“That's all very well as an abstract moral principle, Avril, a coffee-table theoretical construct, but there's no denying the sheer gratuitous pleasure to be derived from seeing members of the ruling class in pain and torment.” WellsPainPleasureMoralClassPrinciplesSeeingMembersTablesCoffeeAbstractSheerConstructsTormentRulingTheoreticalMoral Principles Book:The Acid House Source: The Acid House
“The very large, very respectable, and very knowing class of misanthropes who rejoice in the name of grumblers,--persons who are so sure that the world is going to ruin, that they resent every attempt to comfort them as an insult to their sagacity, and accordingly seek their chief consolation in being inconsolable, their chief pleasure in being displeased.” WorldPersonsNamesPleasureClassKnowingComfortRuinsChiefsInsultRejoiceConsolationRespectableResentMisanthropeSagacityGrumbling Book:Success and Its Conditions Source: Success and Its Conditions
“Were all the pleasures in the world, even pure air, made solely for the rich? I think it is immoral - it is horrible! - that one man may own twenty millions of money, and another has to commit a crime to keep the life in his miserable body. And if I were wealthy, I'd be a spendthrift! It's the spendthrifts who are the real friends of the poor. Some of their money filters through to the very lowest classes.” IfsThinkingMenWorldMayMadeRealBodyWealthPleasurePoorClassMillionsRichAirCrimePureTwentiesHorribleCommitMiserableWealthyOne ManLowestReal FriendsImmoralFiltersSpendthrift Author:Ellen Buckingham Mathews
“It used to be said, not so long ago, that every suicide gave Satan special pleasure. I don't think that's true-unless it isn't true either that the Devil is a gentleman. If the Devil has no class at all, then okay, I agree: He gets a bang out of suicide. Because suicide is a mess. As a subject for study, suicide is perhaps uniquely incoherent. And the act itself is without shape and without form. The human project implodes, contorts inward-shameful, infantile, writhing, gesturing. It's a mess in there.” IfsThinkingHumansLongSaidFormUsedPleasureClassStudySpecialSubjectsShapesProjectsDevilOkayAgreeSuicideUsed To BeMessGentlemanSatanLong AgoInwardBangsShamefulInfantile Author:Martin Amis
“We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.” ActionPainLife IsPleasureAnimalCommonClassConcernedSeekingBeastAvoidingAnimal LifeAvoiding PainBodily FunctionsBodily Pain Author:Saint Augustine
“There is one gratification an old author can afford a certain class of critics; that namely, of comparing him as he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought within range.” CertainPleasureClassCriticismCriticsSuperiorsCompareRangeMediocrityGratification Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“There are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or by pleasure and pain.” MenNeedsPainThreeFriendshipPleasureClassPreferenceEnmityPain And Pleasure Author:Ptolemy
“For me writing is a long, hard, painful process, but it is addictive, a pleasure that I seek out actively. My advice to young writers is this: Read a lot. Read to find out what past writers have done. Then write about what you know. Write about your school, your class, about your teachers, your family. That's what I did. Each writer must find his or her own kind of voice. Finally, you have to keep on writing.” KnowsWritingKindLongHardDoneSchoolPastYoungProcessVoicePleasureClassTeacherAdvicePainfulOur FamilyYoung Writers Author:Laurence Yep