One Against Many Quotes & Sayings

The ship did not respond to queries. Without the ship, there could be no fatline relay to the Ousters, the Web, or anywhere else beyond Hyperion. Normal comm bands were down. 'Could the ship have been destroyed?' Sol asked the Consul. 'No. The message is being received, just not responded to. Gladstone still has the ship in quarantine.' Sol squinted out over the barrens to where the mountains shimmered in the heat haze. Several klicks closer, the ruins of the City of Poets rose jaggedly against the skyline. 'Just as well,' he said. 'We have one deus ex machina too many as it is.' Paul — Dan Simmons

That night, she told me the old story again about the woman who had been left behind on a desert island by the man she loved. She waited for him to return for many years, surviving on seaweed and sand, until at last she grew so small she could fit herself inside a bottle and roll into the sea. Who found the bottle, I wondered, but my mother said no one knew what happened to it or where the woman had wanted to go. A fish could have swallowed the bottle, she said, or it could have been dashed against rocks. Other possibilities: sharks, mermaids, lonely sailors at sea. — Jenny Offill

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed. — Ernest Hemingway,

The immediate thing that strikes you when you see the inside of the hand is its compactness. The ball of your thumb, the thenar eminence, contains four different muscles. Twiddle your thumb and tilt your hand: ten different muscles and at least six different bones work in unison. Inside the wrist are at least eight small bones bones that move against one another. Bend your wrist, and you are using a number of muscles that begin in your forearm, extending into tendons as they travel down your arm to end at your hand. Even the simplest motion involves a complex interplay among many parts packed in a small space. — Neil Shubin

Gentlemen, I've done many deals in my lifetime and through that process, I've developed a methodology, a way of doing things, a philosophy if you will. Within that philosophy, I have certain beliefs. I believe in artificial deadlines. I believe in playing one against the other. I believe in doing everything and anything short of illegal or immoral to get the damned deal done. — Ben Horowitz

Everybody says "" I Love You "" Is the best
sentence in whole world ...
But ...
I believe that ...
""I Love you too""
is the Best ...
Because Many Gets To hear the first one But
only few gets to hear the second one.
Awesome Words By A LOVER ... !!!
"My One Hand Is Enough To
Fight Against The World
If You Hold The Other One
When A Couple Fights Too
Much
But
Never Ended Up With Breaking
Up,
Then They Are Really In
Love..!! — Abdul'Rauf Hashmi

I have nothing against priests. In fact, I tried for a time to be one ... It should be clear, then, that I respect, and am often fond of, the many priests in my life. — Garry Wills

In some ways the operation of the feminine stereotype is so obvious and for many women entirely unattainable, that it can be easily reacted against. It takes a great deal of courage and independence to decide to design your own image instead of the one that society rewards, but it gets easier as you go along. Of course, a woman who goes her own way will find her conditioning is ineradicable, but she at least can recognize its operation and choose to counteract it, whereas a man might find that he was being more subtly deluded. — Germaine Greer

The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind. — Frank Herbert

Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Miss Darling, a word if you please."
"Sesquipedalian," she said, keeping her back towards him.
The strange response momentarily stunned him. "Pardon?"
Turning around, she leaned against the counter and grinned at him, "You asked for a word and I gave you one. It means 'many syllabled' and while it's exceedingly pretentious it is a lot of fun to say. Sesquipedalian; it tangles up the tongue and then just falls right off.
"Or perhaps you would prefer a different word?" she continued guilelessly and he was completely charmed by her. "Tittle, which is the little dot over i's and j's; or Ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings; Tuatha De Danan Lora or Expector Patronum?"
"Now you're just making words up," he grinned, and realized he had missed talking to her. — A.C. Warneke

Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning [to] consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul? — Eamon De Valera

Harry! Don't you see? Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort — J.K. Rowling

The Hellenistic world was international to a degree, polyglot and inspired by many religious faiths ... the Greek ideals were pagan and the Hellenistic age witnessed their death struggle against Asiatic and Egyptian mysteries , on the one side, and against Judaism , on the other. — George Sarton

Becca had gone through many, many years of schooling in her life. She'd spent more hours in libraries than she could begin to calculate. Yet this was the first time she'd ever made out in one. As he claimed her mouth for the second time against the volumes of Chaucer, she realized all she'd missed out on in the past. — Cat Johnson

What's going on outside, Ravic?" "Nothing new, Kate. The world goes on eagerly preparing for suicide and at the same time deluding itself about what it's doing." "Will there be war?" "Everyone knows that there will be war. What one does not yet know is when. Everyone expects a miracle." Ravic smiled. "Never before have I seen so many politicians who believe in miracles as at present in France and England. And never so few as in Germany." She remained lying silent for a while. "To think that it should be possible - " she said then. "Yes - it seems so impossible that it will happen some day. Just because one considers it so impossible and doesn't protect oneself against it. — Erich Maria Remarque

They spoke politely and with deference to the adults, whereas it went against my nature not to speak plainly. To many people speaking plainly is the same as speaking rudely. Whereas to me, if one was direct, it saved time and misunderstanding. — Theresa Breslin

#3. Meditate on God's many commands demanding that we love one another. When you feel your heart begin to turn against another Christian, this is the time to turn to the many commands to love one another-commands found in places such as John 15:12, Romans 13:8, Hebrews 13:1, 1 John 4:7, 1 Peter 1:22, and so on. Allow God's Word to convict you of love's necessity. — Thomas Brooks

He who receives a great many letters demanding answer, sees himself as if engaged in a hopeless struggle of one man against the rest of the world. — Anna C. Brackett

Came to deeply regret giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt on that vote. He later asserted that the resolution gave him the sole authority to decide when the clock had run out on weapons inspections. On March 20, 2003, he decided that it had, and he launched the war, with the UN weapons inspectors pleading for just a few more weeks to finish the job. Over the years that followed, many Senators came to wish they had voted against the resolution. I was one of them. As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake became more painful. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

I must learn to love the fool in me
the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool. — Theodore Isaac Rubin

He kissed her soundly, stealing her breath, before saying, "Tell me what you want, my lovely."
"I-" She stopped, too many words coming at once. 'I want you to touch me. I want you to love me. I want you to show me the life that I have been missing.' She shook her head, uncertain.
He smiled, pressing firmly with his hand against her, watching the wave of pleasure course through her. "Incredible," he whispered against the side of her neck. "So responsive. Go on..."
"I want-" She sighed as he set his lips to the hardened peak of one breast again. "I want... I want you," she said, and, in that moment, the words, so utterly simple in the face of the roiling emotions that coursed through her, seemed enough.
He moved his fingers firmly, deftly against her, and she gasped. "Do you want me here, Empress?"
She closed her eyes in embarrassment, biting her lower lip.
"Are you aching for me here?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Poor, sweet love. — Sarah MacLean

I sure hope she's wrong, because one of the implications of her cosmology is that the many terrors we know here are an inoculation against worse in the world to come. — Dean Koontz

Unfortunately, violence against women is not the only injustice women face globally; it is one of the many inequalities that impede the full development of socially excluded women globally. — Zainab Salbi

In fact, after living in Communist China for so many years, I realized that one of the advantages enjoyed by a democratic government that allows freedom of speech is that the government knows exactly who supports it and who is against it, while a totalitarian government knows nothing of what the people really think.
~pg 55 — Nien Cheng

Go to dinner with me?" His voice whispers against my ear. I start to shake my head when his fingertip lightly traces the birdcage tattoo on my arm. My eyes shut at the sensation. His touch. "I dream about you almost every night." Join the club, buddy, I want to tell him. I dream about me every night, too ... well, until I met him. Now I dream too damn much about him. "Just one date and I will leave you alone if you never want to see me again. Deal?" I open my eyes to gaze into his. There are too many things happening at once. Everything within me says to tell him no. Nothing good can come of this. I know what I have to tell him. "Dinner, not a date," I say, looking him square in the eyes. Holy hell! What did you just do, Keller? Really? Seriously? He grins, not hiding his happiness at my words. I step away, allowing him time to button his shirt up. "Dinner then dessert, and, Keller, it will definitely be a date," he says, — Nicole Reed

Leaders do not choose, rather they respond to God choosing them. Thus, the first responsive step of leadership is of utmost importance. It is an act of rebellion against the society of the spectacle - It is to relinquish a life of many options so that you can receive God's one option. — Mark Sayers

Frederick consistently used his central position to concentrate against one fraction of the enemy, and he always employed tactics of indirect approach. Thereby he gained many victories. But his tactical indirect approach was geometrical rather than psychological-unprepared by the subtler forms of surprise favoured by Scipio-and for all their executive skill, these manoeuvres were narrow. The opponent might be unable to meet the following blow, owing to the inflexibility of his mind or his formations, but the blow itself did not fall unexpectedly. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Churches that are filled with self-righteous, exclusive, insecure, angry, moralistic people are extremely unattractive. Their public pronouncements are often highly judgmental, while internally such churches experience many bitter conflicts, splits, and divisions. When one of their leaders has a moral lapse, the churches either rationalize it and denounce the leader's critics, or else they scapegoat him. Millions of people raised in or near these kinds of churches reject Christianity at an early age or in college largely because of their experience. For the rest of their lives, then, they are inoculated against Christianity. If you are a person who has been disillusioned by such churches, anytime anyone recommends Christianity to you, you assume they are calling you to adopt "religion." Pharisees and their unattractive lives leave many people confused about the real nature of Christianity. — Timothy Keller

Practically, it is most helpful when one wants to find out the type to ask, what is the greatest cross for the person? Where is his greatest suffering? Where does he feel that he always knocks his head against the obstacle and suffers hell? That generally points to the inferior function. Many people, moreover, develop two superior functions so well that it is very difficult to say whether the person is a thinking intuitive type or an intuitive type with good thinking, for the two seem equally good. Sometimes sensation and feeling are so well developed in an individual that you would have difficulty in ascertaining which is the first. But does the intuitive thinking person suffer more from knocking his head on sensation facts or from feeling problems? Here you can decide which is the first, and which the well-developed second, function. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

The essence of the charge made against the modern high-status ideal is that it is guilty of effecting a gigantic distortion of priorities, of elevating to the highest level of achievement a process of material accumulation that should instead be only one of many factors determining the direction of our lives under a more truthful, more broadly defined conception of ourselves. — Alain De Botton

I didn't feel physically sick. But mentally. My mind was twisting in so many ways. ( ... ) We once saw a documentary on migraines. One of the men interviewed used to fall on his knees and bang his head against the floor, over and over during attacks. This diverted the pain from deep inside his brain, where he couldn't reach it, to a pain outside that he had control over. — Jay Asher

To those you care for, a nurse is a person of many faces: You are a warrior against death and suffering, a technician of the highest degree; you are a mother, a sister, a best friend, a psychiatrist; you are a teacher, a magician, a sounding board, a secretary, a fortuneteller, a politician, but most of all, you are a loving human being who has chosen to give that love in one of the best ways you can. — Echo Heron

There exist concretely alarm clocks, signboards, tax forms, policemen, so many guard rails against anguish. But as soon as the enterprise is held at a distance from me, as soon as I am referred to myself because I must await myself in the future, then I discover myself suddenly as the one who gives its meaning to the alarm clock, the one who by a signboard forbids himself to walk on a flower bed or on the lawn, the one from whom the boss's order borrows its urgency, the one who decides the interest of the book which he is writing, the one who finally makes the values exist in order to determine his action by their demands. I emerge alone and in anguish confronting the unique and original project which constitutes my being; all the barriers, all the guard rails collapse, nihilated by the consciousness of my freedom. — Jean-Paul Sartre

But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. — William Shakespeare

Kell has only two faces. The one he wears for the world at large, and the one he wears for those he loves." He sipped his wine.
"For us." Lila's expression hardened. "Whatever he feels for me, it isn't love."
"Because it isn't soft and sweet and doting?" Rhy rocked back, stretching against the pillar. "Do you know how many times he's nearly beat me senseless out of love? How many times I've done the same? I've seen the way he looks at those he hates ... " He shook his head. "There are very few things my brother cares about, and even fewer people. — Victoria Schwab

For many years a tree might wage a slow and silent warfare against an encumbering wall, without making any visible progress. One day the wall would topple
not because the tree had suddenly laid hold upon some supernormal energy, but because its patient work of self-defense and self release had reached fulfillment. The long-imprisoned tree had freed itself. Nature had had her way. — Lloyd C. Douglas

I dropped the King's Indian in 1997 after one too many bad experiences against Kramnik. — Garry Kasparov

According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot of which one hits something and the rest fall wide.
For the teleologist an organism exists because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found.
Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect and cannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they work well enough to enable the organism to hold its own against such competitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of indefinite improvement. — Thomas Henry Huxley

Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist - a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist - only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression. — Emil Cioran

The problem is that one cannot easily build Charleston anymore, because it is against the law. Similarly, Boston's Beacon Hill, Nantucket, Santa Fe, Carmel - all of these well-known places, many of which have become tourist destinations, exist in direct violation of current zoning ordinances. — Andres Duany

I'm well aware that millions of nominally Muslim freethinkers are in hiding out of necessity. This is one of the things I find so insufferable about the liberal backlash against critics of Islam - especially the pernicious meme "Islamophobia," by which anyone who thinks Islam merits special concern at this moment in history is branded a bigot. What worries me is that so many moderate Muslims believe that "Islamophobia" is a bigger problem than literalist Islam is. They seem more outraged that someone like me would equate jihad with holy war than that millions of their co-religionists do this and commit atrocities as a result. — Sam Harris

People in the music business say don't make too many records because they'll compete against one another. — Chick Corea

One afternoon I lay on my bed, inert with mental fatigue, enumerating my many frustrations with the country & with the task I had set myself. It had taken me months of work to get this far, & every step of the way I felt I was pushing against some mighty, unspoken resistance. Time & time again I had felt that hardly a fact or a single item of information had been volunteered; every day I made half a dozen telephone calls; I trekked out to interview anyone who would talk to me, then found myself returning to the same place to ask for more information--questions I had omitted to ask, chase details they did not think, or perhaps wish, to supply. This was as true of people who had no reason to dissemble as of those who did. — Aminatta Forna

For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, "Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions." But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. — Jean-Paul Sartre

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies. — William Tyler

There are objects made up of two sense elements, one visual, the other auditory - the colour of a sunrise and the distant call of a bird. Other objects are made up of many elements - the sun, the water against the swimmer's chest, the vague quivering pink which one sees when the eyes are closed, the feeling of being swept away by a river or by sleep. These second degree objects can be combined with others; using certain abbreviations, the process is practically an infinite one. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word, a word which in truth forms a poetic object, the creation of the writer. The fact that no one believes that nouns refer to an actual reality means, paradoxically enough, that there is no limit to the numbers of them. — Jorge Luis Borges

Many changes have taken place but one change remains the same that is your Task & Duty . You are required to ensure the security of this country against all the odds .What does that means to you ? It means you should have to fight & fight to win , there is no roof for the losers . If you lose don't come back , you will have disgraced the country & the country won't accept you — Sam Manekshaw

One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will. All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them. And all governments - though the best on earth in other respects - are nevertheless tyrannies to that portion of the people - whether few or many - who are compelled to support them against their will. A government is like a church, or any other institution, in these respects. There is no other criterion whatever, by which to determine whether a government is a free one, or not, than the single one of its depending, or not depending, solely on voluntary support. — Lysander Spooner

Arrogance was one of the key factors that kept the white left so factionalized. I felt that instead of fighting against a common enemy, they wasted time quarreling with each other about who has the right line.
Although i respected the work and political positions of many groups on the left, i felt it was necessary for Black people to come together and organize our own structures and our own politcal party ...
I felt, and still feel, that it is necessary for Black revolutionaries to come together, analyze our history, our present condition, and to define ourselves and our struggle. — Assata Shakur

There's no way in which you can ever win a war against terror. As long as there are conditions in many parts of the world that make people desperate: poverty, disease, ignorance, etc. I hope that we will discover soon, that we can survive, only together. We can prosper only together. And I think people are beginning to realize this, that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think you can have a stable, secure world. — Desmond Tutu

How many strokes does it take?"

