Witnessed The Quotes

You have to understand – there is a romance to Africa. You can see a sunset and believe you have witnessed the hand of God. You watch the slow lope of a lioness and forget to breathe. You marvel at the tripod of a giraffe bent to water. In Africa, there are iridescent blues on the wings of birds that you do not see anywhere else in nature. In Africa, in the midday heat, you can see blisters in the atmosphere. When you are in Africa, you feel primordial, rocked in the cradle of the world. ~ Jodi Picoult

As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated. But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere around me. ~ Teresa Heinz

The Witness is a huge step forward, and it is a necessary and important step in meditation, but it is not ultimate. When the Witness or the soul is finally undone, then the Witness dissolves into everything that is witnessed. The subject/object duality collapses and there is only pure nondual awareness, which is very simple, very obvious. ~ Ken Wilber

One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. ~ Henry David Thoreau

During the 1980s, in California, a large number of Cambodian women went to their doctors with the same complaint: they could not see. The women were all war refugees. Before fleeing their homeland, they had witnessed the atrocities for which the Khmer Rouge, which had been in power from 1975 to 1979, was well known. Many of the women had been raped or tortured or otherwise brutalized. Most had seen family members murdered in front of them. One woman, who never again saw her husband and three children after soldiers came and took them away, said that she had lost her sight after having cried every day for four years. She was not the only one who appeared to have cried herself blind. Others suffered from blurred or partial vision, their eyes troubled by shadows and pains.

The doctors examined the women - about a hundred and fifty in all - found that their eyes were normal. Further tests showed that their brains were normal as well. If the women were telling the truth - and there were some who doubted this, who thought the women might be malingering because they wanted attention or were hoping to collect disability - the only explanation was psychosomatic blindness.

In other words, the women's minds, forced to take in so much horror and unable to take more, had managed to turn out the lights. ~ Sigrid Nunez

I thought of all the women my family had lost, the horrible things they'd witnessed, the acts they simply endured. Sabrina had become another face in a line of tragedies that stretched back generations. And soon, when the mood hit my grandmother just right, she'd sit at her kitchen table, a Styrofoam cup of lemonade in her warped hand, and she'd tell the story of Sabrina Cordova - how men loved her too much, how little she loved herself, how in the end it killed her. The stories always ended the same, only different girls died, and I didn't want to hear them anymore. ~ Kali Fajardo-Anstine

You may ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnesses for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. ~ Ford Madox Ford

She had witnessed the world's most beautiful things, and allowed herself to grow old and unlovely. She had felt the heat of a leviathan's roar, and the warmth within a cat's paw. She had conversed with the wind and had wiped soldier's tears. She had made people see, she'd seen herself in the sea. Butterflies had landed on her wrists, she had planted trees. She had loved, and let love go. So she smiled. ~ Sonya Hartnett

At Columbia and far beyond, T.D. was renowned and celebrated. At the weekly research seminars I attended ... every speaker felt compelled to focus on him; as they spoke, their eyes fixated only on him, and he let no statement he did not fully agree with pass hi by. No matter who lectured at the seminar, T.D. concentrated intensely on their argument, and interrupted at the first instant something was not satisfactory. At times he broke in on the initial sentence of the talk, refusing to let a speaker proceed until the point was clarified. Sometimes clarification never came; I once witnessed the humiliation of a visiting postdoc who was forced to defend the first sentence he uttered for the entire hour and a half allowed for his seminar. No one dared restrain T.D. ~ Emanuel Derman

With a cry of alarm, he bolted to the bathroom and made it with not a second to spare. He seemed to be on the throne long enough to have witnessed the rise and fall of an empire. ~ Dean Koontz

On Sunday August 5, 2012, I was among a group of people who witnessed the Rover landing on Mars in real time at NASA's Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. ~ Ahmed Zewail

But mostly Aladdin thought about Princess Jasmine. If he had never met her, he wouldn't have been thrown into prison by the royal guards, he wouldn't have fallen in with the crazy, oil old man, and he wouldn't be there now, trying to dig himself out of a black, suffocating pit in the middle of the desert.
And still he wouldn't have changed a thing.
He thought about her eyes when she was looking into his. He thought about her eyes when she had seen the beggar children. He had witnessed the single moment she began to comprehend the world he lived in. He replayed the graceful skill with which she handled her tiny silver dagger. He thought about her descending from the sky at the end of her pole vault like a warrior angel.
Thinking about all that made him forget that his fingers were rubbed raw and the inside of his mouth felt like the sand he dug through. ~ Liz Braswell

Before meeting you, I was praying to find you.. the thought of you, that prayer in particular was enough to cheer me up no matter how sad I was. Now, you are here before my eyes, do you know how I feel? I feel as if I am flying in my dreams. I have witnessed the miracle of my life.. You are a miracle, my miracle, you are an angel from heaven. Without you, I wouldn't have known the magic of life, I would have rejected life itself. I love you! ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

A space was quickly cleared in the crowd, and a rope placed about his neck, when from somewhere came the suggestion, "Burn him!" It ran like an electric current. Have you ever witnessed the transformation of human beings into savage beasts? Nothing can be more terrible. ~ James Weldon Johnson

Ian, about Elizabeth Cameron. Her duenna said some things-"
That alarmingly pleasant yet distant smile returned to Ian's face. "I'll spare you further conversation, Duncan. It's over."
"The discussion or-"
"All of it."
"It didn't look over to me!" Duncan snapped, nudged to the edge by Ian's infuriating calm. "That scene I witnessed-"
"You witnessed the end."
He said that, Duncan noted, with the same deadly finality, the same amused calm with which he'd spoken of his grandfather. It was as if he'd resolved matters to his complete satisfaction in his own mind, and nothing and no one could ever invade the place where he put them to rest. Based on Ian's last reaction to the matter of Elizabeth Cameron, she was now relegated to the same category as the Duke of Stanhope. Frustrated, Duncan jerked the bottle of brandy off the table at Ian's elbow and splashed some into his glass. "There's something I've never told you," he said angrily.
"And that is?" Ian inquired.
"I hate it when you turn all pleasant and amused. I'd rather see you furious! At least then I know I still have a chance of reaching you."
To Duncan's boundless annoyance, Ian merely picked up his book and started reading again. ~ Judith McNaught

The atmosphere generated by the fans in Celtic's stadium for our visit was the most impressive I've ever witnessed. The grounds of Liverpool and Manchester United are good and the hostile feeling of playing against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu is also excellent, but the atmosphere against Celtic was the best. ~ Xavi

When a new kind of 'race trouble' broke out in 1912, Forsyth was a place that had already witnessed the rapid expulsion of an entire people, and many residents, like Charlie Harris, had heard firsthand accounts from relatives who'd taken part in the Cherokee removals. So whenever someone first suggested that blacks in the county should not only be punished for the murder of Mae Crow but driven out of the county forever, the white people of Forsyth knew in their bones that such a thing was possible. After all, many families owed their land and their livelihoods to exactly such a racial cleansing in the 1830s. ~ Patrick Phillips

The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed ... The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning.
As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing.
I also needed to hear other women's stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined ~ Frederic Bastiat

In fact the flexibility of our memories makes it relatively easy because we can meld all these different memories together seamlessly to invent a new imaginary scene, one which we have never even contemplated before, let alone witnessed. The flexibility of memory seems to be the key to imagining a future. Our millions of fragments of memories from different times of our lives are not set in stone; they can change, giving us endless, instant imaginative possibilities. ~ Claudia Hammond

I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress. ~ Shan Sa

Whoever declared that love at first sight doesn't exist has never witnessed the purity of a puppy or looked deep into a puppy's eyes. If they did, their lives would change considerably. ~ Elizabeth Parker

I first witnessed the paranormal at the tender age of eight. This experience unlocked a doorway to a world full of unexplained mysteries, miraculous insights, and terrifying ghostly visits that have spanned a lifetime. Join me as I explore these stories…one book at a time." ~L. Sydney Fisher ~ L. Sydney Fisher

The fear had precedent. Toward the end of the Civil War, having witnessed the effectiveness of the Union's 'colored troops,' a flailing Confederacy began considering an attempt to recruit blacks into its army. But in the nineteenth century, the idea of the soldier was heavily entwined with the notion of masculinity and citizenship. How could an army constituted to defend slavery, with all of its assumptions about black inferiority, turn around and declare that blacks were worthy of being invited into Confederate ranks? As it happened, they could not. 'The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of our revolution,' observed Georgia politician Howell Cobb. 'And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.' There could be no win for white supremacy here. If blacks proved to be the cowards that 'the whole theory of slavery' painted them as, the battle would be lost. But much worse, should they fight effectively--and prove themselves capable of 'good Negro government'--then the larger war could never be won. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

you've seen the stains of my past
and you still want to love me
you've witnessed the weight
of my heart
and yet, you'd still like to hold it ~ R.H. Sin

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed the forces of market fundamentalism strip education of its public values, critical content, and civic responsibilities as part of its broader goal of creating new subjects wedded to consumerism, risk-free relationships, and the destruction of the social state. ~ Henry Giroux

As I opened my eyes and witnessed the whites; my world transformed and I looked at everything in a different light! ~ Archana Chaurasia Kapoor

We have witnessed the terrible increases in the incidence of alcoholism, the advent of drug dependency, the protests, marches, strikes and human alienation. ~ Alex Campbell

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. ~ Desmond Tutu

1. Society needs laws. While anarchy can often turn a humdrum weekend into something unforgettable, eventually the mob must be kept from stealing the conch and killing Piggy. And while it would be nice if that "something" was simple human decency, anybody who has witnessed the "50% Off Wedding Dress Sale" at Filene's Basement knows we need a backup plan - preferably in writing. On the other hand, too many laws can result in outright tyranny, particularly if one of those laws is "Kneel before Zod." Somewhere between these two extremes lies the legislative sweet-spot that produces just the right amount of laws for a well-adjusted society - more than zero, less than fascism. ~ Jon Stewart

I am fortunate to have witnessed the alchemy of words transform destiny into reality. ~ Brenda Sloan

But among the things readiest to hand to which you shall turn, let there be these two:
One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external to its movement, but your anguish only comes from judgments within. The other is that all these things which you see now are changing and will cease to be, and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes you have already witnessed. The universe is transformation. Life is judgement. ~ Marcus Aurelius

We are in the final stages of egoic madness. Almost the whole world is fighting each other. We witnessed the final stages of egoic madness in the 20th century, and even now it still is playing itself out. It has not quite come to an end yet. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Love's night and a lamp
Judged our vows:
That she would love me ever
And I should never leave her.
Love's night and you, lamp,
Witnessed the pact.
Today the vow runs:
"Oaths such as these, waterwords."
Tonight, lamp,
Witness her lying
- In other arms. ~ Meleager

With each passing year, people of faith grow increasingly distressed by the hostility of public institutions toward religious expression. We have witnessed the steady erosion of the time-honored rights of religious Americans - both as individuals and as communities - to practice what they believe in the public square. ~ Ralph E. Reed, Jr.

This is the part that Anden doesn't understand as well as I do, even if he knows Day's past on paper - he still doesn't know Day, hasn't traveled with him and witnessed the suffering he's gone through. ~ Marie Lu

Many minutes pass. I learn much from him, and he from me. It's exhilarating, to be suddenly awash in ideas whose implications would take me days to consider fully. But we're also gathering strategic information: I infer the extent of his unspoken knowledge, compare it with my own, and simulate his corresponding inferences. For there is always the awareness that this must come to an end; the formulation of our exchanges renders ideological differences luminously clear. Reynolds hasn't witnessed the beauty that I have; he's stood before lovely insights, oblivious to them. The sole gestalt that inspires him is the one I ignored: that of the planetary society, of the biosphere. I am a lover of beauty, he of humanity. Each feels that the other has ignored great opportunities. He ~ Ted Chiang

Within a decade or two, all Holocaust survivors will likely have passed away so a ticking clock is in effect in this battle between the truth and lies. Keep in mind even those survivors born in a concentration camp during WW2 would be at least 71 years-of-age when this book (the one you are reading now) was released. Those survivors old enough to clearly recall the events of that nightmare will, of course, be older and have much less time left. As the memory of the Holocaust begins to fade away, it will become easier to deny the genocide even occurred unless those of us who are truthseekers are able to embrace the memory of the genocide and educate others do the same. What's needed in this propaganda war is for the true stories of Holocaust survivors – as well as those of the Nazi perpetrators, their associates and others who witnessed the genocide – to be told loudly and clearly so that there will never, ever be room for doubt in generations to come. After all, nothing is more powerful, credible or damning than eyewitness accounts. ~ James Morcan

Looking down from the heavens, she saw how small, and yet how important each human life is. Drops in the bucket of eternity. She saw her minute place in the organic machine of the Cosmos, witnessed the give and take and the slow, steady swinging of life's pendulum. The world relies on order, pattern, and repetition. The earth spins and swings around the sun with rational, mathematical predictability.

