“But he was there.Day and night he was there for me,risking his very existence to protect me from a war that claimed my life over and over again.He never faltered,never wavered,never feared for his own safety.He was beaten,stabbed,abused, and tortured again and again,yet he still stuck by me,ignoring the possibility that he would die for me one day. It wasn t right. I didn t deserve everything he sacrificed for me.I wasn t worth so high a price.”
“You can sacrifice and not love. But you cannot love and not sacrifice.”
“Phury knelt beside him and stroked his face. I ve only ever had you to live for. If you die I have nothing. I m utterly lost. And you are needed here. Zsadist tried to reach out, but couldn t lift his arms as Phury stood up. God, Z, I keep thinking this tragedy of ours is going to be over. But it just keeps going, doesn t it? Zsadist blacked out to the sound of his twin s boots heading from the room.”
“Tereza s mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her words had the ring of truth, backed as they were by the experience of a woman who had lost everything because of her child. Tereza would listen and believe that being a mother was the highest value in life and that being a mother was a great sacrifice. If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress.”
“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. And when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.”
“Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”
“Ulla could forgive betrayal, another abandonment, even her own death. But not this moment, when after all her sacrifice, she begged for mercy and Signy sought a prince s permission to grant it.”
“She wrote short stories because she said no to parties.”
“The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes.”
“There is not a day or night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit s. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here, what is, is what must be.”
“Industry, technology, and commerce can thrive only as long as an idealistic national community offers the necessary preconditions. And these do not lie in material egoism, but in a spirit of sacrifice and joyful renunciation.”
“Sometimes I knew in all my mind and heart why I had done what I had done, and I welcomed the sacrifice. But there were times too when I lived in a desert and felt no joy and saw no hope and could not remember my old feelings. Then I lived by faith alone, faith without hope. What good did I get from it? I got to have love in my heart.”
“Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on.”
“From out of nowhere, Phury felt an overwhelming tide of guilt, like someone had popped the lid off all his deepest concerns and his fears for the future of the race. He had to respond to it, couldn t bear the pressure. Riding the wave, he found himself saying in a rush, We live and die for our kind. The species is our first and only concern. We fight every night and count the jars of thelessers we kill. Stealth is the way we protect the civilians. The less they know about us, the safer they are. That is why we disappeared.”
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. How often I think of that ought. No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words.”
“Frequently, and not only in the popular usage, sadomasochism is confounded with love. Masochistic phenomena, especially, are looked upon as expressions of love. An attitude of complete self-denial for the sake of another person and the surrender of one s own rights and claims to another person have been praised as examples of great love . It seems that there is no better proof for love than sacrifice and the readiness to give oneself up for the sake of the beloved person. Actually, in these cases, love is essentially a masochistic yearning and rooted in the symbiotic need of the person involved.”
“Why you keep telling me to be careful, Old man ? Your stupidity doesn t deserve my sacrifice, Kiddo.”