Suffering

Suffering

Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena.

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Famous quotes containing the word suffering:

    Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime—I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful. I agree that it’s hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It’s no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.
    Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)

    What can be said,
    Except that suffering is exact, but where
    Desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?
    Philip Larkin (1922–1985)

    If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—insofar as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being.
    Peter Singer (b. 1946)