“
Some days are better than others, for human optimism has no limits.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Being magnanimous in victory usually worked, but to keep abreast of the situation he had to
pump the girl for all she knew. Was there a pang of remorse for his actions in his mind?
Possibly, but what choice did he have? If he wanted to survive, he had no room for weakness.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Where’s everybody? I thought you had started production.”
“They’ve got a day off, but don’t worry you’ll see the machinery is here.”
But Brown was worried. As they entered the canteen, the lights came on
automatically. There was nobody there.
“What’s going…...” but he never finished the sentence. Brown felt a sharp pain on the
side of his head and everything went black.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Are you really a reporter?” asked Brown.
“You already asked me that. Come back to Levita, take the pardon.”
“I doubt I’ll live long enough to get there,” said Brown bitterly.
“I hope you survive. You are a fighter. And we have the antidote for your habit on
Levita. I suggest you take a vacation. There’s nothing much that’s going to happen here.”
With that she left, leaving Brown more confused than ever.
He was a father, he had a son. And, the Levitians had a cure for his drug-addled body.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Ah! You speak Levitan,” the man smiled. “But you’re not from Levita I think.” Like
most Levitians he was a good looking man, if perhaps a bit effete for Brown’s tastes.
“No, I lived there for a while.”
“Did you enjoy your stay?”
“Up to a point. The Levitian women are very beautiful.”
“Yes of course. So are the men in Levita,” the man smiled. “We used to have a
cleansing programme to ensure a healthy population.”
“You mean a culling policy, where you killed all the weakest members of the
population.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Get up you lazy bastard. The Governor wants a word with you,” said a guard.
He opened his eyes and smiled. There was another guard standing near the cell door in
anticipation of any trouble. The prisoner smiled at him, too.
Now what can the Governor want from me? He wondered. His dishevelled form seemed
incapable of coherent thought. “It’s nice of him to remember me,” he said aloud, trying to
concentrate.
“Surprising he’s got any time for a worthless shit like you,” said the first guard.
“I once used to be a very important person,” the prisoner said feebly.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Stand in the machine there, let’s see what state your internal organs are in. The images
will be projected on screen, and I can go through the diagnosis with you, step by step.”
Brown did as he was told and soon images of his vital organs appeared on the screen.
As you can see, your heart is slightly enlarged and your lungs and kidneys are not in
good shape either. Have you been experiencing any pain lately?”
“Not that I can think of. What can you do to help?”
“Difficult to say, you see you are dying” said the Doctor. You can see the
discolouration in your kidneys.” Brown strained his eyes.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
I wanted to thank you for saving my life. I am still puzzled about your motives
though. Was it revenge against Zedan for rejecting you?”
“You insult me. It seems that you think of everybody in the same lowly terms you
think of yourself. If there is anybody I should hate for Zedan rejecting me, it should be
you. He was only doing what is expected of him in our society.”
“You mean you don't hate me?” This was a new revelation to Brown. It worried him.
He was used to hate, he could deal with it, but this he could not understand, he had used
the girl ruthlessly and yet she did not hate him.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Ito finally, who had been keeping very quiet
up to this point.
“Indeed. How much will it cost?” asked Brown
“About twenty million Interplanetary Credits,” said Demba. “A modest investment for
a man of your means.”
“Indeed,” said Brown again. That was all the money he had, which started to strike
him as strange, when his thoughts were interrupted.
“We’ll arrange a visit to the mine,” said Ito. “Show you the place itself.”
“Indeed,” said Brown. Or had he said that? The strange waking memory he had fallen
into started to become repetitive. Reality started to flow back in.
Diamonds, thought Brown. All those diamonds in that mine.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
Do you still distrust me?”
“No. Take your necklace with you so you can think of me when I’m not there.”
Brown brought the necklace over to her and put it on her neck.
“I think it rather suits me,” she laughed and left.
Brown didn’t understand what had made him insist she wear the necklace. Maybe it
was the readiness with which she had made love, or her frequent disappearances lately,
he was just curious. There was no harm in checking, before he parted with the money.
Later that evening, before going to sleep he decided to have a look at her location and
he was in for a surprise. She had not left Central City at all. In fact she was at the same
friend’s address as she had been the last time.
”
”
Max Nowaz (The Arbitrator)
“
We can only speak true, talk straight and be outspoken, if we prove to be able to decrypt the veiled elements of the puzzle inside and outside our environment; describe the intricacies of the social constructions and the emotional sensitivities; analyze the feasible contingencies and practical options; arbitrate and come to sensible conclusions; and invent pragmatic proposals and equitable solutions. (“Mutilated memory”)
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
How true is it that humanity refuses compromise during prosperity, and reaches out for arbitration when weak.
”
”
Jean Sasson (Princess Sultana's Daughters)
“
... forgiveness is a four letter word: Love.
”
”
Elizabeth Marx (Binding Arbitration (Chicago #2))
“
Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian. If differences ever develop between you never have recourse to arms, but solve them peacefully. If necessary, I should be your arbitrator.
”
”
Alexander the Great
“
My mom wasn't home to arbitrate, so he forced me to try to strangle him with a phone cord.
”
”
Felicia Day (You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost))
“
Caldenia blinked. “Who are the attending parties?”
“The Holy Anocracy represented by House Krahr, the Hope-crushing Horde, and the Merchants of Baha-char. They coming here for Arbitration and they will probably try to murder each other the moment they walk through the door.”
Caldenia’s eyes widened. “Do you really think so? This is absolutely marvelous!”
She would think so, wouldn’t she?
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2))
“
The role of government just considered is to do something that the market cannot do for itself, namely, to determine, arbitrate, and enforce the rules of the game.
”
”
Milton Friedman (Capitalism and Freedom)
“
The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;
Towards which, advance the war.
They exit marching.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
“
What can I do for you, Arbitrator?” I asked.
“George, please. There is no hot water in my bathroom.”
“Oh really?” You don’t say.
“Yes. In fact, it’s ice-cold.” He raised a half-filled glass. Thin slivers of ice floated on its surface. “I drew this from the tap in my sink.”
“How unfortunate. When did this happen?”
“About two minutes ago.”
“While you were in the shower?”
“Yes.”
“My apologies. I’ll get right on that.”
George squinted at me, his face thoughtful, and waved the call off.
Sophie leaned back and laughed. “You really love those trees.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2))
“
There is none of you who would not publicly exclaim that everyone should be moderator and arbitrator in his own matter, who would not command all citizens to use rivers and public places equally and indifferently, who would not with all his power defend the liberty of going hither and thither and trading.
”
”
Hugo Grotius (The Free Sea)
“
It is attributed to Henry IV of France, a man of enlarged and benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an European Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific republic; by appointing delegates from the several nations who were to act as a court of arbitration in any disputes that might arise between nation and nation.
”
”
Thomas Paine (The Rights Of Man)
“
Robert Troup said that Hamilton rejected fees if they were larger than he thought warranted and generally favored arbitration or amicable settlements in lieu of lawsuits.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
No mankind can arbitrate for God.
”
”
Don Santo
“
The Gray soldiers prowl the cities ensuring order, ensuring obedience to the hierarchy. The Whites arbitrate their justice and push their philosophy. Pinks pleasure and serve in highColor homes. Silvers count and manipulate currency and logistics. Yellows study the medicines and sciences. Greens develop technology. Blues navigate the stars. Coppers run the beauracracy. Every Color has a purpose. Every Color props up the Golds.
”
”
Pierce Brown (Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1))
“
Muhammad now translated this concept into political terms. Blending idealism and pragmatism - a master politician's skill if ever there was one - he drew up arbitration agreement that used the tribal principle to reach beyond tribe.
”
”
Lesley Hazleton (The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad)
“
Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the shampoo and the soda pop and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it's all nice and pretty and LIKABLE. Everything is fun in the sun! Where's the discernment? Where's the arbitration that separates what I LIKE from what I RESPECT, what I deem WORTHY, what has... listen to me now... SIGNIFICANCE.
”
”
John Logan (Red (Oberon Modern Plays))
“
A government is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and, implied in this, a compulsory territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, a government is the ultimate arbiter, for the inhabitants of a given territory, regarding what is just and what is not, and it can determine unilaterally, i.e., without requiring the consent of those seeking justice or arbitration, the price that justice-seekers must pay to the government for providing this service.
”
”
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
“
Trenton cops wore more hats than I could name. They were arbitrators, social workers, peacekeepers, baby-sitters and law enforcers. The job was boring, terrifying, disgusting, exhausting and often made no sense at all. The pay was abysmal, the hours inhuman, the department budget was a joke, the uniforms were short in the crotch. And year after year, the Trenton cops held the city together.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum, #3))
“
Wars don’t start nowadays because people want them. We long for peace, and fill our newspapers with conferences about disarmament and arbitration, but there is a radical instability in our whole world order, and soon we shall all be walking into the jaws of destruction again, protesting our pacific intentions.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Vile Bodies)
“
It is in the lawful power of no human being to force me to believe or accept what he says or thinks; and however little regard I have for these human reveries, however much I flout them, there is no person on earth who can pretend to the right to censure or punish me therefor. Into what chasm of errors or foolishness would we not tumble were all men blindly to adhere to what it suited some other men to establish! And through what incredible injustice will you call moral that which emanates from you; immoral that which I uphold? To what arbitration shall we apply in order to find out upon which side right and reason lie?
”
”
Marquis de Sade (Juliette)
“
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
”
”
Megan Thomason (Arbitrate (Daynight, #2))
“
Let us hope that Lysenko's success in Russia will serve for many generations to come as another reminder to the world of how quickly and easily a science can be corrupted when ignorant political leaders deem themselves competent to arbitrate scientific disputes.
”
”
Martin Gardner
“
The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time." Lawrence Durrell in "Clea," book three of the epic Alexandria Quartet - which I am reading for the third time since my early 20s...relishing its superb prose and enigmatic insights into the nature of love.
”
”
Lawrence Durrell
“
I began to see my parents with different eyes, and to understand their cares and worries. For my father in particular I felt compassion—less, curiously enough, for my mother. She always seemed to me the stronger of the two. Nevertheless I always felt on her side when my father gave vent to his moody irritability. This necessity for taking sides was not exactly favorable to the formation of my character. In order to liberate myself from these conflicts I fell into the role of the superior arbitrator who willy-nilly had to judge his parents. That caused a certain inflatedness in me; my unstable self-assurance was increased and diminished at the same time.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
“
I circle your hands, I circle your heart. I mark with my brand, while we’re apart. I sparkle in both your joy and laughter, because I’m part of you ever after.
”
”
Elizabeth Marx (Binding Arbitration (Chicago #1))
“
Le tumulte et le désordre de notre esprit diminuent notre libre arbitre, le rendent esclave de nos émotions, c’est-à-dire des circonstances.
”
”
Christophe André (Je médite jour après jour (French Edition))
“
In the second half of the play he arbitrates a contest between the poets Aeschylus and Euripides for pre-eminence in the art of tragedy.
”
”
Aristophanes (Frogs (Focus Classical Library))
“
In the world of contract killings, there is no arbitration.
”
”
Kenneth Eade (Killer.com (Brent Marks Legal Thriller Series #5))
“
The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
”
”
William Shakespeare (King Richard II)
“
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;
Towards which advance the war.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
“
For publishers are not just employers and financial risk-takers: they are also cultural mediators and arbitrators of quality and taste.
”
”
John B. Thompson (Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century)
“
The facts were strongly behind his client. But the legal battle could be drawn out for months; no one stood to gain except the lawyers. Ghandi was not interested in making a profit out of legal briefs and empty arguments. He was determined to serve the best interests of both sides. Dada Abdulla and his opponent were blood relations, and every day the case dragged on only drove in deeper the wedge that was splitting their family in two. With much talking Ghandi persuaded both sides to submit to arbitration and settle out of court. Even more talking was necessary to get Dada Abdulla to agree on terms which would not bankrupt the loser, but in the end both sides were satisfied. Ghandi was ecstatic. "I had learnt," he exclaimed, "the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men's hearts. I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.
”
”
G. Palanithurai
“
the great fraud of the construct of whiteness is that it has coerced and convinced most white folks to no longer see their own oppression: by men over women, by straights over LGBT, by hetero fathers over their sons in arbitrating their masculinity, by capitalist values of personal acquisition over the personal freedom of one’s soul. white folks have been duped to trade their humanity for their privilege. the most insidious lie is that racism is a Black problem or colored folks problem. white folks wake up: not only oppressed people are complicit in oppression. it’s your problem, too.
”
”
Angel Kyodo Williams (Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation)
“
All of her life, Bibi had kept a governor on her anger, had consciously negotiated between the gracious, complaisant aspect of her nature and the darker part of herself that sometimes wanted to strike out, strike back. Her tendency to arbitrate herself into a courteous reaction, or at least one of quiet anger, was motivated not by a noble inclination, but by fear that she would lose control of herself.
”
”
Dean Koontz (Ashley Bell)
“
si en confessant l’existence de Dieu il lui refuse la prescience, cela revient encore à dire avec l’insensé dont parle l’Ecriture : Il n’y a point de Dieu. En effet, celui qui ne connaît point l’avenir n’est point Dieu.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
“
Pour un pauvre être écrasé par les différents despotismes qui, peu ou prou, pèsent sur toutes les jeunesses, le premier usage du libre arbitre, exercé même sur des riens, apportait à Tâme je ne sais quel épanouissement.
”
”
Honoré de Balzac (Le Lys dans la vallée)
“
Of course you like it – how can you not like it?! Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it’s all nice and pretty and likable. Everything is fun in the sun! Where’s the discernment? Where’s the arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what has…listen to me now…significance.
”
”
John Logan (Red)
“
The answer is not to expand Lies My Teacher Told Me to cover every distortion and error in history as traditionally taught, to say nothing of the future lies yet to be developed. That approach would make me the arbitrator - I who surely still unknowingly accept all manner of hoary legends as historical fact. Instead, the answer is for all of us to become, in Postman and Weingartner's vulgar term, 'crap detectors' - independent learners who can sift through arguments and evidence and make reasoned judgements. Then we will have learned how to learn, as Postman and Weingartner put it, and neither a one-sided textbook nor a one-sided critique of textbooks will be able to confuse us.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
. . . Neither ecological nor social engineering will lead us to a conflict-free, simple path . . . Utilitarians and others who simply advise us to be happy are unhelpful, because we almost always have to make a choice either between different kinds of happiness--different things to be happy _about_--or between these and other things we want, which nothing to do with happiness.
. . . Do we find ourselves a species naturally free from conflict? We do not. There has not, apparently, been in our evolution a kind of rationalization which might seem a possible solution to problems of conflict--namely, a takeover by some major motive, such as the desire for future pleasure, which would automatically rule out all competing desires. Instead, what has developed is our intelligence. And this in some ways makes matters worse, since it shows us many desirable things that we would not otherwise have thought of, as well as the quite sufficient number we knew about for a start. In compensation, however, it does help us to arbitrate. Rules and principles, standards and ideals emerge as part of a priority system by which we guide ourselves through the jungle. They never make the job easy--desires that we put low on our priority system do not merely vanish--but they make it possible. And it is in working out these concepts more fully, in trying to extend their usefulness, that moral philosophy begins. Were there no conflict, it [moral philosophy] could never have arisen.
The motivation of living creatures does got boil down to any single basic force, not even an 'instinct of self-preservation.' It is a complex pattern of separate elements, balanced roughly in the constitution of the species, but always liable to need adjusting. Creatures really have divergent and conflicting desires. Their distinct motives are not (usually) wishes for survival or for means to survival, but for various particular things to be done and obtained while surviving. And these can always conflict. Motivation is fundamentally plural. . . An obsessive creature dominated constantly by one kind of motive, would not survive.
All moral doctrine, all practical suggestions about how we ought to live, depend on some belief about what human nature is like.
The traditional business of moral philosophy is attempting to understand, clarify, relate, and harmonize so far as possible the claims arising from different sides of our nature.
. . . One motive does not necessarily replace another smoothly and unremarked. There is _ambivalence_, conflict behavior.
”
”
Mary Midgley (Beast and Man)
“
Sur un même ring de boxe sont réunis Mike Tyson, le champion du monde en titre des poids lourds, et un chômeur bengali sous-alimenté.
Que disent les ayatollahs du dogme néolibéral ? Justice est assurée, puisque les gants de boxe des deux protagonistes sont de même facture, le temps du combat égal pour eux, l'espace de l'affrontement unique, et les règles du jeu constantes. Alors que le meilleur gagne !
L'arbitre impartial, c'est le marché.
L'absurdité du dogme néolibéral saute aux yeux. (p. 193)
”
”
Jean Ziegler (Destruction massive : Géopolitique de la faim)
“
LULL
(November, 1939)
The winds of hatred blow
Cold, cold across the flesh
And chill the anxious heart;
Intricate phobias grow
From each malignant wish
To spoil collective life.
Now each man stands apart.
We watch opinion drift,
Think of our separate skins.
On well-upholstered bums
The generals cough and shift
Playing with painted pins.
The arbitrators wait;
The newsmen suck their thumbs.
The mind is quick to turn
Away from simple faith
To the cant and fury of
Fools who will never learn;
Reason embraces death,
While out of frightened eyes
Still stares the wish to love.
”
”
Theodore Roethke (The Collected Poems)
“
day, another takes to-morrow,” Volney wrote. “Let us establish judges, who shall arbitrate our rights, and settle our differences. When the strong shall rise against the weak, the judge shall restrain him…and the life and property of each shall be under the guarantee and protection of all.
”
”
Jon Meacham (And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle)
“
because the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals operate as tribunals under the United Kingdom’s Arbitration Act of 1996, their rulings are binding under UK law—even when their rulings are contrary to UK law.12 What’s more, these tribunals do not provide the legal safeguards many Western court systems have.
”
”
Erwin W. Lutzer (The Cross in the Shadow of the Crescent: An Informed Response to Islam’s War with Christianity)
“
Je précise que je crois profondément à bien peu de choses, deux ou trois. La justice sociale, l’éducation, la subversion [...]. Je crois profondément que l’avenir de l’Homme et de sa fiancée ne se joue pas à la Bourse, à l’Université, dans un Parlement, dans un journal, dans un laboratoire de recherche. Je crois profondément que l’avenir de l’humanité se joue, chaque jour, dans la classe d’un prof de philo qui donne un cours sur le libre-arbitre à de futurs plombiers, de futurs flics, coiffeuses, infirmiers, informaticiennes et vendeurs de chars usagés. » (Pierre Foglia, éditorial, La Presse, 16 mai 1996)
”
”
Pierre Foglia
“
Tout ce que le Père fait, le Fils le fait également ?
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
“
Est ce assez de distance?” he demanded. “Monsieur en est l’arbitre,” said I. “Vous savez bien que non. C’est vous qui avez crée ce vide immense: moi je n’y ai pas mis la main.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
“
I should say that there ought to be no war except religious war. If war is irreligious, it is immoral. No man ought ever to fight at all unless he is prepared to put his quarrel before that invisible Court of Arbitration with which all religion is concerned. Unless he thinks he is vitally, eternally, cosmically in the right, he is wrong to fire off a pocket-pistol.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton
“
The design supports a tremendous variety of possible transaction types that I designed years ago. Escrow transactions, bonded contracts, third party arbitration, multi-party signature, etc. If Bitcoin catches on in a big way, these are things we’ll want to explore in the future, but they all had to be designed at the beginning to make sure they would be possible later.
”
”
Satoshi Nakamoto
“
But within the framework of an ideology such pluralism cannot be so enlarged as to incorporate into the political system and submit to political arbitration radical structural conflicts between family life and economic development, religión and culture, personality and the need for governmental administration, or between the expected motives of agents and the methods of recruiting. In such States, political pluralism remains on a technical and instrumental level; the problem-solving capacity of the political system is built on the premise that, in the last analysis, all critical problems can be reduced to economic problems. For this reason (and because of the political ideologization of all publíc life) limits are set to the level of complexity such a society can reach.
”
”
Niklas Luhmann (The Differentiation of Society)
“
We may all speak, or pray, or assemble, or hold our own property, and all at the same time, and without depriving anyone else of the “like advantage.” The new economic rights, as suggested here by Churchill and later by Franklin Roosevelt, require that some must sacrifice property so that others may not lose theirs. In those cases the state arbitrates who keeps and who gains property, and to that extent it replaces the free market.
”
”
Larry P. Arnn (Churchill's Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government)
“
Vous croyez que vous avez votre libre arbitre, mais un jour ou l'autre, vous allez reconnaître mon produit dans le rayonnage d'un supermarché, et vous l'achèterez, comme ça, juste pour goûter, croyez-moi, je connais mon boulot.
”
”
Frédéric Beigbeder (99 francs)
“
War, famine, disease, genocide. Death, in a million different forms, often painful and protracted for the poor individual wretches involved. What god would so arrange the universe to predispose its creations to experience such suffering, or be the cause of it in others? What master of simulations or arbitrator of a game would set up the initial conditions to the same pitiless effect? God or programmer, the charge would be the same: that of near-infinitely sadistic cruelty; deliberate, premeditated barbarism on an unspeakably horrific scale.”
Hyrlis looked expectantly at them. “You see?” he said. “By this reasoning we must, after all, be at the most base level of reality – or at the most exalted, however one wishes to look at it. Just as reality can blithely exhibit the most absurd coincidences that no credible fiction could convince us of, so only reality – produced, ultimately, by matter in the raw – can be so unthinkingly cruel. Nothing able to think, nothing able to comprehend culpability, justice or morality could encompass such purposefully invoked savagery without representing the absolute definition of evil. It is that unthinkingness that saves us. And condemns us, too, of course; we are as a result our own moral agents, and there is no escape from that responsibility, no appeal to a higher power that might be said to have artificially constrained or directed us.
”
”
Iain M. Banks (Matter (Culture, #8))
“
Or, la vraie religion n’est point une institution de quelque cité de la terre ; c’est elle qui forme la Cité céleste, et elle est inspirée par le vrai Dieu, arbitre de la vie éternelle, qui enseigne lui-même la vérité à ses adorateurs.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
“
And because the constitution of a mans Body, is in continuall mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should alwayes cause in him the same Appetites, and aversions; much lesse can all men consent, in the Desire of almost any one and the same Object.
Good Evill
But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill, And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) From the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof.
”
”
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
“
A brilliant, fierce thinker. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that you know the truth of things. You don’t even know if your poem is good or not. I think it’s good. Do you? Where does it fall short in your eyes? Or do you not even know? Are you simply desperate for my approval? An outside voice to tell you that you are good and worthy? Well, you are good and worthy. I will tell you that. But who am I? Why should I be your arbitrator? Am I God, Ezri? What does it matter what I think?
”
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Rivers Solomon (Model Home)
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(There needs to be an error code that means “I received your request but decided to ignore you.”) Initially, it had been pretty easy. (“If you bother her again I will break every individual bone in your hand and arm. It will take about an hour.”) Then it had gotten more complicated as even the passengers who liked each other started to get into fights. I spent a lot of time (valuable time I could have been viewing/reading my saved entertainment media) arbitrating arguments I didn’t give a shit about.
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Martha Wells (Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3))
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In the thirty years leading up to the Civil War, the law was increasingly interpreted in the courts to suit the capitalist development of the country. Studying this, Morton Horwitz (The Transformation of American Law) points out that the English commonlaw was no longer holy when it stood in the way of business growth. Mill owners were given the legal right to destroy other people’s property by flood to carry on their business. The law of “eminent domain” was used to take farmers’ land and give it to canal companies or railroad companies as subsidies. Judgments for damages against businessmen were taken out of the hands of juries, which were unpredictable, and given to judges. Private settlement of disputes by arbitration was replaced by court settlements, creating more dependence on lawyers, and the legal profession gained in importance. The ancient idea of a fair price for goods gave way in the courts to the idea of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), thus throwing generations of consumers from that time on to the mercy of businessmen.
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Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present)
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When there’s a history between people, it makes for some serious complications—even in something seemingly as simple as friendship. There is no real starting over. There’s only trying to minimize the importance of things in the past. And some events are just too life altering to trivialize.
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Megan Thomason (Arbitrate (Daynight, #2))
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Fatalisme: Systême affreux qui soumet tout à la nécessité, dans un monde réglé par les décrets immuables de la divinité, sans la volonté de laquelle rien ne peut arriver. Si tout était nécessaire, adieu le libre arbitre de l’homme, dont les prêtres ont si grand besoin pour pouvoir le damner.
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Paul-Henri Thiry (La Théologie portative ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne)
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C’est pourquoi l’homme de bien dans tes fers est libre, tandis que le méchant est esclave jusque sur le trône ; et il n’est pas esclave d’un seul homme, mais il a autant de maîtres que de vices. L’Ecriture veut parler de ces maîtres, quand elle dit « Chacun est esclave de celui qui l’a vaincu ».
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
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La différence de ceux qui sont frappés demeure dans la ressemblance des maux qui les frappent ; et pour être exposés aux mêmes tourments, la vertu et le vice ne se confondent pas. Car, comme un même feu fait briller l’or et noircir la paille, comme un même fléau écrase le chaume et purifie le froment, ou encore, comme le marc ne se mêle pas avec l’huile, quoiqu’il soit tiré de l’olive par le même pressoir, ainsi un même malheur, venant à tomber sur les bons et sur les méchants, éprouve, purifie et fait resplendir les uns, tandis qu’il damne, écrase et anéantit les autres. C’est pour cela qu’en une même affliction, les méchants blasphèment contre Dieu, les bons, au contraire, le prient et le bénissent : tant il importe de considérer, non les maux qu’on souffre, mais l’esprit dans lequel on les subit ; car le même mouvement qui tire de la boue une odeur fétide, imprimé à un vase de parfums, en fait sortir les plus douces exhalaisons.
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
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Je péchais donc enfant, en préférant ainsi la vanité à l’utile ; ou plutôt je haïssais l’utile et j’aimais la vanité. « Un et un sont deux, deux et deux quatre, » était pour moi une odieuse chanson ; et je ne savais pas de plus beau spectacle qu’un fantôme de cheval de bois rempli d’hommes armés, que l’incendie de Troie et l’ombre de Creuse
”
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
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The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other's interests, do not invade each other. They have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest. Indeed, as Carlyle said, "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village; stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other.
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Emma Goldman (Anarchism and other essays (Illustrated))
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Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache. Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from the Underground)
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When she ((Ellen)) shopped (there were twenty stores in Jefferson now)she unbent without even getting out of the carriage, gracious and assures and talking the most complete nonsense, voluble, speaking her bring set meaningless phrases out of the part which she had written for herself, of the duchess peripatetic with property soups and medicines among a soilless and uncompelled peasantry - a woman who, if she had the fortitude to bear sorrow and trouble, might have rise to actual stardom in the role of the matriarch arbitrating from the fireside corner of a crone the pride and destiny of her family, instead of turning at the last to the youngest member of it and asking her to protect the others.
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William Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom!)
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Her parents didn't get it. Life was different now. The future, her future and that of everyone else her age, had blown up in slow motion. She lived the way she did because greed had sucked the juice out of the world and it was no longer possible to get one of those humble but promising jobs that led, with hard work and perseverance, to something that might be considered a career. Instead you competed with ambitious, underpaid people on the Indian subcontinent for the sucky customer service jobs, or you might choose to go the tech route and work as a coding slave, or sign noncompete and binding arbitration agreements with some major corporation that still required human bodies to do their dirty work for them.
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Jean Thompson (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl)
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I have two settings as a dad: normal and special mode. Normal mode is used with my eldest son, aged eight. It involves all the regular dad stuff, such as knowing the answers to every possible question, teaching him to ride his bike and generally being hands-on and involved. Special mode is quite different. All of the skills of normal mode apply, and then some. Special mode involves enormous powers of endurance, negotiation, problem solving, vigilance, strength, forbearance, deciphering, arbitration and above all, patience. To be honest, I’m a bit rubbish at all of those things but I strive for them nonetheless, because special mode is required for my youngest son, aged five and diagnosed as high functioning autistic. The two styles of parenting could not be more different.
”
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B's Dad (Life with an Autistic Son)
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Dans son commerce avec l'homme, le Destin n'arrête jamais ses comptes.
Il y a des moments, nous disent les psychologues, où l'amour du péché, de ce que le monde apelle le péché, s'empare de l'être à tel point que chaque fibre du corps, chaque cellule du cerveau, semble la proie d'inexorables impulsions. Hommes et femmes, alors, perdant tout libre arbitre. Ils se meuvent vers leur but fatal, comme se meuvent des automates. Toutes faculté de choisir leur est enlevées. Leur conscience est morte, ou sinon, juste assez vivante pour donner de l'attrait à la rébellion, du charme à la désobéissance. Car tout péché, les théologiens ne se lassent pas de nous le rappeler, est péché de désobéissance. Quand le superbe Esprit du mal, l'Étoile du matin, tomba du ciel, ce fut sous l'étendard de la révolte.
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Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
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Pourquoi ne l'as-tu pas tué ? me demanda-t-elle.
– Il n'y a pas de fatalité. J'en suis la preuve vivante, et je me sens pareil à cet enfant par les origines. De même que je ne puis avoir la certitude d'être le maître absolu de la destinée d'Arthur, tu ne peux non plus espérer contrôler totalement le devenir de ton fils. Ainsi il n'y a pas de fatalité ni dans la création ni dans la destruction, car deux choses échappent aux calculs les plus subtils de la prévoyance : l'âme et le hasard. Et même si tu parviens à faire de cet être un instrument parfait au service de ta haine de l'homme, il ne pourra nuire que si Arthur et ses pairs de la Table Ronde montrent folie ou faiblesse. Et s'ils sont fous ou faibles, qu'importe la cause de leur ruine, car le coupable ne sera pas toi, ni ton fils, mais eux-mêmes.
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Michel Rio (Merlin)
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The supreme magistrate was not distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue. On the other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy, requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence. There being no apprehensions of war, there were no armies to maintain; there being no government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct. What we call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya; and there were no courts of criminal justice. The rare instances of civil disputes were referred for arbitration to friends chosen by either party, or decided by the Council of Sages, which will be described later. There were no professional lawyers; and indeed their laws were but amicable conventions, for there was no power to enforce laws against an offender who carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges.
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton (The Coming Race)
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We were a heap of living creatures, irritated, embarrassed at ourselves, we hadn't the slightest reason to be there, none of us, each one, confused, vaguely alarmed, felt in the way in relation to the others. *In the way*: it was the only relationship I could establish between these trees, these gates, these stones. In vain I tried *count* the chestnut trees, to *locate* them by their relationship to the Velleda, to compare their height with the height of the plane trees: each of them escaped the relationship in which I tried to enclose it, isolated itself, and overflowed. Of these relations (which I insisted on maintaining in order to delay the crumbling of the human world, measures, quantities, and directions) - I felt myself to be the arbitrator; they no longer had their teeth into things. *In the way*, the chestnut tree there, opposite me, a little to the left ...
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Jean-Paul Sartre (Nausea)
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Aidan: "From the moment I laid eyes on her she was trouble to my concentration, my libido, and my mental health. After six weeks of pursuit, I’d trapped her between my upraised arms against a book case, somewhere betwixt Shakespeare and Voltaire. “I want the witchcraft in your lips,” I’d whispered. Instead of arguing, she grabbed me by the ears. She’d been soft lips, liberal tongue and nipping teeth. I’d contributed a willing body and a vulgar groan. She’d drawn away, licked her lips and ducked underneath my arms. When she was about three yards from me, she’s tilted her head up like a siren on the bow of a ship and pursed a devil-may-care smile at me before she bowed. She’d challenged me to pursue her, and I’d intended to, but when I pushed off, the bookcase fell backwards. I tumbled into a heap of literary tombs. I could still hear her laughing when the library’s elevator door chimed closed.
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Elizabeth Marx (Binding Arbitration (Chicago #2))
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Arbitration: The process of adjudication of a dispute by a tribunal, a majority of whose members are appointed by the disputantas, whose decision to the disputants agree to accept as final and binding. Contrast Conciliation.
Arbitration: Arbitration should not be entered lightly. It can allow a third party to determine the destiny of your nation, perhaps at the expense of its vital interests. Arbitrate only if you manifestly have principle on your side but are so weak that you must call on others to enforce it.
Arbitration: "International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one."
— Ambrose Bierce
Arbitration, defense through resort to: "It is impossible to attack as a transgressor him who offers to lay his grievance before a tribunal of arbitration."
— King of Sparta, quoted by Thucydides [cf. History of Peloponnesian War, Book 1 Chapter 85.2]
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Chas W. Freeman Jr. (The Diplomat's Dictionary)
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ROTHKO: So, now, what do you see? – Be specific. No, be exact. Be exact – but sensitive. You understand? Be kind. Be a human being, that’s all I can say. Be a human being for once in your life! These pictures deserve compassion and they live or die in the eye of the sensitive viewer, they quicken only if the empathetic viewer will let them. That is what they cry out for. That is why they where created. That is what they deserve… Now… What do you see? Beat. KEN: Red. ROTHKO: But do you like it? KEN: Mm. ROTHKO: Speak up. KEN: Yes. ROTHKO: Of course you like it – how can you not like it?! Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it’s all nice and pretty and likable. Everything is fun in the sun! Where’s the discernment? Where’s the arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what has…listen to me now…significance.
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John Logan (Red)
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Paradox is any self-contradictory proposition that, when investigated, may prove to be well-founded or true. Once understood, it opens the gateway to higher wisdom. But how can contradictory principles both be true? As the Buddhist Riddle of Five Truths puts it: “It is right. It is wrong. It is both right and wrong. It is neither right nor wrong. All exist simultaneously.” Charles Dickens expressed the paradox of his era, equally true today, when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” going on to describe that time as one of belief and incredulity, light and darkness, hope and despair. Two opposing statements can each be true depending on the observer: it’s true that spiders are merciless killers from the viewpoint of tiny insects caught in their webs—but for most humans, nearly all spiders are harmless creatures. A story of the Sufi sage Mullah Nasruddin expresses the nature of paradox when he’s asked to arbitrate between two men with opposing views. Hearing the first man, he remarks, “You’re right.” When he hears the second man, he also says, “You’re right.” When a bystander points out, “They can’t both be right,” the mullah scratches his head and says, “You’re right.” Let’s go deeper and consider four central sets of paradoxical truths: * Time is real. It moves from past to present to future. * There is no time, no past, no future—only the eternal present. * You possess free will and can thus take responsibility for your choices. * Free will is an illusion—your choices are influenced, even predetermined, by all that preceded them. * You are, or possess, a separate inner self existing within a body. * No separation exists—you are a part of the same Consciousness shining through billions of eyes. * Death is an inevitable reality you’ll meet at the end of life. * The death of the inner self is an illusion. Life is eternal. Must you choose one assertion and reject the other? Or is there a way to meaningfully resolve and even reconcile such apparent contradictions?
”
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Dan Millman (The Hidden School: Return of the Peaceful Warrior)
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Je me demande quel aspect prendront les choses, si je ne vous vois jamais plus, si votre forme se dérobe pour toujours à mes yeux ? Vous traversez la cour, et le fil qui nous relie se faite de plus en plus mince. Mais vous continuez d'exister, vous restez mon juge. Je veux dire que si je fais au fond de moi-même une découverte nouvelle, je vous la soumettrai en secret. Votre verdict décidera, vous restez l'arbitre. Mais pour combien de temps ? Les choses deviendront trop difficiles à expliquer ; il y aura des faits nouveaux...
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Virginia Woolf (The Waves)
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Sphere/Color /Quality/Service on Planet 1: Blue. To do the will of God, illumined faith, capacity to lead people and manifest large amounts of energy. Initiative. All God-ideas born here. Rulers, leaders and executives. 2. Sunshine yellow. Perception, illumination, inspiration. Ideas are perceived and molded into thought patterns and workable form. Teachers, Educators. 3. Pink. Love, compassion, tolerance. Ideas are clothed with life-essence through the feeling nature, enabling future externalization in the world of form. Love is shown as the cohesive force, holding together a manifested form. Peacemakers, Arbitrators. 4. White. Purity. Artistic development. Poets, artists, musicians, painters, architects. 5. Emerald Green. Scientific development. Healing, concentration, consecration, truth. Scientists, engineers, inventors, healers, doctors, nurses. 6. Ruby with golden radiance. Voluntary impersonal service outside the community. Missionaries. Religious leaders. 7. Violet. Ceremonial service. Culture, refinement, diplomacy. Diplomats, gentlemen, ministers, religious leaders.
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Werner Schroeder (21 Essential Lessons, Vol. 1)
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Un pays exclusivement occupé d'intérêts matériels, sans patriotisme, sans conscience, où le pouvoir est sans force, où l'Élection, fruit du libre arbitre et de la liberté politique, n'élève que les médiocrités, où la force brutale est devenue nécessaire contre les violences populaires, et où la discussion, étendue aux moindres choses, étouffe toute action du corps politique ; où l'argent domine toutes les questions, et où l'individualisme, produit horrible de la division à l'infini des héritages qui supprime la famille, dévorera tout, même la nation,
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Honoré de Balzac (Oeuvres complètes: 101 titres La Comédie humaine)
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Ainsi, à cet âge même, que l’on redoutait moins pour moi que l’adolescence, je n’aimais point l’étude ; je haïssais d’y être contraint, et l’on m’y contraignait, et il m’en advenait bien :, je n’eusse rien appris sans contrainte, mais moi je faisais mal ; car faire à contrecœur quelque chose de bon n’est pas bien faire. Et ceux même qui me forçaient à l’étude ne faisaient pas bien ; mais bien m’en advenait par vous, mon Dieu. Eux ne voyaient pour moi, dans ce qu’ils me pressaient d’apprendre, qu’un moyen d’assouvir l’insatiable convoitise de cette opulence qui n’est que misère, de cette gloire qui n’est qu’infamie.
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
“
Et qu’ils ne se croient pas exempts de cette ignominie, ceux qui, en méprisant la gloire et le jugement des hommes, se plaisent à eux-mêmes et s’applaudissent de leur sagesse ; car leur vertu, si elle mérite ce nom, est encore asservie en quelque façon à la louange humaine, puisque se plaire à soi-même, c’est plaire à un homme. Mais quiconque croit et espère en Dieu d’un cœur vraiment pieux et plein d’amour, s’applique beaucoup plus à considérer en soi-même ce qui lui déplaît que ce qui peut lui plaire, moins encore à lui qu’à la vérité ; et ce qui peut lui plaire, il l’attribue à la miséricorde de celui dont il redoute le déplaisir, lui rendant grâces pour les plaies guéries, et lui offrant des prières pour les plaies à guérir.
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
“
Mais, dit-on, plusieurs se sont tués pour ne pas tomber en la puissance des ennemis. Je réponds qu’il ne s’agit pas de ce qui a été fait, mais de ce qu’on doit faire. La raison est au-dessus des exemples, et les exemples eux-mêmes s’accordent avec la raison, quand on sait choisir ceux qui sont le plus dignes d’être imités, ceux qui viennent de la plus haute piété. Ni les Patriarches, ni les Prophètes, ni les Apôtres ne nous ont donné l’exemple du suicide. Jésus-Christ, Notre-Seigneur, qui avertit ses disciples, en cas de persécution, de fuir de ville en ville, ne pouvait-il pas leur conseiller de se donner la mort, plutôt que de tomber dans les mains de leurs persécuteurs ? Si donc il ne leur a donné ni le conseil, ni l’ordre de quitter la vie, lui qui leur prépare, suivant ses promesses, les demeures de l’éternité, il s’ensuit que les exemples invoqués par les Gentils, dans leur ignorance de Dieu, ne prouvent rien pour les adorateurs du seul Dieu véritable.
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Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustin: les 9 oeuvres majeures et complètes (Les confessions, La cité de Dieu, De la trinité, Traité du libre arbitre...) (French Edition))
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Lacking valid reasons to justify himself and sufficient strength to defend himself, easily crushing an individual, but himself crushed by gangs of bandits, alone against everyone and, because of mutual jealousies, unable to join with his equals against an enemy united by a common hope of pillage, the rich man, hard pressed by necessity, eventually conceived the most cleverly designed project which has ever entered the human mind. That was to use to his advantage the very forces of those who were attacking him, to turn his enemies into his defenders, to inspire them with other maxims, and to give them other institutions which were as beneficial to him as natural right was against him. With this in mind, after showing his neighbours the horror of a situation which armed them all against the others, which made their possessions as onerous as their needs, and in which no one found his security either in poverty or in wealth, he easily came up with specious reasons to lead them to his goal. "Let us unite," he said to them, "to protect the weak from oppression, to restrain the ambitious, and to assure to each man the possession of what belongs to him. Let us set up rules of justice and peace to which everyone is obliged to conform, which do not exempt any one, and which in some way make up for the whims of fortune, by subjecting the powerful and the weak equally to mutual obligations. In a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us collect them into one supreme power which governs us according to wise laws and which protects and defends all the members of the association, repels common enemies, and keeps us in an eternal harmony." He required much less than the equivalent of this speech to convince crude and easily seduced men, who, in addition, had too many things to disentangle among themselves to be able to go without arbitrators and too much avarice and ambition to be able to do without masters for any length of time. They all rushed headlong into their chains, believing they were guaranteeing their liberty.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts and Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men)
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Under capitalism, goods can go across borders but human beings cannot. It’s not a weird coincidence, it's a violent political strategy to bar people and privilege some over others. We need to envision a borderless world. Imagining a borderless world is one of the ultimate acts of decolonization because colonialism told us arbitrability there are lines here for you to cross, it is connected to capitalism, exploitation and racism, so challenging capitalism and colonization fundamentally challenges borders. If we are trying to challenge capitalistic structures that are destroying this planet, that means challenging the structures that are continuing to dehumanize human beings and designating people as legal bodies. No one is illegal on stolen lands. If we reject colonization and put ourselves in solidarity with indigenous sovereignty, then we reject that someone can be illegal and discarded.
Getting involved in climate justice work involves everything, it’s not as simple as recycling, or buying local. It's everything from deciding not to be a border enforcer in your community, to being in solidarity with complex indigenous movements all over the world. Capitalism individualizes our suffering. It’s an empowering act to move away from individualizing hardship and instead collectivizing our struggles. Go out into your communities and join collectives, collective movements are the way we fight individualism and capitalism--that we are in this together as opposed to doing this on our own.
”
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Lucy Diavolo (No Planet B: The Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis)
“
Children.” Westcliff’s sardonic voice caused them both to look at him blankly. He was standing from his chair and stretching underused muscles. “I’m afraid this has gone on long enough for me. You are welcome to continue playing, but I beg to take leave.”
“But who will arbitrate?” Daisy protested.
“Since no one has been keeping score for at least a half hour,” the earl said dryly, “there is no further need for my judgement.”
“Yes we have,” Daisy argued, and turned to Swift. “What is the score?”
“I don’t know.”
As their gazes held, Daisy could hardly restrain a snicker of sudden embarrassment.
Amusement glittered in Swift’s eyes. “I think you won,” he said.
“Oh, don’t condescend to me,” Daisy said. “You’re ahead. I can take a loss. It’s part of the game.”
“I’m not being condescending. It’s been point-for-point for at least…” Swift fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a watch. “…two hours.”
“Which means that in all likelihood you preserved your early lead.”
“But you chipped away at it after the third round—”
“Oh, hell’s bells!” came Lillian’s voice from the sidelines. She sounded thoroughly aggravated, having gone into the manor for a nap and come out to find them still at the bowling green. “You’ve quarreled all afternoon like a pair of ferrets, and now you’re fighting over who won. If someone doesn’t put a stop to it, you’ll be squabbling out here ‘til midnight. Daisy, you’re covered with dust and your hair is a bird’s nest. Come inside and put yourself to rights. Now.”
“There’s no need to shout,” Daisy replied mildly, following her sister’s retreating figure. She glanced over her shoulder at Matthew Swift…a friendlier glance than she had ever given him before, then turned and quickened her pace.
Swift began to pick up the wooden bowls.
“Leave them,” Westcliff said. “The servants will put things in order. Your time is better spent preparing yourself for supper, which will commence in approximately one hour.”
Obligingly Matthew dropped the bowls and went toward the house with Westcliff. He watched Daisy’s small, sylphlike form until she disappeared from sight.
Westcliff did not miss Matthew’s fascinated gaze. “You have a unique approach to courtship,” he commented. “I wouldn’t have thought beating Daisy at lawn games would catch her interest, but it seems to have done the trick.”
Matthew contemplated the ground before his feet, schooling his tone into calm unconcern. “I’m not courting Miss Bowman.”
“Then it seems I misinterpreted your apparent passion for bowls.”
Matthew shot him a defensive glance. “I’ll admit, I find her entertaining. But that doesn’t mean I want to marry her.”
“The Bowman sisters are rather dangerous that way. When one of them first attracts your interest, all you know is she’s the most provoking creature you’ve ever encountered. But then you discover that as maddening as she is, you can scarcely wait until the next time you see her. Like the progression of an incurable disease, it spreads from one organ to the next. The craving begins. All other women begin to seem colorless and dull in comparison. You want her until you think you’ll go mad from it. You can’t stop thinking—”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Matthew interrupted, turning pale. He was not about to succumb to an incurable disease. A man had choices in life. And no matter what Westcliff believed, this was nothing more than a physical urge. An unholy powerful, gut-wrenching, insanity-producing physical urge…but it could be conquered by sheer force of will.
“If you say so,” Westcliff said, sounding unconvinced.
”
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Lisa Kleypas (Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4))
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Faut-il regretter le temps des guerres "à sens" ? souhaiter que les guerres d'aujourd'hui "retrouvent" leur sens perdu ? le monde irait-il mieux, moins bien, indifféremment, si les guerres avaient, comme jadis, ce sens qui les justifiait ? Une part de moi, celle qui a la nostalgie des guerres de résistance et des guerres antifascistes, a tendance à dire : oui, bien sûr ; rien n'est plus navrant que la guerre aveugle et insensée ; la civilisation c'est quand les hommes, tant qu'à faire, savent à peu près pourquoi ils se combattent ; d'autant que, dans une guerre qui a du sens, quand les gens savent à peu près quel est leur but de guerre et quel est celui de leur adversaire, le temps de la raison, de la négociation, de la transaction finit toujours par succéder à celui de la violence ; et d'autant (autre argument) que les guerres sensées sont aussi celles qui, par principe, sont les plus accessibles à la médiation, à l'intervention - ce sont les seules sur lesquelles des tiers, des arbitres, des observateurs engagés, peuvent espérer avoir quelque prise...Une autre part hésite. L'autre part de moi, celle qui soupçonne les guerres à sens d'être les plus sanglantes, celle qui tient la "machine à sens" pour une machine de servitude et le fait de donner un sens à ce qui n'en a pas, c'est-à-dire à la souffrance des hommes, pour un des tours les plus sournois par quoi le Diabolique nous tient, celle qui sait, en un mot, qu'on n'envoie jamais mieux les pauvres gens au casse-pipe qu'en leur racontant qu'ils participent d'une grande aventure ou travaillent à se sauver, cette part-là, donc, répond : "non ; le pire c'était le sens"; le pire c'est, comme disait Blanchot, "que le désastre prenne sens au lieu de prendre corps" ; le pire, le plus terrible, c'est d'habiller de sens le pur insensé de la guerre ; pas question de regretter, non, le "temps maudit du sens". (ch. 10
De l'insensé, encore)
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Bernard-Henri Lévy (War, Evil, and the End of History)
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Canon 21. « Si quelqu’un dit que le juste ait le pouvoir de persévérer sans un secours spécial de Dieu, ou qu’il ne le puisse avec ce secours : qu’il soit anathème. » Canon 25. « Si quelqu’un dit que le juste pèche en toute bonne œuvre véniellement, ou, ce qui est plus insupportable, mortellement, et qu’il mérite la peine éternelle, mais qu’il n’est pas damné, par cette seule raison que Dieu ne lui impute pas ses œuvres à damnation : qu’il soit anathème. » Par où l’on voit, non-seulement que ces paroles, que « les commandemens ne sont pas impossibles aux justes, » sont restreintes à cette condition, quand ils sont secourus par la grâce ; mais qu’elles n’ont que la même force que celles-ci, que « les justes ne pèchent pas en toutes leurs actions ; » et enfin tant s’en faut que le pouvoir prochain soit étendu à tous les justes, qu’il est défendu de l’attribuer à ceux qui ne sont pas secourus de ce secours spécial, qui n’est pas commun à tous, comme il a été expliqué. Concluons donc que tous les Pères ne tiennent pas un autre langage. Saint Augustin et les Pères qui l’ont suivi, n’ont jamais parlé des commandemens, qu’en disant qu’ils ne sont pas impossibles à la charité, et qu’ils ne nous sont faits que pour nous faire sentir le besoin que nous avons de la charité, qui seule les accomplit. « Dieu, juste et bon, n’a pu commander des choses impossibles ; ce qui nous avertit de faire ce qui est facile, et de demander ce qui est difficile. » (Aug., De nat. et grat., cap. LXIX.) « Car toutes choses sont faciles à la charité. » (De perfect. justit., cap. x.) Et ailleurs : « Qui ne sait que ce qui se fait par amour n’est pas difficile? Ceux-là ressentent de la peine à accomplir les préceptes, qui s’efforcent de les observer par la crainte ; mais la parfaite charité chasse la crainte, et rend le joug du précepte doux ; et, bien loin d’accabler par son poids, elle soulève comme si elle nous donnoit des ailes. » Cette charité ne vient pas de notre libre arbitre (si la grâce de Jésus-Christ ne nous secourt), parce qu’elle est infuse et mise dans nos cœurs, non par nous-mêmes, mais par le Saint-Esprit. Et l’Écriture nous avertit que les préceptes ne sont pas difficiles, par cette seule raison, qui est que l’âme qui les ressent pesans, entende qu’elle n’a pas encore reçu les forces par lesquelles ils lui sont doux et légers. « Quand il nous est commandé de vouloir, notre devoir nous est marqué ; mais parce que nous ne pouvons pas l’avoir de nous-mêmes, nous sommes avertis à qui nous devons le demander ; mais toutefois nous ne pouvons pas faire cette demande, si Dieu n’opère en nous de le vouloir. » (Fulg., lib. II, De verit. praedest., cap. iv.) « Les préceptes ne nous sont donnés que par cette seule raison, qui est de nous faire rechercher le secours de celui qui nous commande, » etc. (Prosper, Epist. ad Demetriad.) « Les pélagiens s’imaginent dire quelque chose d’important, quand ils disent que Dieu ne commanderoit pas ce qu’il saurait que l’homme ne pourroit faire. Qui ne sait cela? Mais il commande des choses que nous ne pouvons pas, afin que nous connoissions à qui nous devons le demander. » (Aug., De nat. et grat., cap. xv et xvi.) « O homme! reconnois dans le précepte ce que tu dois ; dans la correction, que c’est par ton vice que tu ne le fais pas ; et dans la prière, d’où tu peux en avoir le pouvoir! (Aug., De corrept., cap. ni.) Car la loi commande, afin que l’homme, sentant qu’il manque de force pour l’accomplir, ne s’enfle pas de superbe, mais étant fatigué, recoure à la grâce, et qu’ainsi la loi l’épouvantant le mène à l’amour de Jésus-Christ » (Aug., De perfect. respons. et ratiocin. xj., cap.
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Blaise Pascal (Blaise Pascal - Oeuvres Complètes LCI/40 (25 titres - Annoté, Illustré))
Megan Thomason (Arbitrate (Daynight, #2))
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Fleshing out a world, creating and playing a host of secondary character, arbitrating rules and crafting scenarios can be difficult tasks. Nonetheless, the chance to make a dream come alive is well worth the trouble. When the other characters carve their niches in the world, you give them the world itself.
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Mark Rein-Hagen (Wraith: The Oblivion)
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I analysed the causes of delay in delivering justice, which are: 1) an inadequate number of courts; 2) an inadequate number of judicial officers; 3) the judicial officers are not fully equipped to tackle cases involving specialized knowledge; 4) the dilatory tactics followed by the litigants and their lawyers who seek frequent adjournments and delays in filing documents; and 5) the role of the administrative staff of the court. Based on my analysis, I suggested encouraging dispute resolution through the human touch; reinforcing the Lok Adalats; creating a National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission; ensuring alternative dispute redressal mechanisms such as arbitration; and providing fast-track courts. I also suggested several actions with particular reference to pendency in the high courts. These included the classification of cases on the basis of an age analysis, that is, identifying cases that are redundant because the subsequent generations are not interested in pursuing them. Primary among my recommendations was the e-judiciary initiative. As part of this, I recommended computerization of the active case files, taking into account the age analysis, which will surely reduce the number of cases that are still pending.
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A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (The Righteous Life: The Very Best of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam)
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Blockchain applications are built around the idea that network is the arbitrator. This type of system is an unforgiving and blind environment.
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Tiana Laurence (Blockchain for Dummies)