We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.
On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.
Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought.
For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.
Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory...Everything is forgotten, even great love.
Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive. I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men but that of the whole creation. From this community of suffering I have never tried to withdraw myself. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.
Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
"Boast not my fall (he cried), insulting foe! And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive."