#sacrifice

Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#freedom #justice #sacrifice #truth #freedom

He was lost. He knew it. He had neither the size nor the strength to defeat her, and she had him cornered. But he would fight. He was a warrior, the prince-son of the unicorns, and he meant to go down fighting. There would be no songs to mark his death; and none of his people would even know. But he had saved Korr and the others of the band. It was noon — they were safe out of the hills by now, and none of the rest of it mattered. ↗

— Meredith Ann Pierce

#self-sacrifice #courage

He couldn’t look back at the children. He couldn’t think of it. All he could do was watch the eyes of his wife. He pulled her to him, her body soft, her skin warm. She was life, she was his. He took her lips and tasted his freedom once more. The subtle tenderness. The hope hidden in joined breath. He took it into himself. Soaking in the peace that came with it. And even as the rustling began he felt still, he felt calm. Scratching and scrapping within the stones, and the rustle of wings. But all Eli knew was the nature of love. ↗

— Rachel A. Marks

#hope #hope-and-despair #kiss-of-death #kissing #love

The great truth for Innokenty used to be that we are given only one life. Now, with the new feeling that had ripened in him, he became aware of another law: that we are given only one conscience, too. A life laid down cannot be reclaimed, nor can a ruined conscience. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#life #loss #sacrifice #life

I have it on good authority there's going to be a new 'gate' opening up soon over on the south side of the wall." The truth dawned on me. "Oh lord. You're the one who's been doling out C4." "You make it sound easy," he said with a frown. "That stuff's hard to get a hold of. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#last-sacrifice #rosemarie-hathaway #authority

I've inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time while I was growing up, the sense of what my parents had sacrificed in moving to the United States, and yet at the same time, building a life here and all that that entailed. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#building #entailed #growing #growing up #had

We are telling veterans they must sacrifice to pay for the pet projects and contracts to campaign donors of powerful members of Congress. ↗

— Nick Lampson

#congress #contracts #donors #members #must

I foster a sorrowful conception of affection. Make no sacrifices. ↗

— Franz Liszt

#conception #foster #i #make #sacrifices

I made sacrifices willingly; it was what I did best. ↗

— Karen McCarthy

#did #i #made #sacrifices #willingly

I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I'd have to make a lot of sacrifices. I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream. ↗

— Lionel Messi

#always #argentina #changed #did #dream