The Suffering Ties That Bind Quotes

Farewell, eyes that I loved! Do not blame me if the human body cannot go three days without water. I should never have believed that man was so truly the prisoner of the springs and freshets. I had no notion that our self-sufficiency was so circumscribed. We take it for granted that a man is able to stride straight out into the world. We believe that man is free. We never see the cord that binds him to wells and fountains, that umbilical cord by which he is tied to the womb of the world. Let man take but one step too many... and the cord snaps. Apart from your suffering, I have no regrets. All in all, it has been a good life. If I got free of this I should start right in again. A man cannot live a decent life in cities, and I need to feel myself live. I am not thinking of aviation. The airplane is a means, not an end. One doesn't risk one's life for a plane any more than a farmer ploughs for the sake of the plough. But the airplane is a means of getting away from towns and their bookkeeping and coming to grips with reality.

[...]but Lady Fairweather opposed the decision. Shortly afterwards she suffered from a sudden and unexpected case of being stabbed to death. She did not recover.

Generations of girls had to suffer excruciating pain because somebody unknown had decreed that big feet were unacceptable in upper-class society. It was high time that somebody tried to stop this senseless practice. I was proud that Xueyan and I were among the first to rebel.

Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering were not real evils.--They were the school of God, in which He trains the children of grace for glory--the medicines which are needful to purify our corrupt wills--the furnace which must burn away our dross--the knife which must cut the ties that bind us to the world.

... he would not have believed the suggestion, nor would he have been greatly distressed by the thought that people supposed her to be attached to him, that people felt them , to be united by any ties so binding as those of snobbishness or wealth. But even if he had accepted the possibility, it might not have caused him any suffering to discover that Odette's love for him was based on a foundation more lasting than mere affection, or any attractive qualities which she might have found in him; on a sound, commercial interest; an interest which would postpone for ever the fatal day on which she might be tempted to bring their relations to an end.

Insipid writer, you pretend to draw for your readers The portraits of your 3 impostors; How is it that, witlessly, you have become the fourth? Why, poor enemy of the supreme essence, Do you confuse Mohammed and the Creator, And the deeds of man with God, his author?... Criticize the servant, but respect the master. God should not suffer for the stupidity of the priest: Let us recognize this God, although he is poorly served. My lodging is filled with lizards and rats; But the architect exists, and anyone who denies it Is touched with madness under the guise of wisdom. Consult Zoroaster, and Minos, and Solon, And the martyr Socrates, and the great Cicero: They all adored a master, a judge, a father. This sublime system is necessary to man. It is the sacred tie that binds society, The first foundation of holy equity, The bridle to the wicked, the hope of the just. If the heavens, stripped of his noble imprint, Could ever cease to attest to his being, If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Let the wise man announce him and kings fear him. Kings, if you oppress me, if your eminencies disdain The tears of the innocent that you cause to flow, My avenger is in the heavens: learn to tremble. Such, at least, is the fruit of a useful creed.

This, I think, is the most tragic loss brought on by the modern health care system. The loving interconnectedness of doctor, family, and community is being destroyed. These ties that bind us to each other are the bonds that define our humanity, and yet they are being systematically severed in the service of automated bookkeeping. The entire health care system is now being organized around machines instead of human beings. Not prioritized to reduce human suffering, but rather to optimize a computerized recordkeeping system. This is a tragedy.

I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,–how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life.

The AllFather was calling her back, forcing her will to bend to his, luring her back to a living death, an existence of pain and madness and never ending suffering and agony. “No!” At the thought of the female beside him—his female, being used in such a way, Xairn felt something growing inside him. A rage so fierce it was like a red curtain dropped over his vision, tinting everything a bloody crimson. “No!” he bellowed again, turning to face his father, his hands clenched into fists. “You shall not have her. Lauren is mine!” The AllFather’s voice dropped to a soft hiss, sounding reasonable and coaxing at the same time. “Come now, Xairn, thisss is asss it must be. The girl is the future of our race, our destiny. You know thisss.” “Lauren is not your destiny. And she’s not your property to do with as you please.” Xairn glared, his eyes never leaving his father’s. “Here and now, I cut the ties that bind me to you. I never wish to see you again.” “But you will sssee me. Sssee me now. Come to me, my ssson.” The power was doubled, trebled, the drag of it like lead on Xairn’s limbs. But this time he had more to fight for than just a pet. Rage and a power of his own filled him—something savage that had been sleeping, or had only just started to stir, suddenly woke fully within his chest. “NO!” Bending, Xairn scooped Lauren into his arms. “I will die before I let you have her. And I will kill you if you threaten her again. I renounce you as my father and I renounce my race. For now and evermore I am no longer Scourge.” Xairn