Quotes About Sacrifice

Unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast and that the once-happy plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life. (Address to Congress on Resigning Commission Dec 23, 1783)

It is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without cloaths or blankets.

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.      My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.

a world where yesterday's classmate and fellow altar server becomes tomorrow's martyr to the firing squads.

Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things.

I imagine myself covered with blood, broken but transfigured and in agreement with the world, both as prey and as a jaw of time, which ceaselessly kills and is ceaselessly killed.

The lover strips the beloved of her identity no less than the blood-stained priest his human or animal victim.

I fucked her for the first time, next to the corpse. It was very painful for both of us, but we were glad precisely because it was painful.

What I want', were the words she left me with, administering a poison, 'is that you love me even unto death. For my part, it is in death I love you at this very instant. But I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it.

What I want, is that you love me even unto death. For my part, it is in death I love you at this very instant. But I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it.

It seemed to him that he was compelled, by virtue of his wretched calling, to live the lives of a whole lot of other people, instead of quietly getting on with his own.

M'sieur, I am as a slave to my wife. He kissed the tips of his fingers. I am as the dirt beneath her feet. He clasped his hands. I must bestow on her all that she desires, or die! Pray make use of my sword, invited his Grace. It is in the corner behind you.

Horatia said eagerly: Oh, you will take m-me instead? No, said Rule, with a faint smile. I won't do that. But I will engage not to marry your sister. It's not necessary to offer me an exchange, my poor child. B-but it is! said Horatia vigorously. One of us m-must marry you!

He didn't choose between me and you, Julia: it was between me and ruin.

Léonie, you will do well to consider. You are not the first woman in my life.' She smiled through her tears. 'Monseigneur, I would so much rather be the last woman than the first,' she said.

If the worst comes to the worst I can always take Evelyn's place, can't I?

God knew she would ask nothing better than to be his wife, but she had sense enough to know that nothing but unhappiness could result from it. If he had loved her, if she had been of his world, approved by his family – but it was useless to speculate on the impossible.

She fluctuated between pursuing personal fulfilment and devoting her energies to serving the community for no reward. She would do this all her life.

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.

Those miserable women who blame the men who let them down for their misery and isolation enact every day the initial mistake of sacrificing their personal responsibility for themselves.

the consequences of militancy do not disappear when the need for militancy is over. Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.