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| All objective pleasure in the long run must bring pain, because of the fact of change or death. —Swami Vivekananda Image source: Wikimedia Commons |
- All objective pleasure in the long run must bring pain, because of the fact of change or death.[Source]
- All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion.[Source]
- An uncultured man loves the pleasures of the senses intensely; as he becomes cultured, he begins to love intellectual pleasures, and his sense-enjoyments become less and less. No man can enjoy a meal with the same gusto or pleasure as a dog or a wolf, but those pleasures which a man gets from intellectual experiences and achievements, the dog can never enjoy. At first, pleasure is in association with the lowest senses; but as soon as an animal reaches a higher plane of existence, the lower kind of pleasures becomes less intense. In human society, the nearer the man is to the animal, the stronger is his pleasure in the senses; and the higher and the more cultured the man is, the greater is his pleasure in intellectual and such other finer pursuits. So when a man gets even higher than the plane of the intellect, higher than that of mere thought, when he gets to the plane of spirituality and of divine inspiration, he finds there a state of bliss, compared with which all the pleasures of the senses, or even of the intellect, are as nothing.[Source]
- As children we all think that the world is made so very nice, and that masses of pleasures are simply waiting for our going out to them. That is every schoolboy's dream. And when he goes out into the world, the everyday world, very soon his dreams vanish.[Source]
- At times we vainly hope that in our case only the pleasurable will come, leaving the painful aside, which never happens.[Source]
- Attachment is that which dwells on pleasure. We find pleasure in certain things, and the mind like a current flows towards them; and this following the pleasure centre, as it were, is what is called attachment. We are never attached where we do not find pleasure. We find pleasure in very queer things sometimes, but the principle remains: wherever we find pleasure, there we are attached.[Source]
- Eternal pain unmixed with pleasure would be a positive evil; but temporal pain and sorrow, if they have contributed an element of tenderness and nobility tending towards eternal bliss, are not evils: on the contrary, they may be supreme good.[Source]
- Every day we run after pleasure, and before we reach it, we find it is gone, it has slipped through our fingers.[Source]
- Every human being has an ideal of infinite pleasure. Most of the works that we find around us, the activities displayed everywhere, are due to the struggle for this infinite power or this infinite pleasure. But a few quickly discover that although they are struggling for infinite power, it is not through the senses that it can be reached. They find out very soon that that infinite pleasure is not to be got through the senses, or, in other words, the senses are too limited, and the body is too limited, to express the Infinite. To manifest the Infinite through the finite is impossible, and sooner or later, man learns to give up the attempt to express the Infinite through the finite. This giving up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the background of ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached which had not renunciation for its basis.[Source]
- Every ounce of pleasure brings its pound of pain. It is the same energy that at one time manifests itself as pleasure, at another time as pain. As soon as one set of sensations stops, another begins.[Source]
- Every pleasure with which we supply a man may be seen to be momentary. No one can permanently cure this ever-recurring fever of pleasure and pain.
- "Giving up the desire of pleasure and pain, gain or loss, worship God day and night; not a moment is to be lost in vain."[Source]
- I am neither pleasure nor pain.[Source]
- I dream of pleasure without pain,
It never, never came;
No one but me to blame.[Source] - If all there is of us were a bundle of sense-perceptions, all the knowledge we could gain could be utilised in the gratification of our sense-pleasures. But fortunately such is not the case. As we get further and further away from the animal state, our sense-pleasures become less and less; and our enjoyment, in a rapidly increasing consciousness of scientific and psychological knowledge, becomes more and more intense; and "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", regardless of the amount of sense-pleasures it may conduce to, becomes the supreme pleasure of the mind.[Source]
- Man is seeking for pleasure and for happiness where it can never be found.[Source]
- Many want pleasure [as] the goal. For that pleasure they seek only the senses. On the higher planes much pleasure is to be sought. Then on spiritual planes. Then in himself — God within him. The man whose pleasure is outside of [himself] becomes unhappy when that outside thing goes. You cannot depend for this pleasure upon anything in this universe. If all my pleasures are in myself, I must have pleasure there all the time because I can never lose my Self. . . . Mother, father, child, wife, body, wealth — everything I can lose except my self . . . bliss in the Self All desire is contained in the Self. . . . This is individuality which never changes, and this is perfect.[Source]
- Mental pleasures are greatly superior to physical joys. Mental pains are more poignant than physical tortures.[Source]
- Our desires also are constantly changing—what we would prize today we would reject tomorrow. The pleasure of the present will be the pain of the future, the loved hated, and so on.[Source]
- Pleasure and pain are both feeling, not willing. They are only processes which convey to the mind excitements or motives of action. The real positive action is the willing, or impulse to work, of the mind — begun when the sensation has been taken in (pleasure and pain); thus the real is neither pleasure nor pain. It has no connection with either. Quite different from either.[Source]
- Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal.[Source]
- The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for.[Source]
- The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go
Beyond them both, Sannyâsin bold! Say—
"Om Tat Sat, Om!"[Source] - The finer the organism, the higher the culture—the greater is the power to enjoy pleasure and the sharper are the pangs of pain.[Source]
- The lowest love is selfish; it consists in pleasure of being loved.[Source]
- The man who can collect the largest amount of pleasurable objects around him is as a rule too unimaginative to enjoy them. The man of great imagination is thwarted by the intensity of his feeling of loss, or fear of loss, or perception of defects.[Source]
- The same nerves that carry sensations of pleasure carry the sensations of pain too — and the same mind feels both.[Source]
- The two conjoint facts of perception we can never get rid of are happiness and unhappiness—things which bring us pain also bring pleasure.[Source]
- There is more pain than pleasure in life.[Source]
- There is no possibility of ever having pleasure without pain, good without evil; for living itself is just the lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom, not life, nor pleasure, nor good.[Source]
- Through ignorance, we identify ourselves with the mind-stuff, and think we feel pleasure or pain.[Source]
- We achieve success, and we are overthrown by failure; we pursue pleasure and we are pursued by pain.[Source]
- We desire only the pleasurable, not the painful.[Source]
- We do not or cannot see the painful parts in objects, we are charmed with only the pleasurable portion; and, thus grasping the pleasurable, we unwittingly draw in the painful.[Source]
- We vainly hope that in the future life we shall be able to gather in only the pleasurable, to the exclusion of the painful.[Source]
- What is the goal of it all? Can senses ever be the goal? Can enjoyment of pleasure ever be the goal? Can this life ever be the goal of the soul? If it is, better die this moment; do not want this life! If that is the fate of man, that he is going to be only the perfected machine, it would just mean that we go back to being trees and stones and things like that. Did you ever hear a cow tell a lie or see a tree steal? They are perfect machines. They do not make mistakes. They live in a world where everything is finished. ...[Source]
- When I feel joy or pleasure, I have identified myself with the body. But the high state will look with the same pleasure or blissfulness upon pleasure or upon pain.[Source]
- Whosoever seeks pleasure in objects will get it, but he must take the pain with it.[Source]
- Work done for the Self gives no bondage. Neither desire pleasure nor fear pain from work. It is the mind and body that work, not I. Tell yourself this unceasingly and realise it. Try not to know that you work.[Source]
See also
This page was last updated on: 4 March 2014, 9:46 pm IST (UTC+5:30 hours)
Number of revisions in this page: 1
This is very helpful for those of us fighting addiction. Thank you very much. Read much of Vivekananda's works but your compilation looks anew. God bless.
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