"One. Two. Three."

"Four. Five..."

"Six."

"Seven. Eight."

"Nine."

"What if Daddy. Ten. Finds out what I did. Eleven. To his innocent little girl?"

"Twelve."

"This is what you do to me. Feel it. Thirteen."

"Fourteen."

"Do What he says, Toni. Fifteen. Come."

His heated lips curved against her ear.

"Fifteen it is."

~Drake — Jennifer Turner

There are many paths to mastery, and if you are persistent you will certainly find one that suits you.
But a key component in the process is determining your mental and psychological strengths and working with them.
To rise to the level of mastery requires many hours of dedicated focus and practice. You cannot get there if your work brings you no joy and you are constantly struggling to overcome your own weaknesses.
You must look deep within and come to an understanding of these particular strengths and weaknesses you possess, being as realistic as possible. Knowing your strengths you can lean on them with utmost intensity.
Once you start in this direction, you will gain momentum. You will not be burdened by conventions and you will not be slowed down by having to deal with skills that go against your inclinations and strengths. In this way, your creative and intuitive powers will be naturally awakened. — Robert Greene

We live in the midst of an evil world, and see few with us, and many against us. We carry within us a weak heart, too ready at any moment to turn aside from the right way. We have near us, at every moment, a busy devil, watching continually for our halting, and seeking to lead us into temptation. Where shall we turn for comfort? What shall keep faith alive, and preserve us from sinking in despair? There is only one answer. We must look to Jesus. We must think on His almighty power, and His wonders of old time. We must call to mind how He can create food for His people out of nothing, and supply the needs of those who follow Him, even in the wilderness. And as we think these thoughts, we must remember that this Jesus still lives, never changes, and is on our side. — J.C. Ryle

Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. A — Irvin D. Yalom

Already many of the surrounding buildings had disappeared beneath the proliferating vegetation. Huge club mosses and calamites blotted out the white rectangular faces, shading the lizards in their window lairs. Beyond the lagoon, the endless tides of silt had begun to accumulate into enormous glittering banks, here and there overtopping the shoreline like the immense tippings of some distant goldmine. The light drummed against his brain, bathing the submerged levels below his consciousness, carrying him downwards to warm pellucid depths, where the nominal realities of time and space ceased to exist. Guided by his dreams, he was moving back into his emergent past, through a succession of ever stranger landscapes centered on the lagoon, each of which seemed to represent one of his own spinal levels. — J.G. Ballard

The backlash against women's rights would be just one of several powerful forces creating a harsh and painful climate for women at work. Reagonomics, the recession, and the expansion of a minimum-wage service economy also helped, in no small measure, to slow and even undermine women's momentum in the job market. But the backlash did more than impede women's opportunities for employment, promotions, and better pay. Its spokesmen kept the news of many of these setbacks from women. Not only did the backlash do grievous damage to working women C it did on the sly. — Susan Faludi

Even in such a time of madness as the late twenties, a great many man in Wall Street remained quite sane. But they also remained very quiet. The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Victor wrapped his fingers over my hand, pressing his face against my palm. "You're the bravest girl I've ever met. I'm so incredibly proud of you."
"Who knew that one day the word someone would use to describe me is brave. Life is very unpredictable." I chuckled.
"There are many other words I could think of to describe you but I'm not really good at flattery. — A.B. Whelan

Blue, largely against her will, glanced to the booth he pointed to. Three boys sat at it: one was smudgy, just as he said, with a rumpled, faded look about his person, like his body had been laundered too many times. The one who'd hit the light was handsome and his head was shaved; a soldier in a war where the enemy was everyone else. And the third was -- elegant. It was not the right word for him, but it was close. He was fine boned and a little fragile looking, with blue eyes pretty enough for a girl. — Maggie Stiefvater

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death. — Athanasius Of Alexandria

You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'
'No,' said Father Brown. — G.K. Chesterton

I love being the underdog. It's one of the reason I like making horror movies, because a lot of people don't like them or are prejudiced against them. So it's one of the many reasons I like horror and it's also the reason I like low budget, because it automatically makes us the underdog. — Jason Blum

And the real beauty of it all for the cynical exploiters was that ordinary people didn't care. Not really. No one had asked the refugees, the prostitutes, the fortune hunters, and the orphans to come knocking on Denmark's door. No one had invited them, and no one knew how many there were. Crimes committed against them had nothing to do with ordinary people and the usual workings of law and order. It — Lene Kaaberbol

Norbu rejects the Western stereotype of Tibetans as an innately nonviolent people, a romantic notion which he thinks gratifies many Western people discontented with the aggressive selfishness of their societies but obscures the political aspirations of the Tibetan peoples and the variety of means available to them to achieve independence. In 1989, he published a book about one of the Khampa warriors of eastern Tibet, who fought the invading Chinese Army in 1950 and then initiated the bloody revolt against Chinese rule that eventually led to the Dalai Lama's departure for India.
"We are ordinary Tibetans," Norbu told PBS. "We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they're an army, you pick up your rifle. — Pankaj Mishra

We English majors ... need to promote public libraries as a tool in the war against terror. How many readers of Edith Wharton have engaged in terroristic acts? I challenge you to name one ... Do we need to wait until our cities lie in smoking ruins before we wake up to the fact that a first-class public library is a vital link in national defense? — Garrison Keillor

My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late. — Albert Schweitzer

Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as "amazingly lifelike"; Steve Forbes, with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G.W. Bush's patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself, with his big red fake-friendly face and "I feel your pain." Men who aren't enough like human beings even to hate-what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about. It's way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don't want to hear about all this, even. — David Foster Wallace

Of course, many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes. But of all the sins in the world, I should have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State. We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place. — C.S. Lewis

When I asked Marine Sergeant Jeffrey Roberts what he thought was happening in Lebanon, he explained, "To me it was a civil war, only it wasn't just the North against the South. It was North against South, East against West, Northeast against Southwest, Southeast against Northwest, and we were in the middle of it all. There were just too many different sides. If we picked one, we had four others against us." Marine — Thomas L. Friedman

Even in their reading, More charged, too many women were prone to superficiality. In search of a passing knowledge of books and authors, many read anthologies of excerpted works, that selected the brightest passages but left out deeper contexts - eighteenth-century Reader's Digest were quite popular. More cautioned against a habit she viewed as cultivating a taste only for "delicious morsels," one that spits out "every thing which is plain." Good books, in contrast, require good readers: "In all well-written books, there is much that is good which is not dazzling; and these shallow critics should be taught, that it is for the embellishment of the more tame and uninteresting parts of his work, that the judicious poet commonly reserves those flowers, whose beauty is defaced when they are plucked from the garland into which he had so skillfully woven them. — Karen Swallow Prior

Many Christians backslide ... They are unable to stand against the temptations of the world, or of their old nature. They strive to do their best to fight against sin, and to serve God, but they have no strength. They have never really grasped the secret: The Lord Jesus will every day from heaven continue His work in me. But on one condition-the soul must give Him time each day to impart His love and his grace. Time alone with the Lord Jesus each day is the indispensable condition of growth and power. — Andy Murray

However great a man's fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance - so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamor to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature. — Graham Greene

What could he have done, one man against so many? He could have tried, Brienne thought. — George R R Martin

One reason for the spiritual sickness of our society is that so many do not know or care about what is morally right and wrong. So many things are justified on the basis of expediency and the acquiring of money and goods. In recent times, those few individuals and institutions that have been courageous enough to stand up and speak out against adultery, dishonesty, violence, and other forms of evil are often held up to ridicule. Many things are just plain and simply wrong, whether they are illegal or not. Those who persist in following after the evil things of the world cannot know 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. — James E. Faust

Creation has been taken down a very different path than We [God] desired. In your world the value of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system - whether political, economical, social, or religious - any system, actually. First one person, and then a few and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of that system. In one form or another this lies behind every struggle for power every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The 'will to power and independence' has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal. — Wm. Paul Young

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: "Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are." - Halford E. Luccock — Guy Kawasaki

If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God! — George Whitefield

Any classification according to a singular identity polarizes people in a particular way, but if we take note of the fact that we have many different identities - related not just to religion but also to language, occupation and business, politics, class and poverty, and many others - we can see that the polarization of one can be resisted by a fuller picture. So knowledge and understanding are extremely important to fight against singular polarization. — Amartya Sen

There are those who say that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through the denial of oneself; you must deny yourself many things, go and live in a mountaintop, never mingle with other people, talk to the birds..but I say to you, why should you dismantle your home? Where is the meaning in removing the bricks from your walls one by one? What is the purpose in uprooting your floors? Is there any significance in only allowing yourself a tin roof and a muddy bed? Why deny your house its structure? A truly enlightened soul is strong enough, is bright enough to live and shine through, even in a beautiful house! There is no need to ransack the house in order to see an inner beauty etched against a distraught surrounding. A bright and beautiful soul can shine forth even from inside an equally beautiful surrounding. — C. JoyBell C.

Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole — Ralph Nader

Have the colored people done anything to justify the prejudice against them that does exist in the hearts of so many white persons and, generally, of one great political party in this country? Have they done anything to justify it? No, sir. — Hiram Rhodes Revels

I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free. — Ursula K. Le Guin

doctrine, the normal Christian safeguards which protect one against the attacks of fallen spirits are removed or neutralized, and the passiveness and "openness" which characterize the new cults literally open one up to be used by demons. Studies of the experiences of many of the "consciousness cults" show that there is a regular progression in them from experiences which at first are "good" or "neutral" to experiences which become strange and frightening and in the end clearly demonic. — Seraphim Rose

Jesus confronted many of the important issues of His time. He went into the temple, taught the New Testament message, and took action against those who were buying and selling on holy ground. He healed the widow, forgave the adulterer, and by His example, the righteous walked away in shame. He had said, whoever is without sin, cast the first stone (John 8:7 - paraphrase)! Not one pebble, nor one rock was thrown. He who had that right to judge, Jesus Christ, did not cast judgement either. He looked upon the sinner lovingly, and embraced them. He guided them to change and opened blind eyes to see. By Christ alone, was and is salvation attained. Truth is in the New Testament, and a Holy Spirit-guided understanding of it. It must be read without regard for self. For when self enters in, that is when misinterpretations and heresies arise. — Zechariah Barrett

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day. — Seneca.

Examples out of History, of People free and in the State of Nature, that being met together incorporated and began a Common-wealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that Government were not, nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for Parernal Empire were better let it alone, than urge it against natural Liberty. For if they can give so many instances out of History, of Governments begun upon Paternal Right, I think (though at best an Argument from what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise the Original of Governments, as they have begun de facto, lest they should find at the foundation of most of them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for. — John Locke

The rule of thumb is that the complexity of the organism has to match the complexity of the environment at all scales in order to increase the likelihood of survival." He then explains why the odds feel stacked against us: "What is a complex environment? A complex environment is one that demands picking the right choice in order to succeed. If there are many possibilities that are wrong, and only a few that are right, we have to be able to choose the right ones in order to succeed. — Rebecca D. Costa

The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the founders of the 1924 Soviet REvolution, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial of 1920 through 1927- there are many trials such as these in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place, and it took place only to cover up the real meaning: the accused was to be put to death. These are trials in which the judge, the counsel, the jury, and the witnesses are the criminals, not the accused. For any believer in capital punishment, the fear of an honest mistake on the part of all concerned is cited as the main argument against the final terrible decision to carry out the death sentence. There is the frightful possibility in all such trials as these that the judgement has already been pronounced and the trial is just a mask for murder. — Katherine Anne Porter

Round the cabin stood half a dozen mountain ashes, as the rowans, inimical to witches, are there called. On the worn planks of the door were nailed two horse-shoes, and over the lintel and spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant, patches of that ancient cure for many maladies, and prophylactic against the machinations of the evil one, the house-leek. Descending into the doorway, in the chiaroscuro of the interior, when your eye grew sufficiently accustomed to that dim light, you might discover, hanging at the head of the widow's wooden-roofed bed, her beads and a phial of holy water — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

He told them therefore that He was not a Teacher asking for a disciple who would parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour Who first disturbed a conscience and then purified it. But many would never get beyond hating the disturber. The Light is no boon, except to those who are men of good will; their lives may be evil, but at least they want to be good. His Presence, He said, was a threat to sensuality, avarice, and lust. When a man has lived in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from shining, but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out. — Fulton J. Sheen

He fingered her nape, massaging his sensual intent. I'll give you whatever you want whenever you want it. Any time of day, you need relief, just crook your finger and I'll crook mine. Against you, inside you, deep as you need it. If I'm not around, text me and I'll come, ready to make you come. For one week, I'll fulfill every fantasy on demand and get you off so many times we'll break records. — Kate Meader

Beauty has so many charms, one knows not how to speak against it; and when it happens that a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul, when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, and the justness of the proportion raises our thoughts up to the heart and wisdom of the great Creator, something may be allowed it,
and something to the embellishments which set it off; and yet, when the whole apology is read, it will be found at last that beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest. — Laurence Sterne

You cannot imagine, to give you another example, that you may have, one day, a prime minister (it would go against my modesty to breathe his name) who, one day, after announcing in Parliament, in a cool, impassive voice, that, as the result of a number of carefully thought out diplomatic manoeuvres he has refrained from discussing before (for he is not a man of many words), he has succeeded in annexing Britain as an ordinary colony of Hungary, and that he is taking this opportunity to apprise the House of the fact; - Well, as I say, after explaining this in a cool and impassive tone, ignoring the shouting, jubilant Members who want to carry him round on their shoulders, suddenly he takes up a fencing posture and, right there, on the premier's rostrum, employing a formidable, hitherto unknown jujitsu hold, floors the Australian world wrestling champion whom the British opposition treacherously hid under the rostrum in order to assassinate the greatest European. — Frigyes Karinthy

Advertising expresses a power relationship . . . One person, the advertiser, invades; millions absorb. And to what end? So that people will buy something! A deep, profound and disturbing act by the few against the many for a trivial purpose. — Jerry Mander

But since day one, we've always been kinda up against it. So at the end, it's not surprising that we were kind of led along for so many months and didn't know what the fate of the show was gonna be. It was ... in a weird way, just kind of that was the way it's always been. — Will Arnett

My friends, if there is one gift in my omniscience, it's the knowledge I have of just how much good is out there. When I'm disappointed in my children near and far who hurt others, I am reminded of the many souls who do not hurt others. I see a smack across the face in one part of the planet at the same time as I see a thousand hugs and kisses somewhere else. Love is everywhere. And if all the forces of good were stacked up against all the forces of evil, it would be a most unfair fight. Good would always win. My dears, good will always win. — Sean Patrick Brennan

Their journey wasn't complete. If their
relationship had been a poker tournament, unquestionably, they'd not been dealt the best cards. When faced with the same odds, as Tony and Claire, many players would have folded and walked away. They hadn't - they'd continued to play. In the process they'd grown and changed. At one time, they were opponents, strategizing against one another, now they were teammates, yet their tournament wasn't over. It was too early to declare the winner. They both knew there were more cards to be revealed. — Aleatha Romig

There is an Anglo-Saxon form of riddling that plays with the polarities of words like bright and dark, cold and warm, throwing them against one another and crafting lines of rich, humorous nonsense like this poem that has been around for so many hundreds of years that you just have to sit back and, with nothing else in mind, laugh out loud. — Gerald Hausman

Instead of an outer-oriented jihad - defined as "the war against infidels" and carried out by many in those days just as in the present - Rumi stood up for an inner-oriented jihad where the aim was to struggle against and ultimately prevail over one's ego, nafs. — Elif Shafak

There's one post-Christmas chore I love-writing thank-you letters ... Lots of companies for many reasonable reasons, I guess, have a policy against sending even Christmas cards, never mind things, at Christmastime. But our clan gets a big kick out of opening the Warner-Lambert box containing an assortment of their wares; we argue over which of the boys is to get the Union Oil Co. necktie [and] all the holiday long we play the marvelous Christmas music sent by Goodyear ... None of these things means that Forbes or Forbeses have been had. But all of us like being thought of. — Malcolm Forbes