“It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.”
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet
As translated by Stanley Kunitz
In those years only the dead smiled,
Glad to be at rest:
And Leningrad city swayed like
A needless appendix to its prisons.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Prologue
“It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.”
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet
“When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children”
Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist
“If my eyes could show my soul, everyone would cry when they saw me smile.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister
On the Ukrainian army's siege of pro-Russian rebel strongholds in Donetsk and Luhansk, 29 August 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-lashes-out-at-ukraine-over-failure-of-talks-1409312151, The Wall Street Journal <br class="br">On Ukraine
“That smile could end wars and cure cancer.”
John Green book An Abundance of Katherines
Colin Singleton, p. 32
An Abundance of Katherines (2006)
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Preface to English Prisons Under Local Government http://books.google.com/books?id=81YwAAAAYAAJ by Sydney and Beatrice Webb (1922) <br class="br">1940s and later
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
2000s
Context: Antonin Scalia: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the — the cross is the — is the most common symbol of — of — of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me — what would you have them erect? A cross — some conglomerate of a cross, a, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?
Peter Eliasberg: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew. [Laughter. ] So it is the most common symbol to honor Christians.
Antonin Scalia: I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion.
“Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.”
Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat
The Prison and the Angel
Undated