Two Forces Quotes & Sayings

The quill swirled and lunged over the page, in a slow but relentless three steps forward, two steps back sort of process and finally came to a full stop in a tiny pool of its own ink. Then, Louis Phelypeaux, First Compte de Pontchartrain, raised the nib, let it hover for an instant, as if gathering his forces, and hurled it backwards along the sentence, tiptoeing over "i's" and slashing through "t's" and "x's" nearly tripping over an umlaut, building speed and confidence while veering through a slalom course of acute and grave accents, pirouetting through cedillas and carving vicious snap-turns through circumflexes. It was like watching the world's greatest fencing master dispatch twenty opponents with a single continuous series of maneuvers. — Neal Stephenson

Two moral forces shaped how we think and live in this shining twentieth century: the Virgin, and the Dynamo. The Dynamo represents the desire to know; the Virgin represents the freedom not to know.

What's the Virgin made of? Things that we think are silly, mostly. The peculiar logic of dreams, or the inexplicable stirring we feel when we look on someone that's beautiful not in a way that we all agree is beautiful, but the unique way in which a single person is. The Virgin is faith and mysticism; miracle and instinct; art and randomness.

On the other hand, you have the Dynamo: the unstoppable engine. It finds the logic behind a seeming miracle and explains that miracle away; it finds the order in randomness to which we're blind; it takes the caliper to a young woman's head and quantifies her beauty in terms of pleasing mathematical ratios; it accounts for the secret stirring you felt by discoursing at length on the nervous systems of animals. — Dexter Palmer

However, in the twenty-first century the majority of both men and women might lose their military and economic value. Gone is the mass conscription of the two world wars. The most advanced armies of the twenty-first century rely far more on cutting-edge technology. Instead of limitless cannon fodder, countries now need only small numbers of highly trained soldiers, even smaller numbers of special forces super-warriors and a handful of experts who know how to produce and use sophisticated technology. Hi-tech forces 'manned' by pilotless drones and cyber-worms are replacing the mass armies of the twentieth century, and generals delegate more and more critical decisions to algorithms. — Yuval Noah Harari

The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority. — Michael Hastings

The artist's life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him; on the one hand, the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life and on the other, a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire ... there are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire. — C. G. Jung

Young man,
two are the forces most precious to mankind.
The first is Demeter, the Goddess.
She is the Earth
or any name you wish to call her
and she sustains humanity with solid food.
Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin,
bringing the counterpart to bread: wine
and the blessings of life's flowing juices.
His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed. — Euripides

One and all they are driven by the twin engines of ignorance and willful barbarism. You nod, you also are familiar with these two powerful components of our national character, ignorance and willful barbarianism. Yes, everywhere you turn, and even among the most gifted of us, the most extensively educated, these two brute forces of motivation will eventually emerge. The essential information is always missing; sensitivity is a mere veil to self-concern. We are all secret encouragers of ignorance, at heart we are all willful barbarians. — John Hawkes

I believe there are only two unstoppable forces in the universe. One is love, the other is intelligence. I also believe that a person's capacity to love is directly related to their intelligence level, just as hate corresponds to a person's level of ignorance. The only thing that makes it impossible for the system to destroy you and grind your spirit into nothing is to be more intelligent than it is. — Damien Echols

Two powerful, opposing forces - one seducing people to eat and the other telling them they are failures if they do - create heartache everywhere. — Emme

It is not out of the question that the two forces of divergence will ultimately come together in the twenty-first century. This has already happened to some extent and may yet become a global phenomenon, which could lead to levels of inequality never before seen, as well as to a radically new structure of inequality. Thus far, however, these striking patterns reflect two distinct underlying phenomena. — Thomas Piketty

Between 1831 and 1891, US armed forces - usually the Marines - invaded Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, and Chile a total of thirty-one times, a fact not many of us are informed about in school. The Marines intermittently occupied Nicaragua form 1909 to 1933, Mexico from 1914 to 1919, and Panama from 1903 to 1914. To 'restore order' the Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted 'pacification.' — Michael Parenti

The United States Central Command of the Armed Forces has asked Geraldo Rivera to leave Iraq. It should also be noted that the only three other people that the U.S. military has asked to leave Iraq are Saddam Hussein and his two sons. — Jon Stewart

