Personal Loss Quotes

All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit. Certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968. Tim O'Brien: a secret hero. The Lone Ranger. If the stakes ever became high enough - if the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough - I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future. ~ Tim O'Brien

'Ten Years Later' is about the journey six extraordinary people take with time. Each has experienced a game-changing event - perhaps a life-threatening illness or a catastrophic personal loss. ~ Hoda Kotb

If I cry, it's about the personal loss of a friend or something like that. But when it comes to politics - no, I don't cry. ~ Nancy Pelosi

As a religious problem, the problem of suffering is, paradoxically, not how to avoid suffering but how to suffer, how to make of physical pain, personal loss, worldly defeat, or the helpless contemplation of others' agony something bearable, supportable- something as we say, sufferable. ~ Clifford Geertz

Personal loss is the greatest motivator to a call for action! ~ Laurence Stuart

In Egypt: Under no conditions, under threat of death could anyone kill a cat. People were exceuted for even killing a cat accidentally. And when a cat died, the whole family, and probably their closest friends, went into mourning, the measure of their personal loss signalled by their shaving off their eyebrows. ~ Roger A. Caras

This airline is grateful for his extensive contributions and we will miss his friendship and support. We extend our deepest sympathies to the Casey family on its personal loss. ~ Gerard Arpey

We can choose to be truthful even when the choice means personal loss. We can choose to undertake a great action - unselfish, courageous, daringly creative - that looks unreasonable and irrational to the eye of the Ego. ~ Ilchi Lee

The religious is any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of its general and enduring value. ~ John Dewey

Fateful encounters with a cruel world reveal our character. No human is immune from heartbreaking loss. Regardless of our socioeconomic status, eventually everybody shall suffer a grievous personal loss, a body blow that inflicts pain of inexpressible magnitude. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It was precisely the perverse type of academic thinking that caused the mess in the first place. It was as though academics thought the entire world was some kind of ant farm constructed for their pleasure and enjoyment and strained observations. He had no place in an institution that suggested personal loss be re-wrought, re-vised, re-fashioned as intellectual palaver, as a paper. Not even for honors. ~ T. Geronimo Johnson

It is hard to write it in words that I can read, that re-establishes the fact that has been haunting me for the past one year. ~ Kudrat Dutta Chaudhary

Scripture says: "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." I call on every American family and the family of America to observe a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, honoring the memory of the thousands of victims of these brutal attacks and comforting those who lost loved ones. We will persevere through this national tragedy and personal loss. In time, we will find healing and recovery; and, in the face of all this evil, we remain strong and united, "one Nation under God." ~ George W. Bush

Maybe it's better to adhere to the standards of heaven than to those of this world. Failure doesn't upset you, since you can always rely on eternity; you find your justifications in reasons beyond yourself. Personal loss is less important. And pain. And men. And the present day. Everything continues into eternity, faceless and vast, sleepily torpid and solemnly indifferent. Like the sea: it cannot lament the innumerable deaths that continually occur in it. ~ Mesa Selimovic

My personal taste doesn't enter into it a lot when I make my decisions as to what to parody. ~ Al Yankovic

Bargaining This stage is characterized by the non-BP making concessions in order to bring back the "normal" behavior of the person they love. The thinking goes, "If I do what this person wants, I will get what I need in this relationship." We all make compromises in relationships. But the sacrifices that people make to satisfy the borderlines they care about can be very costly. And the concessions may never be enough. Before long, more proof of love is needed and another bargain must be struck. depression Depression sets in when non-BPs realize the true cost of the bargains they've made: loss of friends, family, self-respect, and hobbies. The person with BPD hasn't changed. But the non-BP has. ~ Paul Mason

It is increasingly clear to me that my art relates more and more to a sublimation of my closeness to the natural world, it's events, light itself, and the positive it is a personal expression based on observation and reaction, that I am not able to define except in terms of the work itself. ~ Ansel Adams

