If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicize a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey... then I should be praised for it, and it's more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.
When I spoke, I was listened to; and I was at a loss to know how I had so easily acquired the art of commanding attention, and giving the tone to the conversation.
I don't want to take up literature in a money-making spirit, or be very anxious about making large profits, but selling it at a loss is another thing altogether, and an amusement I cannot well afford.
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud. We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, all melodies the echoes of that voice, all colours a suffusion from that light.
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee; wish not one man more.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse
A society that feels life is the most precious thing [jars against] a society that prefers death over theft, over loss of pride, over inconvenience, and so much else.
If we could make up our minds to spare our friends all details of ill health, of money losses, of domestic annoyances, of altercations, of committee work, of grievances, provocations, and anxieties, we should sin less against the world's good-humor. It may not be given us to add to the treasury of mirth; but there is considerable merit in not robbing it.
It made me have a much greater understanding of loss, of loneliness, and the level of intense tragedy that so many people have experienced in this world, I take a lot less for granted.