In the early days the Cubists' method of grasping an object was to go round and round it; the futurists declared that one had to get inside it. In my opinion the two views can be reconciled in a poetic cognition of the world. But to the very fact that they appealed to the creative depths in the painter by awakening in him hidden forces which were intuitive and vitalizing, the Futurist theories did more than the Cubist principles to open up unexplored and boundless horizons. — Gino Severini

All religions teach that two opposite forces act upon us and the human endeavour consists in a series of eternal rejections and acceptances. — Mahatma Gandhi

Not until Theodore Roosevelt resigned his prestigious position as assistant secretary of the navy in 1898 to fight with the Rough Riders in the Cuban dirt would there be a rich man as weirdly rabid to join American forces in combat as Lafayette was. The two shared a child's ideal of manly military glory. Though in Lafayette's defense, he was an actual teenager, unlike the thirty-nine-year-old TR. — Sarah Vowell

Man is not to be comprehended as a starting-point, or progress as a goal, without those two great forces , Faith and Love . Prayer is sublime. — Albert Pike

Keys to Finding Hope: 1. Hope depends upon taking care that we have at least two alternatives, in every situation we find ourselves, and with every task confronting us. 2. In any situation, no matter how much we may feel we are at the mercy of vast forces out there, that are totally beyond our control, we can always find something that is within our control, however small, and work on that. 3. Nothing that happens to us is just senseless and meaningless. In the context of our total life, it will eventually turn out to have meaning. — Richard Nelson Bolles

We're competing with everything: the beach, the mall, bookstores. Libraries are in a transition right now, caught between two forces, the old ways and technology. Libraries are under a lot of pressure to provide both. — John Callahan

I call myself the last philosopher, because I am the last man. No one speaks with me but myself, and my voice comes to me like the voice of a dying man! Let me associate for but one hour more with you, dear voice, with you, the last trace of the memory of all human happiness. With you I escape loneliness through self-delusion and lie myself into multiplicity and love. For my heart resists the belief that love is dead. It cannot bear the shudder of the loneliest loneliness, and so it forces me to speak as if I were two. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In any organization of which I have played a leadership role, our trump card has never been great numbers but the way we worked with neighborhood people in conjunction with professionals in suits and ties. I want the Obama generation to try to understand this concept, and use it as a real yardstick for their ability to make change. My life personifies the straddling of two cultures: the world of Amherst and Yale and the world of Newark, New Jersey. As you will see, it is the power of the streets combined with the power of the suites that is the most effective mix for making things happen. Anybody who comes to you and says "we want change," without addressing the intersection of these two powerful forces in combination, is just whistling status quo. — Junius Williams

There are seemingly parallel origins of Nature's God in America and China's Mandate of Heaven. These twin concepts created socio-political forces for public good and orderly governance, and a unique cultural ethos (related to the Creator of the Universe in America and the Son of Heaven in China) is deeply rooted in both societies. Each concept is physically yet stealthily manifested in the architectural designs of the two capital cities, Beijing and Washington. — Patrick Mendis

Home schoolers do not wish to force other parents to home school. Gun owners do not insist that others buy guns, or that hunting be promoted as an alternative lifestyle. It is not the National Rifle Association out lobbying to have government schools read books entitled 'Heather Has Two Hunters' to preschoolers. It is, in fact, the Left that now strives to use state power to impose its morality by forcing all taxpayers to pay for abortions and public "art" that mocks people of faith. It is the Left that forces parents to pay for government schools where they do not wish to send their children. — Grover Norquist

I was Minister for the Armed Forces in the Ministry of Defence for two years prior to being appointed Defence Secretary. — Bob Ainsworth

Look at the two of us, barely out of childhood and already we're too old-fashioned for this changing world. Is it possible to be born old? Because I certainly feel it sometimes. How can we hope to stand against unstoppable progress; how can we possibly win a war against the forces of science?"
Oskan snorted.
"Which question do you want me to answer first? Born old? Yes, right now I feel ninety. And as for the rest, we're not fighting progress or science, they're both ideas that belong to people. Ideas that should help us to understand the beauty of our world and improve the lives of everything that lives in it. But the Empire has kidnapped them, and progress of its sort means sweeping aside everything that isn't new, whether good or bad. And to the Empire science is just a means of creating more efficient ways of killing people. — Stuart Hill

The triangle pointing downward is a female symbol corresponding to the yoni and the upward pointing triangle is the male, the lingam ... When the two triangles are interlaced, it represents the union of the active and passive forces in nature; it represents the male and female elements. — Albert Mackey

Heaven wouldn't be like this earth, this tormented earth ruled by evil forces that tossed humanity to and fro like a slow clown in a two-bit rodeo. — Joe LaFlam

Society, because it is composed of living humans, is organic and if healthy, supple. It is like a rubber band. As long as the groups that compose society are flexible and social and emotionally supporting, it serves its constituency well. It bends, weaves, twists, turns, and envelops everyone in diverse manners. If opposing forces become too locked into their polarized viewpoints, though, other things happen.

