Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
--
Chapter 26.Samuel Johnson
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Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horsepond.
Thomas Love Peacock
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
Cicero
According to Islamic tradition (sunnah), marriage has been deemed to be an essential requirement. Celibacy has been regarded as a malevolent condition fraught with evils.
Morteza Motahhari
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.John Dryden
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Michel de Montaigne
Johnson, Samuel
Johnson, Susan (Australian)
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