Patch Adams (1945) Physician, activist, diplomat, author
Source: House Calls: How we can all heal the world one visit at a time (1998), p. xi
Patch Adams (1945) Physician, activist, diplomat, author
Source: House Calls: How we can all heal the world one visit at a time (1998), p. xi
“The loss of…honest and industrious men's lives cannot be valued at any price.”
William Bradford (1590–1657) English Separatist leader in Leiden, Holland and in Plymouth Colony (1590-1657)
Ch. 3.
“He has not lived in vain
who learns to be unruffled
by loss, by gain,
by, joy, by pain.”
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer
The Cherubinic Wanderer
Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral
As quoted in Historic Ship Exhibits in the United States (1969), by United States Naval History Division, United States Navy, p. 24
Walter Model (1891–1945) German field marshal
September 3 1944, <Appeal to the Soldiers of the Army of the West>. Quoted in "Rückzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944" - Page 191 - by Joachim Ludewig - 2012
Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946) German general
To Leon Goldensohn, July 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 207
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright
Prefatory Remarks
The Philosophical Letters
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, "If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong" (1864)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Hippolyte Taine in Napoleon's views on religion.
About
Context: Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, by instinct, imagination, and souvenir, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France. Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, the Pope, in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed and Italy will once more become a nation. Napoleon prepares the way, and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the principal cult authorized in the empire.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the countless more whose lives are forever changed -- the survivors crippled, the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happen to some other place. The vast majority of Americans -- the majority of gun owners -- want to do something about this. We see that now. And I'm convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even as we respect the traditions and ways of life that make up this beloved country -- by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace.
“As God hath ordained, so do; else thou wilt suffer chastisement and loss. Askest thou what loss?”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Canst thou judge men?... then make us imitators of thyself, as Socrates did. Do this, do not do that, else will I cast thee into prison; this is not governing men like reasonable creatures. Say rather, As God hath ordained, so do; else thou wilt suffer chastisement and loss. Askest thou what loss? None other than this: To have left undone what thou shouldst have done: to have lost the faithfulness, the reverence, the modesty that is in thee! Greater loss than this seek not to find! (91).
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
"Of the Cruelty of Man"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings
Context: Animals will be seen on the earth who will always be fighting against each other with the greatest loss and frequent deaths on each side. And there will be no end to their malignity; by their strong limbs we shall see a great portion of the trees of the vast forests laid low throughout the universe; and, when they are filled with food the satisfaction of their desires will be to deal death and grief and labour and wars and fury to every living thing; and from their immoderate pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the too great weight of their limbs will keep them down. Nothing will remain on earth, or under the earth or in the waters which will not be persecuted, disturbed and spoiled, and those of one country removed into another. And their bodies will become the sepulture and means of transit of all they have killed.
O Earth! why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible monster.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)
Context: One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them, Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, Remarks on Egyptian protests (January 2011)
Context: My administration has been closely monitoring the situation in Egypt, and I know that we will be learning more tomorrow when day breaks. As the situation continues to unfold, our first concern is preventing injury or loss of life. So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.
The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book VII, 7.68-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Letter to Mrs. Bixby in Boston (21 November 1864); some scholars suggest that John Hay, a secretary of President Lincoln's, actually wrote this letter. The Files of the war department were inaccurate: Mrs. Bixby lost two sons.
1860s
Context: Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India
Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Context: Organised religion allying itself to theology and often more concerned with its vested interests than with the things of the spirit encourages a temper which is the very opposite of science. It produces narrowness and intolerance, credulity and superstition, emotionalism and irrationalism. It tends to close and limit the mind of man and to produce a temper of a dependent, unfree person.
Even if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, so Voltaire, said … perhaps that is true, and indeed the mind of man has always been trying to fashion some such mental image or conception which grew with the mind's growth. But there is something also in the reverse proposition: even if God exist, it may be desirable not to look up to Him or to rely upon Him. Too much dependence on supernatural forces may lead, and has often led, to loss of self-reliance in man, and to a blunting of his capacity and creative ability. And yet some faith seems necessary in things of the spirit which are beyond the scope of our physical world, some reliance on moral, spiritual, and idealistic conceptions, or else we have no anchorage, no objectives or purpose in life. Whether we believe in God or not, it is impossible not to believe in something, whether we call it a creative life-giving force, or vital energy inherent in matter which gives it its capacity for self-movement and change and growth, or by some other name, something that is as real, though elusive, as life is real when contrasted with death. <!-- p. 524 (1946)
“For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.””
Aurelius Augustinus book The City of God
XI, 9
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: For when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2016, Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers (July 2016)
Context: For all of us, life presents challenges and suffering -- accidents, illnesses, the loss of loved ones. There are times when we are overwhelmed by sudden calamity, natural or manmade. All of us, we make mistakes. And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have control of things -- not even a President does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another.
Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician
Address on sentencing (1885)
Context: The Court. has done the work for me, and although at first appearance it seems to be against me, I am so confident in the idea which I have had the honor to express yesterday, that I think it is for good and not for my loss. Up to this moment, I have been considered by a certain party as insane, by another party as a criminal, by another party as a man with whom it was doubtful whether to have any intercourse. So there was hostility and there was contempt, and there was avoidance To-day, by the verdict of the Court, one of these three situations has disappeared.
I suppose that after having been condemned, I will cease to be called a fool, and for me it is a great advantage. I consider it as a great advantage. If I have a mission, I say "If " for the sake of those who doubt, but for my part it means "Since," since I have a mission, I cannot fulfil my mission as long as I am looked upon as an insane being-human being, at the moment that I begin to ascend that scale, I begin to succeed.
Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader
Be As You Are, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1985) http://www.sadgurus-saints-sages.com/books/RamakrishnaParamahamsa/beasyouare.pdf
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Section 2, paragraph 34-35
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Hippolyte Taine in Napoleon's views on religion. <br class="br">About, Other <br class="br">Source: Archive https://archive.org/stream/jstor-25102177/25102177_djvu.txt
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 76
Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet
translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, 1881 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up <br class="br">The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881), The Poem of Labīd
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Letter to Robert W. Wood (October 7, 1931) in Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, Microfilm 66, 5, as cited in Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912 (1978) pp. 132, 288. Translation of the entire letter, which is follow above is in Armin Hermann, Frühgeschiche der Quantentheorie (1899–1913) Mosbach/Baden: Physik Verlag (1969), transl. Claude W. Nash, p. 23 of the translation; and also in M. S. Longair,Theoretical Concepts in Physics(Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 6–12, p. 222. All as quoted/cited by Clayton A. Gearhart, "Planck, the Quantum, and the Historians" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.613.4262&rep=rep1&type=pdf, Physics in Perspective, 4 (2002) 170-215.
1984
“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.”
Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“The gain to the winner is always less than the loss to the loser.”
Ian Fleming book Live and Let Die
Source: Live and Let Die
“People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.”
Anne Tyler The Beginner's Goodbye
Source: The Beginner's Goodbye
Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer
Source: Summer Island
Anosh Irani (1974) Canadian writer
Source: The Cripple and His Talismans
Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist
Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 32, Shadow in the Throes of Death
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Context: First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That this is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.
Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Burns
Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author
Source: I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life
“A woman being never at a loss… the devil always sticks by them.”
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Source: Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals,
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
“Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it.”
Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees
Source: The Secret Life of Bees
Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer
Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions
Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer
Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself
“I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.”
Wes Anderson (1969) American filmmaker
Source: The Royal Tenenbaums
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss”
Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Judy Blume (1938) American children's writer
Source: Places I Never Meant To Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers