I too have been in the underworld, as was Odysseus, and I will often be there again; not only sheep have I sacrificed so as to beable to speak with a few dead souls, but neither have I spared my own blood as well.
To be an individual is the hardest thing in the world, because nobody likes you to be an individual. Everybody wants to kill your individuality and to make a sheep out of you. Nobody wants you to be on your own.
In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (Jn 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow & rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
Can you row?" the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke. "Yes, a little--but not on land--and not with needles--" Alice was beginning to say.
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:While the Lily white shall in love delight,Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
You are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. You divinities on earth. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant,not you the servant of matter.
We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.
Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.