Like two grumpy siblings, they hold their views with anger or self-righteousness and utter vulgar and crass words, but it amounts to the same thing. The two groups pull on the rubber band and rigidly hold to their position without empathy.

The rubber band (society) grows taut and then eventually it snaps and collateral damage ensues and the proverbial baby is thrown out with the bath water. — Leviak B. Kelly

The prestige of the news is founded on the unstated assumption that our lives are forever poised on the verge of critical transformation thanks to the two driving forces of modern history: politics and technology. — Alain De Botton

People like bipartisanship not because they like the substance of what bipartisanship produces, but because it reduces the cognitive stress that partisan disagreement creates. If two sides are bitterly arguing over some major piece of public policy, this forces us to choose sides, and for those with weak mastery of the issue or tenuous connections to a specific worldview, it is easy to be stalked by the worry that you're choosing the wrong side: After all, there are a ton of people screaming in righteous indignation that the side you're on is about to destroy the country. — Chris Hayes

3. In order to hold off the Forces of Darkness, you will need a number two pencil and a calendar, preferably one without pictures of kitties on it. Keep it near you when you sleep. — Christopher Moore

Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom. This — Swami Vivekananda

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces - or at the very least a plan for it - something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years. — Sherrod Brown

Carley saw two forces in life--the destructive and constructive. On the one side greed, selfishness, materialism: on the other generosity, sacrifice, and idealism. — Zane Grey

Nationalism and patriotism are the two most evil forces that I know of in this century or in any century and cause more wars and more death and more destruction to the soul and to human life than anything else. — Oliver Stone

These two enormous forces - truth and meaning - are at war in today's world ... And something sooner or later has to give. — Ken Wilber

It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one,
to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous,
to divide our army into two. — Sun Tzu

This was combat. You created the chaos, but at the same time, tried not to be a part of it, tried not to be affected by it. It was a strange mix of hot-blooded instinct, and cold-blooded logic. It was fighting with emotion, but thinking with your head, almost as though your mind was the handler and your body the beast, the two of them at odds, and yet oddly the same. And when the two forces fell into step with each other, it was sickening and exhilarating all at once. — D.J. Molles

The two forces met with a fearful din of spears and bossed shields, clashing in a fierce and furious melees of bronze-breasted fighters. And there the screams of the dying were mingled with cries of triumph s blood flowed over the earth. As when two winter torrents flow down from great mountain springs to mingle their turbulent floods; where the two streams meet and thunder on down a deep gorge, and the shepherd far off in the mountains hears the roar, so now as the two armies clashed in the fury of battle a terrible roar of toil and shouting arose. — Homer

And sometimes I believe your relentless analysis of June leaves something out, which is your feeling for her beyond knowledge, or in spite of knowledge. I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.
What will you do after you have revealed all there is to know about June? Truth. What ferocity in your quest of it. You destroy and you suffer. In some strange way I am not with you, I am against you. We are destined to hold two truths. I love you and I fight you. And you, the same. We will be stronger for it, each of us, stronger with our love and our hate. When you caricature and nail down and tear apart, I hate you. I want to answer you, not with weak or stupid poetry but with a wonder as strong as your reality. I want to fight your surgical knife with all the occult and magical forces of the world. — Anais Nin

The history of this world was divided into two phases: the present age, which was controlled by the forces of evil, and the age to come, in which God would rule supreme. — Bart D. Ehrman

Major: you have the honor to report that the numbers of men now under your command qualifies you for promotion to colonel. But you ask me to believe that your regiments assaulted Rebel forces in a pitched battle of over two hours duration, all the while steadily employing the heavy field pieces recently shipped to you, without one single battle death on either side. Sir, that is not warfare. That is fraternization with the enemy! — Donald Harington

People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil - soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people. — Douglas MacArthur

Though the two issues may seem utterly unrelated, they do have this in common - both health care and higher education are realms of American life in which government has undermined the operation of market forces and caused artificially high prices. These are two arenas in which the Democrats now propose to do exactly the wrong thing. Their reform reinforces old errors and will infinitely compound the problem of rising prices. — Mona Charen

Nietzsche was a Greek born two thousand years too late. His dreams were thoroughly Hellenic; his whole manner of thinking was Hellenic; his peculiar errors were Hellenic no less. But his Hellenism, I need not add, was anything but the pale neo-Platonism that has run like a thread through the thinking of the Western world since the days of the Christian Fathers. From Plato, to be sure, he got what all of us must get, but his real forefather was Heraclitus. It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe - a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines - a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, — Friedrich Nietzsche

Empedocles believed that there were two different forces at work in nature. He called them love and strife. Love binds things together, and strife separates them. — Jostein Gaarder

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. — John Lennon

The conclusion, therefore, is that there are two major forces in society: love, which multiplies the species, and the nose, which subordinates it to the individual. Procreation, equilibrium. — Machado De Assis

There are two things. There was the moral responsibility, and that, first, is creating an atmosphere where the security forces can kill with impunity, where they can turn up at a place, shoot seven people - really at point-blank fashions - and then get away with it and be, in fact, promoted. And then there is the actual responsibility, the governmental responsibility. My aunt's government forbade us, initially, from filing a police report - which is every Pakistani citizen's right under the law. — Fatima Bhutto

What is magic?
Then there is the witches' explanation, which comes in two forms, depending on the age of the witch. Older witches hardly put words to it at all, but may suspect in their hearts that the universe really doesn't know what the hell is going on and consists of a zillion trillion billion possibilities, and could become any one of them if a trained mind rigid with quantum certainty was inserted into the crack and twisted; that, if you really had to make someone's hat explode, all you needed to do was twist into that universe where a large number of hat molecules all decide at the same time to bounce off in different directions.
Younger witches, on the other hand, talk about it all the time and believe it involves crystals, mystic forces, and dancing about without yer drawers on.
Everyone may be right, all at the same time. That's the thing about quantum. — Terry Pratchett

Two hundred years ago the forces of freedom challenged this idea. The children of the new enlightenment rose up to defy the tyranny of arrogant clergy and the censorship of pious bureaucrats. They boldly proclaimed that the state must be free from religious coercion and that religion must be free from state control. All individuals have the right to pursue the dictates of their own conscience. All citizens even have the right not to be religious at all. — Sherwin Wine

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. — Paul Yingling

The world is no longer man's theatre. Man has been made into a helpless spectator. The two evil forces he has created- science and the state- have combined into one monstrous body. We're at the mercy of our monster... — Eugene Burdick

he argued that the Europeans of the 1800s struggled to understand divine energy in two ways, first through theatrical acts where mesmerists and hypnotists amazed audiences with illusions and parlor tricks. When the audiences confronted inexplicable illusions, the performers on stage suggested that mysterious forces were at work. — Scott Carney

Now, 'that sort of Bear' is of course a bear who wants to be flattered, and it is plain that the Christophoric ear is using Pooh to make its own devious request that it (the ear's projection, 'Christopher Robin') be made the center of attention. The Milnean voice, however, in its didactic-paternal role, is unprepared simply to feed the self-love of the Christophoric ear; it (the voice) must also see that it (the ear) is properly edified in a moral sense. The stories, therefore, will express a vector of the two forces pleasing and teaching the Christophoric ear. — Frederick C. Crews

It is rarely a lack of love that forces two hearts apart, but other obstacles. — Robin LaFevers

A desire to succeed in politics is propelled by these two seemingly contradictory forces, which frequently change places and sometimes coexist: to save others and to save oneself. — Madeleine M. Kunin

What is justice? Two forces collide. Each may have the right in his own sphere. And here's where an Emperor commands orderly solutions. Those collisions he cannot prevent
he solves. — Frank Herbert

Two forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and science. Both are united in the book. — Maxim Gorky

Dr. Kunkel's teacher, Dr. Jung, believed that archetypes are blueprints of the basic human qualities we all share. The archetypes themselves are undefinable natural patterns or forces that shape life in all ages and places. They cannot be known directly, but archetypal themes and images appear in myth, fairy tales, dreams, and fantasies. We tend to think of ourselves as unique individuals, and to a great extent we are. But just as there are shared patterns that shape our physical existence, such as having two arms and legs, two eyes, ten fingers and toes, so there are underlying patterns that shape our psychic existence. — Robert A. Johnson

The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony. — Susan Sontag

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. — Emma Goldman

Does evil come from inside ,from the dark depths of the human soul or does it come from outside ,from the objective conditions of human life?
This question divides all people into two large groups: believers and materialists. For believers all evil and good is in man. Hence denying violence because it's directed toward the outside, is a fight with an imaginary, nonexistent evil. Violence should be directed toward ourselves, inside, in the form of repentance or asceticism.
To assert that evil is outside, that a man is evil because the conditions in which he lives are bad, that changes in these conditions would bring changes in man,to insist that man is a result of outside circumstances, is from the religious point of view the most godless and the most inhuman idea which has ever appeared in the human mind. Such an opinion degrades man to a thing, to a helpless executor of outside, mechanical, unconscious forces. — Alija Izetbegovic

There are only two forces at work in this world- black and white. Only people are grey. — Chris Heimerdinger

Every policy is shaped by two forces: background analysis and foreground politics. The political forces are loud, self-serving and, in the case of energy policy, well known. — Donella Meadows

We must endure, Alyosha. That was the only thing she could say in response to my accounts of the ugliness and dreariness of life, of the suffering of the people - of everything against which I protested so vehemently. I was not made for endurance, and if occasionally I exhibited this virtue of cattle, wood, and stone, I did so only to test myself, to try my strength and my stability. Sometimes young people, in the foolishness of immaturity, or in envy of the strength of their elders, strive, even successfully, to lift weights that overtax their bones and muscles; in their vanity they attempt to cross themselves with two-pood weights, like mature athletes. I too did this, in the literal and figurative sense, physically and spiritually, and only good fortune kept me from injuring myself fatally or crippling myself for life.
For nothing cripples a person so dreadfully as endurance, as a humble submission to the forces of circumstance. — Maxim Gorky

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever ... And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. — Horace Mann

My father will always be my hero. He pioneered two successful companies that paved the way for the technology services industry and has devoted much of his life to helping people in need and those who serve our nation in the armed forces. — Ross Perot Jr.

Religion and science, then, in my analysis are the two great sister forces which have pulled, and are still pulling, mankind onward and upward. — Robert Andrews Millikan

I make one image - though 'make' is not the right word; I let, perhaps, an image be 'made' emotionally in me and then apply to it what intellectual & critical forces I possess - let it breed another, let that image contradict the first, make, of the third image bred out of the other two together, a fourth contradictory image, and let them all, within my imposed formal limits, conflict. — Dylan Thomas

It is not advisable for persons who are in the early stages of meditation to mediate on the two lower chakras. You will unleash powers and forces that will throw you into very powerful altered state of consciousness that might not be pleasant at all. — Frederick Lenz

This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you're trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you're even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what's the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it. — Paul Graham

When two forces unite, their efficiency double. — Isaac Newton

As I see it, Being, the Cosmos, whatever you want to call it, is a struggle between two implacable forces: Novelty on the one side and habit on the other side. — Terence McKenna

Dost thou not understand that there are two distinct forces in us, that of the soul and that of the body, that is, a movement and a regulator? — Jules Verne

Words and magic are two powerful forces that can change the world. — Amy Neftzger

Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think. — Swami Vivekananda

In order to hold off the Forces of Darkness, you will need a number two pencil and a calendar, preferably one without pictures of kitties on it. — Christopher Moore

There's more private security in the United States than there are publicly funded forces, like police. What you don't want is a meld of government and commerce - you really want to keep those two things separate - because once you have that meld, you've got megacorruption, and you have no third force to whom you can say this stuff is poisoning our kids. — Margaret Atwood

My wife likes to say there are two kinds of people, those chasing pleasure and those running from pain. Maybe she's right, I don't know. What I do know is this: Pleasure helps you forget. But pain, pain forces you to hope. You tell yourself this can't last. Today could be different. Today something just might change. — Robert Cormier