But she also saw the chaotic nature of things. No matter what, you can never know with certainty what will happen. Lightening can strike, the ground can open up and swallow you, and the very air you breathe can tear your life away. ~ Gwen Mitchell

There once was a female snake that roamed around a small village in the countryside of Egypt. She was commonly seen by villagers with her small baby as they grazed around the trees. One day, several men noticed the mother snake was searching back and forth throughout the village in a frenzy - without her young. Apparently, her baby had slithered off on its own to play while she was out looking for food. Yet the mother snake went on looking for her baby for days because it still hadn't returned back to her. So one day, one of the elder women in the village caught sight of the big snake climbing on top of their water supply - an open clay jug harvesting all the village's water. The snake latched its teeth on the big jug's opening and sprayed its venom into it. The woman who witnessed the event was mentally handicapped, so when she went to warn the other villagers, nobody really understood what she was saying. And when she approached the jug to try to knock it over, she was reprimanded by her two brothers and they locked her away in her room.

Then early the next day, the mother snake returned to the village after a long evening searching for her baby. The children villagers quickly surrounded her while clapping and singing because she had finally found her baby. And as the mother snake watched the children rejoice in the reunion with her child, she suddenly took off straight for the water supply - leaving behind her baby with the villagers' children. Before an o ~ Suzy Kassem

Time and again, in every market cycle I have witnessed, the extremes of emotion always appear, even among experienced investors. When the world wants to buy only [bonds], you can almost close your eyes and [buy] stocks. ~ Michael Steinhardt

We will never know peace in the world without balance. And we will never know balance without justice for all. Yet, justice exists only where there is fairness and equality
when every man and country is treated and viewed equally. My father believes that there is no such thing as justice because all his life he has witnessed the tipping of the scales. We must change this widespread mentality by making equality a reality, not just something we read and hear about on the TV and in literature. ~ Suzy Kassem

I have witnessed the takeover of my world by plastic. ~ Helen Caldicott

Listen up, pal, the moon is way up in the sky. Aren't you scared? The helplessness that comes from nature. That moonlight, think about it, that moonlight, paler than a corpse's face, so silent and far away, that moonlight witnessed the cries of the first monsters to walk the earth, surveyed the peaceful waters after the deluges and the floods, illuminated centuries of nights and went out at dawns throughout centuries . . . Think about it, my friend, that moonlight will be the same tranquil ghost when the last traces of your great-grandsons' grandsons no longer exist. Prostrate yourself before it. You've shown up for an instant and it is forever. Don't you suffer, pal? I . . . I myself can't stand it. It hits me right here, in the center of my heart, having to die one day and, thousands of centuries later, undistinguished in humus, eyeless for all eternity, I, I!, for all eternity . . . and the indifferent, triumphant moon, its pale hands outstretched over new men, new things, different beings. And I Dead! Think about it, my friend. It's shining over the cemetery right now. The cemetery, where all lie sleeping who once were and never more shall be. There, where the slightest whisper makes the living shudder in terror and where the tranquility of the stars muffles our cries and brings terror to our eyes. There, where there are neither tears nor thoughts to express the profound misery of coming to an end. ~ Clarice Lispector

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Cemetery of al-Baqi in Medina, they utterly destroyed the tombs of the Imams Hasan, Ali ibn Husayn, Muhammed ibn Ali, and Jafar, as well as the tomb of Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad. In Mecca, they destroyed the Cemetery of Mualla, where the ancestors of Muhammad and his first wife Khadija were buried. These prominent destructions were part of a pattern of violence that witnessed the Wahhabi Saudis smash buildings, tombs and mosques associated with the history of the Prophet and his family and which were venerated by Shia. ~ Jesse Harasta

Swaggering in the coffee-houses and ruffling it in the streets were the men who had sailed with Frobisher and Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Hawkins, and Sir Richard Granville; had perhaps witnessed the heroic death of Sir Philip Sidney, at Zutphen; had served with Raleigh in Anjou, Picardy, Languedoc, in the Netherlands, in the Irish civil war; had taken part in the dispersion of the Spanish Armada, and in the bombardment of Cadiz; had filled their cups to the union of Scotland with England; had suffered shipwreck on the Barbary Coast, or had, by the fortune of war, felt the grip of the Spanish Inquisition; who could tell tales of the marvels seen in new-found America and the Indies, and, perhaps, like Captain John Smith, could mingle stories of the naive simplicity of the natives beyond the Atlantic, with charming narratives of the wars in Hungary, the beauties of the seraglio of the Grand Turk, and the barbaric pomp of the Khan of Tartary. ~ William Shakespeare

I think it's interesting, from a creative point of view, to have witnessed the loss of consciousness on a national level and on a cultural level - Bush had 91 percent support in the polls after 9/11. We wanted to kick some ass! ~ Aleksandar Hemon

One French ambassador, having witnessed the royal temper, confided, 'When I see her enraged against any person whatever, I wish myself in Calcutta, fearing her anger like death ~ Alison Weir

I tried to read Handmaid's tale, really I did, but every time I opened the book, I recalled the movie from 199 all too vividly. I threw up then and unfortunately, that brought back memories of my time in the middle east with the Marine Corp , where I witnessed the murders, rapes and brutality. I can't forget the screams. David Larkin. ~ Margret Atwood

But there are times when a tree can no longer withstand the pain inflicted on it, and the wind will take pity on that tree and topple it over in a mighty storm. All the other trees who witnessed the evil look down upon the fallen tree with envy. They pray for the day when a wind will end their suffering. I pray for the day when God will end mine. ~ Julius Lester

He became aware of a man drawn
alongside them, frozen in stillness even
in the midst of battle, and
knew that what had just happened had
been seen, and overheard.
He turned, the truth on his face. Stripped
bare, he could not hide himself in that
moment. Laurent, he thought, and lifted
his gaze to meet the eyes of the man who
had witnessed the last words of Lord
Touars.
It wasn't Laurent. It was Jord.
He was staring at Damen in horror, his
sword lax in his hand. ~ C.S. Pacat

It was the first time I witnessed the ancient and modern magic of groups in which anyone may speak in turn, everyone must listen, and consensus is more important than time. ~ Gloria Steinem

At the very same time that we witnessed the explosion of white celebrity moms, and the outpouring of advice to a surveillance of middle-class mothers, the welfare mother, trapped in a "cycle of dependency," became ubiquitous in our media landscape, and she came to represent everything wrong with America. She appeared not in the glossy pages of the women's magazines but rather as the subject of news stories about the "crisis" in the American family and the newly declared "war" on welfare mothers. Whatever ailed America--drugs, crime, loss of productivity--was supposedly her fault. She was portrayed as thumbing her nose at intensive mothering. Even worse, she was depicted as bringing her kids into the realm of market values, as putting a price on their heads, by allegedly calculating how much each additional child was worth and then getting pregnant to cash in on them. For middle-class white women in the media, by contrast, their kids were priceless, these media depictions reinforced the divisions between "us" (minivan moms) and "them" (welfare mothers, working-class mothers, teenage mothers), and did so especially along the lines of race. For example, one of the most common sentences used to characterize the welfare mother was, "Tanya, who has_____ children by ______ different men" (you fill in the blanks). Like zoo animals, their lives were reduced to the numbers of successful impregnations by multiple partners. So it's interesting to note that someone like Christie Brinkley, ~ Susan J. Douglas

Everyone was going crazy, like they'd just witnessed the birth of Jesus and the invention of electricity at the same time. Jude was a rock star, their savior, and they were paying him homage. ~ Nicole Williams

I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy
dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him
the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. ~ Charlotte Bronte

I am sure that deep down Ikhmenev was in a state of turmoil and pain as he witnessed the tears and torment of his poor wife; I am sure it was more agonizing for him than for her - but he could not control himself. This is what happens sometimes even with the most kind-hearted of people, who are nevertheless weak-willed, and who, despite their kind-heartedness, are apt to get carried off into a state of ecstasy when unburdening themselves of their grief and anger, even at the expense of hurting someone innocent, more often than not someone who is dear to them. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Her gaze met his, her green eyes glazed and filled with shadows. "I-Iain?"
Iain understood those shadows only too well. She was in shock. She had witnessed the full horror of war. Worse, she had killed a man. Like a young soldier after his first battle, she was struggling to cope. 'Twas an anguish no woman should have to bear.
His rage broke like the tide against the shore, and before he could think, he pulled her hard against him, held her, stroked her hair. "You foolish, brave woman! Why do you no' obey me?"
"What the bloody hell is he doin'?" Connor asked from somewhere behind them.
Morgan answered, "I think he's punishin' her."
"If he tries this on the men, they'll mutiny. ~ Pamela Clare

Celestial bodies witnessed the disrobing of human dignity in abomination while the moonlight caressed away the vestige of perverse mauling that was captured on celluloid after which she was returned. Anonymous conspirators within the establishment had facilitated and superintended that night's covert exploitation. ~ Neetha Joseph

Two days ahead of schedule, the world witnessed the arrival of a free and sovereign Iraq. ~ Dick Cheney

During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a country for the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling for his life against the agents of power, whilst the people are merely a spectator of the conflict: in America, he is looked upon as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

We had firsthand witnessed the ethereal evil of crushing hope just when it had peaked - like an open door, visible to you as you approach it from miles away, just closing on you when you have only two more yards to go. ~ Pawan Mishra

I don't believe all this just happened," Nicole said. "Not on another planet. Not anywhere. Natural evolution simply does not result in the kind of interspecies harmony we have witnessed the last two days. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

I was born amidst the purple waterfalls.
I was weak, yet not unblessed.
Dead to the world. Alive for the journey.
One night I dreamt a white rose withering,
a newborn drowning a lifetime loneliness.
I dreamt all my future. Relived my past.
A witnessed the beauty of the beast ~ Tuomas Holopainen Of "Nightwish"

I witnessed the birth of time itself. I watched the mortal coil spring forth from perfect darkness. I watched the stars form, watched this world coalesce, watched as life was breathed into it and as your kind rose to rule it." She put both hands on the table and leaned toward me, her blue eyes cold and hard. "Thus far, I have behaved as a guest ought. But do not mistake propriety for weakness, mortal. I beg you not to oblige me to take further action. ~ Jim Butcher

We have witnessed the most extraordinary devastation. The magnitude of the situation is unbelievable. It's just heartbreaking. ~ Kathleen Blanco

Corporate "confession of guilt." "The church," he declared, "confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the ~ Richard J. Foster

It is impossible to put into words what we have been through. What happened exceeded our boldest dreams. The Germans fled twice from the ghetto ... My life's dream has come true. Defense in the ghetto has become a fact. Armed Jewish resistance and revenge are actually happening. I have witnessed the glorious and heroic combat of the Jewish fighters. ~ Mordechai Anielewicz

One has been a poor spectator of life if one has not witnessed the hand - that kills from mercy. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Klamath tribe of Native Americans who witnessed the eruption believed it was a fierce battle between Llao, the spirit of the underworld, and Skell, the spirit of the sky. ~ Cheryl Strayed

I'd spent my entire life in Seattle, watching others pass me by, day after day, completely oblivious to me. I remained along the background. I was an outsider; the eye looking in on the world around me.
I was the puppet eager to cut her strings.
I had witnessed the transformation humans must undergo in order to become Programs. I had watched as their humanity was stripped from them while they lay motionless, their hearts barely beating. My uncle had told the others that he only took bodies of the deceased, but those of us who had spent time in the operating rooms knew differently. ~ Nicole Sobon

For I have indeed been torn from all my roots, even from the earth that nourished them, more entirely than most in our times. I was born in 1881 in the great and mighty empire of the Habsburg Monarchy, but you would look for it in vain on the map today; it has vanished without trace. I grew up in Vienna, an international metropolis for two thousand years, and had to steal away from it like a thief in the night before it was demoted to the status of a provincial German town. My literary work, in the language in which I wrote it, has been burnt to ashes in the country where my books made millions of readers their friends. So I belong nowhere now, I am a stranger or at the most a guest everywhere. Even the true home of my heart's desire, Europe, is lost to me after twice tearing itself suicidally to pieces in fratricidal wars. Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most savage triumph of brutality in the chronicles of time. Never - and I say so not with pride but with shame - has a generation fallen from such intellectual heights as ours to such moral depths. ~ Stefan Zweig

Since I was a little girl, I have witnessed the strength and courage that energized my mother, who left every sorrow and pain in the past, who would work unyieldingly to obtain her goals, who was the great warrior from whom I learned all the values that are today fundamental pillars of my every day. ~ Thalia

We have been filled with grief as we have witnessed the decline of the North American Church that was once filled with missionary zeal and yet now seems determined to bury itself in a deadly embrace with the spirit of the age. ~ Peter Akinola

But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Economist Peter Orszag witnessed the workings of vetocracy and its nefarious consequences. Writing in 2011, he reflected on what he had just witnessed as one of the top economic policymakers in the United States: "During my recent stint in the Obama administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget, it was clear to me that the country's political polarization was growing worse - harming Washington's ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing. . . . Radical as it sounds we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic. I know that such ideas carry risk. And I have arrived at these proposals reluctantly: they come more from frustration than from inspiration. But we need to confront the fact that a polarized, gridlocked government is doing real harm to our country. And we have to find some way out of it. ~ Moises Naim

Being an artist and a musician, I have witnessed the previous generation taking the art form, not as a way of making a living, but as a belief, an almost maniacal, sometimes insane devotion and commitment to communication. ~ David Finckel

all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The ~ Marcus Aurelius

Those words were like… they were like seeing a bloody knife. You didn't need to have witnessed the stabbing to understand what it meant. ~ Laini Taylor

Beneath the rubbernecking Chums of Chance wheeled streets and alleyways in a Cartesian grid, sketched in sepia, mile on mile. "The Great Bovine City of the World," breathed Lindsey in wonder. Indeed, the backs of cattle far outnumbered the tops of human hats. From this height it was as if the Chums, who, out on adventures past, had often witnessed the vast herds of cattle adrift in everchanging cloudlike patterns across the Western plains, here saw that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killingfloor. ~ Thomas Pynchon

One reason I continue to oppose efforts to criminalize abortion is that I do not believe any government should have the power to dictate, through law or police action, a woman's most personal decisions."

"I consider that a slippery slope to state control of reproduction, and I'd witnessed the consequences of such control in China and Communist Romania. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

To say that Windows 95 is just like the Mac is like finding a potato in the shape of Jesus and thinking you have witnessed the second coming ~ Guy Kawasaki

These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.
Angelology pg. 32 ~ Danielle Trussoni

The closing period of the fifteenth century witnessed the slow but sure increase of the churches of the Brethren. Although far from being unmolested, they yet enjoyed comparative rest. At the commencement of the sixteenth century their churches numbered two hundred in Bohemia and Moravia. ~ Ezra Hall Gillett

Along with you, I have witnessed the unfortunate rise in gasoline prices that has accompanied the summer driving season and the more recent spike in prices due to Hurricane Katrina. ~ Bob Ney

We take it for granted that Jesus was not interested in political life: his mission was purely religious. Indeed we have witnessed ... the 'iconization' of the life of Jesus: 'This is a Jesus of hieratic, stereotyped gestures, all representing theological themes. In this way, the life of Jesus is no longer a human life, submerged in history, but a theological life
an icon. ~ Gustavo Gutierrez

The world has witnessed the rise and fall of monarchy, the rise and fall of dictatorship, the rise and fall of feudalism, the rise and fall of communism, and the rise of democracy; and now we are witnessing the fall of democracy ... the theme of the evolution of life continues, sweeping away with it all that does not blossom into perfection. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

For two thousand years Jerusalem has brought out the least attractive qualities in every race that has lived there. The Holy City has had more atrocities committed in it, more consistently, than any other town in the world. Sacred to three religions, the city has witnessed the worst intolerance and self-righteousness of all of them. ~ William Dalrymple

I witnessed the building of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbiter to be launched into space. ~ Rene Burri

In the 1770s, when he was in Paris, Benjamin Franklin witnessed the flight of one of the first hot-air balloons. As the balloon soared into the air, someone asked Franklin: "What good is it?" Franklin responded: "What good is a new-born baby? ~ Benjamin Franklin

Yet the only reason you believe that you were born is that your parents saw you emerge from the womb. They thought they witnessed the moment when you began to exist, so they spread the rumor that you had been born. Savitri was astonished ... ~ Deepak Chopra

Hopis have lived in America longer than anyone. We wanted to explore the concept of Earthly visitation through the eyes of people who have also witnessed the rapid evolution of modern culture. For us, their beliefs ring true on so many levels. Hopi prophecy speaks to the destiny of man...in a universe where we are not alone. ~ T.J. Wolf

In a single moment, we witnessed the worst of human behavior. And in the next, the very best of human behavior. And even more, we witnessed the tremendous spirit of Americans. ~ Jane D. Hull

Throughout the film the reporter kept up a ceaseless commentary in that eager, exalted tone that only American news reporters seem to achieve. It was as if he had - with enormous pleasure - just witnessed the end of the world. ~ Maj Sjowall

In this he was like most Midwesterners. Directions are very important to them. They have an innate need to be oriented, even in their anecdotes. Any story related by a Midwesterner will wander off at some point into a thicket of interior monologue along the lines of "We were staying at a hotel that was eight blocks northeast of the state capital building. Come to think of it, it was northwest. And I think it was probably more like nine blocks. And this woman without any clothes on, naked as the day she was born except for a coonskin cap, came running at us from the southwest... or was it the southeast?" If there are two Midwesterns present and they both witnessed the incident, you can just about write off the anecdote because they will spend the rest of the afternoon arguing points of the compass and will never get back to the original story. You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane. ~ Bill Bryson

When live entertainment was not available, women delivered the film and ran the projectors for the hundreds of movies that were shown to the soldiers. Frances witnessed the popularity of movies time after time; they were shown in warehouses, airplane hangars, on battered portable screens, or projected against the wall of a building in the village square where townsfolk crammed in around the soldiers. "Charlie and Doug" were the two favorites, but anything showing familiar sights from home - the Statue of Liberty, a Chicago department store, or San Francisco's Golden Gate - created a sensation and bolstered morale. Toward the end of the war German propaganda films left behind by the retreating army became a prime attraction.30 Frances traveled to and from Paris for a few days at a time, usually arriving on or near the front after a battle to witness doctors and nurses doing what they could for the injured in the shattered villages and burying the dead. She was struck by how thoroughly exhausted the Europeans were after four devastating years of war. ~ Cari Beauchamp

Karl Marx, Amaya liked to say, was the last great philosopher of the coal age; his workers were locked into a serflike condition. Had Marx witnessed the industrial explosion of the Oil Century and the rising standard of living it produced among ordinary workers, he might have written differently. ~ David Halberstam

Recently, I was in New York with most of the Robertson family promoting the season-four premiere of Duck Dynasty. We were staying at the Trump International Hotel, which is a really nice place near Central Park. I was already uncomfortable being in the big city. I don't like traffic or concrete, and there are a lot of both in New York. After we checked in, we gathered downstairs to go to a Broadway musical show. I know it might seem bizarre for me to be going to a musical, but my very attractive wife can be mightily persuasive, especially when I have nothing else to do.
As we were waiting or the others in the lobby, I asked a doorman if there was a nearby bathroom. He gave me directions to the nearest restroom, which included a walk through the hotel restaurant. As I entered the restaurant, a well-dressed staffer offered his assistance. I informed him I was only going to the restroom. But he very nicely continued to offer assistance and took the role of my escort, which I thought was quite courteous and professional. At his direction, we took a quick left turn and walked out of the hotel. Befuddled, I asked him, "Where is the bathroom?" He painted down the street or maybe toward Central Park and said, "Good luck to you, sir. Have a nice day." I circled back around to the main entrance of the hotel, where I found Missy, who had witnessed the entire episode.
"I thought you had to go to the bathroom," she said.
I laughed and told her I had been escorted out of the ~ Jase Robertson

The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living. ~ David W. Earle