Achilles Heel Quotes

It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal's, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well." You mean I'll have a bad heel?" I said. "Couldn't I just, like, wear something besides sandals? No offense.

Listen, I don't care what you say about my race, creed, or religion, Fatty, but don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I'm limp, by God. Anything. Peter Pan. Even before the curtain goes up at Peter Pan I'm a goddamn puddle of tears.

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise. For some people, it's love. Others, money or alcohol. Mine was even worse: calculus.

When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would've had to focus on something important that would hold him to his mortal life. Otherwise he would've dissolved. I had seen Annabeth, and I had a feeling he had too. He had pictured that scene Hestia showed me—of himself in the good old days with Thalia and Annabeth, when he promised they would be a family. Hurting Annabeth in battle had shocked him into remembering that promise. It had allowed his mortal conscience to take over again, and defeat Kronos. His weak spot—his Achilles heel—had saved us all

True devotion and humility is when you carelessly allow yourself to fall in love with things you consider will make you look inferior, which in essence, makes you superior.

You’re going to murder him too?” “Of course I am. Slowly, too. Start with snipping the Achille’s heel so he can’t run, and then—” “That's fucked up, you're going to jail,” she cuts in, disgust curling her lip. “Actually, I hope you go to prison and are sentenced to death.” She turns with a snarl, but she doesn’t make it a step before my hand snaps out, capturing her arm and whipping her back around, directly into my chest. Addie inhales sharply, her eyes dilating as I seize the back of her neck with one hand and grab her delectable ass with the other, lifting her up against my body. "Will you be my last meal, baby?

Like Achilles, the hero who forgot his heel, or like Icarus who, flying close to the sun, forgot that his wings were made of wax, we should be wary when triumphant ideas seem unassailable, for then there is all the more reason to predict their downfall.

Stuckley drew back his sword with evident satisfaction. "She really is your Achilles' heel, isn't she Furey?" "No." Lorcan said, preparing his own attack. "Not my Achilles' heel.The love of my life. And I'll do whatever it takes to protect her.

One of the major reasons why empaths and narcissists are attracted to each other is because of the empaths desire to help the narcissist, and the narcissist’s desire to take advantage of the empath’s emotional support. As I mentioned before, pity is our Achilles heel, and we often mistake it for the experience of love.

The girl who tied his guts into physical knots. His Achilles heel. If Paige was the magnet, then Reaper was the metal. There was no circumstance he could ever think of that would sway him from being drawn to her.

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium-- Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.-- ''[kisses her]'' Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!-- Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd; And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, And then return to Helen for a kiss. O, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter When he appear'd to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the Scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes. (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!) Now, if we are going to talk about conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western Christianity—Catholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives. Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn’t wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible. (Historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you can’t blame them entirely.) I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are easily duped, and the hierarchy has been able to take advantage of this.) If Catholics need to be converted, Protestants need to do penance. Their shout of “sola Scriptura” (only Scripture) has left them at the mercy of their own cultures, their own limited education, their own prejudices, and their own selective reading of some texts while avoiding others. Partly as a result, slavery, racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and homophobia have lasted authoritatively into our time—by people who claim to love Jesus! I think they need to do penance for what they have often done with the Bible! They largely interpreted the Bible in a very individualistic and otherworldly way. It was “an evacuation plan for the next world” to use Brian McLaren’s phrase—and just for their group. Most of Evangelical Protestantism has no cosmic message, no social message, and little sense of social justice or care for the outsider. Both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox too!) found a way to do our own thing while posturing friendship with Jesus.

Perhaps we’ve finally found your Achilles’ heel, your majesty.

This week, Zuma was quoted as saying, 'When the British came to our country, they said everything we are doing was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way.' But the serious critique of Zuma is not about who is a barbarian and who is civilised. It is about good governance, and this is a universal value, as relevant to an African village as it is to Westminster. If you are unable to keep your appetites in check, you are inevitably going to live beyond your means. And this means you are going to become vulnerable to patronage and even corruption. That is why Jacob Zuma's 'polygamy' is his achilles heel.

Fallon, you’re my Achilles Heel. I want to fuck you senseless, until you feel me imprinted on you even when I’m not inside you. But that’s all I want—all I can allow myself.

Levi kicked her chair. "Cath. Read me your fan fiction. I want to know what happens next." She opened her computer slowly, as if she were still thinking about it. As if there were any way she was going to say no. Levi wanted to know what happened next. That question was Cath's Achilles' heel.

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel. You will go on, and when you have prevailed You can say: at this point many a one has failed. But what have I, but what have I, my friend, To give you, what can you receive from me? Only the friendship and the sympathy Of one about to reach her journey’s end.

Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me they stick you out here where there are no Daimons and you don’t have a weak spot? What kind of shit is that? I live in Daimon Central with one hell of an Achilles’ heel that no one ever bothered to mention, and you live where there’s no danger to you and yet you don’t have one? What’s not fair with this picture? And then Ash asks me to come up here to save your ass and here we are dropping like flies while you’re Teflon. No, I have a problem with this. I love you, man, but dayam. This just ain’t right. I’m up here freezing my balls off, and you, you don’t need protection. Meanwhile I have a bull’s-eye on my arm that says, ‘Hey, Daimon on steroids, kill me right here.’ Do you realize, I put my keys in my mouth to pull out my wallet to pay for gas and they froze there? The last thing I want to do is die up here in this godforsaken place at the hands of some freaked-out something no one has ever heard of before except for Guido the Killer Squire from Jersey? I swear I want someone’s ass for this. (Jess)

History shows that there are no invincible armies and that there never have been.

Personal disillusionment accompanied by self-pity and self-loathing are the Achilles’ heel of modern humankind, representing the weakness of the human spirit.

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies.

I was a good kid, but I've had one Achilles' heel that's stayed with me through the years: talking. I simply could not shut the fuck up-I still can't and that small issue has gotten me in all sorts of trouble.

Books were his Achilles heel. She

Ah, Lyon: the Achilles’ heel of this family. She had forgotten about Lyon, and about disappearing Redmonds.

the heel of Achilles

You don't have to be religious to hear God, you just have to be willing, and there's a big difference between the two.

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase – some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse – into the dustbin where it belongs.

But that was Lark’s Achilles heel. She told people too much. Trusted too quickly. Loved too hard.

I had to keep my wits about me, since Frenchmen were my Achilles’ heel. In fact, if Achilles had been French, I probably would have carried him around until his tendon healed.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. if my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken. The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. If it wasn't for the hydrogen bomb, a man could still aspire. Maybe find Raven's Achilles' heel. Sneak up, get a drop, slip a mickey, pull a fast one. But Raven's nuclear umbrella kind of puts the world title out of reach. Which is okay. Sometimes it's all right just to be a little bad. To know your limitations. Make do with what you've got.

Our parents are never people to us, never, they're always traits, Achilles' heels, dim nightmares, vocal tics, bad noses, hot tears, all handed down and us stuck with them. Our dilemma is utter: turn and look at this woman, understand and pity her, like and talk with her, recognize that she has taken the cold cleanliness of the spartan rooms in which she grew up and turned them, with her considerable and perhaps wounded heart, into a lifelong burst of cooking and cosseting and making her own little corner of the world pretty and welcoming, and the separation is complete - but when that happens you will have to be an adult. There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.

A psychic attack of any kind, always begins with the evil being or person looking for your Achilles' heel. This phrase refers to a weakness in spite of overall strength, which can lead to a downfall. Almost everyone, no matter how accomplished in life, has their Achilles' heel, some weakness, some fault, that can be exploited by a black magician.

It is a well established Achilles heel of human civilization that individuals are more motivated by immediate private reward than by long-term, collective benefits. This effect is particularly evident when considering payoffs that will take longer than a generation to arrive – a phenomenon called inter-generational discounting. In short, we as a species are motivated to betray our own descendants. Our inability to focus on long-term threats will lead to the destruction of our environment, overpopulation, and resource exhaustion – a built in timer for our own destruction.

Very well.” Artemis blinked, her sweet lips parting as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard. “What?” “I’ll do it.” He turned to go, his mind already making plans, when he felt her fingers clutch at his sleeve. “You’ll take him from Bedlam?” “Yes.” Perhaps his decision had already been made from the moment he’d seen tears in her eyes. He had a weakness, it seemed, a fault more terrible than any Achilles’s heel: he couldn’t stand the sight of her tears.

I had made the fatal mistake of believing in his touch, as if the intelligence of his hands, our orgasms, the way he penetrated me, had affected him as much as it had affected me. Perhaps this is the catch cry of the egoist: I love, therefore I must be loved. Perhaps it is the Achilles' heel of my gender.

This lack of a warm-water port with direct access to the oceans has always been Russia’s Achilles heel, as strategically important to it as the North European Plain. Russia is at a geographical disadvantage, saved from being a much weaker power only because of its oil and gas. No wonder, in his will of 1725, that Peter the Great advised his descendants to ‘approach as near as possible to Constantinople and India. Whoever governs there will be the true sovereign of the world. Consequently, excite continual wars, not only in Turkey, but in Persia . . . Penetrate as far as the Persian Gulf, advance as far as India.

The only way to bring Democrats down to earth, where they might feel subject to the same standards as everyone else, is to attack them with the same moral force they use to prosecute their mission; the only way to do it is to turn their fire on them. To do this, Republicans need to direct their arrows at the Achilles’ heel of the Democratic Party: its monopoly control of the inner cities of America and its responsibility for the misery and suffering inside them.

As the 2018 World Cup Championship in Russia draws to a close, President Trump scores a hat-trick of diplomatic faux pas - first at the NATO summit, then on a UK visit, and finally with a spectacular own goal in Helsinki, thereby handing Vladimir Putin a golden propaganda trophy. For as long as this moron continues to queer the pitch by refusing to be a team player, America's Achilles' heel will go from bad to worse. It's high time somebody on his own side tackled him in his tracks.

Dick got up to Zurich on less Achilles’ heels than would be required to equip a centipede, but with plenty—the illusions of eternal strength and health, and of the essential goodness of people; illusions of a nation, the lies of generations of frontier mothers who had to croon falsely, that there were no wolves outside the cabin door.

And that's how romance works. It exploits the Achilles' heel of exceptional women: their desire th think the best of men and stand by their side. Contrary to popular belief, men are not turned off by powerful women. Rather, they long for them, court them, wine and dine them, and ultimately either ruin them or lock them in their towers. It was the violence of romance that conquered women, more than witch pyres and swords and pillaging. Once trapped, the protection rackets run by their captors kept terrorized females dependent and compliant so as not to disturb the precarious and conditional security they were offered. They were then fattened up and put to work on their backs, either as breeders or playthings.

Pattern, as he saw it, equals redundancy. In ordinary language, redundancy serves as an aid to understanding. In cryptanalysis, that same redundancy is the Achilles’ heel.

Their dicks were their Achilles’ heels.

I fear that he might be my Achilles’ heel. My Romeo to Juliet, my Jack to Rose, my Noah to Allie.

What I said was that a man in love has one weakness, his woman. It’s his Achilles’ heel. But that same love makes the rest of him impenetrable, strong as a god.

He didn’t like losing to a girl, the Achilles’ heel of misogynists everywhere.

IT IS A WELL-ESTABLISHED Achilles’ heel of human civilization that individuals are more motivated by immediate private reward than by long-term, collective future benefits.

FAUSTUS: Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in those lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked, And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colors on my plumed crest. Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, And then return to Helen for a kiss. Oh, thou art fairer than the evening's air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, When he appeared to hapless Semele: More lovely than the monarch of the sky, In wanton Arethusa's azure arms, And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

The impulse to explain is the Achilles’ heel of all genre work, and the most sophisticated artists within every genre know better than to expose their worlds to the sharp knife of intellection.

