Happiness does not await us all. One needn't be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another.
It is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.
How many of us will be saved the pain of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment to the next? I don't just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might survive a day, a week, a few years, but we're all condemned to lose. Our body remains alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive the mortal blow. The perfect crime - for we don't know who murdered our joy, what their motives were, or where the guilty parties are to be found...they too are the victims of the reality they created.
Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get a set which can really be depended on 'till a dentist makes him one.
Your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain.
Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.
... Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. (There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery.)
'Extinction' issue. Save the species for whom??? Humans' convenience, of course! Individuals of the species are snatched from their homes/family/habitat/held in captivity/forced to mate at great physical/ spiritual pain. When the right numbers are reached, their holocaust starts all over again! Another merry-go-round/ bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual!!! Protectionists/welfarists find it a profitable issue: no controversy/ easy donations! I'd rather see an entire species extinct than in the hands of the humans!
And that must end us, that must be our cure: To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night Devoid of sense and motion?
Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby has he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph has he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.
Doing ill to those on whom we have to make our power felt; for pain is a far more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure: pain always asks concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep within itself and not look backward.