Department Farewell Quotes

I shall not go out at all given that my love is here shall always stay attached to these hearts. I shall never bid farewell to this place! But I have to send this body anyhow from here.

Sunsets are loved because they vanish. Flowers are loved because they go. The dogs of the field and the cats of the kitchen are loved because soon they must depart. These are not the sole reasons, but at the heart of morning welcomes and afternoon laughters is the promise of farewell. In the gray muzzle of an old dog we see goodbye. In the tired face of an old friend we read long journeys beyond returns.

Haggard, I would not be you for all the world," he declared. "You have let your doom in by the front door, although it will not depart that way. (...) Farewell, poor Haggard, farewell!

Stages As every flower fades and as all youth Departs, so life at every stage, So every virtue, so our grasp of truth, Blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor, Be ready bravely and without remorse To find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force For guarding us and helping us to live. Serenely let us move to distant places And let no sentiments of home detain us. The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces. If we accept a home of our own making, Familiar habit makes for indolence. We must prepare for parting and leave-taking Or else remain the slaves of permanence. Even the hour of our death may send Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces, And life may summon us to newer races. So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.

You know, even when we leave a place, we leave our memories there and they will represent us in our absence! So, in reality, we will always continue to be in every place we depart!

He was lonely; I wanted to help, of course, but not from so intimate a distance; and lately our meetings had become memorable as a series of comically protracted farewells on station platforms and embarrassed, hasty protestations of friendship made through the windows of departing taxicabs.

The god abandons Antony When at the hour of midnight an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing with exquisite music, with voices ― Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides, your life’s work that has failed, your schemes that have proved illusions. But like a man prepared, like a brave man, bid farewell to her, to Alexandria who is departing. Above all, do not delude yourself, do not say that it is a dream, that your ear was mistaken. Do not condescend to such empty hopes. Like a man for long prepared, like a brave man, like the man who was worthy of such a city, go to the window firmly, and listen with emotion but not with the prayers and complaints of the coward (Ah! supreme rapture!) listen to the notes, to the exquisite instruments of the mystic choir, and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing.

Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow. Juliet! ...O my love! my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids...Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death... Here's to my love!...Thus with a kiss I die.

Though she would have preferred long ago to have died, fled, gotten it all over with, the body--Jesus, how the body!--took its time. It possessed its own wishes and nostalgias. You could not just turn neatly into light and slip out the window. You couldn't go like that. Within one's own departing but stubborn flesh, there was only the long, sentimental, piecemeal farewell. Sir? A towel. Is there a towel? The body, hauling sadness, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet, dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me, too, barked the dog. Don't go, don't go, it said, running along the fence, almost keeping pace but not quite, its reflection a shrinking charm in the car mirrors as you trundled past the viburnium, past the pin grove, past the property line, past every last patch of land, straight down the swallowing road, disappearing and disappearing. Until at last it was true: you had disappeared.

Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d'hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year's full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship.

There was always a big party on the night before anyone left for the States. They called it an American wake, because the whole community stayed up to keep the emigrants company through their last night on the island, just as they would have bidden farewell to a soul beginning the long journey towards eternity. There was almost no chance that anyone present would ever see the departed again

Jesus reserved his harshest judgement for those who professed to be righteous but failed to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned. “Depart from me, you accursed!” he thundered.

An eerie aspect of social media is the way the dead’s account lingers in digital space as a floating memorial. Friends post emotional farewells as if the departed will read them. But we all know that those words are for the rest of the world as if to flaunt their bond with the deceased like a new car or engagement ring. Just like any material possession that ceases production, a person’s value amplifies when they are dead. They have no future. They have no present. Their past becomes a limited resource that everyone is desperate to snag a piece of.

Philemon counselled with old Baucis first; and then discovered to the listening Gods their hearts' desire, ‘We pray you let us have the care of your new temple; and since we have passed so many years in harmony, let us depart this life together— Let the same hour take us both—I would not see the tomb of my dear wife; and let me not be destined to be buried by her hands!’ At once their wishes were fulfilled. So long as life was granted they were known to be the temple's trusted keepers, and when age had enervated them with many years, as they were standing, by some chance, before the sacred steps, and were relating all these things as they had happened, Baucis saw Philemon, her old husband, and he, too, saw Baucis, as their bodies put forth leaves; and while the tops of trees grew over them, above their faces, — they spoke each to each; as long as they could speak they said, ‘Farewell, farewell, my own’—and while they said farewell; new leaves and branches covered both at once.

Maya departs for city, cat, and lover. The days grow shorter. Summer's over. We take long walks among the flying leaves And ponder turnings taken by our lives. Look at each other closely, as friends will On parting. This is not farewell, Not now. Yet something in the sad End-of-season light remains unsaid.

[T]his jealousy gave him, if anything, an agreeable chill, as, to the sad Parisian who is leaving Venice behind him to return to France, a last mosquito proves that Italy and summer are still not too remote. But, as a rule, with this particular period of his life from which he was emerging, when he made an effort, if not to remain in it, at least to obtain a clear view of it while he still could, he discovered that already it was too late; he would have liked to glimpse, as though it were a landscape that was about to disappear, that love from which he had departed; but it was so difficult to enter into a state of duality and to present to oneself the lifelike spectacle of a feeling one has ceased to possess, that very soon, the clouds gathering in his brain, he could see nothing at all, abandoned the attempt, took the glasses from his nose and wiped them; and he told himself that he would do better to rest for a little, that there would be time enough later on, and settled back into his corner with the incuriosity, the torpor of the drowsy sleeper in the railway-carriage that is drawing him, he feels, faster and faster out of the country in which he has lived for so long and which he had vowed not to allow to slip away from him without looking out to bid it a last farewell.

Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d’hôte shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year’s full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship.

Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springs of hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberry vine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!

Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d’hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year’s full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous. Why this craving for change?

Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d'hôte shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year's full reopening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly? You don't know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply; we quite envy you—and some other years perhaps—but just now we have engagements—and there’s the bus as the door—our time is up! So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful. The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and whoever went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air, and feeling some of its influence in his bones.

The corporate state seeks to discredit and shut down the anticapitalist left. Its natural allies are the neo-Nazis and the Christian fascists. The alt-right is bankrolled by the most retrograde forces in American capitalism. It has huge media platforms. It has placed its ideologues and sympathizers in positions of power, including in law enforcement, the military, and the White House. And it has carried out acts of domestic terrorism that dwarf anything carried out by the left. White supremacists were responsible for forty-nine homicides in twenty-six attacks in the United States from 2006 to 2016, far more than those committed by members of any other extremist group, according to a report issued in May 2017 by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.109

A businessman buys a business and tries to operate it. He does everything that he knows how to do but just cannot make it go. Year after year the ledger shows red, and he is not making a profit. He borrows what he can, has a little spirit and a little hope, but that spirit and hope die and he goes broke. Finally, he sells out, hopelessly in debt, and is left a failure in the business world. A woman is educated to be a teacher but just cannot get along with the other teachers. Something in her constitution or temperament will not allow her to get along with children or young people. So after being shuttled from one school to another, she finally gives up, goes somewhere and takes a job running a stapling machine. She just cannot teach and is a failure in the education world. I have known ministers who thought they were called to preach. They prayed and studied and learned Greek and Hebrew, but somehow they just could not make the public want to listen to them. They just couldn’t do it. They were failures in the congregational world. It is possible to be a Christian and yet be a failure. This is the same as Israel in the desert, wandering around. The Israelites were God’s people, protected and fed, but they were failures. They were not where God meant them to be. They compromised. They were halfway between where they used to be and where they ought to be. And that describes many of the Lord’s people. They live and die spiritual failures. I am glad God is good and kind. Failures can crawl into God’s arms, relax and say, “Father, I made a mess of it. I’m a spiritual failure. I haven’t been out doing evil things exactly, but here I am, Father, and I’m old and ready to go and I’m a failure.” Our kind and gracious heavenly Father will not say to that person, “Depart from me—I never knew you,” because that person has believed and does believe in Jesus Christ. The individual has simply been a failure all of his life. He is ready for death and ready for heaven. I wonder if that is what Paul, the man of God, meant when he said: [No] other foundation can [any] man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he should receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15). I think that’s what it means, all right. We ought to be the kind of Christian that cannot only save our souls but also save our lives. When Lot left Sodom, he had nothing but the garments on his back. Thank God, he got out. But how much better it would have been if he had said farewell at the gate and had camels loaded with his goods. He could have gone out with his head up, chin out, saying good riddance to old Sodom. How much better he could have marched away from there with his family. And when he settled in a new place, he could have had “an abundant entrance” (see 2 Pet. 1:11). Thank God, you are going to make it. But do you want to make it in the way you have been acting lately? Wandering, roaming aimlessly? When there is a place where Jesus will pour “the oil of gladness” on our heads, a place sweeter than any other in the entire world, the blood-bought mercy seat (Ps. 45:7; Heb. 1:9)? It is the will of God that you should enter the holy of holies, live under the shadow of the mercy seat, and go out from there and always come back to be renewed and recharged and re-fed. It is the will of God that you live by the mercy seat, living a separated, clean, holy, sacrificial life—a life of continual spiritual difference. Wouldn’t that be better than the way you are doing it now?

sail, we  tcame by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. [1] 2And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. 3When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo. 4And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And  uthrough the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children,  vaccompanied us until we were outside the city. And  wkneeling down on the beach, we prayed 6and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home. 7When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and we greeted  xthe brothers [2] and stayed with them for one day. 8On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of  yPhilip  zthe evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. 9He had four unmarried daughters,  awho prophesied. 10While we were staying for many days, a prophet named  bAgabus came down from Judea. 11And coming to

A man decides to be a lawyer and spends years studying law and finally puts out his shingle. He soon finds something in his temperament that makes it impossible for him to make good as a lawyer. He is a complete failure. He is 50 years old, was admitted to the bar when he was 30, and 20 years later, he has not been able to make a living as a lawyer. As a lawyer, he is a failure. A businessman buys a business and tries to operate it. He does everything that he knows how to do but just cannot make it go. Year after year the ledger shows red, and he is not making a profit. He borrows what he can, has a little spirit and a little hope, but that spirit and hope die and he goes broke. Finally, he sells out, hopelessly in debt, and is left a failure in the business world. A woman is educated to be a teacher but just cannot get along with the other teachers. Something in her constitution or temperament will not allow her to get along with children or young people. So after being shuttled from one school to another, she finally gives up, goes somewhere and takes a job running a stapling machine. She just cannot teach and is a failure in the education world. I have known ministers who thought they were called to preach. They prayed and studied and learned Greek and Hebrew, but somehow they just could not make the public want to listen to them. They just couldn’t do it. They were failures in the congregational world. It is possible to be a Christian and yet be a failure. This is the same as Israel in the desert, wandering around. The Israelites were God’s people, protected and fed, but they were failures. They were not where God meant them to be. They compromised. They were halfway between where they used to be and where they ought to be. And that describes many of the Lord’s people. They live and die spiritual failures. I am glad God is good and kind. Failures can crawl into God’s arms, relax and say, “Father, I made a mess of it. I’m a spiritual failure. I haven’t been out doing evil things exactly, but here I am, Father, and I’m old and ready to go and I’m a failure.” Our kind and gracious heavenly Father will not say to that person, “Depart from me—I never knew you,” because that person has believed and does believe in Jesus Christ. The individual has simply been a failure all of his life. He is ready for death and ready for heaven. I wonder if that is what Paul, the man of God, meant when he said: [No] other foundation can [any] man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he should receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15). I think that’s what it means, all right. We ought to be the kind of Christian that cannot only save our souls but also save our lives. When Lot left Sodom, he had nothing but the garments on his back. Thank God, he got out. But how much better it would have been if he had said farewell at the gate and had camels loaded with his goods. He could have gone out with his head up, chin out, saying good riddance to old Sodom. How much better he could have marched away from there with his family. And when he settled in a new place, he could have had “an abundant entrance

André was a clever and cultivated man but to some degree without scruples. During the occupation, he had lived in Benjamin Franklin’s house, and upon departing (as noted earlier) he had made off with most of Franklin’s treasured collection of books. He had also been one of Peggy Shippen’s admirers and the architect of Howe’s farewell meschianza bash.

Many of America’s policing techniques, including widespread surveillance, were pioneered and perfected in American colonies such as the Philippines before being introduced to police departments in the United States. Blacks in the South had to be controlled. Labor unions and radical socialists had to be broken.

You are a brave woman." Miss Royle shook her head. "And he is truly a wicked man." "Yes, he is," Bridget replied. Unfortunately, Val's wickedness no longer seemed to be a deterrent to her. Probably that should concern her. She made her farewells and departed the carriage as circumspectly as she'd entered it, but as she made her way back to Hermes House, Pip by her side, she finally acknowledged it to herself. Wicked or not, vain or not, outrageous or not, she was falling in love with the Duke of Montgomery.

Black attired funeral attendees who arrived on time performed their part to perfection lead by officiant through the graveside service, the attendees read relevant passages from the holy scriptures, song hymns, shared their memories of the deceased like the latter's family bade a teary farewell to the departed soul when the grave diggers lowered the casket into the earth, engaged in the funeral reception following the officiants' concluding of the service.

Black attired funeral attendees, who arrived on time, performed their part to perfection lead by officiant through the graveside service, the attendees read relevant passages from the holy scriptures, song hymns, shared their memories of the deceased like the latter's family, bade a teary farewell to the departed soul when the grave diggers lowered the casket into the earth, and engaged in the funeral reception following the officiants' concluding of the service.

fur pricked. Surely it was a bad idea for Onewhisker to rely on the leader of another Clan for support? And not just that—Onewhisker knew that Firestar and Brambleclaw were the only other cats who knew what Tallstar had said, and not said, when appointing his new deputy. He was relying on them to keep his secret, to be loyal to him beyond the demands of the warrior code, and support his leadership even though it might not be approved by StarClan. The two leaders made their farewells, echoed by other cats in both Clans as WindClan began the steep climb up the ravine. The ThunderClan cats stood watching them for a while; Brambleclaw noticed Leafpaw, a bunch of herbs in her jaws, looking after the departing Clan with her head tipped questioningly to one side. He wondered if something was worrying her—perhaps StarClan had warned her of trouble on the way for WindClan—but before he could ask, Firestar called his Clan together. Somehow, now that ThunderClan was on their own, the lake and the land around it seemed to stretch away farther than before, even more unknown and more threatening. Brambleclaw was acutely aware of every rock or bush that might hide an enemy. His pelt bristled. It was strange that

When the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt with the help of our State Department in 2012, a bill was introduced into the Egyptian legislature that would make “farewell intercourse” legal. 

Then what's the life goal of those of us in the middle class? A promotion to department head or manager? Having children and passing on the family name? Someone who lives comfortably like me and people in the older generation who've adapted to the system are in no position to talk to the students about life goals. (Kang 1989: 142)

Whatever Hoar’s injury, he departed in gentlemanly fashion, sending Grant a gracious farewell note. In private, however, he broadcast his anger and “wished the government might be destroyed.

Skinners guts were in turmoil from the beer and curry at the weekend and a viscous, silent eye-stinging killer of a fart slipped out of him, as poignantly weeping as a lover's last farewell, just as the lift stopped at the next floor to let in two men wearing overalls. Everybody suffered in silence. As the workmen got off at the following level, Skinner seized the opportunity, announcing, - That is minging, looking towards the departing workers. He knew that when it came to farting everybody turned into Old Etonian High Court Judges. Men would always be suspected before women and men in working clothes would always be blamed before men in suits. Those were the rules.

Instead, contracts were awarded to American consultancies like Bearing Point, or Adam Smith from the UK, to bring in their own people to run ministries and government departments. The Afghans themselves had little say. ‘The quality of internationals was extremely poor,’ complains Jawad. ‘I had an adviser to my office assigned through USAID, and one day I asked him to draft three template letters in English to reply to congratulatory letters to the President, and requests we kept getting for pictures and flags. All it needed to say was “Thank you, but we don’t have any.” This adviser spent two days on this, and then I had to go and correct it – and it wasn’t even my language. In the end I said, “You’re fired.”’ Jawad then received an angry call from the USAID office to say they had spent $60–70,000 on hiring this man, so he could not fire him. ‘I don’t care,’ replied Jawad. ‘I don’t have room for him in my office – send him to Dubai or somewhere. So much money was wasted.’ In

When [...} everything had been arranged for my departure to Cairo, I went to my mother. Once again she gave me that strange look. Her lips parted momerntarily as though she wanted to smile, then she shut them and her face reverted to its usual state: a thick mask, or rather a series of masks. Then she disappeared for a while and brought back her purse, which she placed in my hand. "Had your fasther lived," she said to me, "he would not have chosen for you differently from what you have chosen yourself. Do as you wish, depart or stay it's up to you. It's your life and you're free to do with it as you will. In this purse is some money which will come in useful." That was our farewell: no tears, no kisses, no fuss. Two human beings had walked along a part of the road together, then each had gone his way. This was in fact the last thing she said to me, for I did not see her again. After long years and numerous experiences, I remembered that moment and I wept. At the time, though, I felt nothing whatsoever.

There are so many worlds we leave behind throughout the course of our lifetimes. I have often asked in futile indignation: how could our physical beings be here, when our hearts remain in another world, another life, another time – where we truly belong? The heart fights a valiant battle. Yet, it eventually finds itself bowing to the ineluctable reality of the farewell. Life goes on. In our worlds. In the worlds of whom we have departed. Most of all, in the worlds we have left behind, in which part of us still lives on – forevermore.

Sunsets are loved because they vanish. Flowers are loved because they go. The dogs of the field and the cats of the kitchen are loved because soon they must depart. These are not the sole reasons, but at the heart of morning welcomes and afternoon laughters is the promise of farewell. In the gray muzzle of an old dog we see goodbye. In the tired face of an old friend we read long journeys beyond returns.

Do your words mean what you think, Minos?”she asked with uncertainty. “I am the sovereign. And you, Ariadne, are the embodiment of the power which moves the world. Are we capable of deceiving one another? We would soon pay the ultimate penalty if we were. Maybe I have managed to convince you. I do not know. But one thing must be made clear. You must realize that this island, its fate, and its future are just as dear to me as they are to you. Vidvoyos has often spoken wisely, and many of his ideas shall be put into force. Law and order are what we want, for too much violence and the dethronement of kings lead to destruction and all too often embolden the enemy. We could breathe new life into the effeminate heart of the kingdom by strengthening the authority of its monarch. And only you can help in this, despite the generally declining faith in the gods. Both you and the double-headed axe of our forefathers are symbols capable of unifying the people, for everyone still trusts in your miraculous powers, and even the courtiers who hold everything in derision would never dare turn against you. Maybe they realize that everything would crumble to nothing without your presence. Assist me, Ariadne. Who is Vidvoyos—or anyone for that matter—compared to the sacred destiny of Crete? He must depart at once or perish! Otherwise, the entire nation will be consumed by civil war from which it may never recover. That is all.”Silence fell, and for some time, they did not speak. ‘‘Vidvoyos does not believe in the gods...”she said softly as though answering a question of her own. “I have always resented that. Maybe they are not as we imagine them to be, but still, they do exist and must be served and honored. What would we be without them? Indeed, would we be anything at all? Anyone who ignores the gods must find support within his own self. But there are times in life when this kind of support is not enough. Perilavos is such a feeble, capricious child... And upon many occasions have I wondered whether he would be capable of becoming king and of guiding such a powerful nation.”Minos lowered his head in thought. Presently he looked up. ‘‘I would like you to appear in Amnissos on the day they depart so that you may step upon the altar of stone and make prophecies about their distant journey. For there is nothing to prevent you from wishing Vidvoyos a safe return and bidding him a kingly farewell.

During World War II pets were allowed aboard British war ships and Blackie was the HMS Prince of Wales's ship's pet cat. . In August 1941 he became famous after the ship carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to Canada where he net Franklin D. Roosevelt to agree on the Atlantic Charter. After the declaration of the Charter, as Churchill prepared to depart from the ship, Blackie approached him at the gangway and bid Prime Minister Churchill farewell. In honor of that moment Blackie was renamed Churchill. Later Blackie survived the sinking of Prince of Wales by the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service later that year, and was rescued and taken to Singapore with the other survivors

Water is poured onto the road as a guest departs, both to make the journey “as smooth and fluid as water” and to ensure their safe return.