Your superpower is your sensitivity. Your sensitivity is also your Achilles’ heel. Your greatest gift to the world is on the flip side of the same coin as your greatest wound. In fact, if you aren’t sure what your gift is yet, take a look at what always brings you down—take a look at your darkest, weakest stuff. That will give you clues. On the reverse side of your deepest shadow, you will find your brightest light.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sees U.S. battle networks—“which rely heavily on satellites and the Internet to identify targets, coordinate attacks, guide ‘smart bombs’ and more”—as its “Achilles’ heel.

We have been feeling for some time that Le Chiffre is getting into deep water. In nearly all respects he is an admirable agent of the U.S.S.R., but his gross physical habits and predilections are an Achilles heel of which we have been able to take advantage from time to time and one of his mistresses is a Eurasian (No. 1860) controlled by Station F., who has recently been able to obtain insight into his private affairs.

The desire to be loved and the ability to love, which give humans such strength, are also their Achilles' heel. Give them the prospect of love and they move mountains; take it from them and a puff of wind will blow them over.

That girl was my every weakness. My Achilles’ heel, the chink in my armor, my kryptonite. I’d trailed after when I was eleven. Now I was ready to fall to my knees and grovel after her. No matter how many times I told myself to stay away.

If you needed one million dollars and you had an idea worth one million dollars, but you did not have the opportunity to sell your idea to one person, you had better sell it for one dollar to one million people as simple as this. That is creativity.

Don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I'm limp, by God. Anything. Peter Pan. Even before the curtain goes up at Peter Pan I'm a goddamn puddle of tears.

The seeds of our own destruction are often sown at birth or in childhood. We are too busy acquiring knowledge and living life to notice their presence. It is for our biographers, if we are of sufficient importance to have any, to highlight them to a post-mortem audience.

This reliance on the heart might prove to be the Achilles’ heel of liberal democracy. For once somebody (whether in Beijing or in San Francisco) gains the technological ability to hack and manipulate the human heart, democratic politics will mutate into an emotional puppet show.

The mind comfortably closed to revisal, slight or sweeping, is the spoiled child of arrogance and the drunken father of chaos. It is a coward’s mind—scarcely even worth the name—whose inevitable blind spots, left unlit, turn all too quickly into Achilles’ heels for self and other alike.

India experienced the traditional state-building process in reverse order: unlike Europe, for instance, India instituted full democracy and then set about building a state. Much of the West did precisely the opposite. As a result, underdeveloped institutions have been the Achilles’ heel of Indian democracy from the outset.

The Single Biggest Reason Talented People Fail Many gifted, intelligent, charming, decent, charitable and hard-working people fail. One should go so far as to say that most such people fall short of their dreams or at least their potential, because of one reason: They failed to identify in themselves an Achilles’ heel that was common knowledge to other people.

He had a jagged scar on one leg, a seam that stitched his dark brown flesh from heel to knee, wrapping around the muscles of the calf and burying itself in the shadow beneath the tunic. It looked like it had been a knife, I thought, or something like it, ripping upwards and leaving behind feathered edges, whose softness belied the violence that must have caused it.

ACHILLES – the best fighter of the Greeks who besieged Troy in the Trojan War; extraordinarily strong, courageous, and loyal, he had only one weak spot: his heel AENEAS – a Trojan hero, the son of Aphrodite and a favourite of Apollo; became king of the Trojan people AMPHORA (AMPHORAE, pl.) – a tall ceramic jar ANDROMEDA – the daughter of the Ethiopian king, Cepheus, and his wife, Cassiopeia; after Cassiopeia bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sent a sea monster, Cetus, to attack Ethiopia; Perseus saved Andromeda from the rock she was chained to as a sacrifice

In our foreign policy, for at least half a century, we have been spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics. We tend to view the world in terms of territorial nation-states engaged in great ideological battles - Capitalism versus Communism, Democracy versus Authoritarianism, the 'Free World' versus the 'Axis of Evil.' Blinded by our own ideological prisms, we have repeatedly ignored more primal group identities, which for billions are the most powerful and meaningful, and which drive political upheaval all over the world. This blindness has been the Achilles' heel of U.S. foreign policy.

TREVOR AND I WEREN’T SPEAKING when I went into hibernation. I probably called him at some point under the black veil of Ambien early on, but I don’t know if he ever answered. I could easily imagine him diving into a complicated, fortysomething-year-old’s vagina, dismissing any thought of me the way you’d walk past boxes of mac ’n’ cheese or marshmallow cereal on a shelf in the grocery store. I was kids’ stuff. I was nonsense. I wasn’t worth the calories. He said he preferred brunettes. “They give me space to be myself,” he told me. “Blondes are distracting. Think of your beauty as an Achilles’ heel. You’re too much on the surface. I don’t say that offensively. But it’s the truth. It’s hard to look past what you look like.

If you’re a buzz-prone extrovert, then you’re lucky to enjoy lots of invigorating emotions. Make the most of them: build things, inspire others, think big. Start a company, launch a website, build an elaborate tree house for your kids. But also know that you’re operating with an Achilles’ heel that you must learn to protect. Train yourself to spend energy on what’s truly meaningful to you instead of on activities that look like they’ll deliver a quick buzz of money or status or excitement. Teach yourself to pause and reflect when warning signs appear that things aren’t working out as you’d hoped. Learn from your mistakes. Seek out counterparts (from spouses to friends to business partners) who can help rein you in and compensate for your blind spots.

You did not need to let me essentially live in your house rent-free for the last few months, either,” I said. “I wanted to.” I thought the gift certificate was a small gesture, but Rachel looked flustered, even annoyed, as she placed it on the end table beside her, almost as though she were upset with me. Had I done something wrong? “I’ll miss you,” I said, and, to my surprise, she looked away. Rachel was usually so good at these kinds of heartfelt conversations, but maybe goodbyes were her Achilles’ heel. Maybe she was mad at me for leaving. Or perhaps just sad. Rachel could be happy for me and also a little bit brokenhearted. I could want to leave and stay. Andrew could wish he were here but want to deploy. Somehow, we all managed to hold these fragile paradoxes without breaking them.

First, I assessed their combat skills. Aeneas performed surprisingly well for a son of Aphrodite; I expected him to be a lover, not a fighter, and yet he actually knew how to use his sword as a sword rather than as a fashion accessory. The other demigods had some work to do. Atalanta seemed to think all training matches had to be fought to the death. She also referred to her classmates as dirty, stupid men, which made team-building difficult. Achilles spent his entire time in combat defending his right heel, an unusual manoeuvre that baffled me until I found out about his childhood dip in the River Styx. I tried to tell the boy to wear iron-shod boots rather than sandals, but he simply wouldn’t listen. As for Asclepius, in one-on-one melees he had an off-putting habit of darting in and feeling his opponent’s forehead for signs of fever.

Irene: Why would anyone choose to experience illness or disease as part of their spiritual agenda? Jared: The purpose of disease varies with each individual. For most people, disease serves to end physical life when the soul’s agenda has been fulfilled. Irene: An exit strategy. Jared: Yes. Disease also helps people put things in proper perspective and discover what’s really important. Irene: My brother Joe comes to mind. Since suffering a mild heart attack, he’s less judgmental and more accepting. Jared: Precisely. Disease also serves to remind people that control is an illusion and that a greater Power is directing life, providing them with an opportunity to surrender to that Power. Irene: That’s a good example of why it’s impossible to judge a situation as “good,” or “bad.” (Pause) In what other ways do illness and disease serve us? Jared: When people are no longer able to do things the same way they used to, disease can lead to deeper levels of compassion for oneself, as well as for others who are facing similar challenges. Irene: Sometimes we need a wake-up call to open our hearts. Jared: That’s true. As people begin to appreciate what they’d once taken for granted, disease can also assist them in accessing gratitude; maybe they hadn’t stopped to enjoy the changing colors in the evening sky, or maybe it takes being home with an illness to help them appreciate their family. Irene: It’s all for our highest good. Jared: Yes, it is. (Pause) Disease can also provide an opportunity to ask for assistance. People are forced to call on the service of others, who are given the chance to help. Irene: That’s my Achilles heel. I don’t like to impose on others. Anything else? Jared: Yes. People are often more receptive to the wisdom of their soul as a result of disease.

One: These losses shape your psyche; they lay down patterns for all your interactions. If you don’t understand them and actively work to form new emotional habits, you’ll act them out again and again. They’ll wreak havoc on your relationships, and you won’t know why. There are many ways to confront them, some of which we’re exploring in this book. Two: No matter how much therapeutic work you do, these may be your Achilles’ heels for life: maybe a fear of abandonment, a fear of success, a fear of failure; maybe deep-seated insecurity, rejection sensitivity, precarious masculinity, perfectionism; maybe hair-trigger rage, or a hard nub of grief you can feel like a knot protruding from your otherwise smooth skin. Even once you break free (and you can break free), these siren songs may call you back to your accustomed ways of seeing and thinking and reacting. You can learn to block your ears most of the time, but you’ll have to accept that they’re always out there singing. The third answer is the most difficult one to grasp, but it’s also the one that can save you. The love you lost, or the love you wished for and never had: That love exists eternally. It shifts its shape, but it’s always there. The task is to recognize it in its new form.

While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. With those extra sixty-five words, my personal fight for justice had become everyone’s fight. The revised bill was officially introduced on May 19, 2011, less than a month after we posted the Olga Stepanova YouTube video. Following its introduction, a small army of Russian activists descended on Capitol Hill, pushing for the bill’s passage. They pressed every senator who would talk to them to sign on. There was Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grand master and human rights activist; there was Alexei Navalny, the most popular Russian opposition leader; and there was Evgenia Chirikova, a well-known Russian environmental activist. I didn’t have to recruit any of these people. They just showed up by themselves. This uncoordinated initiative worked beautifully. The number of Senate cosponsors grew quickly, with three or four new senators signing on every month. It was an easy sell. There wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby in Washington to oppose it. No senator, whether the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican, would lose a single vote for banning Russian torturers and murderers from coming to America. The Magnitsky Act was gathering so much momentum that it appeared it might be unstoppable. From the day that Kyle Scott at the State Department stonewalled me, I knew that the administration was dead set against this, but now they were in a tough spot. If they openly opposed the law, it would look as if they were siding with the Russians. However, if they publicly supported it, it would threaten Obama’s “reset” with Russia. They needed to come up with some other solution. On July 20, 2011, the State Department showed its cards. They sent a memo to the Senate entitled “Administration Comments on S.1039 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law.” Though not meant to be made public, within a day it was leaked.

We also find *physics*, in the widest sense of the word, concerned with the explanation of phenomena in the world; but it lies already in the nature of the explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. *Physics* is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a *metaphysics* on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter. For it explains phenomena by something still more unknown than are they, namely by laws of nature resting on forces of nature, one of which is also the vital force. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the world or in nature must necessarily be capable of explanation from purely physical causes. But such an explanation―supposing one actually succeeded so far as to be able to give it―must always just as necessarily be burdened with two essential imperfections (as it were with two sore points, or like Achilles with the vulnerable heel, or the devil with the cloven foot). On account of these imperfections, everything so explained would still really remain unexplained. The first imperfection is that the *beginning* of the chain of causes and effects that explains everything, in other words, of the connected and continuous changes, can positively *never* be reached, but, just like the limits of the world in space and time, recedes incessantly and *in infinitum*. The second imperfection is that all the efficient causes from which everything is explained always rest on something wholly inexplicable, that is, on the original *qualities* of things and the *natural forces* that make their appearance in them. By virtue of such forces they produce a definite effect, e.g., weight, hardness, impact, elasticity, heat, electricity, chemical forces, and so on, and such forces remain in every given explanation like an unknown quantity, not to be eliminated at all, in an otherwise perfectly solved algebraical equation. Accordingly there is not a fragment of clay, however little its value, that is not entirely composed of inexplicable qualities. Therefore these two inevitable defects in every purely physical, i.e., causal, explanation indicate that such an explanation can be only *relatively* true, and that its whole method and nature cannot be the only, the ultimate and hence sufficient one, in other words, cannot be the method that will ever be able to lead to the satisfactory solution of the difficult riddles of things, and to the true understanding of the world and of existence; but that the *physical* explanation, in general and as such, still requires one that is *metaphysical*, which would furnish the key to all its assumptions, but for that very reason would have to follow quite a different path. The first step to this is that we should bring to distinct consciousness and firmly retain the distinction between the two, that is, the difference between *physics* and *metaphysics*. In general this difference rests on the Kantian distinction between *phenomenon* and *thing-in-itself*. Just because Kant declared the thing-in-itself to be absolutely unknowable, there was, according to him, no *metaphysics* at all, but merely immanent knowledge, in other words mere *physics*, which can always speak only of phenomena, and together with this a critique of reason which aspires to metaphysics." ―from_The World as Will and Representation_. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne. In Two Volumes, Volume II, pp. 172-173

You could call pigs the Achilles’ heel of global influenza surveillance.

Helena Troy,” she offered, with another smile. “And before you say anything, I’ve heard them all before… ‘How’s Paris?’, ‘Your mate Achilles still having trouble with his heel?’, ‘Is there somewhere I can park my wooden horse?

A table in Raymond Baker’s 2005 book Capitalism’s Achilles Heel outlines just how far the United States has fallen. By then, it showed, U.S. banks were free to receive the proceeds from a long list of crimes committed outside the country, including alien smuggling, racketeering, peonage, and slavery.4 Profiting from these crimes is legal, just so long as the crime itself happens offshore. A few of these loopholes have now been closed, and U.S. law addresses some of the others, though often only in tangential, incomplete ways. But it remains true that a U.S. bank can knowingly receive the proceeds of a wide range of foreign crimes, such as handling stolen property generated offshore.

Oliver couldn’t walk away. Not when the wallflower needed rescuing. His goddamn Achilles heel, no matter how disastrous the outcome tended to be. He just wished his heroics would work out for once. He kept his eyes trained on the pretty black-haired American, every muscle tensed for action. An eternity ticked by. No one approached her. She had no one to dance with, to talk to. She looked... lost. Hauntingly lonely. Frightened and defiant all at the same time. ’Twould be better for them both if he turned around right now. Never met her eye. Never exchanged a single word. Left her to her fate and him to his. It was already too late.

An unresolved territorial conflict will impede Ukraine’s westward march while at the same time it will be a violent reminder of Europe’s inability to deal with military threats, the Achilles’s heel of the post-modern political architecture built in Brussels.

He couldn't walk away. Not when the wallflower needed rescuing. His dratted Achilles' heel, no matter how disastrous the outcome tended to be.

You have the power to kill, in the knife you hold But for centuries my story will be told.” “A weapon you not need to be able to kill, Just a fair knowledge of Achilles’ heel

He steps to the side to make room for me, but even so, his shoulders take up half my space. Not that I mind. Men are my Achilles heel, my Kryptonite. I love their smell, their taste, the sounds they make when they come inside of me. But between a full-time job, law school, hours of reading cases, and study groups, I barely have time to sleep, much less date.

Fallon, you're my Achilles Heel. I want to fuck you senseless, until you feel me imprinted on you even when I'm not inside you. But that's all I want--all I can allow myself.

The Achilles heel of most institutions is that they have to trade, while an individual trader is free to trade or stay out of the market when he wants.

If we never challenge our shortcomings, we ensure that they remain our Achilles' heel.

¡Ay, las faldas!” (“Oh, the skirts!”) he sighed, shaking his head and winking with a mischievous smile. While admitting women were his “Achilles heel,” Antonio, as many young men of the times did, also disclaimed responsibility, as though he had no control over his behavior or desires. Loving the opposite sex was “the natural thing to do for a man,” he thought.

This may be the great Achilles’ heel of the Internet under capitalism: the money comes from surreptitiously violating any known understanding of privacy.

Europe’s enduring localism, which had been the weak link in Christendom, became in turn the Achilles heel of the dynastic state.

She wanted to believe him so much, but fear held her in its grasp more firmly than ever before. And if she made the wrong decision, she would have to live with the result for the rest of her life. That could be a long time and she’d already made one wrong choice regarding marriage and love. What if she made another? She sat there remembering the way he’d been good to her children, the way he’d made love to her that first time, soothing her fears. She remembered how he’d finally begun to teach her the shipping business, the impromptu baseball game with Philip, the picnic in her office, the trip to his family home, and all the little things that made her laugh. From the very first he’d been kind to her, while lying repeatedly regarding the business. The business seemed to be his Achilles’ heel and he’d just given it to her.

The illegibility of local measurement practices was more than an administrative headache for the monarchy. It compromised the most vital and sensitive aspects of state security. Food supply was the Achilles heel of the early modern state; short of religious war, nothing so menaced the state as food shortages and the resulting social upheavals. Without comparable units of measurement, it was difficult if not impossible to monitor markets, to compare regional prices for basic commodities, or to regulate food supplies effectively.49

For Saint Bernard, self-love is the root of all evil, and the Achilles’ heel of the Aristotelian mind. Not only does it block us from grasping the true nature of love, and hence of God. It also prevents us from realizing the relative unimportance of human reason.14 Without faith, Bernard affirmed, intellectual inquiry is doomed to run off the track. Worldly wisdom, he liked to point out, teaches only vanity.15 By contrast, by making God the center of our lives instead of ourselves, we are spiritually transformed.

We have become so hated by society, that we even begin to hate ourselves. Our obedience is our Achilles’ heel.

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some jackboot, achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin where it belongs.

your Achilles’ heel will be that you have a blind spot for weak people who are sycophants.

If we find the Achilles’ heel,” Teller told me, “thank God we found the Achilles’ heel after $2 million instead of after $20 million.

I wanted to show that you people aren't immune, and your Achilles' heel isn't as hidden as you think.

You cannot win unless you understand opponent's achilles heel.

Regardless of what your Achilles Heel may be, loving yourself with a balance of acceptance and self-discipline is a key to achieving mastery. You have to appreciate yourself as you are, including your weak spots and vulnerabilities, as a basis for lasting change.

This lack of a warm-water port with direct access to the oceans has always been Russia’s Achilles heel, as strategically important to it as the North European Plain. Russia is at a geographical disadvantage, saved from being a much weaker power only because of its oil and gas.

zero drop: “Don’t systematically shorten your kids’ heel cords (Achilles) with bad shoes. It results in crappy ankle range of motion in the future. Get your kids Vans, Chuck Taylors, or similar shoes. Have them in flat shoes or barefoot as much as possible.

Curiosity is crucial to success. What worked yesterday is out-of-date today and forgotten tomorrow—replaced by a new tool or technique we haven’t yet heard of. Consider that the telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, whereas television was in 50 million households within 13 years, the internet in 4, . . . and Angry Birds in 35 days. In the tech era, the pace is accelerating further: it took Microsoft Office 22 years to reach a billion users, but Gmail only 12, and Facebook 9. Trying to resist this tide of change will drown you. Successful people in the digital age are those who go to work every day, not dreading the next change, but asking, “What if we did it this way?” Adherence to process, or how we’ve always done it, is the Achilles’ heel of big firms and sepsis for careers. Be the gal who comes up with practical and bat-shit crazy ideas worth discussing and trying. Play offense: for every four things you’re asked to do, offer one deliverable or idea that was not asked for.

When we don’t preach and teach the full offense of this gospel tearing the pride of man all the way down to the ground, what we are actually doing is leaving him unprotected. We are leaving his most insidious idolatry fully functioning. In the name of being nice, in the name of being polite, in the name of not offending, we leave his pride intact, which is his Achilles’ heel. It is the very thing that must die in order for him to truly live. And this is because Jesus only calls the dead to life. He raises the dead by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

It’s usually rooted either in a belief that other people matter more than you do – that’s the people-pleasing part of it – or there could also be an element of perfectionism, the over-achiever’s Achilles heel: you can’t think well of yourself unless you’re over-achieving, so you take on too much, try to do it all perfectly and wear yourself out.