How vivid is the suffering of the few when the people are few and how the suffering of nameless millions in two world wars is blurred over by numbers.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
By the breaking in of enraged merciless armies, flourishing countries have been laid waste, great numbers of people have perished in a short time, and many more have been pressed with poverty and grief.
A lot of compelling stories in the world aren't being told, and the fact that people don't know about them compounds the suffering.
When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.
One thing we cannot put a number on is the number of casualties because people were never connected to their purpose in life.
To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we 'know' that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.
The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
As the president of Afghanistan I look at the suffering of our people as a whole.
Suffering makes a people greater, and we have suffered much. We had a message to give the world, but we were overwhelmed, and the message was cut off in the middle. In time there will be millions of us - becoming stronger and stronger - and we will complete the message.
There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.