pain

On a cold winter's day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one another's quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain. In human beings, the emptiness and monotony of the isolated self produces a need for society. This brings people together, but their many offensive qualities and intolerable faults drive them apart again. The optimum distance that they finally find that permits them to coexist is embodied in politeness and good manners. Because of this distance between us, we can only partially satisfy our need for warmth, but at the same time, we are spared the stab of one another's quills.

Centuries earlier, Job suffered immeasurable losses. His wealth was stripped from him; his family destroyed. Finally, after all else was gone, he was stricken with boils and failing health. Every day and every hour he suffered physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. His friends mocked him, but Job remained faithful. He emphatically declared, For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19: 25-26.)

It is within the experience of everyone that when pleasure and pain reach a certain intensity they are indistinguishable.

Learning is no child's play; we cannot learn without pain

In educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

He who speaks from the lips chatters. He who speaks from an empty mind adds confusion to discord. He who speaks from a full mind feeds the minds of men. He who speaks from his heart wins the confidence of mankind. But he who speaks from his soul heals the heartbreaks of a world and feeds the hungry, starving souls of men. He can dry the tears of anguish and pain. He can bring light, for he will carry light.

PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

If it's painful for you to criticize your friends, you're safe in doing it; if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.