Trampling Over Death Quotes & Sayings

We are not afraid of death," the suicide bombers say to show their superiority to ordinary people. But they are afraid of life, constantly trampling on it, slandering it, destroying it, and training children still in their cradles for martyrdom. Observers have noted that the photos of terrorists taken a few hours before they made their attacks show people who are serene and at peace. They have eliminated doubt: they know. It is the paradox of open societies that they seem to be disordered, unjust, threatened by crime, loneliness, and drugs because they display their indignity before the whole world, never ceasing to admit their defects, whereas other, more oppressive societies seem harmonious because the press and the opposition are muzzled.
"Where there are no visible conflicts, there is no freedom," Montesquieu said. — Pascal Bruckner

On the other side of that line was freedom - the kind of freedom that can never be taken away from you. It was freedom from our self-imposed limitations. Although through our training we have grown to believe that running 52 consecutive miles was possible, none of us really believed in our heart of hearts that it was probable. As individuals, each of us struggled with their own fear and self-doubt. But the moment we cross that finish line, we have given ourselves the gift of freedom from our fears, our self-doubt, and our self-imposed limitations. — Hal Elrod

It was quite normal in that day for a man to use up three or four wives in a normal lifetime. — John Steinbeck

His moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant, and go on for whole days and nights. And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knows better than any one that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his whole family, listen to him with loathing, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A human mind was built for contact with similar minds. It should, - in fact, - it must think about what is going on around it; for, if it is shut up in a thick, dark, bony box of a skull, it will always stay in that condition known as "status quo"; and grow up, antagonistic to all surroundings. — Ernest Vincent Wright

How far I've come! I'm the same girl and yet not the same. I wonder if it's always like that? Folks keep growing from one person into another all their lives, and life is just a lot of everyday adventures. Well, whatever life is, I like it. — Carol Ryrie Brink

Many collectors died in process of searching for new species, and despite persistent reports that the men died from drowning, gunshot and knife wounds, snakebite, trampling by cattle, or blows in the head with blunt instruments, it is generally accepted that in each case the primary cause of death was orchid fever. — Eric Hansen

What would it profit us to possess and perform everything else and be like pure saints, if we meanwhile neglected our chief purpose in life, namely, the care of the young? — Martin Luther

It was then I first saw Ubba fight and marveled at him, for he was a bringer of death, a grim warrior, sword lover. He did not fight in a shield wall, but ran into his enemies, shield slamming one way as his war ax gave death in the other, and it seemed he was indestructible for at one moment he was surrounded by East Anglian fighters, but there was a scream of hate, a clash of blade on blade, and Ubba came out of the tangle of men, his blade red, blood in his beard, trampling his enemies into the blood-rich tide, and looking for more men to kill. — Bernard Cornwell