Pain has a long life but a short memory.
From Taking Everything into Account, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The storm last March took the tip off the maple and I have avoided that branch since, though it is the best seat in the yard. Today I sat on it for an hour and could not remember what the wind had actually felt like, only that I had decided something about it. Switch came by with a bad foot, favoring it, and by the time he had finished the acorn he was standing on it again. For years I thought the body kept a ledger, that every hurt was filed somewhere and could be opened and read. Pain has a long life but a short memory; it stays and stays, and it cannot tell you what it is staying for. The maple is putting out leaves under the broken place and they are the ordinary green, not a shade more careful.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- A dozen confident steps are not the match of one taken fearfully.
- Courage is the fear that takes one step forward.
- A glimpse of the eternal inspires a lifetime of courage.
- The unvarnished truth can give quite a shellacking.
- The truth can be inconvenient and people hate to be inconvenienced.
- I prefer to be told the truth, though flattery takes a close second.