“Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond today.”
St. 6
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)
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Thomas Gray 81
English poet, historian 1716–1771Related quotes
“To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man.”
Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 25, lines 4-5
About the paradigm change http://zompist.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/ask-zompist-blogs-vs-non-blogs/ from static web pages to blogs.
The Triad.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“… alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill.”
Source: The Castle of Llyr
“Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!”
The Graves of a Household, st. 8.
2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: To dismiss the magnitude of this progress -- to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr. -- they did not die in vain. Their victory was great. But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance. And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights. This country has changed too much. People of goodwill, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history’s currents.
“Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.”
"Democracy"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)