Armstrong Pain Quotes

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

Remembering. Forgetting. I'm not sure which is worse.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

I don't feel any shame I won't apologize if there ain't nowhere you can go running away from pain when you've been victimized tales from another broken home.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.

If it is written and read with serious attention, a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest.

Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it’s absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain….Once; someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. ‘PLEASURE???? I said.’ ‘I don’t understand the question.’ I didn’t do it for the pleasure; I did it for the pain.

...a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest.

You don’t just fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully up a hill, and maybe, if you work very hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else.

As we develop our compassionate mind, we should feel an increasing sense of responsibility for the suffering of others and form a resolve to do everything we can to free them from their pain.

Nobody needed to get all that educated for being a miner, so they let the schools go to rot. And they made sure no mills or factories got in the door. Coal only. To this day, you have to cross a lot of ground to find other work. Not an accident, Mr. Armstrong said, and for once we believed him, because down in the dark mess of our little skull closets some puzzle pieces were clicking together and our world made some terrible kind of sense. The dads at home drinking beer in their underwear, the moms at the grocery with their SNAP coupons. The army recruiters in shiny gold buttons come to harvest their jackpot of hopeless futures. Goddamn. The trouble with learning the backgrounds is that you end up wanting to deck somebody, possibly Bettina Cook and the horse she rode in on. (Not happening. Her dad being head of the football boosters and major donor.) Once upon a time we had our honest living that was God and country. Then the world turns and there’s no God anymore, no country, but it’s still in your blood that coal is God’s gift and you want to believe. Because otherwise it was one more scam in the fuck-train that’s railroaded over these mountains since George Washington rode in and set his crew to cutting down our trees. Everything that could be taken is gone. Mountains left with their heads blown off, rivers running black. My people are dead of trying, or headed that way, addicted as we are to keeping ourselves alive. There’s no more blood here to give, just war wounds. Madness. A world of pain, looking to be killed.

Compassion asks us to look into our hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever

It is not suffering as such that makes someone appreciate love, it is only when suffering pierces our vanity—which happens when we do not blame someone else for our pain—that it awakens a deeper respect for love.

A myth could not tell a hunter how to kill his prey or how to organise an expedition efficiently, but it helped him to deal with his complicated emotions about the killing of animals. Logos was efficient, practical and rational, but it could not answer questions about the ultimate value of human life nor could it mitigate human pain and sorrow.

Absolutely alone in the dark. Every outside stimulus vanishes and there’s nothing except me in the darkness and the silence. I swear I can hear my thoughts. All my thoughts. And it’s horribly uncomfortable, and I want to switch on the light and say something and shove that aside. But the feeling passes in a few panicked heartbeats, and then … and then it’s indescribable. This is what I’ve been looking for in all those therapy sessions. Not a chance to tell someone my story. A chance to be alone with it. Utterly alone with it, and maybe that makes no sense, but it’s what I feel. Just me and that one defining moment in my past. Grief and rage and pain and guilt and clarity. Yes, clarity.

it is neither helpful nor accurate to assume that other people are always responsible for our pain.

But Christina never forgot that “when I was a child, I needed only one person to understand my suffering and pain.… One is very important.”5

the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Compassion dervies from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, to feel her pain as though it were our own, and to enter generously into his point of view. That is why our hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism.

Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior,’ says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose. 'Why dying with your victim should be seen as a greater sin than saving yourself is unclear.'The colonial West had created a two-tier hierarchy that privileged itself at the expense of 'The Rest’. The Enlightenment had preached the equality of all human beings, yet Western policy in the developing world often adopted a double standard so that we failed to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Our focus on the nation seems to have made it hard for us to cultivate the global outlook that we need in our increasingly interrelated world. We must deplore any action that spills innocent blood or sows terror for its own sake. But we must also acknowledge and sincerely mourn the blood that we have shed in pursuit of national interests. Otherwise we can hardly defend ourselves against accusations of maintaining an 'arrogant silence’ in the face of others’ pain and of creating a world order in which some people’s lives are deemed more valuable than others

He needs to tell me what he knows before he gets anything else from the Grahams." She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her best "you will do what I say" look. He only shrugged and kept drinking his coffee. Eva frowned at her. "Hija, you must be nice to Ranger Armstrong. His is a good man." Oliviva snorted. "I'll believe that when he treats me like a person instead of a pain in the ass." "You are a pain in the ass." At first she could hardly believe he'd said it, but then when it sank in, a chuckle burst out of her mouth. She didn't want to be amused by his smart mouth, but she was. "So are you. Now tell me what you know.

Instead of seeing the French Revolution as a failure, therefore, we should perhaps see it as the explosive start of a lengthy process. Such massive social and political change overturning millennia of autocracy cannot be achieved overnight. Revolutions take a long time. But unlike several other European countries, where aristocratic regimes were so deeply entrenched that they managed to hang on, albeit in limited form, France eventually achieved its secular republic. We should bear this long-drawn-out and painful process in mind before dismissing as failures revolutions that have taken place in our own time in Iran, Egypt, and Tunisia, for example.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity.

I saw her a few days before —’ He stopped mid-sentence and looked out of the window. He hadn’t returned in time to hear what his mother had wanted to tell him. Halina sensed that the conversation was over and wondered what lay beneath the pained look on his face. The death of a mother always left children with regrets but she had imagined it would be different for a priest.

Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior,’ says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose. 'Why dying with your victim* should be seen as a greater sin than saving yourself is unclear.'The colonial West had created a two-tier hierarchy that privileged itself at the expense of 'The Rest’. The Enlightenment had preached the equality of all human beings, yet Western policy in the developing world often adopted a double standard so that we failed to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Our focus on the nation seems to have made it hard for us to cultivate the global outlook that we need in our increasingly interrelated world. We must deplore any action that spills innocent blood or sows terror for its own sake. But we must also acknowledge and sincerely mourn the blood that we have shed in pursuit of national interests. Otherwise we can hardly defend ourselves against accusations of maintaining an 'arrogant silence’ in the face of others’ pain and of creating a world order in which some people’s lives are deemed more valuable than others

Shu required that “all day and every day” we looked into our own hearts, discovered what caused us pain, and then refrained, under all circumstances, from inflicting that distress upon other people. It demanded that people no longer put themselves into a special, separate category but constantly related their own experience to that of others. Confucius was the first to promulgate the Golden Rule. For Confucius it had transcendent value.

Paul was horrified; yet again, the issue that had erupted so painfully in Antioch threatened his entire mission. He had always maintained that it was unnecessary for gentiles who committed themselves to the Messiah to observe the Torah, since they had received the Spirit without its help. The Torah was valuable to Jews, but it could only be a distraction to the Galatians; forcing them to adopt a wholly Jewish way of life would be as absurd as demanding that Jews take on the ancient Galatian traditions and start feasting like Aryan warriors, singing their drinking choruses, and venerating their warrior heroes.

In the Palaeolithic period, human beings had felt a disturbing kinship with the animals that they hunted and killed. They expressed their inchoate distress in the rituals of sacrifice, which honoured the beasts which laid down their lives for the sake of humanity. In Guernica, humans and animals, both victims of indiscriminate, heedless slaughter, lie together in a mangled heap, the screaming horse inextricably entwined with the decapitated human figure. Recalling the women at the foot of the cross in countless depictions of Jesus’s crucifixion, two women gaze at the wounded horse in sorrowful empathy with its pain.

As the Prajna-paramita Sutras (Sermons on the Perfection of Wisdom), which were compiled at the end of the first century BCE, explain, the bodhisattvas do not wish to attain their own private nirvana. On the contrary, they have surveyed the highly painful world of being, and yet desirous of winning supreme enlightenment, they do not tremble at birth-and-death. They have set out for the benefit of the world, for the ease of the world, out of pity for the world. They have resolved: “We will become a shelter for the world, the world’s place of rest, the final relief of the world, islands of the world, lights of the world, the guides of the world’s means of salvation.

The book of Job, based on an ancient folktale, may have been written during the exile. One day, Yahweh made an interesting wager in the divine assembly with Satan, who was not yet a figure of towering evil but simply one of the “sons of God,” the legal “adversary” of the council.19 Satan pointed out that Job, Yahweh’s favorite human being, had never been truly tested but was good only because Yahweh had protected him and allowed him to prosper. If he lost all his possessions, he would soon curse Yahweh to his face. “Very well,” Yahweh replied, “all that he has is in your power.”20 Satan promptly destroyed Job’s oxen, sheep, camels, servants, and children, and Job was struck down by a series of foul diseases. He did indeed turn against God, and Satan won his bet. At this point, however, in a series of long poems and discourses, the author tried to square the suffering of humanity with the notion of a just, benevolent, and omnipotent god. Four of Job’s friends attempted to console him, using all the traditional arguments: Yahweh only ever punished the wicked; we could not fathom his plans; he was utterly righteous, and Job must therefore be guilty of some misdemeanor. These glib, facile platitudes simply enraged Job, who accused his comforters of behaving like God and persecuting him cruelly. As for Yahweh, it was impossible to have a sensible dialogue with a deity who was invisible, omnipotent, arbitrary, and unjust—at one and the same time prosecutor, judge, and executioner. When Yahweh finally deigned to respond to Job, he showed no compassion for the man he had treated so cruelly, but simply uttered a long speech about his own splendid accomplishments. Where had Job been while he laid the earth’s foundations, and pent up the sea behind closed doors? Could Job catch Leviathan with a fishhook, make a horse leap like a grasshopper, or guide the constellations on their course? The poetry was magnificent, but irrelevant. This long, boastful tirade did not even touch upon the real issue: Why did innocent people suffer at the hands of a supposedly loving God? And unlike Job, the reader knows that Job’s pain had nothing to do with the transcendent wisdom of Yahweh, but was simply the result of a frivolous bet. At the end of the poem, when Job—utterly defeated by Yahweh’s bombastic display of power—retracted all his complaints and repented in dust and ashes, God restored Job’s health and fortune. But he did not bring to life the children and servants who had been killed in the first chapter. There was no justice or recompense for them.

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Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” ― Lance Armstrong

"It's okay," Rafe said again. "They've got you." The helicopter spun, whipping us around. Pain shot through me as Rafe's weight almost wrenched my shoulders out of their sockets, and my hold on his wrists broke. Corey lost his grip on my leg. I heard him shout and Daniel shout and the girls join in, and I kicked, trying to get my leg back up where someone could grab it. The helicopter tilted again. I started to slide, Daniel sliding with me. And I knew we were going to fall. Rafe, me, Daniel, we were all going to fall. "Hold On!" I shouted to Rafe. "It's okay," he said, and I wasn't even sure he spoke aloud, didn't see his lips moving. "It's okay." He let go. I clawed the air, screaming. I didn't even see him drop. The helicopter banked and I caught only a blur of treetops spinning past and when I looked around, there was no Rafe. No sign of him at all. Corey and Daniel dragged me back into the helicopter. Someone got the door closed. I don't know who. I was crying and shaking so hard I couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't think. As I huddled on the floor, I felt Daniel behind me, his arms around me. Kenji pushed onto my lap, and I buried my face in her fur, gripping handfuls and sobbing against her.

love is an honor and a privilege—and that it comes with a price. When we love deeply, we make ourselves vulnerable to deep pain. And this is the finest pain of all, a sacrifice of the highest order. God will equip us to love like this, and God will comfort us when it hurts. Kristin Armstrong

No matter how much you loved someone, sometimes you had to let them go. Sometimes, a person you loved was not someone who made your life better. Those were some of the most painful moments in life.

The Buddha summed up his teaching in four “Noble Truths”: that existence was dukkha; that the cause of our pain was selfishness and greed; that nirvana released us from this suffering; and that the way to achieve this state was to follow the program of meditation, morality, and resolution that he called the “Noble Path,” which was designed to produce an alternative aristocracy.

I will persist until I succeed. I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, walk, and to sleep with the sheep. I will persist until I succeed. —OG MANDINO Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. —LANCE ARMSTRONG

There is a point in every race when a rider encounters his real opponent and understands that it's himself. In my most painful moments on the bike, I am at my most curious, and I wonder each and every time how I will respond. Will I discover my innermost weakness, or will I seek out my innermost strength? - Lance Armstrong

But unceasing innovation is a vital part of jazz for several reasons, not all of them strictly musical. Since its inception, jazz has been a statement by its principally black players of their lives and social situation in this country. It is descended from the coded field songs of the slaves, which acted as catharsis for their pain and indignity. When Louis Armstrong became the first great jazz soloist, his music spoke for all those blacks who, like Louis, had moved north with fresh hopes as well as new disappointment. Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Lester Young announced a changing, more prideful attitude among blacks of the Thirties. Likewise, the music of the great jazz musicians of the bop revolution, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell, spoke for the new militance of those young blacks who had fought in World War II and expected America to be a new country after defeating the forces of bigotry and fascism.

