A Quote by Thomas Aquinas

Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage-plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant.

Thomas Aquinas

Quote Topics

Absence Accidentally Beloved Both Consequently Else Far Feel Gives Itself Love Love Is Makes Memory Object Our Our Love Pain Plays Pleasant Pleasurable Recalls Remind Results Since Stage Thing Us Whatever Whose Wonder

Quote Author

Thomas Aquinas
Italian - Theologian
1225 - 1274

Consider, for example, lust versus love. When we lust after someone or something, we think in terms of what they (or it) can do for us. When we love, however, our thoughts are immersed in what we can give to someone else. Giving makes us feel good, so we do it happily. But when we lust, we only want to take. When someone we love is in pain, we feel pain. When someone whom we lust is in pain, we only think in terms of what that loss or inconvenience means to us.

David J. Lieberman

Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. Love itself is pain, you might say -the pain of being truly alive.

Joseph Campbell

Only real love of the infinite will motivate you. While pain motivates, once we feel comfortable and the pain has stopped, we'll stop evolving. Love is a far superior spiritual vehicle.

Frederick Lenz

But pain may be a gift to us. Remember, after all, that pain is one of the ways we register in memory the things that vanish, that are taken away. We fix them in our minds forever by yearning, by pain, by crying out. Pain, the pain that seems unbearable at the time, is memory's first imprinting step, the cornerstone of the temple we erect inside us in memory of the dead. Pain is part of memory, and memory is a God-given gift.

Sue Miller

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it.

Jim Morrison

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

Mother Teresa

If Love dwelt not in Trouble, it could have nothing to love. But its substance which it loves, namely the poor soul, being in trouble and pain, it hath thence cause to love this its own substance and to deliver it from pain, that so itself may by it be again beloved.

Jakob Bohme

Suffering is primarily a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love. More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of awareness and consciousness and being. Whatever prevents that, becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

A mighty pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain.

Abraham Cowley

This love of ours, in so far as it is a love for one particular creature, is not perhaps a very real thing, since, though associations of pleasant or painful musings can attach it for a time to a woman to the extent of making us believe that it has been inspired by her in a logically necessary way, if on the other hand we detach ourselves deliberately or unconsciously from those associations, this love, as though it were in fact spontaneous and sprang from ourselves alone, will revive in order to bestow itself on another woman.

Marcel Proust

The best way to get rid of the pain is to feel the pain. And when you feel the pain and go beyond it, you'll see there's a very intense love that is wanting to awaken itself.

Deepak Chopra

Love built on pain-the kind that lasts: whatever you love can be taken away from us at any moment but the loss of what we love belongs to us forever.

Louise Doughty

From what has been said we can clearly understand the nature of Love and Hate. Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. We further see, that he who loves necessarily endeavors to have, and to keep present to him, the object of his love; while he who hates endeavors to remove and destroy the object of his hatred.

Baruch Spinoza

I thought I am kissing pain and pain belongs to You as happiness never does. I love You in Your pain. I could almost taste metal and salt in the skin, and I thought, How good you are. You might have killed us with happiness, but You let us be with You in pain.

Graham Greene

We continue to love in spite of the pain, tears & heartbreak. Perhaps the pain makes us stronger, the tear makes us braver & the heartbreak makes us wiser.