Armour Life Quotes

Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.

That money talks, I'll not deny, I heard it once: it said, 'goodbye

The best armour of old age is a well spent life perfecting it.

That's the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they're suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That's why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster.

Persephone, grant me the foresight to know when I must let go my old life to start anew. Artemis, grant me the strength of your spine when you helped deliver Apollo, your own twin. Athena, grant me the solidarity in your sinews for which you were born in all of your armour. Aphrodite, grant me the kind of heart that always follows my passions true. Andromeda grant me the wish to never fall out of love with the night sky or the glisten of it’s stars. And Hera, grant me your fury, so I can remind my enemies I am not the weakness they perceive, I am the oncoming storm, I am war.

The best armour of old age is a well spent life preceding it.

The best Armour of Old Age is a well spent life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labours to improve himself from his Youth, will in Age reap the happiest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age; but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well-spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul

And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.

So furiously each other did assayle, As if their soules they would attonce haue rent Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent; That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent, And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore, Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent, So mortall was their malice and so sore, Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore.

But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.

But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.

You know,” he says, swallowing with some difficulty. “I always thought I was Achilles in this story—the over controlling mother, the famed heritage, the great expectations,” he smiles wryly. “But here I am James, wearing your armour, rushing off into battles I have no business fighting. Playing the hero, and failing, like the secondary character I am,” he laughs. “But that’s—“ he has to clear his throat. “That’s where the metaphor ends okay? Fuck fate, fuck prophecies, let someone else handle it. Let someone else save the day. You just…go away somewhere okay? Go live your beautiful life. Fade into obscurity, leave the heroics to people who have less to offer the world. Don’t go to Troy.

The primary nature of every human being is to be open to life and love. Being guarded, armoured, distrustful and enclosed is second nature in our culture. It is the means we adopt to protect ourselves against being hurt, but when such attitudes become characterological or structured in the personality, they constitute a more severe hurt and create a greater crippling than the one originally suffered.

The barriers we face in life are so often the ones we create in our minds. As a child I couldn’t open that wooden gate because my body prevented me from doing so. As a teenager it seemed I couldn’t open that door because my mind held me hostage. The world that waited beyond it now was no longer one of safety or escape. Instead, I knew every time that I opened that door, it would be to a life of psychological insecurity and emotional entrapment. She - that cerebral leech who clung to all my thoughts - convinced me of this fact. Only with her could I find and maintain an asylum of mental armour

Innocence is a bleeding wound without a bandage, a wound that opens with every casual knock from casual passers-by. Experience is an armour.

One day, a knight in shining armour may find my daughter, and offer to save her from her life, her problems, her troubles. In that situation, I hope that I have raised a girl that she smiles coolly and tells him, 'No, thank you. I've very much got this.' Then puts on her armour and rides off into the sunset alone to save herself.

Throughout the ancient world, naming was a sacred act. It was the word by which a child was called into his calling. It was the voice of destiny, summoning the child into his future with all its glorious promise.

I suppose to some extent all children have a touch of magic about them – like some mysterious living lens they seem to have the capacity to focus the light into the darkest and gloomiest of places – and this one had it in a very high degree. Perhaps it’s the very newness of the young, or perhaps it’s just because the shine hasn’t worn off, but they can and do, if you give them half a chance, make a dent in the toughest armour of life. If you’re very lucky they can dissolve away all those protective barricades so carefully erected over years of living.

As the man was bundled into an armoured police van, he turned and shouted: ‘Don’t waste your life following others! Be individual! Live your dreams!’ I stood there thinking. He was right. Ours is a society of followers, trapped by an island mentality.

Seeds of destruction take root in the human heart, and even among those who long for peace, they call to our darker instincts and urge us to violence.:

When you undress a woman you discover in her lingerie clues to her mood and desires. These whispers of silk and satin are our armour, our feathers and fantasy – black-sexy, pink-girlie, white-virginal, red-anything might happen and (we pray) almost certainly will.

I was young at Myna, that first time. When had the change come? He had retreated to here, to Collegium, to spin his awkward webs of intrigue and to lecture at the College. Then, years on, the call had come for action. He had gone to that chest in which he stored his youth and found that, like some armour long unworn, it had rusted away. He tried to tell himself that this was not like the grumbling of any other man who finds the prime of his life behind him. I need my youth and strength now, as never before. A shame that one could no husband time until one needed it. All his thoughts rang hollow. He was past his best and that was the thorn that would not be plucked from his side. He was no different from any tradesman or scholar who, during a life of indolence, pauses partway up the stairs to think, This was not so hard, yesterday.

Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it... Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It’s been protected by the efficient armour, it’s never participated in life, it’s never been exposed to living and to managing the person’s affairs, it’s never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it’s never properly lived. That’s how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced... And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It’s their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can’t understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That’s the carrier of all the living qualities. It’s the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn’t come out of that creature isn’t worth having, or it’s worth having only as a tool—for that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful... And so, wherever life takes it by surprise, and suddenly the artificial self of adaptations proves inadequate, and fails to ward off the invasion of raw experience, that inner self is thrown into the front line—unprepared, with all its childhood terrors round its ears. And yet that’s the moment it wants. That’s where it comes alive—even if only to be overwhelmed and bewildered and hurt. And that’s where it calls up its own resources—not artificial aids, picked up outside, but real inner resources, real biological ability to cope, and to turn to account, and to enjoy. That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self—struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence—you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself.

although I was as zealous in my anti-faith as Paul was in his belief I would be lying if I did not confess to a slight chink in my armour of nonbelief.

Every step we take in life, is one step closer to our death - Huja

Kindly permit me to tell you, sir, that I hate you. I hate you and your child, as I hate the life of which you are the representative: cheap, ridiculous, but yet triumphant life, the everlasting antipodes and deadly enemy of beauty. I cannot say I despise you - for I am honest. You are stronger than I. I have no armour for the struggle between us, I have only the Word, avenging weapon of the weak. Today I have availed myself of this weapon. This letter is nothing but an act of revenge - you see how honourable I am - and if any word of mine is sharp and bright and beautiful enough to strike home, to make you feel the presence of a power you do not know, to shake even a minute your robust equilibrium, I shall rejoice indeed. -

You are, madame, so perfectly armoured, so completely sure of yourself.' 'Now I wonder, if I am to take that as a compliment?' 'It is, perhaps, a warning--not to treat life with arrogance.

A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last, the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person - this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest?

Standing there, I had the feeling of putting on armour, taking up secret weapons, becoming like a dreamer, invulnerable for the moment—safe in my dream. Now I could face the world, having no part in life; the presence of waiting phantoms could be forgotten. I was outside everything, surrendered unconditionally to my dream, giving no thought to my next move, prepared to obey whatever impulse next reaches me from the unseen.

He drew a ragged breath. 'You ...' Felisin waited, hoping the life would flee this husk, flee it now, before— 'You ... were ... not what I expected ...' Armour can hide anything until the moment it falls away. Even a child. Especially a child.

Life lessons.... You have faced me head on and still I was reluctant to learn, I looked sideways anyway but in your eyes. I refused to see , ignored the lessons .. all too much. Guess what? Now I have no choice but to open my eyes. My very survival depends on it. I have to learn to depend on me. Finally it has clicked . I am my own knight in shining armour. ' Standing up for me!

Yes, they can be cold, evil bastards, and this…this relationship didn’t start off in the best way. But what ever does in real life? They aren’t knights in shining armour, no, they are the villains in the dark, with brooding eyes and beast-like tendencies. I never needed a knight.

Danny used one of the most powerful defences known in psychology: depersonalization. He cut off all his feelings. It was the perfect armour. The only problem with his perfect weapon was that he could barely attach to anyone, or feel life’s pleasures. As he said at the beginning of our work together, “I don’t need joy.” He was right, in a way. Is it better to feel or to maintain your sanity? For many years, he chose the latter.

I want a different life, but I do not want to break this safe, familiar cycle. I want to be someone else, but I don’t believe I can be, and I don’t want to risk sacrificing my comforting state of thinness to try that out, only to realise that I’ve lost my armour and confirmed my worthlessness.

Every single sorrow in my heart came about as a result of my forgetting who I am. Every single catastrophe that has happened in my life was designed to cause me to forget who I am. If there is one weapon you need to repeatedly pick up and continuously hold onto, that is the sword and shield and armour of KNOWING THYSELF. Know your soul, see your spirit, look at who you are and breathe it. This is your mission in life. This is the treasure your enemy wants to steal.

One should embrace the artist's profession only after recognising in oneself an intense passion for Nature and the disposition to pursue it with a perseverance that nothing can shatter - thirst for neither approval nor financial profit. Do not be discouraged by the censure that might fall upon one's works - one must be armoured with a strong conviction which makes one go straight ahead fearing no obstacle. An unremitting task […] an unassailable conscience. (From a sketchbook of 1847).

When the absolute free will argument loses its shining armour, we are left with one unsettling conclusion; there is but circumstantial free will. - On the End of Free Will

The good people in our life are like unintentional bodyguards who give us cover, stop the bullets penetrating our armour and help keep us upright.

To have known, at close quarters, what absolute evil means, is to be armoured against what life can do to you.

But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by. I

It’s our ability to live with those flaws, rise above the unfairness in the world, this is what makes us sentient beings - Huja

Better to live life not expecting anything from anyone. That way you’ll never be upset when they let you down - Will

Will always wanted to live his own life, not have others live it for him. Looking back at it now, it was foolish to think so

He always used to tell us that our attitude and the way we spent our time, defined our character - Awa

An enduring silence can bring life into focus very quickly.

Life is full of risks, but the biggest one is doing nothing at all - Anver

She found indifference to the whole world a trusty armour: life was easy without love or hate, hope or despair, without ambition, desire of change, or tumultuous passion.

Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every breath that stirs.

In life I have done many things, proclaimed even more, most of which will be forgotten. What people will treasure dearly, is how I stirred their emotions and brought out the best in them - Konjic

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands on the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have a care what thou dost; touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy life as the penalty of thy rashness.

Mr. Fonseka would not be a wealthy man. And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.

Maybe you have been wondering about how to win the battle of life. Dress in the armour of war; be well grounded in the requisite knowledge to win your battle. Refine your skills, talents and tactics and forge ahead with determination. Prepare in advance and enter the war with the right strategy. Work with your warriors as a team. Avoid unnecessary mistakes and learn from your errors. Use the right weapons in your arsenal at the right time. Attack your struggles and protect your dreams. Know that timing is everything. Never give up until you destroy all your roadblocks. Capitalise on your strength and with victory in focus you will become a winner.

Denning had a mind like a battleship. Most ideas simply bounced off his hull. When an idea of sufficient caliber penetrated his armour, it was treated as a calamity. The HMS Ignorance’s crew frantically worked to seal off bulkheads, dog hatches, and do all they could to keep intelligent thought from ricocheting through his mind and doing any more damage.

And so, it is not our own life that we live, but the lives of the dead, and the soul that dwells within us is no single spiritual entity, making us personal and individual, created for our service, and entering into us for our joy. It is something that has dwelt in fearful places, and in ancient sepulchres has made its abode. It is sick with many maladies, and has memories of curious sins. It is wiser than we are, and its wisdom is bitter. It fills us with impossible desires, and makes us follow what we know we cannot gain. One thing, however, Ernest, it can do for us. It can lead us away from surroundings whose beauty is dimmed to us by the mist of familiarity, or whose ignoble ugliness and sordid claims are marring the perfection of our development. It can help us to leave the age in which we were born, and to pass into other ages, and find ourselves not exiled from their air. It can teach us how to escape from our experience, and to realise the experiences of those who are greater than we are. The pain of Leopardi crying out against life becomes our pain. Theocritus blows on his pipe, and we laugh with the lips of nymph and shepherd. In the wolfskin of Pierre Vidal we flee before the hounds, and in the armour of Lancelot we ride from the bower of the Queen. We have whispered the secret of our love beneath the cowl of Abelard, and in the stained raiment of Villon have put our shame into song. We can see the dawn through Shelley's eyes, and when we wander with Endymion the Moon grows amorous of our youth. Ours is the anguish of Atys, and ours the weak rage and noble sorrows of the Dane. Do you think that it is the imagination that enables us to live these countless lives? Yes: it is the imagination; and the imagination is the result of heredity. It is simply concentrated race-experience.

My advice would be to find a good woman and steer well clear of the whole bloody business, and it’s a shame no one told me the same twenty years ago.” He looked sideways at Jezal. “But if, say, you’re stuck out on some great wide plain in the middle of nowhere and can’t avoid it, there’s three rules I’d take to a fight. First, always do your best to look the coward, the weakling, the fool. Silence is a warrior’s best armour, the saying goes. Hard looks and hard words have never won a battle yet, but they’ve lost a few.” “Look the fool, eh? I see.” Jezal had built his whole life around trying to appear the cleverest, the strongest, the most noble. It was an intriguing idea, that a man might choose to look like less than he was. “Second, never take an enemy lightly, however much the dullard he seems. Treat every man like he’s twice as clever, twice as strong, twice as fast as you are, and you’ll only be pleasantly surprised. Respect costs you nothing, and nothing gets a man killed quicker than confidence.” “Never underestimate the foe. A wise precaution.” Jezal was beginning to realise that he had underestimated this Northman. He wasn’t half the idiot he appeared to be. “Third, watch your opponent as close as you can, and listen to opinions if you’re given them, but once you’ve got your plan in mind, you fix on it and let nothing sway you. Time comes to act, you strike with no backwards glances. Delay is the parent of disaster, my father used to tell me, and believe me, I’ve seen some disasters.

At a merchant’s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to an armourer’s, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of defence) it might be called an added danger.

Living away from the present, in an artificial paradise, Bertha was almost completely happy. She found indifference to the whole world a trusty armour: life was easy without love or hate, hope or despair, without ambition, desire of change, or tumultuous passion. So bloom the flowers; unconscious, uncaring, the bud bursts from the enclosing leaf, and opens to the sunshine, squanders its perfume to the breeze and there is none to see its beauty—and then it dies.

The best Armour of Old Age is a well-spent life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labours to improve himself from his Youth, will in Age reap the happinest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age; but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well-spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul

The Blood Supper by Stewart Stafford Nightcrawler leaves their dirt bed, Seeking an essential blood supper, Cloaked in regal Stygian armour, Bar one chink in the left chest area. All the experience of centuries used, Lives lived long before their victims, Stalking stacked in a predator's favour, Shock overwhelms when blindsided. The infected victim then becomes one, With their undead attacker, connected, Sharing their contagion and obsessions, In a parasitic void betwixt life and death. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

When the warriors came out first from their master's hall, where had they hid their power? Where were their armour and their arms? They looked poor and helpless, and the arrows were showered upon them on the day they came out from their master's hall. When the warriors marched back again to their master's hall where did they hide their power? They had dropped the sword and dropped the bow and the arrow; peace was on their foreheads, and they had left the fruits of their life behind them on the day they marched back again to their master's hall.

When Nature makes a chump like dear old Bobbie, she’s proud of him, and doesn’t want her handiwork disturbed. She gives him a sort of natural armour to protect him against outside interference. And that armour is shortness of memory. Shortness of memory keeps a man a chump when, but for it, he might cease to be one. Take my case, for instance. I’m a chump. Well, if I had remembered half the things people have tried to teach me during my life, my size in hats would be about number nine. But I didn’t. I forgot them. And it was just the same with Bobbie.

The story of Kelly is easily told. He was a murderous thug who deserved to be hanged and was. He came from a family of rough Irish settlers, who made their living by stealing livestock and waylaying innocent passers-by. Like most bushrangers he was at pains to present himself as a champion of the oppressed, though in fact there wasn’t a shred of nobility in his character or his deeds. He killed several people, often in cold blood, sometimes for no very good reason. In 1880, after years on the run, Kelly was reported to be holed up with his modest gang (a brother and two friends) in Glenrowan, a hamlet in the foothills of the Warby Range in north-eastern Victoria. Learning of this, the police assembled a large posse and set off to get him. As surprise attacks go, it wasn’t terribly impressive. When the police arrived (on an afternoon train) they found that word of their coming had preceded them and that a thousand people were lined up along the streets and sitting on every rooftop eagerly awaiting the spectacle of gunfire. The police took up positions and at once began peppering the Kelly hideout with bullets. The Kellys returned the fire and so it went throughout the night. The next dawn during a lull Kelly stepped from the dwelling, dressed unexpectedly, not to say bizarrely, in a suit of home-made armour – a heavy cylindrical helmet that brought to mind an inverted bucket, and a breastplate that covered his torso and crotch. He wore no armour on his lower body, so one of the policemen shot him in the leg. Aggrieved, Kelly staggered off into some nearby woods, fell over and was captured. He was taken to Melbourne, tried and swiftly executed. His last words were: ‘Such is life.

As he stood there lost in reflection, Auclair thought he seemed more like a man revolving plans for a new struggle with fortune than one looking back upon a life of brilliant features. The Count had the bearing of a fencer when he takes up the foil; from his shoulders to his heels there was intention and direction. His carriage was his unconscious idea of himself, -- it was an armour he put on when he took off his night-cap in the morning, and he wore it all day, at early mass, at his desk, on the march, at the Council, at his dinner-table. Even his enemies relied upon his strength.

Deep in the minds of most energetic persons lies some strong desire, some strong ambition, or some resolute hope, which unconsciously moulds, or, at least, influences their every act. No matter what their circumstances in life may be, or how much they may yield to those circumstances for a time, the one idea remains ever the same. This is, in fact, one of the secrets of how individual force of character comes out at times. The great idea, whatever it may be, sits enthroned in the mind, and round it gather subordinate wishes and resolves, as the feudal nobles round the King, and so goes on the chain down the whole gamut of man’s nature from the taming or suppression of his wildest passions down to the commonplace routine of his daily life. And yet we wonder at times to see, when occasion offers, with what astonishing rapidity certain individuals assert themselves, and how, when a strange circumstance arises, some new individual arises along with it, as though the man and the hour were predestined for each other. We need not wonder if we will but think that all along the man was ready, girt in his armour, resolved in his cause, and merely awaiting, although, perhaps, he knew it not, the opportunity to manifest himself.

I can't tell you how many times in my life I have been told that I have “control issues”. Historically, this statement has brought me annoyance—the kind of irritation that can only be described as a self-protective reaction to having my behaviours labelled for exactly what they were. Needless to say, these accusations would make me defensive. I'd pull my armour tighter and get out my weapons—anything to protect myself from the truth. I realized, one day, that there were only a few things I could control, and a whole lot of things that I couldn't. I realized that trying to control everything around me was a recipe for failure, because it simply wasn't possible. I wish I could tell you that I "let go" then—that it was a lovely, beautiful spiritual moment, and now I'm all better. But that isn't true. Because, for me, seeking to control things which can't be controlled isn't a random tick or flaw. It's a stage of communication in the language of my own mind. If I don't listen to the first whispers that tell me I've repressed some emotion or neglected to process some event—then, stage two starts. Every piece of dirt on the floor, every chewing noise, every unexpected obstacle... they all become intolerable. So, I have two choices when this happens. I can allow my desire to control the outside world to turn into trying to control it. Or, I can allow myself to hear what is being said to me—to interpret this strange language that I speak to myself in and respond with compassion. Do I consistently do the wise thing first? No. I forget. And then I remember, somewhere in the middle of neurotically scrubbing a wall. But I remember faster now than I did before, and sometimes I really am able to respond quickly. It's a journey. I'm not perfect. But I am doing the right thing, and I get better at it every time I have the chance to practice. That's what learning and letting go really is—a practice. It's never over. And it never is, and never will be, perfect.

A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person—this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,—the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.

certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person — this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well — the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.

When I love God I love the beauty of bodies, the rhythm of movements, the shining of eyes, the embraces, the feelings, the scents, the sounds of all this protean creation. When I love you, my God, I want to embrace it all, for I love you with all my senses in the creations of your love. In all the things that encounter me, you are waiting for me. For a long time I looked for you within myself and crept into the shell of my soul, shielding myself with an armour of inapproachability. But you were outside - outside myself - and enticed me out of the narrowness of my heart into the broad place of love for life. So I came out of myself and found my soul in my senses, and my own self in others.

There was Bobbie, ambling gently through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a chump of the first water. And there was Mary, determined that he shouldn’t be a chump. And Nature, mind you, on Bobbie’s side. When Nature makes a chump like dear old Bobbie, she’s proud of him, and doesn’t want her handiwork disturbed. She gives him a sort of natural armour to protect him against outside interference. And that armour is shortness of memory. Shortness of memory keeps a man a chump, when, but for it, he might cease to be one. Take my case, for instance. I’m a chump. Well, if I had remembered half the things people have tried to teach me during my life, my size in hats would be about number nine. But I didn’t. I forgot them. And it was just the same with Bobbie.

Achilles groaned and answered, "Mother, Olympian Jove has indeed vouchsafed me the fulfilment of my prayer, but what boots it to me, seeing that my dear comrade Patroclus has fallen- he whom I valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life? I have lost him; aye, and Hector when he had killed him stripped the wondrous armour, so glorious to behold, which the gods gave to Peleus when they laid you in the couch of a mortal man. Would that you were still dwelling among the immortal sea-nymphs, and that Peleus had taken to himself some mortal bride. For now you shall have grief infinite by reason of the death of that son whom you can never welcome home- nay, I will not live nor go about among mankind unless Hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for having slain Patroclus son of Menoetius.

Civil war had ignited, deadly as that storm in the sky. Families were being torn asunder, from the Citadel itself down to the meanest homes of the commons. And blood painted Kharkanas and there was nowhere to run. Through the gate, and then, even as despair choked all life from Endest Silann, he saw him approaching. From the city below. His forearms sheathed in black glistening scales, his bared chest made a thing of natural armour. The blood of Tiam ran riot through him, fired to life by the conflation of chaotic sorcery, and his eyes glowed with ferocious will. Endest fell to his knees in Anomander's path. 'Lord! The world falls!' 'Rise, priest,' he replied. 'The world does not fall. It but changes. I need you. Come.' And so he walked past, and Endest found himself on his feet, as Lord Anomander's will closed about his heart like an iron gauntlet, pulling him round and into the great warrior's wake.

Noting that material poverty in the US was matched by an even greater “poverty of satisfaction, purpose, and dignity,” Kennedy decried GDP as a poor measure of the state of the nation. “Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things,” he said. The GDP was buoyed, he noted, by cigarette advertising, ambulances, home security, jails, the destruction of redwood forests, urban sprawl, napalm, nuclear warheads and the armoured vehicles used by police against riots in American cities. “It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile,” Kennedy said.

Griff entered the cave, sword in hand. He had no desire to frighten Astelle, but he had to be prepared for anything. She jumped up from her fireside position with a small stifled scream at his entry, then continued to back fearfully towards the shadowed wall. She was quite alone. Griff could sense no other presence – only hers, and the wonder of it. He sheathed his sword, and gazed upon his long-lost love. Her hair had lost all trace of colour while still retaining the texture of youth, giving the appearance of white silk. There was a pulsating light of a blue-lilac shade which clung to the crown of her head, reflecting in the hair – a soul – a lost spirit – someone who had loved her. She was almost as pale as death, for Torking took far too much blood from her, too frequently. She was also much thinner than she should have been, but for all of this, she was still the most beautiful sight of his life. Her body was ravaged with Torking's bites and claw-marks. She was still wearing his old cloak which Griff instantly recognised, though it was little more than a rag, wrapped around her body and tied on one shoulder. Her beautiful dark eyes, those which had so haunted his dreams, seemed over-large in her pale face, as she stared at him with a mingling of shock, disbelief and joy. Griff took a few hesitant steps towards her, unsure of his reception. ‘Astelle?’ His voice grated with emotion. How often had she yearned to hear him speak her name exactly in that way? ‘Astelle – is it really you?’ He was just as divinely handsome as she remembered, and he looked so fine – he looked magnificent in Gremlen battledress. In the flickering torchlight, the blue krulmesh armour glittered over the black leather tunic. The emerald sheen in his raven hair was vivid as ever. Best of all, his dark forest-green eyes were shining with love, and she suddenly understood that Griff was a hundred times more beautiful than Torking, for his eyes held everything that was good, fine and noble. Astelle's heart almost stopped beating as she gazed at him. Her eyes filled with tears, and her lip trembled as she tried to whisper his name.

Here, then, as Christians in the West began to go their own way, was a deep paradox: that the more distinctive a vision of the afterlife they came to have, the more it bore witness to its origins in the East. Jewish scripture and Greek philosophy, once again, had blended to potent effect. Indeed, across what had once been Roman provinces, in lands pockmarked by abandoned villas and crumbling basilicas, few aspects of life were as coloured by the distant past as the dread of death. What awaited the soul after it had slipped its mortal shell? If not angels, and the road to heaven, then demons black as the Persians had always imagined the agents of the Lie to be; Satan armoured with an account book, just as tax officials of the vanished empire might have borne; a pit of fire, in which the torments of the damned echoed those described, not by the authors of Holy Scripture, but by the poets of pagan Athens and Rome. It was a vision woven out of many ancient elements; but not a vision that Christians of an earlier age would have recognised. Revolutionary in its implications for the dead, it was to prove revolutionary as well in its implications for the living.

That which is unnamed was first,” it said. “But I am named, flesh queen. Remember.” Its pupils thinned. “The cold one on the ship. She was your kin.” Glorian looked at the other skull. “She fell to my flame. So will this land. We will finish the scouring, for we are the teeth that harrow and turn. The mountain is the forge and smith, and we, its iron offspring—come to avenge the first, the forebear, he who sleeps beneath.” Every warrior should know fear, Glorian Brightcry. Without it, courage is an empty boast. “You confess,” Glorian said, “that you slew the blood of the Saint.” Her voice kept breaking. “Do you then declare war on Inys?” Fyredel—the wyrm—let out a rattle. A score of complex scales and muscles shifted in its face. “When your days grow long and hot,” he said, “when the sun in the North never sets, we shall come.” On both sides of the Strondway, those who had not fled were rooted to the spot, fixated on Glorian. She realized what they must be thinking. If she died childless, the eternal vine was at its end. What she did next could define how they saw the House of Berethnet for centuries to come. Start forging your armour, Glorian. You will need it. She looked down once more at her parents’ remains, the bones the wyrms had dumped here like a spoil of war. In her memory, her father laughed and drew her close. He would never laugh again. Never smile. Her mother would never tell her she loved her, or how to calm her dreams. And where there had been fear, there was anger. “If you—If you dare to turn your fire on Inys,” Glorian bit out, “then I will do as my ancestor did to the Nameless One.” She forced herself to lift her chin in defiance. “I will drive you back with sword and spear, with bow and lance!” Shaking, she heaved for air. “I am the voice, the body of Inys. My stomach is its strength—my heart, its shield— and if you think I will submit to you because I am small and young, you are wrong.” Sweat was running down her back. She had never been so afraid in her life. “I am not afraid,” she said. At this, the wyrm unfurled its wings to their full breadth. From tip to hooked tip, they were as wide as two longships facing each other. People scrambled out of their shadow. “So be it, Shieldheart.” It steeped the word in mockery. “Treasure your darkness, for the fire comes. Until then, a taste of our flame, to light your city through the winter. Heed my words.

In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations—configurations—of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other—when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.

It is difficult to be a saint, because even a patient and long-suffering nature will not readily endure such a high degree of differentiation and defends itself in its own way. The constant companion of sanctity is temptation, without which no true saint can live. We know that these temptations can pass off unconsciously, so that only their equivalents reach consciousness in the form of symptoms. We know, too, that Herz traditionally rhymes with Schmerz.38 It is a well-known fact that hysterics substitute a physical pain for a psychic pain which is not felt because repressed. Catherina Emmerich’s biographer has understood this more or less correctly, but her own interpretation of the pain is based, as usual, on a projection: it is always the others who secretly say all sorts of wicked things about her, and this is the cause of her pains. The facts of the matter are rather different: the renunciation of all life’s joys, this fading before the flower, is always painful, and especially painful are the unfulfilled desires and the attempts of nature to break through the barrier of repression, without which no such differentiation would be possible. The gossip and sarcastic gibes of the sisters very naturally pick on these painful things, so that it must seem to the saint as if her difficulties came from there. She could hardly know that gossip is very apt to take over the role of the unconscious, and, like a skilled adversary, always aims at the chinks in our armour of which we know nothing.

Writing on role of victim, how we chose to be one in life , why we do it and how we can be free of that. Victim is a role we take very early in our life for many reasons. Like to protect ourselves, to be visible, to be listened, by fear, for approval and many others. It's the armour we create around us because we do not have any choices other then this. Slowly it become in our subconscious nature. We attract people in our life who are victimiser and we become victim again. We are used by them, we feel weak and overpowered by them. How do we know that we are in this role? It's very important for us to know that we are victim and its not doing good or serving us anymore. When we are victim we feel helpless, no power within, we physically too are unhealthy and our grounding is not stable. Find hard to make decision about anything, some of us find comfort in when other shows sympathy or pity towards us. We clearly need to know and accept that we have armour this role so far because there was no option or alternatives for us. Then slowly we can start choosing things, people which can bring us in our own body where we can tap that hidden power in us. Ask for help, engage in activity which will help you to break free of this mindset. We need to change our own energy frequency to attract people who are warrior, who are courageous and brave. Who can show us what does it feel to have courage and power within. Mantra is I do not need you my dear armour any more. Thank you for looking after me so long but now I am strong, confident and courageous to break free of this. I do not accept the role of Victim any more.

Only the History of William Marshal described this encounter in close terms, though the broad details of its account were confirmed in other contemporary sources. One thing seems certain. This was to be no fair fight. So intent had Richard been upon hunting down his father, that he had begun his chase wearing only a doublet and light helm. This added speed to his pursuit, but left him dreadfully exposed to attack. Worse still, the Lionheart was armed with only a sword. Marshal, by contrast, had a shield and lance. The biographer described how: [William] spurred straight on to meet the advancing [Duke] Richard. When the [duke] saw him coming he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘God’s legs, Marshal! Don’t kill me. That would be a wicked thing to do, since you find me here completely unarmed.’ In that instant, Marshal could have slain Richard, skewering his body with the same lethal force that dispatched Patrick of Salisbury in 1168. Had there been more than a split second to ponder the choice, William might perhaps have reacted differently. As it was, instinct took over. Marshal simply could not bring himself to kill an un-armoured opponent, let alone the heir-apparent to the Angevin realm, King Henry II’s eldest surviving son. Instead, he was said to have shouted in reply: ‘Indeed I won’t. Let the Devil kill you! I shall not be the one to do it’, and at the last moment, lowering his lance fractionally, he drove it into Richard’s mount. With that ‘the horse died instantly; it never took another step forward’ and, as it fell, the Lionheart was thrown to the ground and his pursuit of the king brought to an end.

I'm sorry.' It was those two words that shattered me. Shattered me in a way I didn't know I could still be broken, a rending of every tether and leash. Stay with the High Lord. The Suriel's last warning. Stay... and live to see everything righted. A lie. A lie, as Rhys had lied to me. Stay with the High Lord. Stay. For there... the torn scraps of the mating bond. Floating on a phantom wind inside me. I grasped at them- tugged at them, as if he'd answer. Stay. Stay, stay, stay. I clung to those scraps and remnants, clawing at the voice that lurked beyond. Stay. I looked up at Tarquin, lip curling back from my teeth. Looked at Helion. And Thesan. And Beon and Kallias, Viviane weeping at his side. And I snarkled, 'Bring him back.' Blank faces. I screamed at them, 'BRING HIM BACK.' Nothing. 'You did it for me,' I said, breathing hard. 'Now do it for him.' 'You were human,' Helion said carefully. 'It is not the same-' 'I don't care. Do it.' When they didn't move, I rallied the dregs of my power, readying to rip into their minds and force them, not caring what rules or laws it broke. I wouldn't care, only if- Tarquin stepped forward. He slowly extended his hand toward me. 'For what he gave,' Tarquin said quietly. 'Today and for many years before.' And as the seed of light appeared in his palm... I began crying again. Watched it drop onto Rhys's bare throat and vanish onto the skin beneath, an echo of light flaring once. Helion stepped forward. That kernel of light in his hand flickered as it fell onto Rhys's skin. Then Kallias. And Thesan. Until only Beron stood there. Mor drew her sword and laid it on his throat. He jerked, having not seen her move. 'I do not mind making one more kill today,' she said. Beron gave her a withering glare, but shoved off the sword and strode forward. He practically chucked that fleck of light onto Rhys. I didn't care about that, either. I didn't know the spell, the power it came from. But I was High Lady. I held out my palm. Willing the spark of life to appear. Nothing happened. I took a steadying breath, remembering how it had looked. 'Tell me how,' I growled to no one. Thesan coughed and stepped forward. Explaining the core of power and on and on and I didn't care, but I listened, until- There. Small as a sunflower seed, it appeared in my palm. A bit of me- my life. I laid it gently on Rhys's blood-crusted throat. And I realised, just as he appeared, what was missing. Tamlin stood there, summoned by either the death of a fellow High Lord or one of the others around me. He was splattered in mud and gore, his new bandolier of knives mostly empty. He studied Rhys, lifeless before me. Studied all of us- the palms still out. There was no kindness on his face. No mercy. 'Please,' was all I said to him. Then Tamlin glanced between us- me and my mate. His face did not change. 'Please,' I wept. 'I will- I will give you anything-' Something shifted in his eyes at that. But not kindness. No emotion at all. I laid my head on Rhysand's chest, listening for any kind of heartbeat through that armour. 'Anything,' I breathed to no one in particular. 'Anything.' Steps scuffed on the rocky ground. I braced myself for another set of hands trying to pull me away, and dug my fingers in harder. The steps remained behind me for long enough that I looked. Tamlin stood there. Staring down at me. Those green eyes swimming with some emotion I couldn't place. 'Be happy, Feyre,' he said quietly. And dropped that final kernel of light onto Rhysand.

In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations – configurations – of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other – when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.

The Sea Witch’s Lament To really see what the sea witch had to go through, you must first remember what happens when you get your heart broken for the very first time. People always minimise it, say you’ll get over it, say first loves don’t matter as much as last ones, but that first heartbreak, that’s the death of your innocence. And you’re blindly walking in the darkness that’s trying to absorb you. A darkness that you have no tools or weapons to navigate, that is what the end of first love feels like. Some of us come out of that darkness still mostly whole, and those are the lucky ones.   Because some of us never come back at all. “And this was the story with the sea witch, the incredible ample-bodied being who was larger than life as a child, living her life with laughter and magic and joy. She spent her days learning how to look after the forgotten sea creatures that the merpeople considered too ugly or terrifying to tend to. Pilot fish and barracudas and eels were her friends, for they knew it was her they could always look to. Unfortunately for the sea witch, love comes for every woman. Just when we are sure we are safe from its clutches, it moves its way inside our hearts and we give ourselves completely to it, surrender in every way possible. This is why it is said love is to women what war is to men.   Sixteen-year-old Sea Witch fell in love with the then seventeen-year-old Mer-Prince. And he fell too for this impossible, wonderful, darkly magical girl from a different tribe who he knew his family would never approve of. You would hope it would be that simple, that when two people give each other their hearts, the world falls away and lets them be, but that is rarely the case. Love is as complicated as the truth.   So when his father presented him with an ultimatum, with a choice to give up his future kingdom and Ursula, Triton chose his kingdom. A part of him was too cowardly and too haughty to live the way she did, simply and protecting everything the merpeople threw away. So the sea witch was left to wander this darkness alone. And she never ever came out of it. To save herself from destruction, she blindly grabbed at her only lifeline, that which armoured what was left of her ruined heart by choosing the destruction that her mother, the sea, had given to her in her blood. The sea witch was never born evil, she became that way because she couldn’t let loose her emotions. Instead, she buried them deep and let them fester and turn into poison. This, this is the damage not grieving properly for first love can do. It can consume and destroy and harden all the goodness inside of you.   In the sea witch’s story, she had no one to turn to. But you, my darling, have an army of all of the stars, to fill your grief-filled days with the comfort you can hold onto. You are not alone. With this endless universe above you that has given you the gift of existence. You are not alone.

The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes. On a winter day she was in the studio, posing for him in the nude, her arms raised in a graceful position. To hold it for any length of time must have been a strain, I wondered how she managed to keep so still; until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles. Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour. Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the structure of ice and snow. As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of her world. Fear was the climate she lived in; if she had ever known kindness it would have been different. The trees seemed to obstruct her with deliberate malice. All her life she had thought of herself as a foredoomed victim, and now the forest had become the malign force that would destroy her. In desperation she tried to run, but a hidden root tripped her, she almost fell. Branches caught in her hair, tugged her back, lashed out viciously when they were disentangled. The silver hairs torn from her head glittered among black needles; they were the clues her pursuers would follow, leading them to their victim. She escaped from the forest at length only to see the fjord waiting for her. An evil effluence rose from the water, something primitive, savage, demanding victims, hungry for a human victim. It had been night overhead all along, but below it was still daylight. There were no clouds. I saw islands scattered over the sea, a normal aerial view. Then something extraordinary, out of this world: a wall of rainbow ice jutting up from the sea, cutting right across, pushing a ridge of water ahead of it as it moved, as if the flat pale surface of sea was a carpet being rolled up. It was a sinister, fascinating sight, which did not seem intended for human eyes. I stared down at it, seeing other things at the same time. The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.

We were a motley crowd. His Majesty’s Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards jostled along in their army trucks beside the Bedouin of the Arab Legion - Glubb’s Desert Patrol, swathed in garish robes, who raced about in light trucks armed with Lewis guns. We even embraced eight Royal Air Force armoured cars. Tough stuff, these boys. They had left Sidi Barrani in the Western Desert on Thursday and were reported in action against the Iraqi guerrillas at Rutbah on Saturday, a thousand miles away. They were all rogues, God bless them, for whom the War had come as an eleventh hour reprieve. They were the sort of men to whom legend clung like the cloak of Mephistopheles.

a considerable portion of the appalling loss of British life was due to the destruction of the old armoured cruisers which had no business at Jutland

The more our life has been corrupted with hypocrisy and unfaithfulness, the weaker our faith will be in a dying hour.

That he who means to be a Christian indeed, must endeavour to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in his life and conversation.

So that now all those ways whereby God directly made known his mind to this people, are resolved into this one of the Scriptures, which we are to receive as the undoubted word of God, containing in a perfect rule of faith and life, and to expect no other revelation of his mind to us.

In a word, in times of public calamity, when the flood of God’s wrath comes rolling in upon a nation, like waves irresistibly, at the wide breach which the high crying sins of the times make, and the few righteous that are found upon the place labour to stand in the gap, by their prayers, begging the life of the nation, but God will not hear, even then sincerity will be a sweet support while we share with others in the common calamity.

Because thy stock of grace in hand is small, thou questionest thy persevering.  ‘Can these weak legs,’ thinkest thou, ‘bring me to my journey’s end; these few pence in my purse’—little grace in my heart—‘bear my charges all the way to heaven, through so many expenses of trials and temptations?’  Truly no, if thou wert to receive no more than thou hast at present.  The bread thou hast in the cupboard will not maintain thee all thy life.  But, soul, thou hast a covenant will help thee to more when that grows low.  Hath not God taught thee to pray for thy ‘daily bread?’ and dost thou not find that the blessing of God in thy calling, diligently followed, supplies thee from day to day?  And hast thou not the same bond to sue for thy spiritual ‘daily bread?’ hast thou not a Father in heaven that knows what thou needest for thy soul as well as body?

High on the steep slope of the hill, fieldfares are flying to roost. It is nearly dark. The tall, grizzled pines have a bony serenity. They tower against the skyline of the hill. It seems that beyond them there must be canyons and mist and nothing more. Silence hangs from their branches. The air tastes cold and metallic. The tiercel glides up to the trees, like a shadow. He calls once: a sound as final as the clanging of a portcullis. The glaring eyes squint up, and are sheathed in sleep. The hawk puffs out his feathers, looking cuddly and harmless. Only the armour-plated legs and the sickled toes do not relax, will never relax in life.

The Chariot Cometh by Stewart Stafford O gleaming chariot of restoration, Ferrying that tortuous animal, Man, Ministering as Gods to mortals, Dispensing the miracle of rebirth. Woe to that lost, delinquent essedum, Neglecting and failing malcontents, Memories fade in mind, not in heart, Angel of mercy now a spirit of vengeance. Grief stalks the mad and jealous soul, Juggling coals of rectitude and retribution, Scalded palms scant refuge from pain, Let savagery flee to its depths, be free. Examine the formidable hand-me-downs, And transform them into life's armour, Or be an infant in hanging father's flesh, Abdicating the procession of succession. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

Such a one is encased, is he not, in an armour—such an armour! The armour of the crusaders was nothing to it—an armour of arrogance, of pride, of complete self-esteem. This armour, it is in some ways a protection, the arrows, the everyday arrows of life glance off it. But there is this danger; Sometimes a man in armour might not even know he was being attacked. He will be slow to see, slow to hear—slower still to feel.

Faith is a decision to engage in warfare without any spear, only with the armour of God in your hand.

The Armour of God is no protection against the wiles of the devil if our faith is not real and active in our basic relationships and private life. For what good is armour if the enemy has already found his way behind it? Success in Christian warfare depends on the right preparations being made.

And were you not nearly a dragon? And are you not cured? The only qualification for treating a disease is to survive it, and right now seventeen patients are crushing themselves under belligerent armour without one reasonable soul to care for them. Don’t be afraid! You need see nobody whose problem is not a form of your own.

I know it, I see it. They want me here, all apart from Garrett. Yeah, they’re criminals, but half the people I know are. Yes, they can be cold, evil bastards, and this… this relationship didn’t start off in the best way. But what ever does in real life? They aren’t knights in shining armour, no, they are the villains in the dark, with brooding eyes and beast-like tendencies. I never needed a knight. I needed a body to stand with me in the dark, and these snakes? They do.

You need to let me go, Dmitri, and move on. I am not going to marry you.” “I will have you.” Such conviction, and he’d brought some muscle to try and prove his statement. A pair of brutes exited the car. Dmitri’s order of, “Don’t hurt her,” made her tsk aloud. Please. If he thought to subdue her, he should have brought more guys. As the one gorilla— and seriously, despite his obvious humanity, she had to wonder at his ancestry— grabbed for her arm, she sidestepped, causing him to snare only air. She, on the other hand, didn’t miss. Her foot swung out and cracked goon number one in the knee. He let out a yelp of pain, but before she could take him out fully, the second guy lunged for her. She ducked under his grasping hands and thrust, her fist connecting with his diaphragm. He gasped for breath. She took no mercy and kneed him in the groin, just as goon number one made his next move. With a tinkle of bells, the door to the coffee shop opened, and a very calm-sounding Leo said, “Lay a finger on her, and I will rip your arm off and beat you with it.” As threats went, it was adorable. Especially since, given his size and mien, Leo probably could. The idiot didn’t listen. The thug went to grab Meena’s arm, and curiosity made her let him instead of breaking his fingers. Why exert herself when Pookie seemed determined to come to her rescue? While outwardly he appeared cool and composed, a wild storm brewed in his eyes as Leo growled, “I said don’t touch.” Crack. Yup. There was one guy who wouldn’t be touching anything with that arm for a while, and he’d probably end up hoarse with the way he was screaming. Pussy. In the distance, sirens wailed to life, and it didn’t take Dmitri’s barked, “Get in the car, you idiots,” for the thugs to realize their attempt at a coerced kidnapping had failed. Meena didn’t bother watching the car speed off, not when she had something much more important to attend to. Like a man who thought she needed saving. How her dad would laugh when he heard about it. Her sister, Teena, would sigh about how romantic it was. Her mom, on the other hand, would chastise Meena for causing chaos once again. Turning to Leo, who wore a formidable glower, she threw herself at him. Apparently, he half expected it because his arms opened wide, and he caught her— without even a tiny stagger! She latched her legs around his waist, draped her arms around his neck, and exclaimed, “Pookie, you were awesome. You saved me from those big, bad men. You’re like a knight in Under Armour.” Not entirely true. He wore a plain black Fruit of the Loom T-shirt. But she could totally picture him in one of those form-fitting tees that Under Armour specialized in that would mold his perfect chest. On second thought, given how it would show off his impressive musculature, perhaps she should leave his wardrobe alone. No use taunting the female public with what they couldn’t have. It would also mean less blood for her to rinse if they dared to touch. “I’d hardly say I saved you. You seemed to be doing all right on your own.” She planted a big smooch on his lips and declared him, “My hero.

This severely crew-cutted, Mr Rambo, Die-Hard Terminator type, wore neither helmet nor goggles. He was also shirtless under his black, armoured vest and had two belts of oversized bullets slung over his shoulders and crossing at his chest. He obviously being one of a mind that size was indeed important, looking the butch business as he cradled an almightily impressive BFG in his bared, muscle-bound arms. The outer edge of the right one’s bicep having three stripes tattooed upon in… No, honestly. The huge weapon he held looked as if it’d been specifically designed for bringing down either crack addicted bull elephants, smack riddled rhinos in dire need, or heroin dependant hippos desperate for a fix.