Quotes About Sacrifice

when we all went to the universities, when we abandoned what made us good & embraced what made us comfortable & secure, we lost something essential, knew we lost it & yet chose to lose.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.

Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.

mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.

Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!

Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he sat up, a long stream of blood rolled down his face, he raised both arms in air, looked in the direction whence the shot came, and began to sing.

He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.

At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.

If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)

where would the shout of love begin, if not from the summit of sacrifice?

Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on.

If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.

The first proof of charity in a priest, especially a bishop, is poverty.

So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were shivering in the fierce breathe of the Infinite, had long put away from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him, dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths.

It will come, citizens, the day when all shall be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is so that it may come that we are going to die.

Se dice que en toda manada de lobos hay un perro al que la loba mata, porque si lo deja vivir al crecer devoraría a los demás cachorros. Dad un rostro humano a este perro hijo de loba y tendréis el retrato de aquel hombre.

Should he remain in paradise and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?

Or, donner la grosse cloche en mariage à Quasimodo, c'était donner Juliette à Roméo.

Her heart ached, but she took her resolution. It will be seen that Fantine possessed the stern courage of life.

The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral.

To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow.

He now clearly perceived the truth which was henceforth to be the centre of his life, namely, that while she was there, while he had her near him, he would need nothing except for her sake and fear nothing except on her account. He was not even conscious of feeling extremely cold, having taken off his coat to cover her.

How was Jean Valjean going to conduct himself in the face of Cosette and Marius's happiness? A happiness he himself had wanted, that he himself had made; he was the one who had stabbed himself in the guts with it, and, at this moment, looking back on it, he could feel the sort of satisfaction an armorer would have felt, recognizing his trademark on a blade as he yanked it, all fuming, out of his chest.

The four walls of the living redoubt had fallen, hardly could a quivering be detected here and there among the corpses; and thus the French legions, grander than the Roman legions, expired at Mont-Saint-Jean on ground soaked in rain and blood, in the somber wheatfields, at the spot where today at four in the morning, whistling, and gaily whipping up his horse, Joseph drives by with the mail from Nivelles.