Since to avoid the painful and aim at the pleasurable is one of the most obvious tendencies of human nature.
painfulquotes
A sign of this is what happens in our actions, for we delight in contemplating the most accurately made images of the very things that are painful for us to see, such as the forms of the most contemptible insects and of dead bodies.
It is painful — there is no denying it — to interpret radiant things from the shadow-side, and thus in a measure reduce them to their origins in dreary filth. But it seems to me to be an imperfection in things of beauty, and a weakness in man, if an explanation from the shadow-side has a destructive effect.
destructive / imperfection / painful / radiant / shadow
We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our body, which is doomed to decay, from the external world which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless force of destruction, and finally from our relations with other men. This last source is perhaps more painful to use than any other.
decay / destruction / painful / suffering
Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy.
answers / painful / philosophy / questions / uncertainty
Most vices… demand considerable self-sacrifice. There is no greater mistake than to suppose the vicious life is the life of uninterrupted pleasure. It is a life almost as wearisome and painful – if strenuously led – as Christian’s in Pilgrims Progress.
Most lead lives at worst so painful, at best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principle appetites of the soul.
The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.
being / future / painful / remembering