{"quotes":[{"text":"To forget is to blithely toss aside the hard lessons that were hard won by others before us, thereby needlessly dooming us to endure the hard lessons that are likely to be forgotten by those who will follow us. And it is altogether reasonable that in order to avoid this repetitive trouncing, God graciously granted us memories.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["forget","forgetfulness","god","learn","learning","lessons","memorials","memories","remember","remembering","wisdom"],"id":5708,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"},{"text":"Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors—the living—could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs—those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact—had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not whol.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["boyhood","causes","childhood","christian-martyrs","christianity","comrades","conscription","death","fanaticism","friends","kamikaze","martyrdom","martyrs","masochism","memorials","november","orwell","patriotism","poppies","principles","religion","sacrifice","self-abnegation","self-importance","soldiers","suicide","suicide-attack","theocracy","torture","ugliness","war"],"id":11922,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors—the living—could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs—those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact—had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not wholesome. Your life?","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["boyhood","causes","childhood","christian-martyrs","christianity","comrades","conscription","death","fanaticism","friends","kamikaze","martyrdom","martyrs","masochism","memorials","november","orwell","patriotism","poppies","principles","religion","sacrifice","self-abnegation","self-importance","soldiers","suicide","suicide-attack","theocracy","torture","ugliness","war"],"id":95133,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.","author":"Margaret Atwood","tags":["memorials","revenge"],"id":118733,"author_id":"Margaret+Atwood"},{"text":"It is inevitable that I will leave a legacy simply because I cannot walk through life without leaving footprints as I walk. Therefore, I would be wise to consider the path before I make the prints.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["careful","footprints","journey","legacy","life-journey","memorials","path","thoughtful","thoughtfulness","wisdom","wise"],"id":204689,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"},{"text":"If there is any solace to be found in the carnage of September 11th, may I find it in understanding that the potential to do great good can handily rival the tendency to carry out great evil. And out of that understanding may I commit in my own life to make certain that in such a critical rivalry I will ensure that towers will never fall because of me, but people will be raised up due to me.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["911","911-attacks","attacks","memorials","patriot-day","patriotism","september-11th","terror","terrorism","world-trade-center"],"id":212389,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"},{"text":"If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["call","calling","destroy","generosity","giving","instinct","legacies","legacy","memorial-day","memorials","sacrifice","save","self-preservation","self-sacrifice","selfless","selflessness"],"id":332642,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"},{"text":"I cannot stress this enough: do not take powerful hallucinogens before going to a Holocaust memorial.","author":"Nathan Rabin","tags":["advice","drugs","memorials"],"id":406544,"author_id":"Nathan+Rabin"},{"text":"...The enduring human need to be remembered.","author":"Ben Sherwood","tags":["ben-sherwood","death","human-nature","memorials"],"id":407986,"author_id":"Ben+Sherwood"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":9,"pages":1}}