Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain

The greatest grief in life is to have no choice.

O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand, Have written strange defeatures in my face.

My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul