Weep not for me: suffering, as I do, unjustly, I am in a happier case than my murderers.
--
To one of his executioners, whom he noticed weeping, as quoted in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1844) by WIlliam Smith, p. 73Agis IV
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.William Blake
O Nation, collect your compassion. Weep! For one of your shining lights is entombed in darkness. Weep! O ye officers and soldiers, whom he loved and led to military glory. Weep! O ye farmers and ye Poor, for your improver and benefactor has become a prey to worms. Come water his tomb with your tears.
James Morris
What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique ("a great task that occurs once in two thousand years"), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted from the Armed S.S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any ordinary unit of the German Army, and their commanders had been chosen by Heydrich from the S.S. élite with academic degrees. Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler — who apparently was rather strongly afflicted by these instinctive reactions himself — was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!
Hannah Arendt
"Weep," said Athos, "weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!"
Alexandre Dumas
When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm. ... you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. ... as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that heyokas have.
Black Elk
Agis IV
Agnew, Jonathan
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