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 avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.

My mind boggles at the amount of violence inflicted upon children in today's society.

Who has suffered? The families of the dead no doubt. But a greater loss was inflicted on Pakistan because as I said we lost the pillars of our society.

We must not inflict life on children who will be resented we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

I don't have a set of tenets but I live an ethical life. I practice a humility that presupposes there's a power greater than myself. And I always believe don't inflict harm where it's not necessary.

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It's not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace if not always diplomatically.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality birth within marriage parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Leadership is among other things the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain.

Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humor is the pursuit of a gentle grin usually in solitude.

For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history.

If the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times it feels more painful than the wound we suffered to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet there is no peace without forgiveness.

I've always hoped 'Chopped' would telegraph our enormous affection and love and admiration for chefs and food but at the same time we are inflicting extraordinary cruelty on them.

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration obviously perspiration doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal private solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.

When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be no matter how self-inflicted their suffering may appear no matter how afflicted they are with ignorance prejudice or nose hairs - we give from the deepest parts of ourselves.

Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members that has itself died can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities so absolutely terrifying that even man the fighter who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death will be appalled and so abandon war forever.

Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.