Mark Twain)

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

The wits of the wise the brew can beguile; and make the sage frolic, and make the sad smile. (Homer)

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid manikin. (Twinkle, twinkle, little star.)

KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland. (Ambrose Beirce)

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter. (Winston Churchill, on his eightieth birthday)

Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Do what good you can today - you may not be here tomorrow.

God made the world round so we can never see too far down the road.

When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.

There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway. (Mark Burnett)

A peacock that rests on his feathers is just another turkey. (Dolly Parton)

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively. (Mel Brooks)

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." ~Henry David Thoreau

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. (William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar)

"My teeth are tingling again. I feel like I've just got to bite somebody before sundown or I shall go stark raving mad. And yet I know that society frowns on such an action. So what happens? I'm stuck with tingly teeth." (Snoopy, YAGMCB)

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. (H.L. Mencken)

The discovery in 1846 of the planet Neptune was a dramatic and spectacular achievement of mathematical astronomy. The very existence of this new member of the solar system, and its exact location, were demonstrated with pencil and paper; there was left to observers only the routine task of pointing their telescopes at the spot the mathematicians had marked. (James R. Newman)

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I'm with you kid. Let's go." (Maya Angelou)

Glitter is the herpes of the craft world

Life can be understood backward; but must be lived forward. (Soren Aabye Kierkegaard)

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." Quote from Mary Shelly's troubled Frankenstein's Monster


Better than I deserve (Dave Ramsey)

When the wonders of science and the mysteries of faith

come together, a miracle is born -- Hope.

Respect is when I can look up to you, but you never look down on me.

I wish the buck stopped here. I sure could use a few...

The man who runs in front of the car gets tired.

The man who runs behind the car gets exhausted.

Get in the car!

Kids in the back seat cause accidents;

Accidents in the back seat cause kids.

I like cats, too. Let's exchange recipes.

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. (Dean Inge)

Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity. (Don Cupitt)

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. (T.S. Elliot)

The best fame is a writer's fame: it's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough that you get interrupted when you eat. (Fran Lebowitz)

We must travel in the direction of our fear. (John Berryman)

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. (Vaclav Havel)

Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. (Alfred North Whitehead)

It is better to wear out than to rust out. (Bishop Richard Cumberland)

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. (Richard Dawkins)

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. (R.D. Lang)

Someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. (J. M. Barrie)

Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television. (Gore Vidal)

Laughter, Joy, and Happiness

Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is. (Maxim Gorky)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. (Dalai Lama)

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig

Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around. ~E.L. Konigsburg

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

When you laugh,

Peace and Joy will flatter your soul.

(Cindy Black, Laugh at the Devil)

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

If things get any better, I may have to hire somebody to help me enjoy it!

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling. (Margaret Lee Runbeck)

Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. (Alan Alda)

There should be something joyous that people see in us that causes them to want the joy we have in us for themselves.

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it.

If you learn to laugh at yourself, you will always have something to make you happy.

The human race has one really effective weapon: laughter. There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all.

A smile is the whisper of a laugh.

He who laughs, lasts.

Earth laughs in flowers. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. (e e cummings)

My brethren, count it all joy.... (James 1:2)

The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like anything. (Mark Twain)

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp on life. (Hugh Sidney)

Laughter is the closest distance between two people. (Victor Borge)

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive. (Mel Brooks)

Someone has said that there are only two kinds of people in the world---- There are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good Morning, Lord," and there are those who wake up  in the morning and say, "Good Lord, it's morning. (Unknown)

You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. (Michael Pritchard)

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. (Ghose Aurobindo)

When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies. (J. M. Barrie)

I have drunken deep of joy,

And I will taste no other wine tonight.

(Shelley, "The Cenci")

I am light as a feather, I am happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. (Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol)

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane. (Jimmy Buffett)

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think. (Clarence Darrow)

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. (Abraham Lincoln)

If you can make a woman laugh, you're seeing the most beautiful thing on Earth. (Keanu Reaves)

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. (Garrison Keiller)

There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them. (Werner Karl Heisenberg)

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. (Guillaume Apollinaire)

A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather. (Benjamin Franklin)

She had a great laugh. It sang. There's something so freeing about laughing with someone. It opens invisible doors. (Martha Manning)

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful. (Bob Hope)

The sound of laughter has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the universe. (Peter Ustinov)

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses. (Russell Baker)

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention. (Greg Anderson)

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. (Clive James)

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can:  all of them make me laugh. (W.H. Auden)

A good laugh is sunshine in a house. (Wiliiam Makepeace Thackeray)

All that is needed to make a happy life is within yourself, in your way of thinking. (Marus Aurelius)

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. (Oscar Wilde)

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. (Benjamin Franklin)

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. (George Bernard Shaw)

Without laughter, life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter that societies highly reward those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. (Steve Allen)

If you're not allowed to laugh in Heaven, I don't want to go there. (Martin Luther)

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis. (Margaret Bonnano)

Happiness is the dividend on a well-invested life.

I'm convinced that the Lord, who created us in His own image, laughs.... At times, laughter must be as sweet an offering to Him as tears and even prayers. (Patsy Clairmont)

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. (Dr. Seuss)

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person. (Audrey Hepburn)

Don't take life too seriously...

It's not permanent.

Always laugh when you can. It's cheap medicine. (Lord Byron)

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;...
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
(John Gillespie Magee - High Flight)

Rhyme and Verse

At the end of the day, you will meet only two men in your life:  One will make your hands tremble; the other will make them steady.  The first will be your passion of youth, but like the blazing fires of the bush, it will soon die to glowing embers, then cool ashes.  The second will enter your life quietly, like a thief in the night.  he will be like the mighty trees in the forest that we do not see before us, yet they are there, strong and tall; in rain and sun, they dig their roots deep and shade us with their leaves.  It is the second one who you must marry.  He will be a good husband and father to your children. 

  (Zenzele, J. Nozipo Maraire)

If you are the desert, I'll be the sea.

If you ever hunger, hunger for me.

Whatever you ask for, that's what I'll be.

  (Father Figure, George Michaels)

I could take "No" for an answer,

Just to know I heard you speak.

  (Smell the Color Nine, Chris Rice)

We are pressed but not crushed,

Perplexed but don't despair.

We are persecuted but not abandoned.

We are no longer slaves,

We are daughters and sons,

And when we are weak we are very strong.

And neither Death nor Life nor Present nor Future

Nor Depth nor Height can keep us from the love of Christ.

  (The Word, Sara Groves)

I am the flower,

You are the seed.

We walked in the garden,

We planted a seed.

  (All I Wanna Do, Heart)

When you cross deep rivers,

I will be with you,

And you won't drown.

When you walk through fire,

You won't be burned

Or scorched by the flames.

  (Isaiah 43:2)

The single greatest cause of atheism today is Christians - who acknowledge Him with their lips, then go out and deny Him in their lives. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

 (DC Talk Soundbite)

An exclamation point for every question mark.

  (Naive, Chris Rice)

Unless someone like you

Cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better.

It's not.

  (The Lorax, Dr. Seuss)

God is God and I am not. I can only see a part of the picture He's painting.

God is God and I am Man, I can never understand it all, for only God is God.

  (Steven Curtis Chapman)

I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak; there ain't no disguisin' the truth!

  (Jesus Freak, D.C. Talk)

Obedience is Neat.

  (Big Fish, FFH)

Too proud to bend,

Too poor to break,

I laugh until my stomach ache,

When I think about myself.

  (When I Think About Myself, Maya Angelou)

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

Any direction you choose.

You're on your own.

And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy

Who'll decide where to go.

  (Oh, the Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss)

How many slams in an old screen door?

Depends how loud you shut it.

How many slices in a bread?

Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?

Depends how good you live 'em.

How much love inside a friend?

Depends how much you give 'em.

  (How Many, How Much, Shel Silverstein)

To laugh often and love much;

To win the respect of intelligent people

And the affection of children;

To earn the approbation of honest critics

And endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To give one's self;

To leave the world a little better,

Whether by a healthy child,

A garden patch,

Or a redeemed social condition;

To have played and laughed with enthusiasm

And sung with exultation;

To know even one life has breathed easier

Because you have lived...

This is to have succeeded.

  (To Have Succeeded, Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Friendship

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

The perfect friend sees the best in you - sees it constantly - not just when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you forget yourself, act like less than you are.  In time, you become more like his vision of you - which is the person you have always wanted to be. (Nancy Friday)

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. (Dr. John Maxwell)

You cannot touch your neighbor's heart with anything less than your own.

May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends. (Irish Blessing)

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)

Don't think that this is a letter. It is only a small eruption of a disease called friendship. (Jean Renoir)

Friendship multiplies our joys and divides our grief.