Can we stop?” Hayley asked. “If I see a sheltered spot, we’ll hole up for a while.” “Can we look for one? I have a blister--” “We all have blisters,” Sam said. “We need to keep going,” Daniel said. “We lost a lot of time yesterday.” “What? Are we on a schedule?” Hayley said. “Is there a bus waiting to pick us up somewhere?” She sighed, then said, “I hate complaining.” “So don’t do it,” Sam said. Hayley glowered at her. “You think I like being the whiner? If Nicole was here, she’d be complaining just as much. We’re tired and wet and miserable, but I’m stuck being the one who says it while everyone else just hopes I whine loud enough so we all get to stop and rest. Maya and Daniel can’t complain. They need to set an example. Unless Corey’s in enough pain that he snaps again, he’s going to tough it out. And Sam? Well, she’s not even human, so she doesn’t count.” “Excuse me?” Sam said. “Face it, you’re not one of those bendo-things. You’re a robot. A cyborg. Probably an evil one, programmed to murder us all in our sleep.” Corey snickered. “Yeah?” Sam lifted a fist to Hayley. “You want to try that one again, blondie?” Hayley looked at Daniel and me. “I rest my case.

The puking was new. And the pain was worse. The flashing lights are a recent symptom.” He opened one eye. “See, I said I get all the cool powers. Raging migraines cured by booze. I really will be that guy in a bar--

I know this means it’s over,” he whispered. “I got a second chance, and I blew it, and I…” He swallowed and turned his head, his expression hidden behind the curtain of water. “I’d give anything not to do that. I would, Maya. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true.” When I pushed past the pain of betrayal, I did believe him. Because he’d let go of my hand as we dangled from that helicopter. Because he’d been ready to die to save me. And because even if he wasn’t looking me in the face, I could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I have a plan and you’ll be safe.

You’re in pain and you’re not going to remind us of that.” “It isn’t that bad. Really. I--” “See? Gotta be a tough guy.” I lowered my voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “How’s your head?” “I didn’t hit my head. Not yet anyway.

It had to be killing him to walk, but when I asked if he wanted to stay behind, his response was an emphatic no with an edge of panic. “Can I apologize again for snapping?” he said. “No.” I sat back on my haunches. “We need to slow down for you. You’re in pain and you’re not going to remind us of that.” “It isn’t that bad. Really. I--” “See? Gotta be a tough guy.” I lowered my voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “How’s your head?” “I didn’t hit my head. Not yet anyway.” “You know what I mean. Your headaches.” “I’m fine.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he clapped his hand over it. “I’m not pulling any macho crap, Maya. My head is fine. I’m getting twinges, but it’s nothing I don’t get everyday, even with the meds. I’ll be okay.” He looked around him. “And as soon as we get out of this place, I’ll be even better. So let’s hit the trail.

Climb!” he shouted. The bear backed away, shaking his shaggy head, dazed by the impact. He looked at me, and I froze and I knew then what had stopped Rafe from running. When the bear met my gaze, any thoughts of escape vanished. Instinct said to fight. This was my territory, and no bear was going to take it from me. Stand firm and-- “Maya!” Rafe grabbed my jacket again and nearly yanked me off the branch. “Climb!” That snapped me out of it, and when I looked down now, all I saw was a very big, very pissed off bear. As I scramble up, pain ripped through my foot, and something wrenched my leg. I looked down to see the bear’s jaws clamped around my shoe. Daniel was running toward the bear, shouting and waving his arms. Rafe grabbed me under the armpits and yanked. My shoe came off in the bear’s mouth as Rafe hauled me up to the next branch. The bear shook my shoe, growling, then tossed it aside. As it did, it noticed Daniel, standing only a few feet away. “Daniel!” I shouted. He backed up, looking for a suitable tree. The bear only snorted at him, then peered nearsightedly up at us. It rose on its hind legs, front paws hitting the trunk hard enough to make the tree quiver. I swung onto the next branch as Rafe did the same on the other side. I felt the bear’s hot breath on my stockinged foot and snatched it away as his teeth clicked together. He roared in frustration, then leaned on the tree and shook it again. “Hold on!” Rafe shouted, like I was planning on doing anything else.

