Meaning & Analysis
Every pleasure is accompanied by some degree of pain, discomfort, or difficulty; pleasure and pain are inevitably linked.
Insights
Inseparability of Opposites
The proverb expresses that pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin, with every positive experience carrying within it a trace of sorrow, sacrifice, or hardship.
Cost of Happiness
It underscores that achieving pleasure or joy often requires effort, endurance, or risk, reminding us that all good things come with a price.
Bittersweet Nature of Life
By acknowledging pain within pleasure, the proverb points to the bittersweet complexity of human existence, where joy is rarely unalloyed and even the happiest moments are tinged with the possibility of loss or regret.
Historical Symbolism
This motif recurs in ancient philosophy, medieval moral teaching, and early modern literature—from 'no honey without gall' to 'no rose without a thorn.' Renaissance authors often joined felicity and incommodity, echoing a worldview that saw suffering as the necessary companion of delight.
Literary and Cultural Resonance
The proverb is echoed across European languages and cultures, with Shakespeare and many others dramatizing the interplay of joy and sorrow. Its universality is further shown in the wide range of xref proverbs, all expressing the mingling of pleasure with pain, mirth with mourning, and weal with woe.
Psychological Dimensions
Modern psychology confirms that the pursuit of pleasure often involves risk and vulnerability—whether through love, ambition, or creativity. The proverb also gestures at the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation, where the intensity of pleasure fades and is replaced by longing or dissatisfaction.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The direct opposition of 'pleasure' and 'pain' makes the proverb memorable and rhetorically forceful, emphasizing their intertwined nature.
Absolute Negation
The use of 'no' sets up a universal, uncompromising rule, reinforcing the inescapability of the principle.
Parallelistic Simplicity
The short, balanced structure—'no pleasure without pain'—delivers complex wisdom in clear, pithy language.
Transcription
Quotations
Alway vnto felicite some incommodite is ioyned. And lyghtly there is no pleasure, but that vnto it some peyne is annexed.
No good thing is without payne.
Each pleasure hath his payne.
No good without paine.
No pains, but pleasure, sir, I was glad I had such good means to be known to your worship.
Theres no true ioy without some taste of woe.
Pleasure asketh paine.
There is no ioy so solide, but it is intermixed with some sorrow.
There is no Earthly pleasure but is accompagnied with pain.
Shakespeare Citations
I'll pay thy pleasure then.
Cross References
- See T. 493, p. 249.
- D582 Every dram of delight has a pound of pain
- H467 There is no hill without its valley
- H556 No honey without gall
- J85 No joy without annoy
- M994 There is no mirth without mourning
- N305 Nothing is to be gotten without pains (labor)
- P408 After pleasure (joy) comes pain (sorrow)
- P411 For one pleasure a thousand woes (sorrows)
- P413 Never pleasure without repentance
- R182 No rose without a thorn (prickle)
- S21 Sadness and gladness succeed each other
- W188 No weal without woe.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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