Far Out Man Quotes & Sayings

Naturally the first emotion of man toward the being he calls God, but of whom he knows so little, is fear. Where it is possible that fear should exist, it is well it should exist, cause continual uneasiness, and be cast out by nothing less than love ... . Until love, which is the truth toward God, is able to cast out fear, it is well that fear should hold; it is a bond, however poor, between that which is and That which creates - a bond that must be broken, but a bond that can be broken only by the tightening of an infinitely closer bond. Verily God must be terrible to those that are far from Him: for they fear He will do, yea, He is doing with them what they do not, cannot desire, and can ill endure. — George MacDonald

So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over
a weary, battered old brontosaurus
and became extinct. — Malcolm Muggeridge

I cried out for the pain of man,
I cried out for my bitter wrath
Against the hopeless life that ran
For ever in a circling path
From death to death since all began;
Till on a summer night
I lost my way in the pale starlight
And saw our planet, far and small,
Through endless depths of nothing fall
A lonely pin-prick spark of light,
Upon the wide, enfolding night,
With leagues on leagues of stars above it,
And powdered dust of stars below-
Dead things that neither hate nor love it
Not even their own loveliness can know,
Being but cosmic dust and dead.
And if some tears be shed,
Some evil God have power,
Some crown of sorrow sit
Upon a little world for a little hour-
Who shall remember? Who shall care for it? — C.S. Lewis

If the white man wants to hold on to it, let him do so; but the Negro, so far as he is able, should develop and carry out a program of his own. — Carter G. Woodson

The great and only possible dignity of man lies in his power deliberately to choose certain moral values by which to live as steadfastly as if he, too, like a character in a play, were immured against the corrupting rush of time. Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence. As far as we know, as far as there exists any kind of empiric evidence, there is no way to beat the beat the game of being against non-being, in which non-being is the predestined victor on realistic levels. — Tennessee Williams

Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning. I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning. I was much too far out all my life, And not waving but drowning. — Stevie Smith

The dead man's nephew, excused from this duty, walks far ahead out of earshot. We are free as we go stumbling and sweating along to say exactly what we please, without fear of offending. "Heavy son of a bitch. ... " "All blown up like he is, you'd think he'd float like a balloon." "Let's just hope he don't explode." "He won't. We let the gas out." "What about lunch?" somebody asks; "I'm hungry." "Eat this." "Why'd the bastard have to go so far from the road?" "There's something leaking out that zipper." "Never mind, let's try to get in step here," the sheriff says. "Goddamnit, Floyd, you got big feet." "Are we going in the right direction?" "I wonder if the old fart would walk part way if we let him out of that bag?" "He won't even say thank you for the ride." "Well I hope this learned him a lesson, goddamn him. I guess he'll stay put after this. ... " Thus we meditate upon the stranger's death. — Edward Abbey

All your sea-omens are of disaster; and of course, with man in his present unhappy state, huddled together in numbers far too great and spending all his surplus time and treasure beating out his brother's brains, any gloomy foreboding is likely to be fulfilled; but your corpse, your parson, your St Elmo's fire is not the cause of the tragedy. — Patrick O'Brian

I don't want any money."
I put the wallet away.
She said: "What are you going to do about last night?"
"What should I do?"
"Kill that son of a bitch."
"And fry?"
"You're too smart to fry."
"Maybe," I said. "But, lady, I've been drawing the line at murder lately."
She lay against the pillow, watching me. Her skin was dead white and it made the black eyes look big. She wasn't young, but she was still good-looking. Her shoulders were round and firm. As far as I could tell she was naked under the sheet. I sat down on a rocking-chair. It creaked under my weight.
"But you want to get him, don't you?" she asked.
"I wouldn't mind."
"Neither would I," she said.
"He's pretty tough for a gal to tackle."
"He knocked out my teeth."
The way she said it, it sounded like a good reason for bumping off a man. Maybe it was, at that. A girl likes to hold on to her teeth. — Jonathan Latimer

Man is more than merely an animal to exist and propagate his species. His mind gives him capacity to search out the great truths in God's arrangement and this lifts him far above the other animal creation. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford

THE OPENING OF EYES After R. S. Thomas That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. — David Whyte

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true. — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing has emerged more clearly from the Everyday Sexism Project than the urgent need for far more comprehensive mandatory sex-and-relationships education in schools, to include issues such as consent and respect, domestic violence and rape. It's not just girls who need it so desperately. For boys porn provides some very scary, dictatorial lessons about what it means to be a man and how they are apparently expected to exert their male dominance over women. It is as unrealistic to expect them, unaided, to instinctively work out the difference between online porn and real, caring intimacy, as it is to demand the same intuition of young women. According — Laura Bates

Perhaps one day in the far-off future, when I'm about eighty-nine, I might look back and say, "When I was a young-ish woman I fell in love with an intense charismatic man. He was way out of my league and when it ended it nearly killed me, but every woman should experience that sort of love once in their lives. Only once, mind, you mightn't survive a second bout. A bit like dengue fever, that way." I — Marian Keyes

Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone. — David Gemmell

Once I no longer exist as I am, out of what consideration then should I forgo anything? Should I belong to a man I don't love simply because I used to love him? No, I forgo nothing, I love any man who appeals to me and I make any man who loves me happy. Is that ugly? No, it is at least far more beautiful than my cruelly delighting in the tortures incited by my charms and my virtuously turning my back on the poor man who pines away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and just as I am, I live cheerfully for pleasure and enjoyment. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. — Blaise Pascal

I come to you for help. We've been silent far too long. Many of you have turned your backs on Arman. Many never bothered to know Him at all. But Arman is the One God. He created Er'Rets and everything in it. He gave each of you life and purpose. He loves all of you as His own sons and daughters.
To defeat Darkness, we must unite our faith. We must worship the One God, Arman. We must call out to Him for mercy. Though He hears my prayer now, my voice alone is not strong enough. I am only one man. But together, we are mighty. I ask you to join with me now. Worship Him. — Jill Williamson

It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jeda, in Babylon. A constellation of ignited eyes that edged the ring of light all bound in a precarious truce before this torch whose brightness had set back the stars in their sockets. — Cormac McCarthy

The man walked past me and stopped, observing the blood running down my neck.
"Your injury. Let us tend to it." He looked out through the open doorway and silently gestured to someone out there. "Our world," he said, "is far more advanced than yours. For reasons you'll understand shortly."
A thin, bony, naked woman entered the room, carrying two small, white kittens. She sat one of the fluffy cats in my lap and stuffed the other down my shirt. She turned and left.
"There," said the large man. "The kittens will make your sad go away. — David Wong

Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture. — Frank Capra

Jump, if you want to, 'cause I'll catch you, girl. I'll catch you "fore you fall. Go as far inside as you need to, I'll hold your ankles. Make sure you get back out. I'm not saying this because I need a place to stay. That's the last thing I need. I told you, I'm a walking man, but I been heading in this direction for seven years. Walking all around this place. Upstate, downstate, east, west; I been in territory ain't got no name, never staying nowhere long. But when I got here and sat out there on the porch, waiting for you, well, I knew it wasn't the place I was heading toward; it was you. We can make a life, girl. A life. — Toni Morrison

As our planet takes action to cast out its manmade poisons and heal its man-caused wounds, many human inhabitants will no doubt give way to fear. Many will cling to seemingly powerful we're-God's-chosen-people religions, hoping that by so doing they will be saved from the wrath of a Vengeful God (not recognizing that the approaching "vengeance" will in reality be man's own actions coming back at him - and not recognizing that the Infinite Universal Power is far more than the narrow-minded gatekeeper of an exclusive Spiritual Country Club). — Benjamin Hoff

Human wisdom has advanced to the point where man can construct satellites. And yet man in his wisdom cannot find a way to rescue and old woman in Vietnam from her tragic plight. We can't wait to find out what the pockmarked face of the far side of the moon loks like, but we have no time to consider what meaning those wrinkles of sorrow etched deep into tha face of an old woman may have for us — Daisaku Ikeda

It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor; but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, and some kinds of speculation lead a man deep into dishonesty before he thinks what he is about. Poverty will not make a man worthless - he may be of worth a great deal more when he is poor than he was when he was rich; but dishonesty goes very far indeed to make a man of no value - a thing to be thrown out in the dust-hole of the creation, like a bit of broken basin, or dirty rag. — George MacDonald

In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just. I — Plato

A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he'd left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn't given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets. — James S.A. Corey

Suicide thwarts the plan of the entity which sends out the personality. Fortunately, the entity is far beyond the reach of man's destructive tendencies. — Manly Hall

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this: that if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and superfluously useless, although it were as respectableasthe Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all concerned. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I tilted her head back as far as it would go without dunking her back in the icy water and started to breathe into her mouth. I breathed in all the love I had for her. I gave her air flavored with my confidence that we were meant to be, and laced with the knowledge that she made me a better kind of man. I breathed out and filled her lungs with the future I wanted to share with her and all the memories I wanted to make with her. — Jay Crownover

But why were there dryads at all? As far as he could recall, the tree people had died out centuries before. They had been out-evolved by humans, like most of the other Twilight Peoples. Only elves and trolls had survived the coming of Man to the discworld; the elves because they were altogether too clever by half, and the trollen folk because they were at least as good as humans at being nasty, spiteful and greedy. Dryads were supposed to have died out, along with gnomes and pixies. — Terry Pratchett

It's about Nietzsche's theory of universal debt. Your parents make it possible for you to believe a far better myth than Santa. They let you think that you, as a kid, don't owe the world a thing. The world can give you, even if just for a few minutes, utter joy without requiring anything from you. It's not about consumerism. As far as you know, no one buys you these presents. They come out of nothingness, with fantasies of elves attached. You aren't required to be grateful to your parents or anything like that. They can give to you and nothing is required in return. When you get old enough, when you have kids, you get to enact this myth for them. It has nothing to do with any fat man in a red suit, no matter what we tell ourselves. It's about owing nothing, and then realizing that you have to do this job of perpetuating this ... this fantasy world, whether you like it or not. — Thomm Quackenbush

Zev nodded. He smiled up at Tatijana as she came to his side. "It's good to see you," he greeted her. "Thanks for saving us out there."
She smiled back at him and sank down into the grass, taking his arm to inspect the damage. "It's getting to be a habit. We can't have anyone killing you, Zev. My sister wouldn't be too pleased. She's hoping to get another dance with you sometime."
"She probably doesn't remember my name," Zev said. "But it's kind of you to say so."
Tatijana laughed. "Silly man. Your name is probably the only one she does remember. She's not very social."
Fen gave a small derisive snort. "The lengths you go to, getting yourself hurt just for a little female sympathy. You know, Tatijana, he really is far faster than he lets on and he could have prevented the knife from slicing him open. He was just hoping your sister would show up and kiss it all better."
Zev sent him a warning glare. "I'm still armed to the teeth, you bastard. — Christine Feehan

Lots of people today would never consider themselves guilty of idolatry as far as it is spelled out in the Ten Commandments, but by reducing God to some benevolent "man upstairs" whose only attributes are love and tolerance, and who could not care less about sin, they truly have transgressed God's commandment. They have created a god in their mind who does not actually exist and will on the day of judgment, not be able to offer them any help. — Charlie Campbell

If only you would understand the silent speech and the real pain within the innermost man of they that suffer in silence, you would never keep silent to their suffering. So many people can't speak everything about how they are suffering for the sake of dignity and confidentiality. Though they smile, they smile out of a deep pain within. When you look at someone suffering, just see how he is suffering and in so far as you can, be the joy to the innermost man of the person to the best of your ability. Don't wait for his words, just look and see! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

God is not some lesser employee, as many try to make Him out to be: rather He is the ultimate Treasure. He works in a man; He works on a man; He works through a man; He works around a man. Know that He does far more than simply work for a man. And yet, even as He Himself needs no one else, everyone else is ever in need of Him. — Criss Jami

This immoral system, how do you get outside it? Option one, you drop out, sever the connections. They got that far in '68, okay? People went as far with that as they could, to say, I'm free, you're free, kumbaya and barbaric yawp and yadda yadda, and look what happened. The problem with the whole Rousseau trip is that man is primordially a social animal, in the sense of clan or tribe. Marx says this somewhere. You detach completely, you not only find yourself way out on a limb, against your nature, but you've lost any power for group resistance. And eventually, you come crawling back, clutching credit-card applications, begging to be let in. — Garth Risk Hallberg

also on June 22nd JB vetoes the Homestead Bill ... This bill, which proposes to give him ("the honest poor man," ... ) land at an almost nominal price, out of the property of the government, will go far to demoralize the people and repress this noble spirit of independence. It may introduce among us those pernicious social theories which have proved so disastrous in other countries. — John Updike

The President was in seventh heaven when he heard himself being teased like this; he strutted about and thrust his chest out; never did a man of the robe stick out his neck so far, not even one who has just hanged a man. — Marquis De Sade

The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world. — G.K. Chesterton

A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame. — Boris Yeltsin

Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for ... When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is ... Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord. — J. Reuben Clark

Public men in America are too public. Too accessible. This sitting on the stoop and being 'just folk' was all very well for local politics and the simple farmer days of a hundred years ago, but it's no good for world affairs. Opening flower-shows and being genial to babies and all that is out of date. These parish politics methods have to go. The ultimate leader ought to be distant, audible but far off. Show yourself and then vanish into a cloud. Marx would never have counted for one tenth of his weight as 'Charlie Marx' playing chess with the boys, and Woodrow Wilson threw away all his magic as far as Europe was concerned when he crossed the Atlantic. Before he crossed he was a god -- what a god he was! After he arrived he was just a grinning guest. I've got to be the Common Man, yes, but not common like that. — H.G.Wells

Only because of the striving nature of men has mankind achieved what it has so far. Men are made that way; they are designed to reach out for things which they cannot see with their eyes but can only imagine. A man naturally seeks after his dream, his ideal, while women are more concerned with the here and now rather than the future, intangible realm. — Sun Myung Moon

Halfway out of the room, Rob remembers his engagement. "One thing. I'm getting married." "Congrats," Farley says. When Rob continues to stand awkwardly in the doorway, Farley adds, "What? You want me to be your flower girl?" "No." Rob responds as if Farley were serious. "We'd like to plan a wedding this fall. Ben's my best man. We'd be gone at least a week. Would that be an issue?" "Let's hope this case doesn't stretch that far. We'll work around it if we have to. I may be a hard-ass, but I'm a fair one. — A.M. Madden

Man, the bravest of animals, and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean. — Ernest Hemingway,

Now he understood that a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes. He suffers and hopes and toils for people he will never know, and who, in turn, will suffer and hope and toil for others who will not be happy either, for man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him. But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is. In laying duties upon himself. In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy. For this reason, bowed down by suffering and duties, beautiful in the midst of his misery, capable of loving in the face of afflictions and trials, man finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in the Kingdom of this World. — Alejo Carpentier

It's tough when you started out as young as I did to look back and see how far I've come. I try to be easy on myself and go 'Look man, you were younger, you were learning; you learn, you grow.' But I'm not my best judge. I always feel like my best work is still ahead of me. — Matt Dillon

To many people I have no doubt that it appears merely silly. I once found it expressed in a rather amusing way in a Russian Book called Dal Zoviet, which means the lure of far horizons. The author is Galinischev Kutuzoff [Golenischev-Kutuzov], and he tells of a man in Northern Mongolia who goes out of his yurt every morning to breathe the free air of the steppes and enjoy the immensity and the solitude. But one day he feels an uncomfortable sense of oppression, almost as if he could not breathe. He looks about to find the reason. And there, across the undulating grasslands, is a line of telegraph poles. And after the place never the same to him again. — Daniele Vare

You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me. — Malcolm X

We are not men, to have need of another, an eternal life; we are women, and for us one moment with man we love is everlasting Paradise, one moment far from the man we love is everlasting hell. It is here on earth that we women love out eternity — Nikos Kazantzakis

Some of the dairy people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occassional laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride - the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women - unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not yet alighted. — Thomas Hardy

I looked for certain attributes in a soldier. I know the modern method is to put the attributes into a computer and see what comes out. But as far as I am concerned, the computer is the worst damn instrument devised by man to screw up man-management. — Christopher Vokes

far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our sins. As a father has compassion on his sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear him; for he knows of what we are made, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flowers like the flower of the field; the wind blows and he is gone and his place never sees him again. Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. As a father has compassion on his sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear him. Psalm 102 (103) Give thanks to the Lord, all his works. But the love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear; his justice reaches out to children's children when they — Universalis Publishing

When man is born, the human race as well as the individual, he is thrown out of a situation which was definite, as definite as the instincts, into a situation which is indefinite, uncertain and open. There is certainty only about the past - and about the future only as far as that it is death. — Erich Fromm

The foreground in a picture is always unattractive ... Art demands that the interest of the canvas should be placed in the far distance, where lies take refuge, those dreams which blossom out of fact and are man's only love. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Before I knowed it, I was saying out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say. — John Steinbeck

Cows in India occupy the same position in society as women did in England before they got the vote. Woman was revered but not encouraged. Her life was one long obstacle race owing to the anxiety of man to put pedestals at her feet. While she was falling over the pedestals she was soothingly told that she must occupy a Place Apart - and indeed, so far Apart did her place prove to be that it was practically out of earshot. The cow in India finds her position equally lofty and tiresome. You practically never see a happy cow in India. — Stella Benson

Had I known you had pure, or what you thought were pure intentions, in that silly mind of yours, I wouldn't have tried to kill you."
Philip let out a bark of laughter. "Well, as far as apologies go, that wasn't half bad. Not every day a man comes in and apologises for wishing you dead. — Rachel Van Dyken

A man came up the far side of the street, walking neither slow nor fast ,not turning his head, as he paused, and quite surely not noticing them; they watched him until he was out of sight, and Rufus felt, and was sure that his father felt, that though there was no harm in the man and he had as good a right as they did to be there, minding his own business, their journey was interrupted from the moment they first saw him until they saw him out of sight. — James Agee

He was so far from being able to carry out such threats that one might conclude that the author of this document was utterly mad. Indeed, the man in the cave had entered a separate reality, one that was deeply connected to the mythic chords of Muslim identity and in fact gestured to anyone whose culture was threatened by modernity and impurity and the loss of tradition. By declaring war on the United States from a cave in Afghanistan, bin Laden assumed the role of an uncorrupted, indomitable primitive standing against the awesome power of the secular, scientific, technological Goliath; he was fighting modernity itself. — Lawrence Wright

He took one step out of her office cubical, turned, and said, "I'm not going to bite you, ya know."

She closed her eyes. Biting. An image of him nibbling at her neck took her by surprise and she dropped her pen. She startled and opened her lids. He was far more dangerous than she had first imagined. Even her thoughts weren't safe from the perilously handsome man. — Vicki Wilkerson

The figure stood in the flames, dark, hard to make out. "I've given you the blessing of pewter, Spook," the voice said. "Use it to escape this place. You can break through the boards on the far side of that hallway, escape out onto the roof of the building nearby. The soldiers won't be watching for you - they're too busy controlling the fire so it doesn't spread."
Spook nodded. The heat didn't bother him anymore. "Thank you."
The figure stepped forward, becoming more than just a silhouette. Flames played against the man's firm face, and Spook's suspicions were confirmed. There was a reason he'd trusted that voice, a reason why he'd done what it had said.
He'd do whatever this man commanded.
"I didn't give you pewter just so you could live, Spook," Kelsier said, pointing. "I gave it to you so you could get revenge. Now, go! — Brandon Sanderson

She watched Delta try to pull herself into a pitiful looking crouch. Delta was far from coordinated, though, so her feet slipped out from under her. For a second, she almost looked like she was trying to run in place with her feet slipping and sliding all over the place. Finally, Delta stopped her pathetic running man imitation so that she ended up in a squat. Her hands held out in front of her, clasped together with her pointer finger and thumb in the shape of a gun. Good Lord, her sister looked like a Charlie's Angel reject. - Elena — Jessie Lane

Fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. — Arthur C. Clarke

A persistent case of the bingos was enough to wash a man out of night carrier landings. That did not mean you were finished as a Navy pilot. It merely meant that you were finished so far as carrier ops were concerned, which meant that you were finished so far as combat was concerned, which meant you were no longer in the competition, no longer ascending the pyramid, no longer qualified for the company of those with the right stuff. — Tom Wolfe

Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: 'that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves. — Carter G. Woodson

Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide or current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song. — Lord Dunsany

The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jedda, in Babylon. — Cormac McCarthy

Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous that you think in this country." Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" And opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal. — Bram Stoker

So what do you think?' He asked, holding up the book.
'I think Salinger is a closet paedophile,' I replied placidly and was surprised and comforted by this minuscule, acidic, bitter Sylvia Plath like mocking, sniping tone that had crept into my voice. 'The main character Seymour is a fully grown man and a pervert who befriends young girls with his storytelling and swimming, just to get close enough to groom them in preparation for the inevitable sexual assault he lusts after. You might have noticed for example in A Perfect Day For Bananafish he grabs the young girls-'
'Sybil.'
'He grabs Sybil's ankles while lying on the beach and again when he pushes her in the water,' I continued. 'He goes too far when he kisses the bottom of her foot which makes even a four-year-old yell out in fear, knowing a line had been crossed. Frustrated Seymour walks away and goes back to his hotel where he kills himself in shame. — J.D. Gallagher

No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice. — Liam Neeson

So far has Western society departed from the ancient taboos against murder, theft, and rape that we are now faced with juvenile delinquents who have no inner check against wantonly assaulting other human beings at random 'for kicks' while we have adult delinquents capable of deliberately planning the extermination of tens of millions of human beings, in carrying out, also doubtless for kicks, a mathematical theory of games. Today our civilization is relapsing into a state far more primitive, far more irrational, than any taboo-ridden society now known-for lack of any effective taboos. If Western man could establish an inviolate taboo against random extermination, our society would enjoy a far more effective safeguard against both private violence and still impending collective nuclear horrors than the United Nations or the fallible mechanisms of Fail-Safe. — Lewis Mumford

I took the sleeper out of Glasgow, and as the smelly old train bumped out of Central Station and across the Jamaica Street Bridge, I stared out at the orange halogen streetlamps reflected in the black water of the river Clyde. I gazed at the crumbling Victorian buildings that would soon be sandblasted and renovated into yuppie hutches. I watched the revelers and rascals traverse the shiny wet streets. I thought of the thrill and danger of my youth and the fear and frustration of my adult life thus far. I thought of the failure of my marriage and my failures as a man. I saw all this through my reflection in the nighttime window.
Down the tracks I went, hardly aware that I was going further south with every passing second. — Craig Ferguson

What is a secret? It is much more than knowledge shared with only a few, or perhaps only one another. It is power. It is a bond. It is a sign of deep trust, or the darkest threat possible.
There is power in the keeping of a secret, and power in the revelation of a secret. Sometimes it takes a very wise man to discern which is the path to greater power.
All men desirous of power should become collectors of secrets. There is no secret too small to be valuable. All men value their own secrets far above those of others. A scullery maid may be willing to betray a prince before allowing the name of her secret lover to be told. — Robin Hobb

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

I look at Kitty, who's braiding Chris's hair in microbraids. She's being extra quiet so we forget she's here and don't kick her out. 'I think that as long as you're ready and it's what you want to do and you're protecting yourself, then it's okay and you should do what you want to do.'
Margot says, 'Society is far too caught up in shaming a woman for enjoying sex and applauding a man. I mean, all of the comments are about how Lara Jean is a slut, but nobody's saying anything about Peter, and he's right there with her. It's a ridiculous double standard. — Jenny Han

Ah ... Dectective, this is a very private and personal moment for them both. I'm sure you can understand their need for-"
A man stumbled out clutching a sheet round his waist and Valkyrie's eyes widened. "Whoa," she said as he hummed into a table. He was tall and sandy-haired and his physique was jaw-dropping lay amazing. "No way," she said. "Scapegrace?"
The man looked at her, and shook his head. The a woman came charging out of the back room, slammed into the man and they both went rolling across the floor.
"Give it to me!" The woman screamed. "Give it to me!"
Nye scuttled over. "Mr Scapegrace, you know the procedure cannot be repeated, your brains are in far too deteriorated a condition."
"You! Gave! Me! The! Wrong! Body! — Derek Landy

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I remember an era when you could get your nose sliced off for sticking it too far into another man's business. Now you can find out anything about anyone with the click of a button. There is no privacy and no consideration, and everyone is prying into things that aren't their affair. You can probably check on the intertube and find out what color underwear I have on today. — Joe Hill

What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? — William Makepeace Thackeray

Back when I was five, I thought my mom was being mean to me, so I decided to run away. Carried my slingshot with me because I was a big strong man, you see. Could take care of myself. I believe I also took a flashlight and a package of Oreos."
Despite my embarrassement, I couldn't help smiling. "I think you packed better than I did."
I swaggered out of the house where we were staying and took myself all the way to ... the far corner of the backyard. There I made my stand. Stayed out there all day, until it started to reain. I hadn't thought about taking an umbrella."
The best laid plans." I sighed.
I know. It's tragic. I cam back in, all wet and my stomach aching from eating about twenty Oreo, and my mom
who is a smart lady even is she drives me nuts
well, she acted like nothing happened." Lucas shrugged. — Claudia Gray

But our superiority is not the kind that many dreamers have imagined we have. The dreamer isn't superior to the active man because dreaming is superior to reality. The dreamer's superiority is due to the fact that dreaming is much more practical than living, and the dreamer gets far greater and more varied pleasure out of life than the man of action. In other and plainer words, the dreamer is the true man of action. — Fernando Pessoa

To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both." - Bacon: "Advancement of Learning". — Charles Darwin

To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he or she has been born
the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to he accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it be-devils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. — Aldous Huxley

chain kept moving, and Ball led the file down through Virginia into North Carolina at a steady pace. As the days wore on, the men, who were never out of the chains, grew dirtier and dirtier. Lice hopped from scalp to scalp at night. Black-and-red lines of scabs bordered the manacles. No matter: The Georgia-man would let the people clean themselves before they got to market. In the meantime, the men were the propellant for the coffle-chain, which was more than a tool, more than mere metal. It was a machine. Its iron links and bands forced the black people inside them to do exactly what entrepreneurial enslavers, and investors far distant from slavery's frontier, needed them to do in order to turn a $300 Maryland or Virginia purchase into a $600 Georgia sale. — Edward E. Baptist

My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity. — Bertrand Russell

After breakfast they went whooping and prancing out on the bar, and chased each other round and round, shedding clothes as they went, until they were naked, and then continued the frolic far away up the shoal water of the bar, against the stiff current, which latter tripped their legs from under them from time to time and greatly increased the fun. And now and then they stooped in a group and splashed water in each other's faces with their palms, gradually approaching each other, with averted faces to avoid the strangling sprays, and finally gripping and struggling till the best man ducked his neighbor, and then they all went under in a tangle of white legs and arms and came up blowing, sputtering, laughing, and gasping for breath at one and the same time. — Mark Twain

Hal frowned. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Uh, live in a tropical paradise for a week and sip fruity drinks with umbrellas in them by the pool? Yeah, Hal," I said, cranking up the sarcasm far past eleven, "that's a fate worse than death. I don't know what I was thinking."
"No," he said, stretching the word out longer than was healthy for it, "I was thinking more like going on a honeymoon without a wife."
I dropped a sock and looked up at him, stung. "Don't rub it in, man. — Cary Attwell

Sadly but, perhaps, not altogether unexpectedly this society has had very limited success in achieving what is supposed to be the justification for its existence
the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest possible number of people. In so far as its citizens are saved from the major anxieties and responsibilities which normally surround the business of being a man, they transfer what appears to be an unvarying human capacity for worry to the most trivial things, making mountains out of molehills on a vast scale; and they have 'nervous breakdowns' over problems which men and women living under sterner conditions would hardly find time to notice. — Charles Le Gai Eaton

Jupiter's fly-by had been carried out with impeccable precision. Like a ball on a cosmic pool table, Discovery had bounced off the moving gravitational field of Jupiter, and had gained momentum from the impact. Without using any fuel, she had increased her speed by several thousand miles an hour.
Yet there was no violation of the laws of mechanics; Nature always balances her books, and Jupiter had lost exactly as much momentum as Discovery had gained. The planet had been slowed down - but as its mass was a sextillion times greater than the ship's, the change in its orbit was far too small to be detectable. The time had not yet come when Man could leave his mark upon the Solar System. — Arthur C. Clarke

I tried to take a selfie or ten. Lame, maybe, but I hadn't posted to IG in a few days now and since I actually make money from my account for posting things like my outfits, then it's something I can't really neglect, demons or not. "What are you doing?" Jay asks, leaning across the roof of the car and watching me curiously. I chuck the duffel bag a few feet from me to get it out of the shot and try another angle, holding the iPhone far above my head. A lone scraggly-haired man in his pajamas exits his room, heading to the vending machine. He looks at me like I have a screw loose. Whatever. He probably takes dick pics so he should know all about getting the right angle. — Karina Halle

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In alms-house, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his prospects. — Charles Dickens

Doorkeepers He was not merely of the salt of the earth, but of the leaven of the kingdom, contributing more to the true life of the world than many a thousand far more widely known and honoured. Such as this man are the chief springs of thought, feeling, inquiry, action, in their neighbourhood; they radiate help and breathe comfort; they reprove, they counsel, they sympathize; in a word, they are doorkeepers of the house of God. Constantly upon its threshold, and every moment pushing the door to peep in, they let out radiance enough to keep the hearts of men believing in the light. They make an atmosphere about them in which spiritual things can thrive, and out of their school often come men who do greater things, better they cannot do, than they. Malcolm, ch. — George MacDonald

To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea. — Arthur C. Clarke

It's a crazy soprano, and singing as a man as a woman. But for many years, I was on the road in Chicago as Mary Sunshine, so I can do that. I didn't think there was any way I was going to get it - it was so far out of my comfort-zone. — Max Von Essen

Does a man who makes his observations while he himself is a prisoner possess the necessary detachment? Such detachment is granted to the outsider, but he is too far removed to make any statements of real value. Only the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective; his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty ... — Viktor E. Frankl

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself ... Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare ... You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

To explain the matter I will employ a simile, which yet, I confess is very dissimilar; but its dissimilitude is greatly in favour of my sentiments. A rich man bestows, on a poor and famishing beggar, alms by which he may be able to maintain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure gift, because the beggar extends his hand to receive it? Can it be said with propriety, that 'the alms depended partly on THE LIBERALITY of the Donor, and partly on THE LIBERTY of the Receiver,' though the latter would not have possessed the alms unless he had received it by stretching out his hand? Can it be correctly said, BECAUSE THE BEGGAR IS ALWAYS PREPARED TO RECEIVE, that 'he can have the alms, or not have it, just as he pleases?' If these assertions cannot be truly made about a beggar who receives alms, how much less can they be made about the gift of faith, for the receiving of which far more acts of Divine Grace are required! — James Arminius