Sadder Than Quotes

my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.

What about you? Are you happiest and saddest right now that you've ever been?" "Of course I am." "Why?" "Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.

There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Sometimes when things are particularly bad, my brain will give me a happy dream. [...] When I fully awaken, I'm momentarily comforted. I try to hold on to the peaceful feeling of the dream, but it quickly slips away, leaving me sadder than ever.

Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. "He who desires but acts not," wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, "Breeds pestilence.

There is nothing more entertaining then leaving someone speechless. Yet, there is nothing sadder than realizing that person was incapable of retaining half of what you said, and will repeat the story all wrong to someone else.

Defeating one ant had taken all my energy. (I don’t think I have ever written a sadder sentence than that.)

By the way, is there anything sadder than toys on a grave?

If I had a camera," I said, "I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life." "I look exactly the same." "No, you don't. You're changing all the time. Every day a tiny bit. If I could, I'd keep a record of it all." "If you're so smart, how did I change today?" "You got a fraction of a millimeter taller, for one thing. Your hair grew a fraction of a millimeter longer. And your breasts grew a fraction of a—" "They did not!" "Yes, they did." "Did NOT." "Did too." "What else, you big pig?" "You got a little happier and also a little sadder." "Meaning they cancel out each other, leaving me exactly the same." "Not at all. The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also become a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and the saddest you've ever been in your whole life." "How do you know?" "Think about it. Have you ever been happier or sadder than right now, lying here in this grass?" "I guess not. No." "And have you ever been sadder?" "No." "It isn't like that for everyone, you know. Some people[...]" "What about you? Are you the happiest and saddest right now that you've ever been?" "Of course I am." "Why?" "Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.

Only one thing’s sadder than remembering you were once free, and that’s forgetting you were once free.

... tall apartment blocks and industrial buildings flashed by. The sky had clouded over. Raya’s reflection flickered in the window. She looked younger and sadder than she’d imagined.

She is sadder and sadder, and for a man there is no balm more soothing than the sadness he has caused a woman.

Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress? Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots? Who hears the regrets of the thieving automobile? Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?

Are you a storyteller, Thomas Covenant?" Absently he replied, "I was, once." "And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?" ... Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. "I live." "Another?" Foamfollower returned. "In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more -- with one word you will make me weep.

He shook his head pityingly. “This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.” “Not all men are destined for greatness,” I reminded him. “Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?” “This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.” “No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

I think I would feel superficially sadder, but less fundamentally broken as a person, if I could just be sad about one break-up, rather than sad about my lifelong inability to sustain a meaningful relationship.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

They say a clean cut heals soonest. There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go

It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that need are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.

I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of it’s very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can’t-I don’t have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wished they happened. She says, “Yes, there are lives sadder than the saddest of books.” I say, “Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life.

There is nothing sadder than sitting in a car and having absolutely nowhere to go.

The wind god Favonius had warned him in Croatia: If you let your anger rule you … your fate will be even sadder than mine. But how could his fate be anything but sad? Even if he lived through this quest, he would have to leave both camps forever. That was the only way he would find peace. He wished there was another option – a choice that didn’t hurt like the waters of the Phlegethon – but he couldn’t see one.

There are few sights sadder than a ruined book, but Klaus had no time to be sad.

The death of a dream can be, in a way, sadder than that of a living being. Sometimes it all seems so unfair.

It's not arrogant to say that you can't figure out the answers to the universe with your internal faith. It's not arrogant to know that there's no omniscient, omnipotent prime mover in the universe who loves you personally. It's not sad to feel that life and the love of your real friends and family is more than enough to make life worth living. Isn't it much sadder to feel that there is a more important love required than the love of the people who have chosen to spend their limited time with you?

It’s almost always sadder to stay than to depart

I don’t think there’s anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something intervenes.

I have been sadder than any man could be: for nothing in the world was made for me.

perhaps the only thing sadder than saying goobye to a friend is knowimg that they will never be the same as who u remember them to be.

We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow. Some of us sadder than others. Some of us more willing to forgive than others. Grudges are heavy, but for the people hurting the most, I suppose forgiveness is even heavier.

Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time.

Sadder than a ticking clock, the moments without you

There's nothing sadder than a book that hasn't been cared for, a book too broken to read.

There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster.

...the things we don't have are sadder than the things we have. Because the things we don't have exist in our imaginations, where they are perfect.

There's nothing sadder than a sobbing waffle.

The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.

Cry your guts out because nothing is sadder than an adult who forgets how to be a child.

It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.

Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.

And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything to change it.

What can be sadder than a discouraged artist dying not from his own commonplace maladies, but from the cancer of oblivion?

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain, Fond heart that is ever more true Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain--- She’ll wait by the sliprails for you.

Is there anything sadder than the scrawniest little piece of uneaten chicken at a dinner party?” “Hmm,” said Jules. “Yes. The Holocaust.

What someone’s lies reveal about them (aspirations to being an accomplished writer, fantasies of an exotic history and a cosmopolitan family) are always sadder than the fact of the lies themselves. These inventions illuminate the negative spaces of someone’s self-image, their vanity and insecurities and most childish wishes, as we can infer from warped starlight the presence of a far vaster mass of dark matter.

There's no thing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of a postage stamp.

You are not my Marguerite. And yet—you are. This essential thing you share—your soul—that is what I love.” Paul’s smile is sadder and more beautiful than I have ever seen before. “I would love you in any shape, in any world, with any past. Never doubt that.

Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?

Whenever you feel sad and lonely, if you will just find somebody sadder and lonelier than yourself and cheer them up, it will make you all right.

I know nothing sadder than a hunchback in love or an ugly woman full of romantic ideals.

The only thing sadder than unrequited love is being in a relationship where there is unrequited love.

Because the things we don’t have are sadder than the things we have. Because the things we don’t have exist in our imaginations, where they are perfect.

There are few things sadder in this life than watching someone walk away after they've left you. Watching the distance between your bodies expand until there's nothing but empty space and silence.

The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and the saddest you've ever been in your whole life...Think about it it. Have you ever been happier than right now, lying here in the grass? And have you ever been sadder? It isn't like that for everyone. Some people just get happier and happier every day. And some people just get sadder and sadder. And some people, like you, get both. And what about you, are you the happiest and the saddest right now that you've ever been? Of course I am. Why? Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material improvement. Knowledge is a viaticum. Though is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat. A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We should feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying of hunger for lack of light. All progress tends toward the solution. Some day, people will be amazed. As the human race ascends, the deepest layers will naturally emerge from the zone of distress. The effacement of wretchedness will be effected by a simple elevation level.

Almosts, I'm starting to learn, are fuller of regret than absolutes - much sadder than certain yeses and nos. Yes and no mark ends and beginnings. But almosts cling, hovering on the boundary, never quite realized but still there.

There is nothing sadder in this world than the waste of human potential. The purpose of evolution is to raise us out of the mud, not have us grovelling in it

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]

I've never felt stronger than when I was packing up my room at Richard's place. [...] I've also never felt sadder. Sad but strong. You can be both. And I am.

There’s no sadder place to be in this world than a place where there’s no hope.

Nothing is sadder than someone who has lost his memory, and the church which has lost its memory is in the same state of senility.

The only thing sadder than hateful people’s willingness to drag us down to their level, is our willingness to oblige.

The death of a dream can be, in a way, sadder than that of a living being.

Nothing sadder than the adolescent rite of passage to have sex before understanding what sexy is.

Yes, I know,’ she said in answer to the unasked, for there was no time for explanations. ‘Yes. My face is spoilt.’ Grandible’s jowl wobbled and creased. Then, for the first time that Neverfell could remember, he changed to a Face she had never seen before, a frown more ferocious and alarming than either of the others. ‘Who the shambles told you that?’ he barked. ‘Spoilt? I’ll spoil them.’ He took hold of her chin and examined her. ‘A bit sadder, maybe. A bit wiser. But nothing rotten. You’re just growing yourself a rind at last. Still a good cheese.

We insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

[I]t is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

I’m not sure I can think of anything sadder than a homeless person with a homeless dog.

Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.

There are many types of marriage relationships and all of them can work, but none is sadder than the one that doesn't represent peace in your heart.

Stay outside, looking in. See those two poor people. Sad girl. Sad boy. Sadder than a movie, two people parting. My heart was behind a huge concrete dam with no gates, no opening, not even a hairline crack. On this side those people only look sad. They feel no pain. On this side.

Because it may be fine to die in the open, with one’s body still young and healthy amidst the triumphant echoes of the bugles; but it is a sadder fate to die of wounds in a hospital ward after long sufferings, and it is more melancholy still to meet one’s end in one’s bed at home in the midst of fond laments, dim lights and medicine bottles. But nothing is more difficult than to die in some strange, indifferent spot, in the characterless bed of an inn, to die there old and worn and leave no one behind in the world.

What can the love in my soul be compared to another wonderful soul which is so far and yet so close of my self? What can this symbiosis between two souls can be? What can love be when you feel you cannot sleep at night, that every drop of dew becomes a crystal in your heart, when every breeze of wind has magical meanings? What can love be when you feel that you want nothing more in this world that to be with the soul you love? But what can love be in other transcendental realities? What about our souls? Are our souls a waterfall, a true Niagara or a smile, a flirt of an angel? Are our souls a mere mood of a fairy or a lightening in a summer rain? Our souls could be all of this and much more. But what really happens in that transcendental reality when we feel we are truly in love, that we love so much that it hurts? That the air in the room is unbreathable, that the sentimental, spiritual or physical distances kill us? What happens when dawn find us sadder than ever, looking for an excuse or an argument for the person we love so much, our Great Love? What are all thses? What are the looks lost in the desert horizons of unfulfilment or those in the eyes that deeply loose each other in the others inside the souls?

I breathed in and out, perfume and smoke, perfume and smoke, and we lay like that for a long time, until I heard the seagulls crying, sadder than a funeral, and I knew it was almost morning.

Dear heart, we embrace the song and the story and all our gifts because the world has such great need, and because the world exceedingly rejoices, and because there is no sadder thing than to leave this world having never really shown up.

The pure whiteness, dazzling in the sun, was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Who was I to spoil it? Snow falls. Earth says: Here's a gift for you. And what do we do? We shovel it. Blow it. Scrape it. Plow it. Get it out of our way. We push it to our fringes. Is there anything uglier or sadder than a ten-day-old snow dump? It's not even snow anymore. It's slush.

It was she who did away with my generation's virginity. She taught us much more than we should have learned, but she taught us above all that there's no place in life sadder than an empty bed.

She shows up to every game for the next six weeks. Every week she looks sadder, like the life is slowly being sucked out of her. And you know how I know all this? Because while she's so pre-occupied reading... I'm so pre-occupied reading her.

There is nothing tougher than a tough Mexican, just as there is nothing gentler than a gentle Mexican, nothing more honest than an honest Mexican, and above all nothing sadder than a sad Mexican.

I am a divorced child, of divided, uncertain background. Within this division I - supposed fruit of their love - no longer exist. It happened nearly forty years ago, yet to me nothing is sadder than my parents' divorce.

The fact is that nothing is more difficult to believe than the truth; conversely, nothing seduces like the power of lies, the greater the better. It's only natural, and you will have to find the right balance. Having said that, let me add that this particular old woman hasn't been collecting only years; she has also collected stories, and none sadder or more terrible than the one she's about to tell you. You have been at the heart of this story without knowing it until today ...

There's a great maze of tunnels, a Labyrinth. It's like a great dark city, under the hill. Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes, and old crowns, and bones, and years, and silence.' She spoke if in trance, rapture. Manan watched her. His slabby face never expressed much but stolid, careful sadness; it was sadder than usual now. 'Well, and you're mistress of all that,' he said. 'The silence, and the dark.

There's really nothing sadder than goth kids in a warm-weather climate.

Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?

There’s nothing sadder than cyberspace . . . but I’ve already said this.

My father's face, when he said that, dissolved into a stillness, a sad expression, sadder than human feeling.

There’s nothing sadder than buying bananas one at a time.

Again. Sadder than was. Again. Saddest of all. Again.

By the time I was finished, Dad looked older and sadder than I'd ever seen him. "None of this makes any sense." "I'm beginning to think I should make that the title of my autobiography.

So if you ask me if I'm sad, I'll say yes, I'm sadder than I've ever been in my life. And if you ask me if I'm angry, I'll say definitely, because I feel like he's been stolen from me. But most importantly, I'm happy. Happy that I was lucky enough to call him my dad and my friend. So happy that it was worth all the struggle, and the fear, and the pain, because without all of that, you can never truly say you experienced the best bits.

Yes, the man said, I've often wondered why I impress people as being altogether sad, and yet I insist I am not sad, and that they are quite wrong about me, and yet when I look in the mirror it turns out to be something really true, my face is sad, my face is actually sad, I become convinced (and he smiled at her, because it was four o'clock, and the day was ending and she was a very pretty girl, it was astonishing how gradually she had become prettier) that they are right after all, and I am sad, sadder than I know.

They say a clean cut heals soonest. There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can't see or hear or touch a man, it's best to let him go.

If only. Were there sadder words than these?

How mutable the flower of the human heart, a fluttering blossom gone before the breeze’s touch – so we recall the bygone years when the heart of another was our close companion, each dear word that stirred us then still unforgotten; and yet, it is the way of things that the beloved should move into worlds beyond our own, a parting far sadder than from the dead.

There are worse things than not receiving love. There are sadder stories than this. There are species going extinct, and a planet warming. I told myself: Who are you to complain, you with these frivolous extracurricular needs?

Looking back on months and years of intimacy, to feel that your friend, while you still remember the moving words you exchanged, is yet growing distant and living in a world apart—all this is sadder far than partings brought by death.

It is what it is. A fucked-up situation, with no evil people to blame. We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow. Some of us sadder than others. Some of us more willing to forgive than others.

If you want to feel the truest spirit of Christmas, go out and find someone sadder than you, lonelier than you, poorer than you … and give what you can in a smile, in time, in compassion. The best Christmases always require the gift of self.

The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know. He felt even tireder than when he went to bed, and here it was -- another day which would go on until evening and then there would be another one and another one which would be the same as all days are when they are lived by a hemulen. He crept under the bedcover and buried his nose in the pillow, then he shifted his stomach to the edge of the bed where the sheets were cool. He took possession of the whole bed with outstretched arms and legs he was waiting for a nice dream that wouldn't come. He curled up and made himself small but it didn't help a bit. He tried being the hemulen that everybody like, he tried being the hemulen that no one liked. But however hard he tried he remained a hemulen doing his best without anything really coming off. In the end he got up and pulled on his trousers. The Hemulen didn't like getting dressed and undressed, it gave him a feeling that the days passed without anything of importance happening. Even so, he spent the whole day arranging, organising and directing things from morning till night! All around him there were people living slipshod and aimless lives, wherever he looked there was something to be put to rights and he worked his fingers to the bone trying to get them to see how they ought to live. It's as though they don't want to live well, the Hemulen thought sadly as he brushed his teeth. He looked at the photograph of himself with his boat which was been taken when the boat was launched. It was a beautiful picture but it made him feel even sadder. I ought to learn how to sail, the Hemulen thought. But I've never got enough time... Moominvalley in November Chapter 5, THE HEMULEN

Raising children I’ve decided is a lot sadder than I expecte4d. Seeing them grow up brightly and vividly is tempered by the knowledge that each year brings another share of lasts. The last time I push my daughter on a swing. The last time I play Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The last time I read a bedtime story. If I could give my daughters one piece of advice I would tell them to make the most of the first times -their first kiss, their first date, their first love, the first smile of their first child…There can only be one.

Do you think we make sad things into songs in order to hold on to the sadness or to banish it—I think it is to banish the sadness. So then if you write a happy song, is it not sadder than a sad song because by making it you have banished your own happiness into a song?

There are fewer things sadder than a poorly attended funeral.

When she came home, she smelled the way I like. But . . . her face seemed sadder than when she left.

Is there anything sadder than losers telling themselves that they’re fortunate?

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

If you let your anger rule you, your fate will be sadder than mine

I knew that the tears of adults were wetter, saltier, and much, much sadder than those of a child

There is one thing sadder than to see one's children die; it is to see them leading an evil life.

Nothing is sadder than a child burdened by reality, after all. Those stories were our family fairy tales.

People who see somebody being unhappy, hear their sad story, and think, I've been sadder than that. As if grief negates grief as opposed to compounding it.

this summer is so much sadder than the other

Franz shook his head. "When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands;they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity. That's why one banned book in your former country means infinitely more than the billions of words spewed out by our universities.

Is there anything sadder than the immense lengths we’ll go to impress someone? The things we’ll do to earn someone’s approval can seem, when examined in retrospect, like the result of some temporary form of insanity.

This is what I have held against boyfriends all my life: that they are the people who steal your best friends away from you piece by piece, and when they give them back (if they ever do), it is only when they have made your best friends sadder and more heartbroken than when they were first taken. Because that's what it looks like, from here. It had to be his fault, because how could someone who is my best friend ever really choose to see me less and less until we see each other almost not at all? This is what I believed: Best friends, if only by virtue of you calling them your "best friend," just don't do that. But they do.

Some people, like your sister, just get happier and happier everyday. And some people, like Baba Asch, just get sadder and sadder. And some people, like you, get both.' 'What about you? Are you the happiest and the saddest right now than you've ever been?' 'Of course I am.' 'Why?' 'Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.

Hey!" (Me:panting, smiling brightly, determined.) "Hey." (Him:blank face, eyes shifty, but still frustratingly handsome.) "Are you on your way somewhere? (Me:Still smiling, still determined.) "Yup." (Him:Uninterested, taking out a chapstick.) "Well,I'd love to talk, if you want." (Me:trying to remember global warming, nuclear proliferation, everything else more important and sadder than this moment.) "Sure,yeah. Listen, I'm late." (Him:walking away.) "Well,do you want my number maybe?" (Me:determined. Not to cry.)

I can't blame this all for my drinking -- I can't blame my parents or my childhood, and abusive uncle or some terrible tragedy. It's my fault. I was a drinker anyway -- I've always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there's nothing more boring than that.

It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane.

grieving, when we miss our loved ones even more than usual. How can you celebrate togetherness when there is none? When you have lost someone special, your world loses its celebratory qualities. Holidays only magnify the loss. The sadness feels sadder and the loneliness goes deeper. The need for support may be the greatest during the holidays. Nevertheless,

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Love at first sight.” It comes out as hardly more than a whisper, but the quietest words carry in this vast, echoing room. “I’ve always thought real love could only come later. After you both know each other, trust each other. After days, or weeks, or months spent together—learning to understand everything that isn’t spoken out loud.” Paul smiles, which only makes his eyes look sadder. “One can grow into the other, my lady.” His words are even quieter than mine. “I have known that to be true.” When we look at each other then, he silently admits something beautiful and dangerous. Does he see the same confession in my eyes?

It is what it is. A fucked-up situation, with no evil people to blame. We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow. Some of us sadder than others. Some of us more willing to forgive than others. Grudges are heavy, but for the people hurting the most, I suppose forgiveness is even heavier.

Is there any sadder sight than a burnt out library?

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, 'I told you so,' Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past, Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do, Own they foresaw that you would fall at last, And solace your slight lapse 'gainst 'bonos mores,' With a long memorandum of old stories.

O never think the dead are dead, So long as there are men alive, The dead will live, the dead will live.” That’s how I feel it. Nothing sadder than that.

Because the things we don't have are sadder than the things we have. Because the things we don't have exist in our imaginations, where they are perfect.

There’s nothing sadder than a book that hasn’t been cared for, a book too broken to read. Still,

She felt relaxed, happy, and sadder than she had ever felt in her life before.

Moorehead is one of those sad people who go into teaching so they can be worshipped by the only people sadder than they are - students.

There is nothing sadder than drinking champagne with four dozen silent flamingos standing around in the grip of an existential crisis.

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes: work never begun. Lorcan Strong

It was she who did away with my generation’s virginity. She taught us much more than we should have learned, but she taught us above all that there’s no place in life sadder than an empty bed.

But what is in many ways most memorable about Robert Canterbury’s report are the final two items on his list: “Problem Areas and Lessons Learned” and “Recommendations.” Beside both, the highest-ranking National Guard officer at Kent State University on May 4 typed: “None.” Of all the thousands of pages of documentation spawned by the shootings, there may be no sadder testament than those two “nones.

It rings in a new dawn, one where Harley isn’t the center of my Earth and I’m not the center of his, and just like that, I’m lost. I’m no longer tethered to this man. I’m no longer his future—I’m his past, and he’s mine. But that’s all we are. Ex-lovers. Friends? Maybe one day, but for now are just two people who’ve clung to one another for so long we forgot we weren’t the only two to exist. We forgot we weren’t a whole, but two separate pieces. It will kill me, but I have to let go of Harley Hamilton, because he’s already let go of me. And there is nothing sadder than a woman clinging to a ghost

They say a clean cut heals soonest. There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go.

Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. “He who desires but acts not,” wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, “breeds pestilence.

I can’t blame all this for my drinking—I can’t blame my parents or my childhood, an abusive uncle or some terrible tragedy. It’s my fault. I was a drinker anyway—I’ve always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there’s nothing more boring than that. I’m better now, about the children thing; I’ve got better since I’ve been on my own. I’ve had to. I’ve read books and articles, I’ve realized that I must come to terms with it. There are strategies, there is hope. If I straightened myself out and sobered up, there’s a possibility that I could adopt. And I’m not thirty-four yet—it isn’t over. I am better than I was a few years ago, when I used to abandon my trolley and leave the supermarket if the place was packed with mums and kids; I wouldn’t have been able to come to a park like this, to sit near the playground and watch chubby toddlers rolling down the slide. There were times, at my lowest, when the hunger was at its worst, when I thought I was going to lose my mind.

There isno feeling sadder or more hopeless than the coolingof a friendship between two men. Between a man anda woman a delicate web of terms and conditions is always negotiated. Between men, on the other hand, the deep sense of friendship rests on its selflessness: we expect no sacrifices, no tenderness from each other, all we want is to preserve a pact wordlessly made between us. Perhaps I was really the guilty one, because I did not know you well

I think what makes me feel sad about the girls I knew growing old is that it forces me to admit, all over again, that my youthful dreams are gone forever. The death of a dream can be, in a way, sadder than that of a living being.

He punches the steering wheel. And then he breaks. The boy I love breaks. And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything

III" Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress? Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots? Who hears the regrets of the thieving automobile? Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?

In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. If I persist in beating my fist against a stone wall, my freedom exhausts itself in this useless gesture without succeeding in giving itself a content. It debases itself in a vain contingency. Yet, there is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation. It transforms into phantoms and contingent reveries projects which had at the beginning been set up as will and freedom. A young man has hoped for a happy or useful or glorious life. If the man he has become looks upon these miscarried attempts of his adolescence with disillusioned indifference, there they are, forever frozen in the dead past. When an effort fails, one declares bitterly that he has lost time and wasted his powers. The failure condemns that whole part of ourselves which we had engaged in the effort. It was to escape this dilemma that the Stoics preached indifference. We could indeed assert our freedom against all constraint if we agreed to renounce the particularity of our projects. If a door refuses to open, let us accept not opening it and there we are free. But by doing that, one manages only to save an abstract notion of freedom. It is emptied of all content and all truth. The power of man ceases to be limited because it is annulled. It is the particularity of the project which determines the limitation of the power, but it is also what gives the project its content and permits it to be set up. There are people who are filled with such horror at the idea of a defeat that they keep themselves from ever doing anything. But no one would dream of considering this gloomy passivity as the triumph of freedom

Don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. They say a clean cut heals soonest. There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go.

There is this narrative, which we follow in our world, that tells us we ought to always be strong. Fortified, immovable, brave. So we tell ourselves that's what we are. Then we believe it. The grave problem with this narrative lies in the fact that in the minutes we stop to breathe and be quiet, in the minutes we stop telling ourselves that, we look into the mirror, or we look at our photographs, and it hits us: we are soft! We are soft, we are bruised, we got hurt far too much than what we deserved! And guess what? It wasn't okay! It really was never okay. And then panic settles in as we realise that all of that time we were abandoning the real us, inside of us, like a small child left in the corner of an alleyway, in favour of embracing the big and brave version of ourselves that we told ourselves to love! So we stopped actually loving the us of the us. The real us. The real you. There is no sadder thing! Please... you are soft and scared... embrace your teddy self, embrace your infant soul, protect what is left of you.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; and it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

It’s one of the things I find most depressing about Trump. He’s trained his docile followers to believe in an America that is weaker, sadder, and smaller than we really are. I remain militantly optimistic about America, our rich talent and our amazing, messy, wonderful, ridiculous, crazy, passionate people. It’s too bad a central tenet of Trumpism is to run down the people of this country and describe a nation so lost and weak it requires an authoritarian strongman.

however strange it may seem to you, one and the same thing depresses me in both our own state of affairs and yours. It is that this movement is not Christian, but nationalistic; that is, it runs the same danger of degenerating into the bestiality of facts. It has the same alienation from the age-old, gracious tradition that breathes with transformations and anticipations, rather than the cold statements of blind insanity. These movements are on a par, one is evoked by the other, and it is all the sadder for this reason. They are the left and right wings of a single materialistic night. (Published in Quarto, London, 1980)

Herman Melville came to see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to do (a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder), in a rough outside coat, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... [W]e soon found ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and confidence. Melville has not been well, of late; ... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind.... Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists -- and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before -- in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us. [after what would be their last meeting]

I can think of no sadder example of our food paradigm than two posters taped to the window of a California IHOP. One is a colorful photo of pancakes heaped with bananas, strawberries, nuts, syrups and whipped cream with the caption, 'Welcome to Paradise.' Lower down, an 8x10 photocopy states: 'Chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in food or beverages sold here.' Such signs are posted on many fast-food outlets. Heaven isn't a place on earth, at least not at these drive-throughs.

When I fully awaken, I’m momentarily comforted. I try to hold on to the peaceful feeling of the dream, but it quickly slips away, leaving me sadder and lonelier than ever.

There's no sadder sight than that of a child's coffin.

Yet, there is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation. It transforms into phantoms and contingent reveries projects which had at the beginning been set up as will and freedom.

Nothing sadder on this earth than a human being without a cat. She

I have always said, on the birth of dreams, That they must form wings and spread. For there is no sadder sight it seems, Than that of dreams that are dead. Trygvie Jensen

I think back in disgust at how they cried for him. They are sadder for his death than for the quality of his life.

My sight falters a little, for I can lift up my heart towards it more easily than my eyes. And so I come back, not worse, but sadder, and I do not walk among my paltry possessions with head erect as before, and there enters a secret sting and the doubt whether the other life is not better. None of these things changes me, yet none of them fails to disturb me.

The Heiligenstadt Testament" Oh! ye who think or declare me to be hostile, morose, and misanthropical, how unjust you are, and how little you know the secret cause of what appears thus to you! My heart and mind were ever from childhood prone to the most tender feelings of affection, and I was always disposed to accomplish something great. But you must remember that six years ago I was attacked by an incurable malady, aggravated by unskillful physicians, deluded from year to year, too, by the hope of relief, and at length forced to the conviction of a lasting affliction (the cure of which may go on for years, and perhaps after all prove impracticable). Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was yet obliged early in life to isolate myself, and to pass my existence in solitude. If I at any time resolved to surmount all this, oh! how cruelly was I again repelled by the experience, sadder than ever, of my defective hearing! — and yet I found it impossible to say to others: Speak louder; shout! for I am deaf! Alas! how could I proclaim the deficiency of a sense which ought to have been more perfect with me than with other men, — a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, to an extent, indeed, that few of my profession ever enjoyed! Alas, I cannot do this! Forgive me therefore when you see me withdraw from you with whom I would so gladly mingle. My misfortune is doubly severe from causing me to be misunderstood. No longer can I enjoy recreation in social intercourse, refined conversation, or mutual outpourings of thought. Completely isolated, I only enter society when compelled to do so. I must live like art exile. In company I am assailed by the most painful apprehensions, from the dread of being exposed to the risk of my condition being observed. It was the same during the last six months I spent in the country. My intelligent physician recommended me to spare my hearing as much as possible, which was quite in accordance with my present disposition, though sometimes, tempted by my natural inclination for society, I allowed myself to be beguiled into it. But what humiliation when any one beside me heard a flute in the far distance, while I heard nothing, or when others heard a shepherd singing, and I still heard nothing! Such things brought me to the verge of desperation, and well-nigh caused me to put an end to my life. Art! art alone deterred me. Ah! how could I possibly quit the world before bringing forth all that I felt it was my vocation to produce? And thus I spared this miserable life — so utterly miserable that any sudden change may reduce me at any moment from my best condition into the worst. It is decreed that I must now choose Patience for my guide! This I have done. I hope the resolve will not fail me, steadfastly to persevere till it may please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread of my life. Perhaps I may get better, perhaps not. I am prepared for either. Constrained to become a philosopher in my twenty-eighth year! This is no slight trial, and more severe on an artist than on any one else. God looks into my heart, He searches it, and knows that love for man and feelings of benevolence have their abode there! Oh! ye who may one day read this, think that you have done me injustice, and let any one similarly afflicted be consoled, by finding one like himself, who, in defiance of all the obstacles of Nature, has done all in his power to be included in the ranks of estimable artists and men. My brothers Carl and [Johann], as soon as I am no more, if Professor Schmidt be still alive, beg him in my name to describe my malady, and to add these pages to the analysis of my disease, that at least, so far as possible, the world may be reconciled to me after my death. I also hereby declare you both heirs of my small fortune (if so it may be called). Share it fairly, agree together and assist each other. You know that any

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl- songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,” Utter’d by friends, those prophets of the past, Who, ’stead of saying what you now should do, Own they foresaw that you would fall at last, And solace your slight lapse ’gainst “bonos mores,” With a long memorandum of old stories.

There is no sadder symbol of the crippling poverty in which millions of peasants were forced to live than the image of a peasant and his son struggling to drag a plough through the mud.

I've seen it before, what mothers and daughters can do to one another during those terrible adolescent years. Grief must be at the bottom of it, for what is sadder for a parent than seeing her daughter shedding girlhood drop by precious drop? And what is more terrifying for a child than to doubt her mother, to begin to see her as a human with faults instead of as a goddess?

OLD MAN: In Africa, people are sadder about the death of an old man than about that of a newborn baby. The old man represented a wealth of experience that might have benefited the tribe, whereas the newborn baby had not lived and could not even be aware of dying. In Europe, people are sad about the newborn baby because they think he might well have done wonderful things if he had lived. On the other hand, they pay little attention to the death of the old man, who had already lived his life anyway. --Edmond Wells ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE

This work feels more crushing and sadder to me than it's ever felt--you see all the ways in which you've failed to do certain things, even though there's incremental progress. I am unfailingly optimistic, though. I think to not be optimistic is just about the most privileged thing you can be. If you can be pessimistic, you are basically deciding that there's no hope for a whole group of people who can't afford to think that way.

And I wonder why I've spent all this time feeling depressed about the end of something that wasn't working anyway. I suppose on one level it's just worse to get to the age of thirty without even one really happy relationship behind me. I think I would feel superficially sadder, but less fundamentally broken as a person, if I could just be sad about one break-up, rather than sad about my lifelong inability to sustain a meaningful relationship.

Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of those paper captains I've known, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has little of command but the name.

I’ve always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there’s nothing more boring than that. I’m

I was a drinker anyway—I’ve always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there’s nothing more boring than that.

The women looked naked, in a way that women never do in skin magazines. These women were real, with the fine roughening of skin here and there, the tiny sag at the breast, the small folds across the stomach that real women, and men, have. It made them more, rather than less, seductive, I thought, because it emphasized their nakedness, and in a sense their vulnerability. It also made me feel a little sadder for them. That kind of vulnerability shouldn’t be handed around. It was for someone who loved you and was vulnerable too.

A fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny,” said the monk. What had prompted the Buddhist monk to say that? I don’t know. John and he had been chatting for a while before I joined their conversation. Afterwards, John and I talked about karma, and John said, “The reason why a fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny, is because, as sad as the outcome of love can be when it comes to an end or if not reciprocated, the tragedy of life is not a love without destiny, it is to live as if dead, and to let the life within you wither.

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. VI.

He created waterfalls for her out of the morning dew, and from the colored pebbles of a meadow stream he made a necklace more beautiful than emeralds, sadder than pearls. She caught him in her net of silken hair, she carried him down, down, into deep and silent waters, past obliteration. He showed her frozen stars and molten sun; she gave him long, entwined shadows and the sound of black velvet. He reached out to her and touched moss, grass, ancient trees, iridescent rocks; her fingertips, striving upwards, brushed old planets and silver moonlight, the flash of comets and the cry of dissolving suns.

Among the lessons of taught by the French Revolution there is none sadder or more striking than this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma.

I was saddened by the thought that she, whom I loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world, could not understand me. And the thought that I had not the courage to explain myself to her made me sadder still. I was very lonely. Indeed, there were times when I felt that I stood completely alone in this world, cut off from every other living person.

I can’t blame all this for my drinking—I can’t blame my parents or my childhood, an abusive uncle or some terrible tragedy. It’s my fault. I was a drinker anyway—I’ve always liked to drink. But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk, and there’s nothing more boring than that.

On the American desert are horses which eat the locoweed and some are driven made by it; their vision is affected, they take enormous leaps to cross a tuft of grass or tumble blindly into rivers. The horses which have become thus addicted are shunned by the others and will never rejoin the herd. So it is with human beings: those who are conscious of another world, the world of the spirit, acquire an outlook which distorts the values of ordinary life; they are consumed by the weed of non-attachment. Curiosity is their one excess and therefore they are recognized not by what they do, but by what they refrain from doing, like those Araphants or disciples of Buddha who are pledged to the "Nine Incapabilities." Thus they do not take life, they do not compete, they do not boast, they do not join groups of more than six, they do not condemn others; they are "abandoners of revels, mute, contemplative" who are depressed by gossip, gaiety and equals, who wait to be telephoned to, who neither speak in public, nor keep up with their friends, nor take revenge upon their enemies. Self-knowledge has taught them to abandon hate and blame and envy in their lives, and they look sadder than they are. They seldom make positive assertions because they see, outlined against any statement, as a painter sees a complementary color, the image of its opposite. Most psychological questionnaires are designed to search out these moonlings and to secure their non-employment. They divine each other by a warm indifference for they know that they are not intended to forgather, but, like stumps of phosphorus in the world's wood, each to give forth his misleading radiance.

The humiliation and the sleepless nights. When I couldn’t breathe, because he didn’t reply. How I cried when I typed. I wrote to him when my puppy died, about the bully and the stalker. It was like a storm that took away January, February, and March. And when months were gone, I was all alone, trying to fix new and old scars. I was trying so hard to hide the stains, but they just got blue and dark. The letters I wrote and the messages I sent. I’m glad his reply never came. I wish he loses me without even having me. I wish he loses all of me, the clingy me, the needy me, the broken me, and also the happy me…and I suppose when he’ll lose all of me, I’ll forget him too. There’s one thing that is sadder than losing someone you’ve been waiting for all your life…it’s losing them, and not even realizing you had them. I wish, Siddhartha never reads the book and the songs and the letters…he doesn’t deserve them.

Josephson had died just north of Abd al-Kuri Island, an uninhabited, mountainous desert with, on its eastern side, perhaps the world’s wildest and finest beach. To mollify Holworthy, in a moment of weakness not long after they had departed Lemonnier, Rensselaer had considered leaving a few SEALs there on the way south, to observe traffic, as on occasion irregular forces were ordered to do. But he had decided then that rather than mollify Holworthy, he would keep him down. The rendezvous point with the Puller wasn’t far, and, arriving first, Athena waited. The Puller was out of sight but in radio contact. Eventually they saw her to the west, and she came even with Athena at dusk, although in that latitude, as Josephson had learned, dusk is so short it hardly exists. With the lights of the Puller blazing despite wartime conditions, her vast superstructure, hollow and beamed like a box-girder bridge, was cast in flares and shadows. A brow was extended from a door in the side and fixed to Athena’s main deck. As a gentle swell moved the two ships up and down at different rates, the hinged brow tilted slightly one way and then another. The Iranian prisoners were escorted over the brow and to the brig in the Puller, which would take them very close to their own country, but then to the United States. They were bitter and depressed. The huge ship into the darkness of which they were swallowed seemed like an alien craft from another civilization, which, for them, it was. A gray metal coffin was carried to Athena by a detail from the Puller. This was a sad thing to see, sadder than struggle, sadder than blood. It disappeared below. Josephson’s body was placed inside it and the flag draped over it. Six of Athena’s crew in dress uniform carried it slowly to the brow and set it on deck. After a long silence, Rensselaer spoke a few words. “Our shipmates Speight and Josephson are no longer with us—Speight committed to the deep, lost except to God. And Josephson, who will go home. Neither of these men is unique in death. They are still very much like us, and we are like them: it’s only a matter of time—however long, however short. If upon gazing at this coffin you feel a gulf between you, the living, and him, one of the dead, remember that our fates are the same, and he isn’t as far from us as we may imagine. “At times like this I question our profession. I question the enterprise of war. And then I go on, as we shall, and as we must. In this spirit we bid goodbye to Ensign Josephson, to whom you might have been brothers, and I and the chiefs, perhaps, fathers. May God bless and keep him.” Then the captain read the 23rd Psalm, a salute was fired, and Josephson’s coffin was lifted to the shoulders of its bearers and slowly carried into the depths of the Puller. When he died, he was very young.

A Palestinian village whose feudal owner sold it for a kiss through a pane of glass..." Nothing remained of Sireen after the auction apart from you, little prayer rug, because a mother slyly stole you and wrapped up her son who'd been sentenced to cold and weaning - and later to sorrow and longing. It's said there was a village, a very small village, on the border between sun's gate and earth. It's said that the village was twice sold - once for a measure of oil and once for a kiss through a pane of glass. The buyers and sellers rejoiced at its sale, the year the submarine was sunk, in our twentieth century. And in Sireen - the buyers went over the contract - were white-washed houses, lovers, and trees, folk poets, peasants, and children. (But there was no school - and neither tanks nor prisons.) The threshing floors, the colour of golden wine, and the graveyard were a vault meant for life and death, and the vault was sold! People say that there was a village, but Sireen became an earthquake, imprisoned by an amulet as it turned into a banquet - in which the virgins' infants were cooked in their mothers' milk so soldiers and ministers might eat along with civilisation! "And the axe is laid at the root of the tree..." And once again at the root of the tree, as one dear brother denies another and existence. Officer of the orbits... attend, O knight of death, but don't give in - death is behind us and also before us. Knight of death, attend, there is no time to retreat - darkness crowds us and now has turned into a rancid butter, and the forest too is full, the serpents of blood have slithered away and the beaker of our ablution has been sold to a tourist from California! There is no time now for ablution. People say there was a village, but Sireen became an earthquake, imprisoned by an amulet as it turned into a banquet - in which the virgins' infants were cooked in their mothers' milk so soldiers and ministers might eat, along with civilisation!

And once a lady by my side Gave me a harp, and bid me sing, And touch the laughing silver string; But when I sang of human joy A sorrow wrapped each merry face, And, patrick! by your beard, they wept, Until one came, a tearful boy; 'A sadder creature never stept Than this strange human bard,' he cried; And caught the silver harp away, And, weeping over the white strings, hurled It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place That kept dim waters from the sky; And each one said, with a long, long sigh, 'O saddest harp in all the world, Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!

Mike had taken the rest of the day off, and he had rested, but unfortunately, he had also shared his tale of the ghost in the beam with his girlfriend of fourteen months, Melody, who first suggested that he might have had a ministroke, because that had happened to a guy on the Internet. When he insisted that no, he had seen and heard what he had seen and heard, she responded that he needed to see a shrink, that he was emotionally unavailable, and furthermore, there were much hotter guys than him at the gym who wanted to sleep with her and she had known deep down that there was something wrong with him and that’s why she’d never given up her apartment. He agreed that she was probably right about those things and that she would probably be better off if she slept with the hotter guys at the gym. He’d lost a girlfriend, but he’d gained a drawer in his dresser, a third of the clothes rod in his closet, and all three shampoo shelves in his shower, so he really wasn’t all that broken up about the breakup. Once she was gone, he realized that he didn’t feel any more alone than he had when she had been in the room with him, and he was a little sad that he didn’t feel sadder. All in all, it had been a productive day off. He’d been back at

That was the idiot hopefulness of humans, always to love what was unformed. Really it made no sense. What were the old hoping the young would become? Something other than old? It hadn’t happened yet, but the old kept trying. By the old she meant everyone who loved something younger . . . Everyone was always reaching back through the past, past their own mistakes. You could say that young people were desired because they had smooth bodies and excellent reproductive chances, but you’d mostly be missing the point. There was something much sadder in it than that. Something like constant regret, the sense that your whole life was an error, a mistake, that you were desperate for a redo.

When Love becomes a command, Hatred can become a pleasure. *  *  * if you don’t gamble, you’ll never win *  *  * Beautiful thoughts, and beautiful women never last *  *  * you can cage a tiger but you’re never sure he’s broken. Men are easier *  *  * if you want to know where God is, ask a drunk. *  *  * there aren’t any angels in the foxholes *  *  * no pain means the end of feeling; each of our joys is a bargain with the devil. *  *  * the difference between Art and Life is that Art is more bearable *  *  * I’d rather hear about a live American bum than a dead Greek God. *  *  * there is nothing as boring as the truth *  *  * The well balanced individual is insane *  *  * Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot *  *  * a brave man lacks imagination. Cowardice is usually caused by lack of proper diet. *  *  * sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing *  *  * when men rule governments, men won’t need governments; until then we are screwed *  *  * an intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way. *  *  * everytime I go to a funeral I feel as if I had eaten puffed wheat germ *  *  * dripping faucets, farts of passion, flat tires — are all sadder than death. *  *  * if you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence

A child is born; he is already somebody. To pick one set of circumstances, let's say that he is a bright boy born into a middle-class family that demands good grades and promotes a worldview that includes playing musical instruments, playing sports, admiring nature, going to college, and getting a good job. The parents pay lip service to the idea that thinking is a good thing but do not do much thinking themselves and do not really like it when their son thinks. They pay lip service to the idea that family members should love one another but don't love much and aren't very warm or friendly. They likewise pay lip service to the ideals of freedom but present their son with the clear message that he is not free to get mediocre grades, not free to dispute their core beliefs, and not free to really be himself. Of course, this all confuses him. In this environment, he becomes sadder than he was born to be, saddened by having to perform at piano recitals that don't interest him and that make him woefully anxious, saddened by having to take his boring classes seriously, saddened by his parents' inability to love him or take an interest in him, saddened by what he learns in school about how human beings treat one another, and saddened most of all by his inability to make sense of this picture of life—a picture that everyone seems to be holding as the way to live but that to him feels odd, contradictory, empty, and meaningless.

I know that a brighter view may be taken, and if the sadder has been emphasized in these letters, it is only because we feel you know less about it. For more has been written about the successes than about the failures, and it seems to us that it is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be if the position were thoroughly understood. Reinforcements of men and women are needed, but, far above all, reinforcements of prayer. And so we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth about the heathen as we find them, the work as it is. More workers are needed. No words can tell how much they are needed, how much they are wanted here. But we will never try to allure anyone to think of coming by painting coloured pictures, when the facts are in black and white. What if black and white will never attract like colours ? We care not for it ; our business is to tell the truth. The work is not a pretty thing, to be looked at and admired. It is a fight. And battlefields are not beautiful. But if one is truly called of God, all the difficulties and discouragements only intensify the Call. If things were easier there would be less need. The greater the need, the clearer the Call rings through one, the deeper the conviction grows: it was God s Call. And as one obeys it, there is the joy of obedience, quite apart from the joy of success. There is joy in being with Jesus in a place where His friends are few ; and sometimes, when one would least expect it, coming home tired out and disheartened after a day in an opposing or indifferent town, suddenly how, you can hardly tell such a wave of the joy of Jesus flows over you and through you, that you are stilled with the sense of utter joy. Then, when you see Him winning souls, or hear of your comrades victories, oh ! all that is within you sings, I have more than an overweight of joy !

Maria Mitchell, ... - having long considered Galileo "not a mere observer and discoverer, but a philosopher," she sees not only the tragedy of his truth but also its triumph: “I knew of no sadder picture in the history of science than that of the old man, Galileo, worn by a long life of scientific research, weak and feeble, trembling before that tribunal whose frown was torture, and declaring that to be false which he knew to be true. And I know of no picture in the history of religion more weakly pitiable than that of the Holy Church trembling before Galileo, and denouncing him because he found in the Book of Nature truths not stated in their own Book of God-forgetting that the Book of Nature is also the Book of God. It seems to be difficult for anyone to take in the idea that two truths cannot conflict.

This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, "beyond good and evil," because he had not the courage to say, "more good than good and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, "the purer man," or "the happier man," or "the sadder man," for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over man," a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being "higher," do not know either. Then again, some people fall back on sheer submission and sitting still. Nature is going to do something some day; nobody knows what, and nobody knows when. We have no reason for acting, and no reason for not acting. If anything happens it is right: if anything is prevented it was wrong. Again, some people try to anticipate nature by doing something, by doing anything. Because we may possibly grow wings they cut off their legs. Yet nature may be trying to make them centipedes for all they know.

All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; he was a hard man for anger to tarry with. And in place of it a strong sense of home-coming began to take possession of him. He was going home. “Back to Plattville, where I belong,” he had said; and he said it again without bitterness, for it was the truth. “Every man cometh to his own place in the end.” Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the playhouse lobby for some hard-handed, tried old friend, so he would wave the outer world God-speed and come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though the years were dusty, he had his friends and his memories and his old black brier pipe. He had a girl’s picture that he should carry in his heart till his last day; and if his life was sadder, it was infinitely richer for it. His winter fireside should be not so lonely for her sake; and losing her, he lost not everything, for he had the rare blessing of having known her. And what man could wish to be healed of such a hurt? Far better to have had it than to trot a smug pace unscathed. He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his loss. “A girl you could put in your hat — and there you have a strong man prone.” He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of despair, that is success; and it was the success that he would have. He would take Fate by the neck. But had it done him unkindness? He looked out over the beautiful, “monotonous” landscape, and he answered heartily, “No!” There was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were man utterly wise he were utterly kind.

We are all of us dreamers of dreams; On visions our childhood is fed; And the heart of the child is unhaunted, it seems, By the ghosts of dreams that are dead. From childhood to youth's but a span And the years of our youth are soon sped; Yet the youth is no longer a youth, but a man, When the first of his dreams is dead. There's no sadder sight this side the grave Than the shroud o'er a fond dream spread, And the heart should be stern and the eyes be brave To gaze on a dream that is dead. 'Tis a cup as of wormwood and gall When the doom of a great dream is said, And the best of a man is under the pall When the best of his dreams is dead. He may live on by compact and plan When the fine bloom of living is shed, But God pity the little that's left of a man When the last of his dreams is dead. Let him show a brave face if he can, Let him woo fame or fortune instead, Yet there's not much to do but bury a man When the last of his dreams is dead.

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. Chapter 6 — Hundreds of People The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had roiled over the trial for treason, and carried

A new legend swept Oregon, from Roseburg all the way north to the Columbia, from the mountains to the sea. It traveled by letter and by word of mouth, growing with each telling. It was a sadder story than the two that had come before it--those speaking of a wise, benevolent machine and of a reborn nation. It was more disturbing than those. And yet this new fable had one important element its predecessors lacked. It was true. The story told of a band of forty women--crazy women, many contended--who had shared among themselves a secret vow; to do anything and everything to end a terrible war, and end it before all the good men died trying to save them. They acted out of love, some explained. Others said they did it for their country. There was even a rumor that the women had looked on their odyssey to Hell as a form of penance, in order to make up for some past failing of womankind. Interpretations varied, but the overall moral was always the same, whether spread by word of mouth or by U.S. Mail. From hamlet to village to farmstead, mothers and daughter and wives read the letters and listened to the words--and passed them on.

This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, "beyond good and evil," because he had not the courage to say, "more good than good and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, "the purer man," or "the happier man," or "the sadder man," for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over man," a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being "higher," do not know either.

The unhappiness of the bachelor, whether seeming or actual, is so easily guessed at by the world around him that he will curse his decision, at least if he has remained a bachelor because of the delight he takes in secrecy. He walks around with his coat buttoned, his hands in the upper pockets of his jacket, his arms akimbo, his hat pulled down over his eyes, a false smile that has become natural to him is supposed to shield his mouth as his glasses do his eyes, his trousers are tighter than seem proper for his thin legs. But everyone knows his condition, can detail his sufferings. A cold breeze breathes upon him from within and he gazes inward with the even sadder half of his double face. He moves incessantly, but with predictable regularity, from one apartment to another. The farther he moves away from the living, for whom he must still – and this is the worst mockery – work like a conscious slave who dare not express his consciousness, so much the smaller a space is considered sufficient for him. While it is death that must still strike down the others, though they may have spent all their lives in a sickbed – for even though they would have gone down by themselves long ago from their own weakness, they nevertheless hold fast to their loving, very healthy relatives by blood and marriage – he, this bachelor, still in the midst of life, apparently of his own free will resigns himself to an ever smaller space, and when he dies the coffin is exactly right for him.

The banishing of a leper seems harsh, unnecessary. The Ancient East hasn’t been the only culture to isolate their wounded, however. We may not build colonies or cover our mouths in their presence, but we certainly build walls and duck our eyes. And a person needn’t have leprosy to feel quarantined. One of my sadder memories involves my fourth-grade friend Jerry.1He and a half-dozen of us were an ever-present, inseparable fixture on the playground. One day I called his house to see if we could play. The phone was answered by a cursing, drunken voice telling me Jerry could not come over that day or any day. I told my friends what had happened. One of them explained that Jerry’s father was an alcoholic. I don’t know if I knew what the word meant, but I learned quickly. Jerry, the second baseman; Jerry, the kid with the red bike; Jerry, my friend on the corner was now “Jerry, the son of a drunk.” Kids can be hard, and for some reason we were hard on Jerry. He was infected. Like the leper, he suffered from a condition he didn’t create. Like the leper, he was put outside the village. The divorced know this feeling. So do the handicapped. The unemployed have felt it, as have the less educated. Some shun unmarried moms. We keep our distance from the depressed and avoid the terminally ill. We have neighborhoods for immigrants, convalescent homes for the elderly, schools for the simple, centers for the addicted, and prisons for the criminals. The rest simply try to get away from it all. Only God knows how many Jerrys are in voluntary exile—individuals living quiet, lonely lives infected by their fear of rejection and their memories of the last time they tried. They choose not to be touched at all rather than risk being hurt again.