#ring

Towards the end of the Second World War, when I was sixteen years old, I was taken out of school and forced into the army. After a brief period of training at a base in Wüzburg, I arrived at the front, which by that time had already crossed the Rhine into Germany. There were well over a hundred in my company, all of whom were very young. One evening the company commander sent me with a message to battalion headquarters. I wandered all night long through destroyed, burning villages and farms, and when in the morning I returned to my company I found only the dead, nothing but dead, overrun by a combined bomber and tank assault. I could see only dead and empty faces, where the day before I had shared childhood fears and youthful laughter. I remember nothing but a wordless cry. Thus I see myself to this very day, and behind this memory all my childhood dreams crumble away. ↗

— Johann Baptist Metz

#theology #world-war-ii #dreams

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. ↗

— W. C. Fields

#days #during #forced #i #live

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. ↗

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

#after #discovered #energies #fire #god

Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement. ↗

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte

#dignity #endure #everything #humanity #improvement

I believe that we were not as effective in the second term dealing with this issue of nuclear none proliferation as we had been during the first term when we stripped Libya and Iraq and A.Q. Khan and their capacity to proliferate nuclear technology. ↗

— Dick Cheney

#believe #capacity #dealing #during #effective

The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security. ↗

— Dick Cheney

#attitude #bear #brings #doubt #given

Books that distribute things... with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put us on our feet again. ↗

— Marsilio Ficino

#books #daring #distribute #dreams #feet

So, all during the '90s and, you know, for the first half of this decade, we had opportunities to get evacuation plans in place, better communications in place. ↗

— Michael Chertoff

#communications #decade #during #evacuation #first

I don't think I would have been a good mother. Being a parent brings immense responsibility. It's a Herculean task. It would be almost too much for me. ↗

— Julie Christie

#been #being #brings #good #good mother

I remember becoming aware of women's issues and inequality. It became glaringly clear to me when I was living in America that women are regarded as less intelligent than men. ↗

— Julie Christie

#aware #became #becoming #clear #glaringly