Quotes About Loss

In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.

In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly, in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate.

I said that each of us had to ask himself what irreplaceable losses he had suffered up to then. I speculated that for most of them these losses had really been few. Whoever was still alive had reason for hope. Health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, position in society - all these were things that could be achieved again or restored.

the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

vae victis"—woe to the vanquished.

the impossibility of replacing a person

Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for! Perhaps he boarded a trolley, traveled out to the home which he had seen for years in his mind, and only in his mind, and pressed the bell, just as he has longed to do in thousands of dreams, only to find that the person who should open the door was not there, and would never be there again.

minus hair; all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. What else remained for us as a material link with our former lives? For me there were my glasses and my belt; the latter I had to exchange later on for a piece of bread.

this book is less about his travails, what he suffered and lost, than it is about the sources of his strength to survive.

You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.

man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values.

Tiempo después un prisionero me contó que el primer día de su internamiento tuvo la sensación, al marchar desde la estación del tren al campo en la larga columna de reclusos, de estar asistiendo a su propio funeral.

Fue Lessing quien dijo en una ocasión: Hay cosas que deben haceros perder la razón, o entonces es que no tenéis ninguna razón que perder. Ante una situación anormal, la reacción anormal constituye una conducta normal.

T]he real danger does not lie in the fact that there is a lack or a loss of universality of knowledge among the specialists. The true danger lies in the pretense and claim of totality of knowledge.

In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he

Wir alle, die wir durch tausend und abertausend glückliche Zufälle oder Gotteswunder [...] davongekommen sind, wir wissen es und können es ruhig sagen: die Besten sind nicht zurückgekommen.

A long time elapsed, and the parents had not mentioned the name of their dead child. They never spoke of the little girl they had lost; their sorrow would have become doubly heavy if it had been brought out into clear daylight, and its power acknowledged. Now they tried to push it away, not let it penetrate beyond thought. As long as words didn't help, why use them? Exchanged between two mourning people, they were only a dissonant sound, disturbing the bitter consolation of silence.

The shock, the pain, the agonizing self-pity over the fact that he would never see her again, never hold her, never smell her, the list went on, and on, and on like some pounding surf that threatened to drown him.

And as he spoke he wept. Three times he tried to reach arms round that neck. Three times the form, reached for in vain, escaped Like a breeze between his hands, a dream on wings.

What madness destroyed me and you, Orpheus?

I recognize the vestiges of an old flame

Time carries all things, even our wits, away.