Quotes About Sacrifice

The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart

A bitter paradox, I thought: to keep his son he had to lose him.

I had understood gods could bleed, but I had never seen it. He was one of the greatest of our kind, and the drops that fell from him were golden, smearing his back with a terrible beauty.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one . . . I would follow him, even into death

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all. I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.

How often in those days did I think of Odysseus' smiling child? I tried his trick, along with all the rest. Held my son's floppy body up into the air, promised him he was safe. He only screamed louder. Whatever made the prince Telemachus so sweet, I thought, it must have come from Penelope. This was the child I deserved.

I lifted my hand in blessing and gave my son to the world.

Si uno te acechara, debes darle algo que desee más que a ti»,

the never-ending ache of love and sorrow. perhaps in some other life i could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, made him face his choice alone. but not in this one. he would sail to troy and i would follow, even into death.

She fell in love with him, and to save his life smuggled him a sword and taught him the way through the Labyrinth, which she had learned from Daedalus himself.

I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.

will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him. I opened my mouth, but it was too late. "I will go," he said. "I will go to Troy." The

They have wrinkles, but no wisdom. I took them to war before they could do any of those things that steady a man. They were unmarried when they left. They had no children. They had no years of lean harvest, when they must scrape the bottom of their stores, and no good years either, that they might learn to save. They have not seen their parents grow old and begin to fail. They have not seen them die. I fear I have robbed them not only of their youth but their age as well.

You are braver than most gods then. I once saw Aphrodite leave her son to die on the field over a scratch.

His fame must be worth the life he paid for it.

Heracles would kill his wife again for a chance to come along.

All around me are men carrying fallen comrades, limping on makeshift crutches, or crawling through the sand, dragging broken limbs behind them. I know them—their torsos full of scars my ointments have packed and sealed. Their flash that my fingers have cleaned or iron and bronze and blood. Their faces that have joked, thanked, grimaced as I worked over them. Now these men are ruined again, pulpy with blood and split bone. Because of him. Because of me.

It is true. But there is more, and worse that he has not said." The words came tonelessly, as a statue would speak them. "If you go to Troy, you will never return. You will die a young man there.

You are a fool," she said. "Get down. Your halfwit death will not save him.

His eyes, green as spring leaves, met mine. "Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this.

Misericordia», era una; otra fue «sí», y también «por favor». Y también conocía la frase «¿Qué ordena?». El padre le había enseñado a ser una esclava.

Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades.

Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.