Quotes & Sayings About Unborn

Twenty-six years ago the highest court in this land did an incredible thing. They issued a Supreme Court decision that really boils down to one simple and profoundly evil idea: They said that our unborn children have no rights that the rest of us are bound to respect. And when they made that decision they unleashed on America an unbelievable event that has undermined who we are and what we believe. — Gary Bauer

My husband is a composer, so he plays piano all the time and I sit there and clap telling my unborn child, 'Hear me clap, hear the music.' I know music, in general, is supposed to be good for babies to hear. — Danica McKellar

She was looking at the unborn secret of the Buena Esperanza Pass, she knew that this was oil drawn out of shale by some method men had considered impossible. — Ayn Rand

I build worlds around us and solar systems and creatures that only exist in dreams. I manifest colors that have flavors and darkness that's all encompassing. I go to a place unborn by man, created in a space where the natural law has no reach and the science of reason is washed away , replaced by the basic pure desire to exist, all of it coming from a place I never knew I had. — E.J. Mellow

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. — Martin Luther King Jr.

That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn. — Pope John Paul II

All children should be welcomed into the world and protected by the law. As President, I would immediately repeal President Clinton's five executive orders that promote abortion. I support a human life bill that defines unborn children as persons under the 14th Amendment. I will vigorously defend the pro-life plank in the Republican platform. — Gary Bauer

Religion waited for man to evolve. It waited an eternity like a desolate lover awaiting its unborn soulmate. When man was able to accept religion it captured his heart and enslaved his mind. The supreme delusion united with the supreme host. — C.J. Anderson

We must not be so concerned with the unborn that we fail to pay attention to the born. — Tony Campolo

Well, I think that it's clear that the Republican Party is a pro-life party. And we do value life. And we do believe that the unborn have a right to life. — Kay Bailey Hutchison

Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God's creation, made in his own image, destined to live for ever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect. — Pope Francis

The Buddha's insight into the middle way is not simply about a balance between extremes. This conventional understanding misses the deeper revelation of the middle way as being the very nature of unexcelled enlightenment. The middle way is an invitation to leap beyond nirvana and samsara and to realize the unborn Buddha mind right in the middle of everywhere. — Adyashanti

When a parliamentary or social majority decrees that it is legal, at least under certain conditions, to kill unborn human life, is it not really making a tyrannical decision with regard to the weakest and most defenseless of human beings? ... While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals even if they are the majority of the members of society an offense against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. — Pope John Paul II

For the rest of my life there are two days that will never again trouble me. The first day is yesterday with all its blunders and tears, follies and defeats. Yesterday has passed away, beyond my control forever. The other day is tomorrow with all its pitfalls and threats, its dangers and mystery. Until the sun rises again I have no stake in tomorrow, for it is still unborn. — Og Mandino

I'm sure if you could survey the unborn they would prefer the chance for life over the options of solar power. — Greg Gutfeld

Unborn children can experience pain even more so than adults as the baby has more pain receptors per square inch than at any other time in its life. — Sam Brownback

However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or
complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't
this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will
never even be offered life in the first place? — Richard Dawkins

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone.
[closing narration: "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", Twilight Zone episode aired March 4, 1960 — Rod Serling

We are called to reach out to those who find themselves in the existential peripheries of our societies and to show particular solidarity with the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, the disabled, the unborn and the sick, migrants and refugees, the elderly and the young who lack employment. — Pope Francis

Deep down, fundamentally, we are the 'unborn'. We never came into being and we never go out of being. All of these coming and goings are just pulses in the pattern — Bankei Yotaku

You have the power to make manifest that which is not yet visible, to create that which is still unborn. — Margot Anand

On Portents
If strange things happen where she is,
So that men say that graves open
And the dead walk, or that futurity
Becomes a womb and the unborn are shed,
Such portents are not to be wondered at,
Being tourbillions in Time made
By the strong pulling of her bladed mind
Through that ever-reluctant element. — Robert Graves

The Christian message, like an ecosystem, is about process. In an ecological sense, the cross symbolizes a willingness to die so that the continuation of life might be served. Now we must extend our love to the unborn if we are to serve eternal life. — Wes Jackson

