Pain is the most individualizing thing on earth. It is
true that it is the great common bond as well, but that
realization comes only when it is over. To suffer is to
be alone. To watch another suffer is to know the barrier
that shuts each of us away by himself. Only individuals
can suffer.

Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union.

The body knows no pain, not like the soul. At least a nerve has limits, a body part a name. But the soul … the soul … There is no bandage -- even crying is in vain.

No animal suffers worse than a human being.

for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weights so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, with someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

How indeed is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals and plants, and perhaps by the stones?

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure.

We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.

But I have come to understand that nobody can really take away all the pain no matter how close. There are times when each of us must bear the burden of loss alone, and in his or her own way. The people who really understand that are the people carrying those burdens, too.

Tragedy cannot take place around a type. Suffering is the most individualizing thing on earth.

No one is ever holy without suffering.