When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work. – George Bernard Shaw
The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life. – Hannah Arendt