Whenever you touch topaz, it touches you. It awakens a gentle fire, like wine awakens in grapes. Still unborn, clear wine seeks channels amidst stone, demands words, bestows its secret nourishment, shares out the kiss of human skin. The touch of stone and man in serene peace kindles garlands of fleeting flowers, which then return to prime sources: flesh and stone: contrary elements. (Translation, Beatriz von Eidlitz) — Pablo Neruda

How was possible that a small no of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn ? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come ?
Nothing could be a greater injustice, yet such had been the reality ever since human beings first walked the earth. — Amitav Ghosh

When I wake up earlier than you and you
are turned to face me, face
on the pillow and hair spread around,
I take a chance and stare at you,
amazed in love and afraid
that you might open your eyes and have
the daylights scared out of you.
But maybe with the daylights gone
you'd see how much my chest and head
implode for you, their voices trapped
inside like unborn children fearing
they will never see the light of day.
The opening in the wall now dimly glows
its rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoes
and go downstairs to put the coffee on. — Ron Padgett

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, had in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the eternal Father.
I was one of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them. — Richard Llewellyn

It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry's rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public's right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people's health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children's futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. — Lois Gibbs

How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb? — Alan Keyes

This is a life you do not understand. Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. If you ask me intellectual questions and try to trip me up, then I will reply, for example, that God is the origin of all things and that truly men are mere specks and atoms in the universe. You are no wiser than I. But if you should go so far as to ask me what is eternity, then I know quite as much in this matter, too, and reply thus: Eternity is merely unborn time, nothing but unborn time. — Knut Hamsun

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to
mankind, which are delivered down from generation to
generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn — Joseph Addison

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die. — George Washington

There are only two kinds of people who do not commit any sins: Unborn human beings and dead human beings! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Knowing what you admire in others is a wonderful mirror into your deepest, as yet unborn, self. — Gretchen Rubin

Others drink for sterility and commit murder on the human not yet sown. Some when they sense that they have conceived by sin, consider the poisons for abortion, and frequently die themselves along with it, and go to Hell guilty of three crimes: murdering themselves, committing adultery against Christ, and murder against their unborn child. — St. Jerome

Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground. — T. S. Eliot

I stand morally opposed to killing: war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. . . . I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end. — Helen Prejean

Like the pro-slavery forces who invaded Kansas, the pro-abortion forces in Washington and elsewhere want us to believe that abortion is not murder; that being born is worse than death; that the unborn baby is property, not a person. — Tim Huelskamp

It's been a while since I've been to church, but you don't get unborn again. — John Schneider

Medicine is like the slow raising of masonry," Rob said. "We are fortunate, in a lifetime, to be able to lay a single brick. If we can explain the disease, someone yet unborn may devise a cure. — Noah Gordon

As a physician, I know that human life begins with fertilization, and I remain committed to ending abortion in all stages of pregnancy. I will continue to fight this atrocity on behalf of the unborn, and I hope my colleagues will support me in doing so. — Paul Broun

You are purer than the pure. Never manifold, you are individual Consciousness.
Unborn, unchanging, all-pervasive You are a mountain of joy. — Swami Muktananda

There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks, there were no unborn ... no escape would be discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an unborn ... , therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. — Gautama Buddha

It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Addiction might be redefined not as a character flaw but as a "biochemical deficit management." Our emotional habits will become an accepted factor of good health, along with slogans like "Heartache can be harmful to your unborn children." — Marni Jackson

I often describe the Absolute as Pure Infinite Potential, prior to being or becoming anything. It is forever unborn, yet gives birth to all of existence. About our ultimate nature nothing can be said; it must be revealed. — Adyashanti

These various forms appear different in shape and size, yet they are of a single essence ... The Sixth Patriarch called it "essence of Mind" ... Here the Third Patriarch calls it "timeless Self-essence." Bankei called it "unborn Buddha-mind." They all refer to the same thing: Buddha-nature, true self. This essence is not born and can never die. It exists eternally. Some call it energy; others call it spirit. But what is it? No one knows. Any concept we have of what it is can only be an analogy ... — Dennis Merzel

My record as a pro-life governor is not in dispute. I am completely pro-life, and I believe that we should have a culture of life. It's informed by my faith from beginning to end. And this not just as it related to unborn babies - I did it at the end of life issues as well. This is something that goes way beyond politics. — Jeb Bush

All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala. — Lynne Truss

The great battles, the battles that decide our destiny and the destiny of generations yet unborn, are not fought on public platforms, but in the lonely hours of the night and in moments of agony. — Samuel Logan Brengle

Within us is the unborn possibility of limitless experience. Ours is the privilege of giving birth to it! — Ernest Holmes

The thing with Jen ended with a pregnancy scare. She had seen my world and didn't want to bring a baby into it. This led to some violent arguments during which I pointed out, loudly and in sprays of spittle, that if she got an abortion the fucking unborn fucking fetus would likely fucking haunt us - I mean literally haunt our home - until the day we died and possibly beyond. It turned out that was the wrong thing to say. — David Wong

People are kinder to the unborn than they are to the women themselves, and soon I had my ticket. — Emily Schultz

Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method. — Theodore Roosevelt

Let us declare that we are a nation of interdependence, and that in America love always trumps hate. Let us declare, so that generations yet unborn can hear us. We are the United States of America; our best days are ahead of us. And together, with Hillary Clinton as our President, America, we will rise. — Cory Booker

For her too, she had words on her lips, which died unborn, lay in her mind and turned to poison. — Cora Sandel

The holocaust against the unborn is the greatest sin they could ever do or even ever participate in. — Norma McCorvey

Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own ... Stand still, be quiet. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Today it is the duty of every thinking being to live, and to serve not only his own day and generation, but also generations unborn by helping to restore and maintain the green glory of the forests of the earth. — Richard St. Barbe Baker

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. — Samuel Adams

I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent?
The Glass Rainbow, p. 138 — James Lee Burke

The line changed my life 'cause I thought of some poor woman I hadn't even met walking around the United States or the world not knowing she's going to be beaten up by me and these kids, unborn, not knowing they were going to be born into the family of a child-beater just because I was. So it really did have a great effect on me. — Terry Gross

For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, undying, primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. — Sattar Memon

The prayers of God's saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil. — Edward McKendree Bounds

I'd rather my sons living, and my daughters safe, than a chance at glory for unborn descendants. — Katherine Arden

It is necessary to reaffirm our solid opposition to any direct offense against life, especially when innocent and defenseless, and the unborn child in its mother's womb is the quintessence of innocence. Let us remember the words of Vatican Council II: 'Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.' — Pope Francis

Surprised by joy- impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport
Oh! with whom
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?
That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. — William Wordsworth

Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left. — Jack London

In the mythus a superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn. — Henry David Thoreau

Since the soon-to-be outnumber the living; since the living have greater impact on the unborn than ever before thanks to depletion of natural systems, atmospheric disruption, toxic residue, burgeoning technology, global markets, genetic engineering, and sheer population numbers; since our scientific and historic understandings now comfortably examine processes embracing eons; and now that our plan-ahead horizon has shrunk to five years or less - it would seem that a grave disconnect is in progress. Our everhastier decisions and actions do not respond to our long-term understanding, or to the gravity of responsibility we bear. "The — Stewart Brand

A daily portion is all that a man really wants. We do not need tomorrow's supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in the month of June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive we shall never know want. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Now, we see what we are shown. We have gotten used to being shown no matter what, within or beyond the limited range of human sight. This habituation to the monopoly of visualization-on-command strongly suggests that only those things that can in some way be visualized, recorded, and replayed at will are part of reality ... The result is a strange mistrusts of our own eyes, a disposition to take as real only that which is mechanically displayed in a photograph, a statistical curve, or a table. Eyewitness testimony must be "substantiated" by records that have been acquired, and can be stored and then shown. — Barbara Duden

Is it surprising that today we have become so morally blind (for wickedness blinds) that we save the baby whales at great cost, and murder millions of unborn children? — Alice Von Hildebrand

Unborn eternity does not die; existence is dying and falls asleep in the eternity beyond existence. — Dejan Stojanovic

For my part, I believe that the vain, glorious and the violent will not inherit the earth ... In pursuance of that faith my friends and I take the hands of the dying in our hands. And some of us travel to the Pentagon, and others live in the Bowery and serve there, and others speak unpopularly and plainly of the fate of the unborn and of convicted criminals. It is all one. — Daniel Berrigan

When the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. — Ronald Reagan

In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him. — Randy Alcorn

Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. — Joseph Warren

Each woman must realize that she is the final guardian of her unborn child. — Susan McCutcheon

The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children, and this particular bill would prohibit abortions after the fetus feels pain, which is 20 weeks and older. — Joseph Fischer

When adults come together to form an intimate relationship, each person releases into it unresolved issues from their trans-generational pool of unconscious fantasies. Partners are often chosen to actualize certain potentialities for each other, and the unborn baby becomes party to their drama. — Joan Raphael-Leff

I still cannot fathom how difficult it was for the women I met to find out that they were HIV-positive. It is such a courageous undertaking in countries where there is still considerable stigma about the disease. They got tested to ensure that their unborn babies would have a chance of life by being born free of the virus. — Gabriel Byrne

There's a a right to privacy for all individuals and all who have legal rights - and that includes the unborn. As an obstetrician, if I cause any harm to a fetus, I will be sued. If someone kills or harms a fetus they're liable in a court of law. — Ron Paul

We must appreciate the dignity of life in all its seasons, even the path of the elderly in the twilight of their years, to work toward the day when every child, born and unborn, is welcomed to life and protected by law. — George W. Bush

If we look to our responsibility to the generations yet unborn who will come after us, how can we fail to recognize that peace and freedom are inextricably bound up one with another and that the threat to one is a threat to both — Winston Churchill

Then he was gone, and Prentice was alone in a silence that rang with all his shrill, unspoken words. He was so alone that the only thing to do was lie back on the bed and roll over and draw up his knees like an unborn baby, staring with dry eyes at a cluster of pink flowers on the wallpaper, knowing he had never been so alone in his life. — Richard Yates

Whatever else abortion does, it does not promote the life of the unborn child. — R.C. Sproul

Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident." He paused. "Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God's world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning ... and all it finds is more questions. — Anonymous

The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it. — Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. — George Carlin

Ultimate Reality is not a certain state of consciousness, no matter how wonderful or blissful. Reality is the ground of all being, unborn and undying eternity. It is as present in one experience or state of consciousness as in any other. Reality, or Truth, is that which is ultimately true in all states, at all times, in all locations. — Adyashanti

I would vote against raising the national debt ceiling. Again, this is about mortgaging the future of unborn generations of Americans. It's a form of taxation without representation. I don't think we can do that. — Mike Lee

The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn. — Pope John Paul II

The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name. — Walter Raleigh

If Republicans are aiming for the heart, for compassion, the last thing they should do is abandon the sanctity of life. Instead, they should tell Americans that they believe in the dignity and value of every human being, from the defenseless unborn child, to the newborn with a disability, to the 90-year-old dealing with dementia. — Gary Bauer

There is but one God. True is His Name, creative His personality and immortal His form. He is without fear sans enmity, unborn and self-illumined. By the Guru's grace He is obtained. — Guru Nanak

Gastronomers of the year 1825, who find sateity in the lap of abundance, and dream of some newly-made dishes, you will not enjoy the discoveries which science has in store for the year 1900, such as foods drawn from the mineral kingdom, liqueurs produced by the pressure of a hundred atmospheres; you will never see the importations which travelers yet unborn will bring to you from that half of the globe which has still to be discovered or explored. How I pity you! — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I think my baby already has a leg up on all other babies because the baby has already met Justin Bieber. I couldn't believe it! I'm like, first my unborn child has already gone to the Golden Globes, and now has met Justin Bieber. Lucky little one! — Jane Krakowski

We all are originally sinners as Adam and in Adam, his leprosy cleaving faster to us than Naaman's did to Gahazai, so that even the infant, before it has seen the light of the world, has this blemish inherent in its unborn members. — John Wycliffe

And it came to me that these trees had been hardly smaller when I was yet unborn, and had stood as they stood now when I was a child playing among the cypresses and peaceful tombs of our necropolis, and that they would stand yet, drinking in the light of the dying sun, even as now, when I had been dead as long as those who rested there. I saw how little it weighed on the scale of things whether I lived or died, though my life was precious to me. And of those two thoughts I forged a mood by which I stood ready to grasp each smallest chance to live, yet in which I cared not too much whether I saved myself or not. By that mood, as I think, I did live; it has been so good a friend to me that I have endeavored to wear it ever since, succeeding not always, but often. — Gene Wolfe