Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

We forget our health and comfort and notice a pinching shoe. Much of living well is detaching from our boring stories of pain and shifting focus

The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys least.

The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.

Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.

I see at last that all the knowledge I wrung from the darkness - that darkness flung me - Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

There is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.

The more unhappy you are, the more miserable you are, the more you're going to suffer.

When you're in pain, tomorrow doesn't exist - just the pain - and the only thing that you want in the world is for it to go away.

Death is what men want when the anguish of living is more than they can bear.

We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.

Happiness, remarked Maury Noble one day, is only the first hour after the alleviation of some especially intense misery.

Suffering is optional. You’re gonna have some pain but it doesn’t have to make you suffer.

Nobody can be happy. You could have moments of happiness, moments of joy. But life is very difficult. Unless you're a total idiot. Then you can be happy.

The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.

If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution.

Rid the mind of knowledge when looking for pleasure. Or start thinking and find a lot of pain.

Sometimes happiness consists of finding the right balance of misery.

Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional

Labor is really going to hurt.

If through practice of insight you develop a sense of ease, then time has no relevance. If you're miserable, time does matter. It's so unbearable, so enormous you want to get out of it as soon as possible.

Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don't exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray 'Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.'

Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable.

I'm not a big proponent of happiness. I think it's highly overrated. I think misery is underrated. There's so much value in that. You can't have one without the other.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world.