It will feel impossible; like you are dying inside this is your soul crying out for life. It may take everything you have; every ounce of will and strength. You will lose a part of yourself trying to save something essential and innocent. And when you have given everything, you will recover and you will be set free, and you will discover there was even more in you than you ever knew. ~ Bryant H. McGill

Germany no longer feels bound by the Locarno Treaty. In the interest of the primitive rights of its people to the security of their frontier and the safeguarding of their defence, the German Government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone!" Now the six hundred deputies, personal appointees all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream Heils, the first two or three wildly, the next twenty-five in unison, like a college yell. Hitler raises his hand for silence. It comes slowly. Slowly the automatons sit down. Hitler now has them in his claws. He appears to sense it. He says in a deep, resonant voice: "Men of the German Reichstag!" The silence is utter. ~ William L. Shirer

Lest Love should value less
What loss would value more,
Had it the stricken privilege ---
It cherishes before. ~ Emily Dickinson

I would not, under any circumstances, try to impose my personal faith and belief on the rest of the country. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's appropriate. ~ John Edwards

One Day:

One day, you will heal
One day, you will be grateful for the deepest cuts of pain
One day, you will glance at yourself
And see a stronger person through your reflection
One day, you will kiss away your hurt... gently, and with grace
Until then, use it all to propel you forward
Like a white-hot pyre through your star-spangled eyes
A fire to regenerate every shadowy cell
And open your heart to every experience
Knowing that one day
You will search your heart
And understand that love is the only thing to ever hold onto ~ Christine Evangelou

My feelings are a fact, not a personal delusion. They are valid for me. What business have you got trying to tell me how I ought to feel? ~ Elizabeth Peters

I think loss of loved ones is the hardest blow in life. ~ Marlo Thomas

The greatest victories are therefore never without the shadow of loss; every path you take, no matter how lofty or effulgent, aches not only with the memory of what you left behind, but with the ghosts of all the untaken paths, now never to be taken, running parallel. ~ Paul Murray

Loss is not as bad as wanting more. ~ Lao-Tzu

Imagine for a moment that one of your friends writes you a twenty-page letter passionately wanting to share her excitement about a new teacher. This letter has only one topic, your friend's new teacher. [But] at the end of her letter, you still do not know one thing about her teacher. Yet, Paul presents the central figure of his theology this way. . . . It [seems] impossible to imagine how Paul could avoid telling one story or parable of - or fail to note one physical trait or personal quality of - Jesus. ~ Richard C. Carrier

But in practice, if often comes down to not suffering a loss as big as the huge gain you made a while ago. ~ Merton Miller

Messages don't succeed because they say something new and exciting that no one had ever heard before; instead, they succeed because they explain something that people feel but have been at a loss to explain. ~ Sarah Jaffe

People who are poor think like traders, but the dynamics are quite different. Unlike traders, the poor are not indifferent to the differences between gaining and giving up. Their problem is that all their choices are between losses. Money that is spent on one good is the loss of another good that could have been purchased instead. For the poor, costs are losses. ~ Daniel Kahneman

Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do or a little and then a lot [when one dies] as Warrendoes is a matter of personal preference. I would hate to have people ask me for money all day long. ~ Charlie Munger

No pain was permanent, and no loss was real. That even though people treated each other abominably, even though they left, even though you let them go, even though you never laid eyes on them again, this fugue that linked you continued, whether you liked it or not. ~ Lisa Alther

I fear we might be losing the basic human facility to be alone - and with that you throw out independent decision-making, what to trust, what not to trust; key stuff - a perilous loss. ~ Dylan Moran

I think there is much more storytelling in stand-up now. Less emphasis on the joke. Jokes are still important, but it feels like a more intimate and personal experience these days. ~ Doug Benson