The classical heritage as shaped by and filtered through Roman culture had two great flaws. First, it prevented the very rich oral cultures of the ancient Mediterranean from surviving from antiquity into later times. All that was left as creative forces were Greek philosophy and Roman law. These were very substantial cultures but they represented a great narrowing of what could be passed on from antiquity to later centuries...
"Second, another deficiency of classical culture was its lack of social conscience, its obliviousness to the slavery, poverty, disease, and everyday cruelty endured by more than half of the fifty million people who inhabited the empire. The classical heritage represented a narrow and insensitive social and political theory reinforcing a miserably class-ridden and technologically stagnant society. — Norman F. Cantor

No matter how fast weapons and technology evolve in the 21st century, one thing remains constant is that war is a human endeavor, a grueling contest between two learning and adaptive forces. Victory, therefore rests on how smart, how tough, and how dedicated our boots on the ground. — Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono

Turgenev saw human beings as individuals always endowed with consciousness, character, feelings, and moral strengths and weaknesses; Marx saw them always as snowflakes in an avalanche, as instances of general forces, as not yet fully human because utterly conditioned by their circumstances. Where Turgenev saw men, Marx saw classes of men; where Turgenev saw people, Marx saw the People. These two ways of looking at the world persist into our own time and profoundly affect, for better or for worse, the solutions we propose to our social problems. — Theodore Dalrymple

True love and a mean spirit cannot coexist in a relationship. They are two opposing forces. Someone who is consistently and/or intentionally mean, in my opinion, is not able to accept or give unconditional love. — Michelle Brownlow

In my experience, the ex-military guys came in two types. The first grew long hair, sprouted beards, and indulged in all the things they hadn't been able do while they'd been in the armed forces. The second did their best to pretend they never got out. — Ilona Andrews

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Public television goes dark only in two circumstances: when a country is occupied by foreign forces or when there is a coup. — Alexis Tsipras

Do you know what hope and fear have in common? ... They both hold great power. But that power is dependent on both fear and hope together. Think about it. Without the fear of something terrible, you cannot have the hope that it won't happen, you see? Without having hope for something wonderful, you can't have any fear of losing it. They work together, the two most powerful forces we possess. — Ted Dekker

The original Hebrew word for woman, a word that is used twice to refer to the first woman, three times to refer to strong military forces, and sixteen times to refer to God, is this: Ezer...I learn this: "The word Ezer has two roots: strong and benevolent. The best translation of Ezer is: Warrior." God created woman as a Warrior. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past. — Eknath Easwaran

Every atom is working and resisting every thought in the mind. Everything we see and know is but the resultant of these two forces. — Swami Vivekananda

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The climax is the place where the opposing forces in your story finally clash. This is true whether those opposing forces are two armies or two values inside a character's soul. — Nancy Kress

String theory is based on the simple idea that all the four forces of the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces, can be viewed, as music. — Michio Kaku

Husbands are not Christ. But they are called to be like him. And the specific point of likeness is the husband's readiness to suffer for his wife's good without threatening or abusing her. This includes suffering to protect her from any outside forces that would harm her, as well as suffering disappointments of abuses even from her. This kind of love is possible because Christ died for both husband and wife. Their sins are forgiven. Neither needs to make the other suffer for sins. Christ has borne that suffering. Now as two sinful and forgiven people we can return good for evil. — John Piper

A system is in equilibrium when the forces constituting it are arranged in such a way as to compensate each other, like the two weights pulling at the arms of a pair of scales. — Rudolf Arnheim

There are two apparently opposing forces that govern our lives. No, not good and evil. Love and fear.
That's right: the opposite of love is not hate, but fear — John C. Parkin

Our only president who has died as U.S. commander in chief in war is Franklin Delano Roosevelt - who died of a cerebral hemorrhage or massive stroke on April 12, 1945, only three weeks before the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces he had laid down as implacable Allied policy two years before. — Nigel Hamilton

A man actually has two Gods. The one, created him and the other, he created. Nature is not the first God but the first God exists in and as a part of the nature; a man with the help his reason creates a God against the forces of nature that are perceived to be as threat, hence the second God. The second God is the property of an individual mind that created it. A child has no reason and hence it has no second God; but it has the first God not yet known to it because the fear is not felt by the child! The first God is felt and known due to the fear ingrained in the instinct and the second God is the surrender and prayer brought out by the reason! — Thiruman Archunan

Vertical and horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; they exist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action constitutes 'life'. I recognized that the equilibrium of any particular aspect of nature rests on the equivalence of its opposites. — Piet Mondrian

I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted. — Olivia Laing