I know this means it’s over,” he whispered. “I got a second chance, and I blew it, and I…” He swallowed and turned his head, his expression hidden behind the curtain of water. “I’d give anything not to do that. I would, Maya. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true.” When I pushed past the pain of betrayal, I did believe him. Because he’d let go of my hand as we dangled from that helicopter. Because he’d been ready to die to save me. And because even if he wasn’t looking me in the face, I could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I have a plan and you’ll be safe.” “And the others?” “Them, too.” He looked at me again, still close enough to whisper through the pounding water, close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath. “I know that’s just as important to you, and I swear everyone will be okay. For now, though, you need to go along with the plan. It’s the only way we’ll get out of this place. And you can’t tell the others.” “What?” He gripped my arms and pulled me even closer, gaze locked on mine. “They need to act like everything’s okay, so you can’t tell them. Not even Daniel.” I backed up, freeing myself. “That’s the deal-breaker, isn’t it?” he murmured. “Daniel.” “I trust--” “I know you do. But I don’t, and not because I think he’s untrustworthy, but because I don’t know him well enough to be sure he won’t screw up. The only person I trust is you.

I saw you fall.” “The fall isn’t the problem. It’s the sudden stop at the end. Avoid that and…” He waved his hands down his body. “Apparently, you can survive.” “That’s not…You can’t…” “Did I mention the insanely lucky part? Great thing about this island? Really big trees. Gotta love those redwoods, especially when they break your fall. Still it was a helluva hit and I’ve got the war wounds to show for it.” He held out his bare arms, covered in healing scratches. There were more on his face. I looked at him then, my first good look, as hope started to flutter in my chest. Except for the scratches and a purpled bruise on his chin, he looked exactly as I remembered. Blue jeans, tank top, faded denim jacket, boots. Black hair curling over his collar. Brown eyes flecked with gold. Crooked smile threatening to burst into a grin. “Got impaled, too.” He lifted his shirt and turned around to show me what looked like a scabbed-over stab wound in his side. “Dislocated my shoulder. Passed out from the pain. When I woke up the shoulder was fixed--one of the benefits of being a shape-shifter I guess--and the rest was healing. I was unconscious for a while, apparently.” “I…I still--” “Can’t believe it?” Rafe shrugged. “I’m guessing a regular person wouldn’t have survived. But we’re part cat so maybe falls aren’t so bad. I think I lost one of my nine lives though.” He twisted to look at the stab wound. “Maybe two.

I could hear the wind. Feel the wind. Taste it even. But it took a moment for me to crack my eyes open and realize I was hanging outside the helicopter. Hanging outside the helicopter. The earth bobbed and whirled below us, trees and rock and water spinning into a blur. “Don’t look down!” I thought it was Daniel, but then realized Rafe was staring up at me. “I’ve got you!” I shouted. He smiled, this weirdly calm smile. “I know.” “Just hold on!” “I am.” “We’ll get you down.” “It’s okay, Maya.” His voice was as strangely calm as his smile. My heart was thudding so hard I could barely breathe, and he just kept smiling up at me, his gaze locked on mine. Calm washed through me, slowing my heart, as if I was feeling what he did, an oddly disconnected peacefulness. “It’s okay,” Rafe said again. “They’ve got you.” The helicopter spun, whipping us around. Pain shot through me as Rafe’s weight almost wrenched my shoulders out of their sockets, and my hold on his wrists broke. Corey lost his grip on my leg. I heard him shout and Daniel shout and the girls join in, and I kicked, trying to get my leg back up where someone could grab it. The helicopter tilted again. I started to slide, Daniel sliding with me. And I knew we were going to fall. Rafe, me, Daniel, we were all going to fall. “Hold on!” I shouted to Rafe. “It’s okay,” he said, and I wasn’t even sure he spoke aloud, didn’t see his lips moving. “It’s okay.” He let go.

We need to slow down for you. You’re in pain and you’re not going to remind us of that.” “It isn’t that bad. Really. I--” “See? Gotta be a tough guy.” I lowered my voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “How’s your head?” “I didn’t hit my head. Not yet anyway.” “You know what I mean. Your headaches.” “I’m fine.