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back. (Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity)

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. (Jean Anouilh)

I set out to find a friend but couldn't find one; I set out to be a friend, and friends were everywhere.

Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience, and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than an exhilaration. (W. Somerset Maugham)

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out. (Grace Pulpit)

Friendship is stopping to listen when you have a lot to say.

A true friend will remember your birthday but will forget how many birthdays you've had.

Friendship fills up all those little ruts in life's road.

Treat your friends like family and your family like friends.

A hug is a perfect gift - one size fits all and nobody minds if you give it back.

Be grateful for the doors of opportunity - and for friends who oil the hinges.

No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor. (Danish Proverb)

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too. (Thomas Fuller)

There are some people who pass through your life like a butterfly. They rarely make contact and then are quickly gone. There are those who pass through your life as fellow travelers. They sit and talk for awhile on the airplane, but upon touchdown, they drift away toward their own destinations. Then there are people who pass through your life and set up camp. They work with you, share with you, borrow from you, care about you. These are the kind that give meaning to life.

Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. (Margaret Lee Runbeck)

A best friend is a sister that destiny forgot to give you.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends. (Laurie Kuslansky)

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost. (Charles Caleb Colton)

We are friends and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn't mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. (Jeanette Winterson)

Strangers are friends just waiting to happen.

Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.

He whose hand is clasped in friendship will not throw mud.

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends (Japanese Proverb)

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. (John Dunne)

"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." Pooh thought for a little. "How old shall I be then?" "Ninety-nine." Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said. (A. A. Milne, "The House at Pooh Corner")

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it, friends make life a lot more fun. (Charles Swindoll)

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. (Oprah Winfrey)

The ornament of a house is the guest who frequents it.

A true friend is someone who is there for you when they would rather be someplace else. (Len Wein)

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. (John 15:12-13)

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit. (Aristotle)

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough. (Ann Landers)

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. (Henry Ford)

A Simple Friend vs. A Real Friend

A simple friend has never seen you cry. A real friend has shoulders soggy from your tears.

A simple friend doesn't know your parents' first names. A real friend has their phone numbers in her address book.

A simple friend brings a bottle of wine to your party. A real friend comes early to help you cook and stays late to help you clean.

A simple friend hates it when you call after he has gone to bed. A real friend asks you why you took so long to call.

A simple friend seeks to talk with you about your problems. A real friend seeks to help you with your problems.

A simple friend wonders about your romantic history. A real friend could blackmail you with it.

A simple friend, when visiting, acts like a guest. A real friend opens your refrigerator and helps herself.

A simple friend thinks the friendship is over when you have an argument. A real friend calls you after you have a fight.

A simple friend expects you to always be there for them. A real friend expects to always be there for you.

Life is Pain, Highness

Buttercup: You mock my pain!

Dread Pirate Roberts: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

The only pain in pleasure is the pleasure of the pain. (Anne Rice)

Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay. (Alice Hoffman)

How delicious is pleasure after torment! (Pierre Corneille)

The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure. (Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin)

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully. (Max Eastman)

It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys. (Emil Zatopek)

I think that passion and love and pain are all bearable, and they go to make love beautiful. (Robert Plant)

Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love. (Honore De Balzac)

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you. (Tony Robbins)

After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs. (Emily Dickinson)

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. (Erma Bombeck)

Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment. (Emile M. Cioran)

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. (Carl Jung)

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain. (William Faulkner)

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it! (Charlie Chaplin)

I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine. (Henry Rollins)

Sensual excess drives out pity in man. (Marquis de Sade)

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience. (Marquis de Sade)

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. (Lord Byron)

To give and receive love, you have to be in touch with pain, you have to be capable of provoking it and feeling it. (Jeanne Moreau)

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure. (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy. (Gandhi)

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. (Mother Teresa)

My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain. (Charlie Chaplin)

Unfortunately, sometimes people don't hear you until you scream. (Stefanie Powers)

The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men. (Jacob Bronowski)

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. (Carl Gustav Jung)

Nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love. (Elizabeth II)

Scars have the power to remind us that our past is real. (Cormac McCarthy)

Anger and agony
Are better than misery
Trust me, I've got a plan
When the lights go off, you will understand
Pain, without love
Pain, I can't get enough
Pain, I like it rough
'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all
  (Pain, Three Days Grace)