471 Sacrifice Quotes

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.

May therefore God give us the strength to continue to do our duty and with this prayer we bow in homage before our dead heroes, before those whom they have left behind in bereavement, and before all the other victims of this war.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me.

A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it.

Any man who concentrates his energies totally on one passion is, by definition, someone who hurts the people close to him.

Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

I frequently lock myself in my studio. I do not often see the people I love, and in the end I shall suffer for it... painting is one's private life.

There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice.

Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.

We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.

I will give up troops gladly as long as I know that they will be used in the right place to bring victory.

The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.

I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.

This country is heaven, in the spiritual sense of the word. And I say, we prefer to die in heaven than survive in hell.

I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger. I despise the kind of existence that clings to the miserly trifles of comfort and self-interest. I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

As far as we can look back into history, the downfall of any nation can be traced from the moment that nation became timid about spending its best blood.

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

Well, you know, I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before.

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they can not conquer.

It doesn't matter whether I'm judged criminal. I have a great feeling of guilt - I have a feeling that I ran after Hitler like a wildfire without reason. If I can sacrifice my life to make something good, I'd gladly do it.

She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king. She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar and to hear her children sing. So I'd show up about once a week in my faded tight-legged jeans with a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams.

Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!

Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.

The reward of renunciation is some good greater than the thing renounced. To renounce with no vision of such a good, from fear or in automatic obedience to a formula, is to weaken the springs of life, and to diminish the soul's resistance to this world.

All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.

Japan will not abandon the fight for the Philippines even if Tokyo should be reduced to ashes!

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.

The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, he, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the good of his country.

A King should sacrifice the best affections of his heart for the good of his country; no sacrifice should be above his determination.

It is the cause, and not the death, that makes the martyr.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

Let's hope that Ken Osterbroek will be the last person to die.

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.

The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions. He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it [common sense], do we, father?

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

To save one life, Mr. Tagomi had to take two. The logical, balanced mind cannot make sense of that. A kindly man like Mr. Tagomi could be driven insane by the implications of such reality.

Helping people was one of the two basic things Fat had been told to give up; helping people and taking dope. He had stopped taking dope, but all his energy and enthusiasm were now totally channelled into saving people. Better he had kept on with the dope.

Any sane person would have left long ago. But I cannot. I have my sons.

The business of finding a nation's soul is a long and slow one at the best and a great many prophets must be slain in the course of it. Perhaps when we have slain enough prophets future generations will begin to build their tombs.

'Eda na sega ni kilai na i Taukei kevaka ena sega mada ni dave e liu na noda dra.' (English Translation: 'Fijians will never be recognized unless our blood is first shed.')

We lived like that 'Happy Family' you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college - and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child: and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

When Death to either shall come- I pray it be first to me.

The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.

To me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within our knowledge, is maternity. Around this sacred word cluster the joys and sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. The mother walks in the shadow of death that she may give another life. Upon the altar of love she puts her own life in pawn. When the world is civilized, no wife will become a mother against her will. Man will then know that to enslave another is to imprison himself.

What is moral about demanding even more needless sacrifice of American lives merely to save face with the mistake of invading and occupying Iraq? Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Iraqi government we support is an ally of the Iranians who are our declared enemies? Are we not now supporting the Iranians by propping up their allies in Iraq? If Maliki is our ally, and he has diplomatic relations with Ahmadinejad, why can't we? ... Why should we not expect many of the 80,000 Sunnis we have recently armed to someday turn their weapons against us, since they, as well as the Mahdi Army, detest any and all foreign occupation? ... Since no one can define winning the war, just who do we expect to surrender?

My coming to England in this way is, as I realize, so unusual that nobody will easily understand it. I was confronted by a very hard decision. I do not think I could have arrived at my final choice unless I had continually kept before my eyes the vision of an endless line of children's coffins with weeping mothers behind them, both English and German, and another line of coffins of mothers with mourning children.

