“How short our span!
If you once realized how brief,
you would refrain
from causing any beast or man
the smallest grief, the slightest pain.”
The Cherubinic Wanderer
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Angelus Silesius 54
German writer 1624–1677Related quotes

[In the Company of the Holy Mother, 220-221]
Source: Drenai series, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, Ch. 2

Variant: She said writting novels was like childbirth: if you truly remembered how awful it got, you'd never do it again.
Source: This Lullaby

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