Meditation vs. All Quiet by D. DeGagne

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-22 13:24:53 UTC

Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of resin, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred. "That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished. "They're for us," growls Detering. (Remarque 99.)

Meditation

18degagned — 2015-10-22 13:26:29 UTC

"When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume..."

Meditation

18degagned — 2015-10-22 13:35:04 UTC

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-22 13:40:05 UTC

The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us...

All Quiet on the Western Front

18degagned — 2015-10-22 13:46:55 UTC

Close behind us were our friends: Tjaden, a skinny locksmith of our own age, the biggest eater of the company. He sits down to eat as thin as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way; Haie Westhus, of the same age, a peat-digger, who can easily hold a ration-loaf in his hand and say: Guess what I've got in my fist; then Detering, a peasant, who thinks of nothing but his farm-yard and his wife; and finally Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs.

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-22 13:47:06 UTC

The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-23 12:56:46 UTC

And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-23 12:57:52 UTC

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

1

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:28:30 UTC

2

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:28:43 UTC

3

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:28:53 UTC

4

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:29:01 UTC

All Quiet on the Western Front

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:33:05 UTC

5

18degagned — 2015-10-26 12:33:18 UTC

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-26 12:52:53 UTC

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours

18latonac — 2015-10-26 12:57:11 UTC

This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean to live only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placate him--and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off in this way and perhaps even get out of this; it is a little stratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it

6

18latonac — 2015-10-26 12:58:21 UTC

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-26 12:58:30 UTC

Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:38:30 UTC

Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it.

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:41:45 UTC

as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours.

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:43:04 UTC

Leer groans as he supports himself on his arm, he bleeds quickly, no one can help him. Like an emptying tube, after a couple of minutes he collapses. What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician at school

Meditation

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:44:42 UTC

so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

8

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:46:22 UTC

7

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:46:35 UTC

All Quiet on the Western Front

18latonac — 2015-10-26 16:51:42 UTC

. All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;-- ... Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark.

Meditation

18degagned — 2015-10-28 01:59:46 UTC

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

All Quiet on the Western Front

18degagned — 2015-10-28 02:08:14 UTC

Together with Kropp, Westhus, and Tjaden I have stood at attention in a hard frost without gloves for a quarter of an hour at a stretch, while Himmelstoss watched for the slightest movement of our bare fingers on the steel barrel of the rifle.

10

18degagned — 2015-10-28 02:23:12 UTC

9

18degagned — 2015-10-28 02:26:10 UTC

Meditation

18degagned — 2015-10-28 02:27:26 UTC

If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.

All Quiet on the Western Front

18degagned — 2015-10-28 02:27:55 UTC

I have remade his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time he had some fault to find and pulled it to pieces. I have kneaded a pair of prehistoric boots that were as hard as iron for twenty hours--with intervals of course--until they became as soft as butter and not even Himmelstoss could find anything more to do to them; under his orders I have scrubbed out the Corporals' Mess with a tooth-brush.

18degagned — 2015-10-28 12:22:44 UTC

18degagned — 2015-10-28 12:26:30 UTC

18degagned — 2015-10-28 12:31:19 UTC