Emotional exhaustion follows fast on the footsteps of physical and mental depletion. I feel my lifeblood draining away in an oily spigot of inner turmoil. Questions abound and personal survival hinges upon sorting through possible solutions and selecting the most fitting answers. Is my pain real or simply an illusion of a frustrated ego? What do I believe in? What is my purpose? I aspire to discover a means to live in congruence with the trinity of the mind, body, and spirit. Can I discover a noble path that frees me from the shallowness of decadent physical and emotional desires? Can I surrender any desire to seek fame and fortune? Can I terminate a craving to punish other persons for their perceived wrongs? Can I recognize that forgiving persons whom offended me is a self-initiated, transformative act? Can I conquer an irrational fear of the future? Can I accept the inevitable chaos that accompanies life? Can I find a means to achieve inner harmony by steadfastly resolving to live in the moment free of angst? Can I purge egotisms that mar an equitable perception of life by renunciation of the self and all worldly endeavors? Can I live a harmonious existence devoid the panache of vanities? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

If you are training properly, you should progress steadily. This doesn't necessarily mean a personal best every time you race ... Each training session should be like putting money in the bank. If your training works, you continue to deposit into your 'strength' account ... Too much training has the opposite effect. Rather than build, it tears down. Your body will tell when you have begun to tip the balance. Just be sure to listen to it. ~ Grete Waitz

Do you ever think it's the dead that have the happy ending? Just they don't have to worry about surviving."
"But they're dead," he says
"Yeah. That means they don't have to remember anything."
Elias shakes his head. "That means they can't ever love."
I snort. "So they don't know loss. ~ Carrie Ryan

Women have been driven mad, "gaslighted," for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others' sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.
Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other. ~ Adrienne Rich

To find your way; get out of your own way and it doesn't matter how much you weigh ~ Sonya Withrow

Anxiety, and the physical symptoms it causes, is merely fog along the path of independence and discovery. ~ Charles F. Glassman

It's what the loss uncovers in you that brings on despair, not the loss itself. ~ Nicci French

Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organised political resistance ~ Derrick Jensen

California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky,is where we run out of continent. ~ Joan Didion

Unless things change radically, President Bush will be the first President since Herbert Hoover to have presided over a net loss of jobs during his administration. ~ Tim Johnson

What happened was, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter kind of guy like a James Taylor or Crosby, Stills and Nash type of thing; I went to a lot of coffee houses and used to watch all those guys, but I never had the nerve to get up and do it because singing seems so personal and intimate to me. It was too revealing. ~ Kevin Nealon

There's not a chance we'll reach our full potential until we stop blaming each other and start practicing personal accountability. ~ John Miller

Because I hated myself so much for my fatness, I always looked for other fat people, and especially for fatter people, to judge as harshly as the world seemed to be judging me. And you know what? There was always someone fatter who was more disgusting than I was, more not with it, and more lazy. It helped me validate myself as mis-seen, misunderstood, and misevaluated. It also helped me find some sort of weird self-esteem that I never could find when looking at myself in the mirror. ~ Dan Pearce

Anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with church dogma must be burned without pity. ~ Pope Innocent III

We talk a lot on 'Biggest Loser' about how fitness is a natural antidepressant, how it burns off stress. What I like about running is that it gives me time alone. I'm always busy, with people at work, with my kids. I love getting out for a run by myself and just listening to my music. ~ Alison Sweeney

Grief is not meant to be the soul's final destination; rather a resting place for the heart as we emerge onto the path of healing. ~ Karen A. Anderson

Although yoga has its origins in ancient India, its methods and purposes are universal, relying not on cultural background, faith or deity, but simply on the individual. Yoga has become important in the lives of many contemporary Westerners, sometimes as a way of improving health and fitness of the body, but also as a means of personal and spiritual development. ~ Tara Fraser

I think personal actions definitely matter. I think collectively they can make a big difference. But I also think that people don't live in a vacuum. ~ Chip Giller

It is more to my personal happiness and advantage to indulge the love and admiration of excellence, than to cherish a secret envy of it. ~ Elizabeth Montagu

Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document ... The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences. ~ Thomas Sowell

As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it's very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we're on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution. ~ James Redfield

A person must shrug off lies, embrace the unknown and unknowable, and control personal terror in order to do to discover the right path for leading a worthy life. Dare to be an original. Make your life a vivid example for other people how to live splendidly. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee. ~ Steven Pinker