The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart; Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.

No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all - One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead.

And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice? But ye said, 'Their valour shall show them'; but ye said, 'The end is close.' And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes: And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere - ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.

Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

I should be glad of loneliness And hours that go on broken wings, A thirsty body, a tired heart And the unchanging ache of things, If I could make a single song As lovely and as full of light, As hushed and brief as a falling star On a winter night.

Oh Earth, you gave me all I have, I love you, I love you, - oh what have I That I can give you in return - Except my body after I die?

What did today's sacrifices matter: the Universe lay ahead in the future. What did burnings at the stake and massacres matter? The Universe was somewhere else, always somewhere else! And it isn't anywhere: there are only men, men eternally divided.

'You want to know the only thing my brother ever had to teach me?' His voice was hitching and thick with tears. 'Yes,' the gunslinger said. He leaned forward, his eyes intent upon Eddie's eyes. 'He taught me if you kill what you love, you're damned.' 'I am damned already,' Roland said calmly. 'But perhaps even the damned may be saved.'

'We all die in time,' the gunslinger said. 'It's not just the world that moves on.' He looked squarely at Eddie, his faded blue eyes almost the color of slate in this light. 'But we will be magnificent.' He paused. 'There's more than a world to win, Eddie. I would not risk you and her-I would not have allowed the boy to die-if that was all there was.' 'What are you talking about?' 'Everything there is,' the gunslinger said calmly. 'We are going to go, Eddie. We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end we will stand.'

It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium Sanguinisque pretiosi, Quem in mundi pretium Fructus ventris generosi Rex effudit gentium.

Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another.

The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice until either the last boy and the last girl raise the Palestinian flag over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem.

This child, who is grasping the stone, facing the tank, is it not the greatest message to the world when that hero becomes a martyr? We are proud of them.

I swear to God, I will see [the Palestinian state], whether as a martyr or alive. Please, God, give me the honor of becoming a martyr in the fight for Jerusalem.

To settle this matter (heresy), I am determined to use my kingdoms and dominions, my friends, my body, my blood, my life and my soul.

I forgive the many for the sake of the few, the living for the dead.

And any practice, recommended to him, which either serves to no purpose in life, or offers the strongest violence to his natural inclinations; that practice he will the more readily embrace, on account of those very circumstances, which should make him absolutely reject it. It seems the more purely religious, because it proceeds from no mixture of any other motive or consideration. And if, for its sake, he sacrifices much of his ease and quiet, his claim of merit appears still to rise upon him, in proportion to the zeal and devotion which he discovers. In restoring a loan, or paying a debt, his divinity is nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are what he was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there no god in the universe. But if he fast a day, or give himself a sound whipping; this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No other motive could engage him to such austerities. By these distinguished marks of devotion, he has now acquired the divine favour; and may expect, in recompence, protection and safety in this world, and eternal happiness in the next.

There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best ... Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god; the joy of this particular festival shines in the cruel eyes of the ascetic, that enthusiastic piece of 'anti-nature.' Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? In the end, didn't people have to sacrifice all comfort and hope, everything holy or healing, any faith in hidden harmony or a future filled with justice and bliss? Didn't people have to sacrifice God himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves? To sacrifice God for nothingness - that paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty has been reserved for the race that is now approaching: by now we all know something about this.

Just don't forget your history, dirty Lenny died so we could all be free

Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill; And here is your love, That lists where it will

A man like me troubles himself little about the lives of a million men

I stand here before you in absolute awe of the fact that Congressman Ryan, Patricia's father, gave his life in an attempt to rescue victims from another dangerous cult. Looking at the politicians who serve in our Congress today, should make everyone realize what a rare man Leo Ryan was. I greatly admire him. --Richard Behar, 1992 Conference, (OLD) Cult Awareness Network

I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did. In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it. One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her. But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck - Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them. The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed - and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself. The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him. This is how a man dies. This is how a man... lives!