Do not be discouraged, if in a thousand instances you find your kindness rejected and wronged, your good evil-spoken of, and the h...and you extend for the relief of others, cast insultingly away; the benevolence which cannot outlive these trials of its purity and strength, is not like the self-sacrifice of him, who went about doing good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, you exceed the normal level, and... it is for this that men refuse to forgive you, you poison their peace of mind, you undermine their stability. You have irrepressible pains whose essence is to be inadaptable to any known state, indescribable in words. You have repeated and shifting pains, incurable pains, pains beyond imagining, pains which are neither of the body nor of the soul, but which partake of both. And I share your suffering, and I ask you: who dares to ration our relief?... We are not going to kill ourselves just yet. In the meantime, leave us the hell alone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Although its growth may seem to have been slow, it is to be remembered that it is not a shrub, or plant, to shoot up in the summer... and wither in the frosts. The Red Cross is a part of us--it has come to stay--and like the sturdy oak, its spreading branches shall yet encompass and shelter the relief of the nation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as ...through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Neither the historian nor the cartographer can ever reproduce the reality they are trying to communicate to the reader of books or... maps; they can but give a plan, a series of indications, of this reality. There are contrasting schemes for choosing from enormous numbers of geographic details. You may have a map in which every feature that can be named, every hill, brook, crossroads, is crowded in; or you may have a map in which many details are omitted in the effort to show the reader the lay of the land, the shape of the mountain systems, the relations of drainage, relief, communications, and so on. Both kinds are useful, depending on the needs of the user.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, nev...er can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This journal is a relief. When I am tired ... out comes this, and down goes every thing. But I can't read it over--and God knows w...hat contradictions it may contain. If I am sincere with myself (but I fear one lies more to one's self than to any one else) every page should confute, refute, and utterly abjure its predecessor.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When one has come to accept a certain course as duty he has a pleasant sense of relief and of lifted responsibility, even if the c...ourse involves pain and renunciation. It is like obedience to some external authority; any clear way, though it lead to death, is mentally preferable to the tangle of uncertainty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If we confine ourselves to one life role, no matter how pleasant it seems at first, we starve emotionally and psychologically. We ...need a change and balance in our daily lives. We need sometimes to dress up and sometimes to lie around in torn jeans. . . . Even a grimy factory can afford some relief from a grimy kitchen and vice versa.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »