Battle Speeches Quotes

Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.

Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.

You might lose battles in your life time. However, every person that stands bravely on the side of justice, for people that have no voice, wins the true battle---Gods.

It had been June, the bright hot summer of 1937, and with the curtains thrown back the bedroom had been full of sunlight, sunlight and her and Will's children, their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews- Cecy's blue eyed boys, tall and handsome, and Gideon and Sophie's two girls- and those who were as close as family: Charlotte, white- haired and upright, and the Fairchild sons and daughters with their curling red hair like Henry's had once been. The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives. They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwise, and of the fact that though his prose was excellent- he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he's retired that had been very well respected- his poetry had always been awful, though that never stopped him from reciting it. Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire. Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie. With tears running down her face, Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, "Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back," thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well- and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand. They had all laughed about his habit of taking Tessa on romantic "holidays" to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined, where Will had horrified passerby by shouting "I can see the blood on the cobblestones!" in French.

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.

Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, 'Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!' And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller.

Liberty is a constant battle between government; who would limit it, people; who would concede it, and patriots; who would defend it.

For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt — of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead — while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strengths.

You probably think battles are won with cannons and brave speeches and fearless charges." She smoothed her skirts as she spoke. "They're not. Wars are won by dint of having adequate shoe leather. They're won by boys who make shells in munition factories, by supply trains shielded from enemy eyes. Wars are won by careful attendance to boring detail. If you wait to see the cavalry charge, Your Grace, you'll have already lost.

But sitting here beside this girl as unknown to him now as outer space, waiting for whatever she might say to unfreeze him, now he felt like he could see the edge or outline of what a real vision of hell might be. It was of two great and terrible armies within himself, opposed and facing each other, silent. There would be battle but no victor. Or never a battle- the armies would stay like that, motionless, looking across at each other and seeing therein something so different and alien from themselves that they could not understand, they could not hear each other's speech as even words or read anything from what their faces looked like, frozen like that, opposed and uncomprehending, for all human time. Two hearted, a hypocrite to yourself either way.

speech to him was a task, a battle, words mustered behind his beard and issued one at a time, heavy and square like tanks.

Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!

Normal people don't know how hard it is to fangirl over celebrities who don't know you exist and fictional characters who die and try to not act like you are insane in public, trying to read all the 130 million books that exist in this world while also staying on top of classes and getting good grades while also socializing with actual people and completing all the tasks on time and battle anxiety while also being a perfect student who gives great speeches and doesn't have stage fear with impeccable grammar and is articulate like GEEZ! I would rather stay crazy!

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Anything worth fighting for requires us to be willing to suffer to protect it.

Then suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her. He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart; and then his face went deathly white; and a cold fury rose in him, so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him. 'Éowyn, Éowyn!' he cried at last: 'Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!' Then without taking counsel or waiting for the approach of the men of the City, he spurred headlong back to the front of the great host, and blew a horn, and cried aloud for the onset. Over the field rang his clear voice calling: 'Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!' And with that the host began to move. But the Rohirrim sang no more. Death they cried with one voice loud and terrible, and gathering speed like a great tide their battle swept about their fallen king and passed, roaring away southwards.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 18-something-or-nother. The year doesn‘t matter.They considered it the turning point of the war, and President Lincoln showed up to give his big speech. Who really cares what it was called? I don‘t. After it was all over and the North won, Congress passed the 13th amendment to free the slaves. It outlawed owning another person, yada, yada, yada, but it was a waste of time. All of it. Every bit. Completely pointless. All those people died and it didn't change anything, because it doesn't work if they don't enforce it. They just ignore it, turn their backs and say it‘s not their problem, but it is. It's everyone's problem. They can say slavery ended all they want, but that doesn't make it true. People lie. They'll tell you what they think you wanna hear, and you‘ll believe it. Whatever makes you feel better about your dismal little lives. So, whatever. Go on being naive. Believe what the history book tells you if you want. Believe what Mrs. Anderson wants me to tell you about it. Believe the land of the free, blah, blah, blah, star spangled banner bullshit. Believe there aren‘t any slaves anymore just because a tall guy in a big ass top hat and a bunch of politicians said so. But I won‘t believe it, because if I do too, we‘ll all fucking be wrong, and someone has to be right." -Carmine DeMarco

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Things weren't magically fixed by an empowering speech, but it opened doors and bridges. It carved out space for Yadriel to step forward and be who he was, as he was. There were still more obstacles to overcome and battles to fight, but Yadriel wouldn't feel alone in it anymore. No, it wasn't the end. It was a better beginning.

Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air: “Why—why—what—what ’s th’ matter?

Democracy and free speech are not facets of one gem; democracy and free speech are eternal enemies. But in any battle between an institution and an idea, the idea, in the long run, has the better of it. Here I do not venture into the absurdity of arguing that, as the world wags on, the truth always survives. I believe nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that an idea that happens to be true—or, more exactly, as near to truth as any human idea can be, and yet remain generally intelligible—it seems to me that such an idea carries a special and often fatal handi cap. The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena,

The working class who fight the battles, the working class who make the sacrifices, the working class who shed the blood, the working class who furnish the corpses, the working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war.

He was also, according to his file, “a first-rate scientist partial to beer,” the kind of mind Control had seen before. It needed dulling to slow it down or to distance itself from the possibility of despair. Beer versus scientist represented a kind of schism between the banality of speech versus the originality of thought. An ongoing battle.

Come— the proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate. No time for speeches now, it’s time to fight.

With discipline, you can lose weight, you can excel in work, you can win the war.

I used to think freedom was freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience. But freedom is the whole life of everyone. Here is what it amounts to: you have to have the right to sow what you wish to, to make shoes or coats, to bake into bread the flour ground from the grain you have sown, and to sell it or not sell it as you wish; for the lathe operator, the steelworker, and the artist it’s a matter of being able to live as you wish and work as you wish and not as they order you to. And in our country there is no freedom – not for those who write books nor for those who sow grain nor for those who make shoes.” (Grossman, p. 99) He noted that “In people’s day-to-day struggle to live, in the extreme efforts workers put forth to earn an extra ruble through moonlighting, in the collective farmers’ battle for bread and potatoes as the one and only fruit of their labor, he [Ivan Grigoryevich] could sense more than the desire to live better, to fill one’s children’s stomachs and to clothe them. In the battle for the right to make shoes, to knit sweaters, in the struggle to plant what one wished, was manifested the natural, indestructible striving toward freedom inherent in human nature. He had seen this very same struggle in the people in camp. Freedom, it seemed, was immortal on both sides of the barbed wire.” (Grossman, p. 110)

I'd never describe even myself as safe when I go into the Magical Realms; no one's safe in there, not even if they're armed and armored with every protective charm on the planet. The place has this habit of changing the rules and pulling the rug from under your feet...." "Is it carpeted, then?" asked Tharaman. "What?" "The Magical Realms, are they carpeted? It's just that you mentioned pulling a rug from somewhere and I just wondered if perhaps..." "I think it's a figure of speech, my dear," said Krisafitsa. "I do believe it means to be taken by surprise when you least expect it." "Oh, I see....Odd expression...

I used to think that no one could beat Soviet men for endless speeches, but when I came to America, I realized men of all nationalities like the sound of their own voices, especially the kind of man who spends long hours behind a podium. Whether in a Washington park or a Sevastopol battle zone, it’s all the same: after the first speech you’re afraid the boredom will kill you; after the fifth speech, you’re praying it will.

Another fallacy comes creeping in whose errors you should be meticulous in trying to avoid. Don't think our eyes, our bright and shining eyes, were made for us to look ahead with. Don't suppose our thigh bones fitted our shin bones and our shins our ankles so that we might take steps. Don't think that arms dangled from shoulders and branched out in hands with fingers at their ends, both right and left, for us to do whatever need required for our survival. All such argument, all such interpretation is perverse, fallacious, puts the cart before the horse. No bodily thing was born for us to use. Nature had no such aim, but what was born creates the use. There could be no such thing as sight before the eyes were formed. No speech before the tongue was made, but tongues began long before speech were uttered. and the ears were fashioned long before a sound was heard. And all the organs I feel sure, were there before their use developed. They could not evolve for the sake of use be so designed. But battling hand to hand and slashing limbs, fouling the foe in blood, these antedate the flight of shining javelins. Nature taught men out to dodge a wound before they learned the fit of shield to arm. Rest certainly is older in the history of man than coverlets or mattresses, and thirst was quenched before the days of cups or goblets. Need has created use as man contrives device for his comfort. but all these cunning inventions are far different from all those things much older, which supply their function from their form. The limbs, the sense, came first, their usage afterwards. Never think they could have been created for the sake of being used.

I say we have no time for debate. Indeed, we have no need for it, since the decision has been made for us. We must fight. There is no other path!

Seguin made his decision. He raised his lance, held it over his head –no mean feat –and called out. ‘To hell!’ he shouted. In terms of pre-battle speeches, it was the best I’ve ever heard.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.

Psychological research has shown that prejudice adversely affects both the targets and perpetrators. Does it make sense then to enter a losing battle, one which you come out of in the end a battered and bruised loser?

Hooper was no romantic. He had not as a child ridden with Rupert's horse or sat among the camp fires at Xanthus-side; at the age when my eyes were dry to all save poetry – that stoic, red-skin interlude which our schools introduce between the fast-flowing tears of the child and the man – Hooper had wept often, but never for Henry's speech on St Crispin's day, nor for the epitaph at Thermopylae. The history they taught him had had few battles in it but, instead, a profusion of detail about humane legislation and recent industrial change. Gallipoli, Balaclava, Quebec, Lepanto, Bannockburn, Roncevales, and Marathon – these, and the Battle in the West where Arthur fell, and a hundred such names whose trumpet-notes, even now in my sere and lawless state, called to me irresistibly across the intervening years with all the clarity and strength of boyhood, sounded in vain to Hooper.

The root of the disinformation problem, of course, lay in the technology. Facebook was designed to throw gas on the fire of any speech that invoked an emotion, even if it was hateful speech—its algorithms favored sensationalism.

I have never forgotten these visitors, or ceased to marvel at them, at how they have gone on from strength to strength, continuing to lighten our darkness, and to guide, counsel and instruct us; on occasion, momentarily abashed, but always ready to pick themselves up, put on their cardboard helmets, mount Rosinante, and go galloping off on yet another foray on behalf of the down-trodden and oppressed. They are unquestionably one of the wonders of the age, and I shall treasure till I die as a blessed memory the spectacle of them travelling with radiant optimism through a famished countryside, wandering in happy bands about squalid, over-crowded towns, listening with unshakeable faith to the fatuous patter of carefully trained and indoctrinated guides, repeating like schoolchildren a multiplication table, the bogus statistics and mindless slogans endlessly intoned to them. There, I would think, an earnest office-holder in some local branch of the League of Nations Union, there a godly Quaker who once had tea with Gandhi, there an inveigher against the Means Test and the Blasphemy Laws, there a staunch upholder of free speech and human rights, there an indomitable preventer of cruelty to animals; there scarred and worthy veterans of a hundred battles for truth, freedom and justice--all, all chanting the praises of Stalin and his Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It was as though a vegetarian society had come out with a passionate plea for cannibalism, or Hitler had been nominated posthumously for the Nobel Peace Prize.

We are afraid of what we will do to others, afraid of the rage that lies in wait somewhere deep in our souls. How many human beings go through the world frozen with rage against life! This deeply hidden inner anger may be the product of hurt pride or of real frustration in office, factory, clinic, or home. Whatever may be the cause of our frozen rage (which is the inevitable mother of depression), the great word of hope today is that this rage can be conquered and drained off into creative channels … …What should we do? We should all learn that a certain amount of aggressive energy is normal and certainly manageable in maturity. Most of us can drain off the excess of our angry feelings and destructive impulses in exercise, in competitive games, or in the vigorous battles against the evils of nature and society. We also must realize that no one will punish us for the legitimate expression of self-assertiveness and creative pugnacity as our parents once punished us for our undisciplined temper tantrums. Furthermore, let us remember that we need not totally repress the angry part of our nature. We can always give it an outlet in the safe realm of fantasy. A classic example of such fantasy is given by Max Beerborn, who made a practice of concocting imaginary letters to people he hated. Sometimes he went so far as to actually write the letters and in the very process of releasing his anger it evaporated. As mature men and women we should regard our minds as a true democracy where all kinds of ideas and emotions should be given freedom of speech. If in political life we are willing to grant civil liberties to all sorts of parties and programs, should we not be equally willing to grant civil liberties to our innermost thoughts and drives, confident that the more dangerous of them will be outvoted by the majority within our minds? Do I mean that we should hit out at our enemy whenever the mood strikes us? No, I repeat that I am suggesting quite the reverse—self-control in action based upon (positive coping mechanisms such as) self expression in fantasy.

The First Amendment codifies a ‘negative liberty’; that is to say, it affords citizens the right to freedom from government interference. While this is essential, it means that it is ill-equipped to tackle many of the free speech battles of the digital age. Historically, censorship has been enacted by the state, but with the rise of social media as the de facto public square, big tech corporations now have dominion over the acceptable limits of popular discourse. We are rapidly moving into an age in which unelected plutocrats hold more collective power and influence than any national government, only without any of the democratic accountability. This is why the argument that private companies should be free to discriminate at will is no longer persuasive or viable. They claim to be platforms committed to the principle of free speech, and yet at the same time behave like publishers who seek to enforce limitations on the opinions that may be expressed.

Hi, I’m Adele Czerny. I don’t really have a long speech. I mean, I sat through these things when I was your age, and they’re boring. I’m just going to say a few things about Noah and Raven Day. Did any of you guys know him?” In unison, Gansey and Adam started to lift their hands and just as quickly dropped them. Yes, they knew him. No, they had not known him. Noah, alive, had been before their time here. Noah, dead, was a phenomenon, not an acquaintance. “Well, you were missing out,” she said. “My mom always said he was a firecracker, which just meant he was always getting speeding tickets and jumping on tables at family reunions and stuff. He always had so many ideas. He was so hyper.” Adam and Gansey looked at each other. They had always had the sense that the Noah they knew was not the true Noah. It was just disconcerting to hear how much Noahness death had stripped. It was impossible to not wonder what Noah would have done with himself if he had lived. “Anyway, I’m here because I was actually the first one he told about his idea for Raven Day. He called me one evening, I guess it would’ve been when he was fourteen, and he told me he’d had this dream about ravens fighting and battling. He said they were all different colours and sizes and shapes, and he was inside them, and they were, like, swirling around him.” She motioned around herself in a whirlwind; she had Noah’s hands, Noah’s elbows. “And he told me, ‘I think it would be a cool art project.’ And I told him, ‘I’ll bet if everybody at the school made one, I bet you’d have enough.’ ” Gansey was aware that his arm hairs were standing up. “So they’re swooping and careening and there’s nothing but ravens, nothing but dreams all around you,” Adele said, only Gansey wasn’t sure if she had actually said it, or if he’d heard her wrong and he was just half-remembering something she’d already said. “Anyway, I know he’d like what it is like nowadays. So, um, thanks for remembering one of his crazy dreams.

I once asked Bill McKibben, after an energising speech to a capacity crowd, when – given that the situation is as urgent as he portrayed it and we all know it is – we escalate. He was visibly ill at ease. The first part of his response presented what we might call the objection from asymmetry: as soon as a social movement engages in violent acts, it moves onto the terrain favoured by the enemy, who is overwhelmingly superior in military capabilities. The state loves a fight of arms; it knows it will win. Our strength is in numbers. This is a pet argument for strategic pacifists, but it is disingenuous. Violence is not the sole field where asymmetry prevails. The enemy has overwhelmingly superior capabilities in virtually all fields, including media propaganda, institutional coordination, logistical resources, political legitimacy and, above all, money. If the movement should shun uphill battles, a divestment campaign seems like the worst possible choice: trying to sap fossil capital by means of capital.

Watching him, his hands buried in his pockets—to keep from circling her neck she supposed—she couldn't help but marvel at the curious mix of Southern courtesy and male arrogance, the natural assumption he shouldered of being lawfully in control. "Engaging in a moral battle isn't always hazardous to one's health, you know." "Doesn't look like it's doing wonders for yours." "Saints be praised, it can actually be rewarding." Looking over his shoulder, he halted in the middle of the room. "Irish." "I beg your pardon?" "You. Irish. The green eyes, the tiny bit of red in your hair. Is Connor your real name?" "Yes, why..." she said, stammering. Bloody hell. "Of course." "Liar." She felt the slow, hot roll of color cross her cheeks. "What could that possibly have to do with anything?" "I don't know, but I have a feeling it means something. It's the first I've heard come out of that sassy mouth of yours that didn't sound like some damned speech." He tapped his head, starting to pace again. "What I wonder is, where are you in there?

Ivanov: You only qualified last year, my dear friend, you're still young and confident, but I am thirty-five. I have the right to give you some advice. Don't marry a Jew or a psychopath or a bluestocking but choose yourself someone ordinary, someone a shade of grey, with no bright colour and no superfluous noises. In general, construct your whole life on a conventional pattern. The greyer, the more monotonous the background, the better. My dear fellow, don't do battle against thousands all on your own, don't tilt against windmills, don't beat your head against walls... And may God preserve you from all kinds of rational farming, newfangled schools, fiery speeches... Shut yourself in your shell and do your little God-given business... It's snugger, healthier and more honest.

forests are the ornaments of the earth, that they teach mankind to understand beauty and attune his mind to lofty sentiments. Forests temper a stern climate, and in countries where the climate is milder, less strength is wasted in the battle with nature, and the people are kind and gentle. The inhabitants of such countries are handsome, tractable, sensitive, graceful in speech and gesture. Their philosophy is joyous, art and science blossom among them, their treatment of women is full of exquisite nobility——

Words are better than weapons, wisdom is better than war.

Glissant: “For me, the arrival is the moment where all the components of humanity – not just the African ones – consent to the idea that it is possible to be one and multiple at the same time; that you can be yourself and the Other; that you can be the Same and the Different. When that battle ... is won, a great many accidents in human history ... will be abolished.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with titled as they always were - rib cage, collar, skull - still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, showing last, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats.

Becoming a leader is not about being able to fight or argue or make speeches. It’s actually about realising what must be done for the greater good. And doing it, regardless of the personal costs …

Children's books: Every time you find the right, the necessary, book for a child - a book about sadness overcome, unfairness battled, hearts mended - you perform the best kind of magic. ...every time you give just the right book to just the right child, you're saying, "You, my friend, have potential." That is a gift. That is a miracle. And that is what you do, each of you, every single day.

When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy.But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.

While a battle still entirely political was preparing in this same place which had already seen so many revolutionary events, while the youth, the secret associations, the schools in the name of principles, and the middle class in the name of interests, were moving in to dash against each other, to grapple and overthrow each other, while each was hurrying and calling the final and decisive hour of the crisis, far off and outside that fatal sector, in the deepest of the unfathomable caverns of that miserable old Paris, the gloomy voice of the people was heard deeply growling. A fearful, sacred voice, composed of the roaring brute and the speech of God, which terrifies the feeble and warns the wise, which comes at the same time from below like the voice of a lion and from above like the voice of thunder. Page 1123 Saint-Denis Chapter 13 part II

It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.” She continued: I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American…. I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation…. Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize; The right to hold unpopular beliefs; The right to protest; The right of independent thought.

For we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not offend in speech [never says the wrong things], he is a fully developed character and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire nature. JAMES 3:2 According to this Scripture, the one thing proving our level of spiritual maturity isn’t how religious we are—whether we can quote Scripture, or the good works we do—it is the words from our mouths.

We have chosen each other and the edge of each others battles the war is the same if we lose someday women's blood will congeal upon a dead planet if we win there is no telling we seek beyond history for a new and more possible meeting.

I pray that the world never runs out of dragons. I say that in all sincerity, though I have played a part in the death of one great wyrm. For the dragon is the quintessential enemy, the greatest foe, the unconquerable epitome of devastation. The dragon, above all other creatures, even the demons and the devils, evokes images of dark grandeur, of the greatest beast curled asleep on the greatest treasure hoard. They are the ultimate test of the hero and the ultimate fright of the child. They are older than the elves and more akin to the earth than the dwarves. The great dragons are the preternatural beast, the basic element of the beast, that darkest part of our imagination. The wizards cannot tell you of their origin, though they believe that a great wizard, a god of wizards, must have played some role in the first spawning of the beast. The elves, with their long fables explaining the creation of every aspect of the world, have many ancient tales concerning the origin of the dragons, but they admit, privately, that they really have no idea of how the dragons came to be. My own belief is more simple, and yet, more complicated by far. I believe that dragons appeared in the world immediately after the spawning of the first reasoning race. I do not credit any god of wizards with their creation, but rather, the most basic imagination wrought of unseen fears, of those first reasoning mortals. We make the dragons as we make the gods, because we need them, because, somewhere deep in our hearts, we recognize that a world without them is a world not worth living in. There are so many people in the land who want an answer, a definitive answer, for everything in life, and even for everything after life. They study and they test, and because those few find the answers for some simple questions, they assume that there are answers to be had for every question. What was the world like before there were people? Was there nothing but darkness before the sun and the stars? Was there anything at all? What were we, each of us, before we were born? And what, most importantly of all, shall we be after we die? Out of compassion, I hope that those questioners never find that which they seek. One self-proclaimed prophet came through Ten-Towns denying the possibility of an afterlife, claiming that those people who had died and were raised by priests, had, in fact, never died, and that their claims of experiences beyond the grave were an elaborate trick played on them by their own hearts, a ruse to ease the path to nothingness. For that is all there was, he said, an emptiness, a nothingness. Never in my life have I ever heard one begging so desperately for someone to prove him wrong. This is kind of what I believe right now… although, I do not want to be proved wrong… For what are we left with if there remains no mystery? What hope might we find if we know all of the answers? What is it within us, then, that so desperately wants to deny magic and to unravel mystery? Fear, I presume, based on the many uncertainties of life and the greatest uncertainty of death. Put those fears aside, I say, and live free of them, for if we just step back and watch the truth of the world, we will find that there is indeed magic all about us, unexplainable by numbers and formulas. What is the passion evoked by the stirring speech of the commander before the desperate battle, if not magic? What is the peace that an infant might know in its mother’s arms, if not magic? What is love, if not magic? No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith. And that, I fear, for any reasoning, conscious being, would be the cruelest trick of all. -Drizzt Do’Urden

General Garrison assembled all of the men for a memorial service, and captured their feelings of sadness, fear, and resolve with the famous martial speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V: Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart. Give him money to speed his departure since we wish not to die in that man’s company. Whoever lives past today and comes home safely will rouse himself every year on this day, show his neighbor his scars, and tell embellished stories of all their great feats of battle. These stories he will teach his son and from this day until the end of the world we shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together.

You mentioned earlier that if I wanted to help, Miss Oliviera, I should save the lectures, and help,” Mr. Smith said as he sprayed. “Perhaps that’s exactly what Fates do.” I shook my head, bewildered. “I’m sorry?” “Perhaps Fates are people like us…ordinary souls who’ve found themselves caught up in the battle between good and evil, and have chosen to take a stand and help do what’s right.” Mr. Smith was lecturing again, but this time the speech seemed to be directed at John, too. His tone was kindly, however. “Maybe that’s why John’s fingerprints aren’t in the Isla Heusos Police Department database, and why no one will find his footsteps here. Small things that take just a moment to do, yes, but that could add up, in the end, to make an enormous difference to someone. What do you say to that, Miss Oliviera?” “I…I don’t know,” I said. I was confused. I supposed he was right, though. This could certainly explain how John was able to drift like a ghost in and out of the Isla Heusos Cemetery-and my various schools-leaving behind no trace, except rumors and the faintest images on video, and broken padlocks and chains.

And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for the health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care. I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father's story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own.

Psalm 24 doesn’t ask us any questions to which it doesn’t give us the answers: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” The answer: the person with clean hands, a pure heart, a true soul and honest speech. And that puts us in a bind. For in one way or another, we all have dirtied our hands and muddied our souls in a selfish life. So who’s going to ascend this hill? Stand in God’s holy place? The King of Glory, that’s who. The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! The Lord of Advent stayed clean to make us clean. And he became unclean with our evil on the cross to strip it away from us.

[Historian] Kevin Starr has written that "the San Diego free speech battles revealed the depths of reaction possible in the threatened middle- and lower-middle classes of California." He argues that vigilantes were recruited from an anxious petty bourgeoisie, "who were uncertain and insecure in what they had gained or thought they had gained by coming to California." As in late Weimar Germany, "the oligarchy, which is to say, the upper-middle and upper classes, loathed and feared the [Industrial Workers of the World]; but oligarchs did not take to the streets as vigilantes. They did, however, encourage the lower-middle classes to do such work.

The homophobic, racist, misogynistic or fatphobic homosocial discussions I witnessed and grew up with are now happening online. The political correctness that these men tend to adopt as they step out of those homosocial circles has completely disappeared. The language of the manosphere has become mainstream. Hate speech is raw now.

The ruinous deeds of the ravaging foe (Beowulf) The best-known long text in Old English is the epic poem Beowulf. Beowulf himself is a classic hero, who comes from afar. He has defeated the mortal enemy of the area - the monster Grendel - and has thus made the territory safe for its people. The people and the setting are both Germanic. The poem recalls a shared heroic past, somewhere in the general consciousness of the audience who would hear it. It starts with a mention of 'olden days', looking back, as many stories do, to an indefinite past ('once upon a time'), in which fact blends with fiction to make the tale. But the hero is a mortal man, and images of foreboding and doom prepare the way for a tragic outcome. He will be betrayed, and civil war will follow. Contrasts between splendour and destruction, success and failure, honour and betrayal, emerge in a story which contains a great many of the elements of future literature. Power, and the battles to achieve and hold on to power, are a main theme of literature in every culture - as is the theme of transience and mortality. ................ Beowulf can be read in many ways: as myth; as territorial history of the Baltic kingdoms in which it is set; as forward-looking reassurance. Questions of history, time and humanity are at the heart of it: it moves between past, present, and hope for the future, and shows its origins in oral tradition. It is full of human speech and sonorous images, and of the need to resolve and bring to fruition a proper human order, against the enemy - whatever it be - here symbolised by a monster and a dragon, among literature's earliest 'outsiders'. ....... Beowulf has always attracted readers, and perhaps never more than in the 1990s when at least two major poets, the Scot Edwin Morgan and the Irishman Seamus Heaney, retranslated it into modern English. Heaney's version became a worldwide bestseller, and won many awards, taking one of the earliest texts of English literature to a vast new audience.

What we face is not a loss of books but the loss of a world. As in Alexandria after Aristotle’s time, or the universities and monasteries of the early Renaissance, or the cluttered-up research libraries of the nineteenth century, the Word shifts again in its modes, tending more and more to dwell in pixels and bits instead of paper and ink. It seems to disappear thereby, as it must have for the ancient Peripatetics, who considered writing a spectral shibboleth of living speech; or the princely collectors of manuscripts in the Renaissance, who saw the newly recovered world of antiquity endangered by the brute force of the press; or the lovers of handmade books in the early nineteenth century, to whom the penny dreadful represented the final dilution of the power of literature. And yet, the very fact that the library has endured these cycles seems to offer hope. In its custody of books and the words they contain, the library has confronted and tamed technology, the forces of change, and the power of princes time and again.

And that anger, as we know from our flayed egos of childhood, is armed with a powerful cruelty learned in the bleakness of the too-early battles for survival. 'You can't take it, huh!' The Dozens. A Black game of supposedly friendly rivalry and name calling; in reality, a crucial exercise in learning how to absorb verbal abuse without faltering.

As the war went on, opposition grew. The American Peace Society printed a newspaper, the Advocate of Peace, which published poems, speeches, petitions, sermons against the war, and eyewitness accounts of the degradation of army life and the horrors of battle. The abolitionists, speaking through William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, denounced the war as one “of aggression, of invasion, of conquest, and rapine—marked by ruffianism, perfidy, and every other feature of national depravity . . . ” Considering the strenuous efforts of the nation’s leaders to build patriotic support, the amount of open dissent and criticism was remarkable. Antiwar meetings took place in spite of attacks by patriotic mobs.

There are only new ways of making them felt —of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead —while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strengths.

No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to “preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” Eisenhower realized that “optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction.” He learned that a commander’s optimism “has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.

The joy of life is living, is to put out all one's powers as far as they will go; that the measure of power is obstacle overcome; to ride boldly at what is in front of you, be it fence or enemy; to pray, not for comfort, but for combat; to keep the soldier's faith against the doubts of civil life, more besetting and harder to overcome than all the misgivings of the battle-field, and to remember that duty is not to be proved in the evil day, but then to be obeyed unquestioning; to love glory than the temptations of wallowing ease, but to know that one's final judge and only rival is oneself: with all our failures in act and thought, these things we learned from noble enemies in Virginia or Georgia or on the Mississippi, thirty years ago; these things we believe to be true.

There, publicly throwing off the mask under which he had hitherto concealed his real character and feelings, he made a speech painting in vivid the cause of her death was an even bitterer and more dreadful thing than the death itself. He went on to speak of the king's arrogant and tyrannical behavior; of the sufferings of the commons condemned to labor underground clearing or constructing ditches and sewers; of gallant Romans - soldiers who had beaten in battle all neighboring peoples - robbed of their swords and turned into stone-cutters and artisans. He reminded them of the foul murder of Servius Tullius, of the daughter who drove her carriage over her father's corpse, in violation of the most sacred of relationships - a crime which God alone could punish. Doubtless he told them of other, and worse, things, brought to his mind in the heat of the moment and by the sense of this latest outrage, which still lived in his eye and pressed upon his heart; but a mere historian can hardly record them. The effect of his words was immediate: the populace took fire, and were brought to demand the abrogation of the king's authority and the exile of himself and his family.

I later read a survey about Southerners' knowledge of the War; only half of those aged eighteen to twenty-four could name a single battle, and only one in eight knew if they had a Confederate ancestor. This was a long way from the experience of earlier generations, smothered from birth in the thick gravy of Confederate culture and schooled on textbooks that were little more than Old South propaganda. In this sense, ignorance might prove a blessing. Knowing less about the past, kids seemed less attached to it. Maybe the South would finally exorcise its demons by simply forgetting the history that created them. But Alabaman's seemed to have also let go of the more recent and hopeful history embodied in Martin Luther King's famous speech. "I have a dream," he said, of an Alabama where "black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

Truth is, we’re a lot better off, and a lot closer to experiencing real, feel-good moments, when we’re wringing ourselves out for the glory of God and fulfilling our daily tasks—at work, at home, in ministry, anywhere. What did Vince Lombardi say in that famous speech: “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour—his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear—is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism repeated by all copybooks, and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.

And what were the democracies fighting for? “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms,” he said. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world. He closed on a note of realistic hope. “That is no vision of a distant millennium,” Roosevelt said. “It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

To Douglas, the case turned on the purpose of the First Amendment. The judge had told the jury that in Chicago, it was unlawful to invite dispute. It followed that the conviction should be overturned. After all, he wrote, “a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging.”49

And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog—” “Eh? What’s that?” said one of the Dogs. “Sir,” said Emeth. “It is but a fashion of speech which we have in Calormen.” “Well, I can’t say it’s one I like very much,” said the Dog. “He doesn’t mean any harm,” said an older Dog. “After all, we call our puppies Boys when they don’t behave properly.” “So we do,” said the first Dog. “Or girls.” “S-s-sh!” said the Old Dog. “That’s not a nice word to use. Remember where you are.

Jill had, as you might say, quite fall in love with the Unicorn. She thought- and she wasn't far wrong- that he was the shiningest, delicatest, most graceful animal she had ever met; and he was so gentle and soft of speech that, if you hadn't known, you would hardly have believed how fierce and terrible he could be in battle. "Oh, this is nice!" said Jill. "Just walking along like this. I wish there could be more of this sort of adventure. It's a pity there's always so much happening in Narnia." But the Unicorn explained to her that she was quite mistaken. He said that the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve were brought out of their own strange world into Narnia only at times when Narnia was stirred and upset, but she mustn't think it was always like that. In between their visits there were hundreds and thousands of years when peaceful King followed peaceful King till you could hardly remember their names or count their numbers, and there was really hardly anything to put into the History Books. And he went on to talk of old Queens and heroes whom she had never heard of. He spoke of Swanwhite the Queen who had lived before the days of the White Witch and the Great Winter, who was so beautiful that when she looked into any forest pool the reflection of her face shone out of the water like a star by night for a year and a day afterwards. He spoke of Moonwood the Hare who had such ears that he could sit by Caldron Pool under the thunder of the great waterfall and hear what men spoke in whispers at Cair Paravel. He told how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the first of all Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the Lone Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone Islands to be part of the royal lands of Narnia for ever. He talked of whole centuries in which all Narnia was so happy that notable dances and feasts, or at most tournaments, were the only things that could be remembered, and every day and week had been better than the last. And as he went on, the picture of all those happy years, all the thousands of them, piled up in Jill's mind till it was rather like looking down from a high hill on to a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance.

But yet the solemn days of payment, are the sabbaths of the Lord, and the place of this payment, is the house of the Lord, where, as Tertullian expresses it, Agmine facto [forming a line of battle], we muster our forces together, and besiege God; that is, not taking up every tattered fellow, every sudden rag or fragment of speech, that rises from our tongue, or our affections, but mustering up those words, which the Church hath levied for that service, in the confessions, and absolutions, and collects, and litanies of the Church, we pay this debt, and we receive our acquittance. (323)

As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast one of her quick looks about her. “I don’t like it, papa,” she said. “But then I dare say soldiers--even brave ones--don’t really like going into battle.” Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, and he never tired of hearing Sara’s queer speeches. “Oh, little Sara,” he said. “What shall I do when I have no one to say solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are.” “But why do solemn things make you laugh so?” inquired Sara. “Because you are such fun when you say them,” he answered, laughing still more.

For the first time it was clear to those who listened to Churchill’s speech—and the whole country listened carefully—that all of the easy presumptions that had shored up appeasement, among them belief in the French Army, the legendary strength of the Maginot Line, the fighting qualities of the BEF, above all the hope that a deal of some kind might be made with Hitler at the last moment, were all swept away by his stark realism, and by the fact, now suddenly clear, that across the Channel a huge, historic battle was being fought—and would very likely be lost. It is no accident that J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings took on its length and dense sweep as an epic in that year, with its central vision of the Dark Lord Sauron’s legions attacking an idyllic land not unlike Britain, as the apparently invincible armies of Hitler swept over one European country after another, taking familiar places that the British, the Belgians, and the French had fought and died for in the 1914–1918 war, ports that were well known to anyone who had ever traveled to “the Continent,” and approached the English Channel itself, advancing swiftly toward the port city of Boulogne, where Napoleon himself had once stood, waiting for the moment to launch 200,000 men at England.

The member of the Nazi hierarchy most gifted at solving problems of conscience was Himmler. He coined slogans, like the famous watchword of the S.S., taken from a Hitler speech before the S.S. in 1931, “My Honor is my Loyalty”—catch phrases which Eichmann called “winged words” and the judges “empty talk”—and issued them, as Eichmann recalled, “around the turn of the year,” presumably along with a Christmas bonus. Eichmann remembered only one of them and kept repeating it: “These are battles which future generations will not have to fight again,” alluding to the “battles” against women, children, old people, and other “useless mouths.” Other such phrases, taken from speeches Himmler made to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen and the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders, were: “To have stuck it out and, apart from exceptions caused by human weakness, to have remained decent, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written.” Or: “The order to solve the Jewish question, this was the most frightening order an organization could ever receive.” Or: We realize that what we are expecting from you is “superhuman,” to be “superhumanly inhuman.” All one can say is that their expectations were not disappointed. It is noteworthy, however, that Himmler hardly ever attempted to justify in ideological terms, and if he did, it was apparently quickly forgotten. What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique (“a great task that occurs once in two thousand years”), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted

A-Actually, the flower that sprang up would have been the iris or larkspur, not the modern hyacinth, but that is how it earned its name.” “Fascinating.” His unfathomable eyes locked onto hers. Elizabeth knew he was referring to her and not the history of the hyacinth, and though she commanded herself to move out of his reach, her legs refused to budge. “Absolutely fascinating,” he murmured again, and in slow motion she watched his hands reach out and gently grasp her shoulders, rubbing lightly. “Last night you were ready to do battle with a roomful of men because they dared believe I’d cheated, yet now you’re afraid. Is it me you fear, sweetheart? Or something else?” The endearment spoken in his rich baritone voice had the same stirring effect on her as the touch of his lips. “I’m afraid of the things you make me feel,” she admitted desperately, trying to get control of herself and the situation. “I realize that this is merely a-a little weekend dalliance-“ “Liar,” he teased, and he took her lips in a sweet, swift kiss. Her mind reeled from the brief touch, but the moment he lifted his mouth from hers she rushed into frightened speech. “Thank you,” she blurted inanely. “H-Hyacinths are not the only flower with an interesting history. There are lilies, too, which are also part of the genus-“ A lazy, seductive grin swept across his handsome face, and, to Elizabeth’s helpless horror, her gaze fastened on his mouth. She couldn’t still the shiver of anticipation as he bent his head.

The America promised in Lincoln’s speeches and delivered by the Reconstruction Amendments is not a fulfillment of founding ideals but their repudiation. It is based on inclusive equality, not exclusive individualism. Its political community is open rather than closed by race. Its criterion of legitimacy is not whether a government protects the natural rights of insiders—a principle that prohibits redistribution to outsiders and even to other insiders—but rather whether it represents the will of the people. This principle allows insiders not just to fight for their own rights but to make sacrifices for others. The Civil War, far more than the Revolution, embodies this principle, which the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” celebrates: Let us die to make men free.

A week before the election Roosevelt had sufficiently recovered to deliver his final speech of the campaign at Carnegie Hall. In contrast to the caustic tone toward opponents that had marked his campaign, he now focused solely on the principles for which the Progressive Party stood. He believed, he told his spellbound audience, that “perhaps once in a generation” the time comes for the people to enter the battle for social justice. If the continuing problems created by the Industrial Age were not addressed, he warned, the country would eventually be “sundered by those dreadful lines of division” that set “the haves” and the “have-nots” against one another. “Win or lose I am glad beyond measure that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent.

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approved good masters, That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, It is most true; true, I have married her: The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace: For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used Their dearest action in the tented field, And little of this great world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic, For such proceeding I am charged withal, I won his daughter.

About life, about the living. About death, about the dead. About loving and hating. About east and west, the two that will never meet and never separate, only suspect each other’s presence, sense and follow each other’s movements, as a person must in hatred and love. I sing of the only thing that reconciles, the only practical thing, the same for all: How seldom a person possesses the power to relinquish power! To relinquish I and speech, relinquish – the only thing that gives power. (...) She dies every moment, therefore she lives. She flees every moment, therefore she endures. She stores up power and counter-power, therefore she sways. She sways, therefore she is in balance. The crown, the mantle, and the clasped hands belong to the battle, not to her, but the battle belongs to her. Through her the battle exists: She is its decoy.

Before the troops left Rome, the consul Varro made a number of extremely arrogant speeches. The nobles, he complained, were directly responsible for the war on Italian soil, and it would continue to prey upon the country's vitals if there were any more commanders on the Fabian model. He himself, on the contrary, would bring it to an end on the day he first caught sight of the enemy. His colleague Paullus spoke only once before the army marched, and in words which though true were hardly popular. His only harsh criticism of Varro was to express his surprise about how any army commander, while still at Rome, in his civilian clothes, could possibly know what his task on the field of battle would be, before he had become acquainted either with his own troops or the enemy's or had any idea of the lie and nature of the country where he was to operate--or how he could prophesy exactly when a pitched battle would occur. As for himself, he refused to recommend any sort of policy prematurely; for policy was moulded by circumstance, not circumstance by policy. . . . [T]o strengthen [Paullus'] determination Fabius (we are told) spoke to him at his departure in the following words. 'If, Lucius Aemilius, you were like your colleague, or if--which I should much prefer--you had a colleague like yourself, anything I could now say would be superfluous. Two good consuls would serve the country well in virtue of their own sense of honour, without any words from me; and two bad consuls would not accept my advice, nor even listen to me. But as things are, I know your colleague's qualities and I know your own, so it is to you alone I address myself, understanding as I do that all your courage and patriotism will be in vain, if our country must limp on one sound leg and one lame one. With the two of you equal in command, bad counsels will be backed by the same legal authority as good ones; for you are wrong, Paullus, if you think to find less opposition from Varro than from Hannibal. Hannibal is your enemy, Varro your rival, but I hardly know which will prove the more hostile to your designs; with the former you will be contending only on the field of battle, but with the latter everywhere and always. . . . [I]t is not the enemy who will make it difficult and dangerous for you to tread, but your fellow-countrymen. Your own men will want precisely what the enemy wants; the wishes of Varro, the Roman consul, will play straight into the hands of Hannibal, commander-in-chief of the Carthaginian armies. You will have two generals against you; but you will stand firm against both, if you can steel yourself to ignore the tongues of men who will defame you--if you remain unmoved by the empty glory your colleague seeks and the false infamy he tries to bring upon yourself. . . . Never mind if they call your caution timidity, your wisdom sloth, your generalship weakness; it is better that a wise enemy should fear you than that foolish friends should praise. Hannibal will despise a reckless antagonist, but he will fear a cautious one. Not that I wish you to do nothing--all I want is that your actions should be guided by a reasoned policy, all risks avoided; that the conduct of the war should be controlled by you at all times; that you should neither lay aside your sword nor relax your vigilance but seize the opportunity that offers, while never giving the enemy a chance to take you at a disadvantage. Go slowly, and all will be clear and sure. Haste is always improvident and blind.

In his cottage at Warm Springs—where a porch had been designed to resemble the prow of a ship, giving the paralyzed president the illusion of movement, of freedom—Roosevelt left the draft of a speech he had been scheduled to deliver on Saturday, April 13, 1945, on the occasion of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson. “Today, science has brought all the different quarters of the globe so close together that it is impossible to isolate them one from another,” Roosevelt was to have said. “Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace….The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.” They were, in a way, his last words.

A passion, therefore, consists not in being affected by the sights which are presented to us, but in giving way to our feelings and following up these chance promptings: for whoever imagines that paleness, bursting into tears, lustful feelings, deep sighs, sudden flashes of the eyes, and so forth, are signs of passion and betray the state of the mind, is mistaken, and does not understand that these are merely impulses of the body. Consequently, the bravest of men often turns pale while he is putting on his armour; when the signal for battle is given, the knees of the boldest soldier shake for a moment; the heart even of a great general leaps into his mouth just before the lines clash together, and the hands and feet even of the most eloquent orator grow stiff and cold while he is preparing to begin his speech. Anger must not merely move, but break out of bounds, being an impulse: now, no impulse can take place without the consent of the mind: for it cannot be that we should deal with revenge and punishment without the mind being cognisant of them. A man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the mind which is under the control of reason.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat was invited to spend more time in the White House than any other foreign leader—thirteen invitations.303 Clinton was dead set on helping the Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace. He pushed the Israelis to grant ever-greater concessions until the Israelis were willing to grant the Palestinians up to 98 percent of all the territory they requested. And what was the Palestinian response? They walked away from the bargaining table and launched the wave of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks known as the Second Intifada. And what of Osama bin Laden? Even while America was granting concessions to Palestinians—and thereby theoretically easing the conditions that provided much of the pretext for Muslim terror—bin Laden was bombing U.S. embassies in Africa, almost sank the USS Cole in Yemen, and was well into the planning stages of the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001. After President George W. Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, bringing American troops into direct ground combat with jihadists half a world away, many Americans quickly forgot the recent past and blamed American acts of self-defense for “inflaming” jihad. One of those Americans was Barack Obama. Soon after his election, Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt, where he delivered a now-infamous speech that signaled America’s massive policy shifts. The United States pulled entirely out of Iraq despite the pleas of “all the major Iraqi parties.”304 In Egypt, the United States actually backed the Muslim Brotherhood government, going so far as agreeing to give it advanced F-16 fighters and M1 Abrams main battle tanks, even as the Muslim Brotherhood government was violating its peace treaty with Israel and persecuting Egypt’s ancient Coptic Christian community. The Obama administration continued supporting the Brotherhood, even when it stood aside and allowed jihadists to storm the American embassy, raising the black flag of jihad over an American diplomatic facility. In Libya, the United States persuaded its allies to come to the aid of a motley group of rebels, including jihadists. Then many of these same jihadists promptly turned their anger on the United States, attacking our diplomatic compound in Benghazi the afternoon and evening of September 11, 2012—killing the American ambassador and three more brave Americans. Compounding this disaster, the administration had steadfastly refused to reinforce the American security presence in spite of a deteriorating security situation, afraid that it would anger the local population. This naïve and foolish administration decision cost American lives.

We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome.... Let us draw strength, not merely from twice-told arguments—how fair and noble a thing it is to show courage in battle—but from the busy spectacle of our great city's life as we have it before us day by day, falling in love with her as we see her, and remembering that all this greatness she owes to men with the fighter's daring, the wise man's understanding of his duty, and the good man's self-discipline in its performance—to men who, if they failed in any ordeal, disdained to deprive the city of their services, but sacrificed their lives as the best offerings on her behalf. So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is a sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. For you now it remains to rival what they have done and, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.

From Theoretical Elevators: Volume Two, by James Fulton. To believe in silence. As we did when we lived in bubbles. Sentient insofar as we knew it was warm: Silence provided that warmth. The womb. Ants have it easy for speaking in chemicals. Food. Flight. Follow. Nouns and verbs only, and never in concert. There are no mistakes for there is no sentence save the one nature imposes (mortality). You are standing on a train platform. A fear of missing the train, a slavery to time, has provided ten minutes before the train leaves. There is so much you have never said to your companion and so little time to articulate it. The years have accreted around the simple words and there would have been ample time to speak them had not the years intervened and secreted them. The conductor paces up and down the platform and wonders why you do not speak. You are a blight on his platform and timetable. Speak, find the words, the train is warming towards departure. You cannot find the words, the words will not allow you to find them in time for the departure. Nothing is allowed to pass between you and your companion. It is late, a seat awaits. That the words are simple and true is only half the battle. The train is leaving. The train is always leaving and you have not found your words. Remember the train, and that thing between you and your words. An elevator is a train. The perfect train terminates at Heaven. The perfect elevator waits while its human freight tries to grab through the muck and find the words. In the black box, this messy business of human communication is reduced to excreted chemicals, understood by the soul’s receptors and translated into true speech.

When Surkov finds out about the Night Wolves he is delighted. The country needs new patriotic stars, the great Kremlin reality show is open for auditions, and the Night Wolves are just the type that’s needed, helping the Kremlin rewrite the narrative of protesters from political injustice and corruption to one of Holy Russia versus Foreign Devils, deflecting the conversation from the economic slide and how the rate of bribes that bureaucrats demand has shot up from 15 percent to 50 percent of any deal. They will receive Kremlin support for their annual bike show and rock concert in Crimea, the one-time jewel in the Tsarist Empire that ended up as part of Ukraine during Soviet times, and where the Night Wolves use their massive shows to call for retaking the peninsula from Ukraine and restoring the lands of Greater Russia; posing with the President in photo ops in which he wears Ray-Bans and leathers and rides a three-wheel Harley (he can’t quite handle a two-wheeler); playing mega-concerts to 250,000 cheering fans celebrating the victory at Stalingrad in World War II and the eternal Holy War Russia is destined to fight against the West, with Cirque du Soleil–like trapeze acts, Spielberg-scale battle reenactments, religious icons, and holy ecstasies—in the middle of which come speeches from Stalin, read aloud to the 250,000 and announcing the holiness of the Soviet warrior—after which come more dancing girls and then the Night Wolves’ anthem, “Slavic Skies”: We are being attacked by the yoke of the infidels: But the sky of the Slavs boils in our veins . . . Russian speech rings like chain-mail in the ears of the foreigners, And the white host rises from the coppice to the stars.

I suppose we ought to go back,” she said when several minutes had passed, and his silence became unsettling. In answer Ian tipped his head back and closed his eyes, looking like a man in the throes of some deep, internal battle. “Why?” he said, still in that odd posture. “Because there’s nowhere else to walk,” she answered, stating the obvious. “We did not come out tonight to walk,” he said flatly. Elizabeth’s sense of security began to disintegrate. “We didn’t?” “You know we didn’t.” “Then-then why are we here?” she asked. “Because we wanted to be alone together.” Horrified at the possibility that he’d somehow known what thoughts had been running through her mind at supper, she said uneasily, “Why should you think I want to be alone with you?” He turned his head toward her, and his relentless gaze locked with hers. “Come here and I’ll show you why.” Her entire body began to vibrate with a mixture of shock, desire, and fear, but somehow her mind remained in control. It was one thing to want to be kissed by him at the cottage where the vicar was nearby, but here, with absolute privacy and nothing to prevent him from taking all sorts of liberties, it was another matter entirely. Far more dangerous. More frightening. And based on her behavior in England, she couldn’t even blame him for thinking she’d be willing now. Struggling desperately to ignore the sensual pull he was exerting on her, Elizabeth drew a long, shaky breath. “Mr. Thornton,” she began quietly. “My name is Ian,” he interrupted. “Considering our long acquaintance-not to mention what has transpired between us-don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to call me Mr. Thornton?” Ignoring his tone, Elizabeth tried to keep hers nonjudgmental and continue her explanation. “I used to blame you entirely for what happened that weekend we were together,” she began softly. “But I’ve come to see things more clearly.” She paused in that valiant speech to swallow and then plunged in again. “The truth is that my actions that first night, when we met in the garden and I asked you to dance with me, were foolish-no, shameless.” Elizabeth stopped, knowing that she could partly exonerate herself by explaining to him that she’d only done all that so her friends wouldn’t lose their wagers, but he would undoubtedly find that degrading and insulting, and she wanted very much to soothe matters between them, not make them much, much worse. And so she said haltingly, “Every other time we were alone together after that I behaved like a shameless wanton. I can’t completely blame you for thinking that’s exactly what I was.” His voice was heavy with irony. “Is that what I thought, Elizabeth?” His deep voice saying her name in the darkness made her senses jolt almost as much as the odd way he was looking at her across the distance that separated them. “Wh-what else could you have thought?” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned fully toward her. “I thought,” he gritted, “you were not only beautiful but intoxicatingly innocent. If I’d believed when we were standing in the garden that you realized what the hell you were asking for when you flirted with a man of my years and reputation, I’d have taken you up on your offer, and we’d both have missed the dancing.” Elizabeth gaped at him. “I don’t believe you.” “What don’t you believe-that I wanted to drag you behind the hedges then and there and make you melt in my arms? Or that I had scruples enough to ignore that ignoble impulse?

But perhaps the best and most memorable way to explain the conflict that arose between honoring traditional honor, and honoring one’s individual psyche, can be conveyed in a story from World War II. In 1943, coming off his dazzling victories in the Sicily campaign, George S. Patton stopped by a medical tent to visit with the wounded. He enjoyed these visits, and so did the soldiers and staff. He would hand out Purple Hearts, pump the men full of encouragement, and offer rousing speeches to the nurses, interns, and their patients that were so touching in nature they sometimes brought tears to many of the eyes in the room. On this particular occasion, as Patton entered the tent all the men jumped to attention except for one, Private Charles H. Kuhl, who sat slouched on a stool. Kuhl, who showed no outward injuries, was asked by Patton how he was wounded, to which the private replied, “I guess I just can’t take it.” Patton did not believe “battle fatigue” or “shell-shock” was a real condition nor an excuse to be given medical treatment, and had recently been told by one of the commanders of Kuhl’s division that, “The front lines seem to be thinning out. There seems to be a very large number of ‘malingerers’ at the hospitals, feigning illness in order to avoid combat duty.” He became livid. Patton slapped Kuhl across the face with his gloves, grabbed him by his collar, and led him outside the tent. Kicking him in the backside, Patton demanded that this “gutless bastard” not be admitted and instead be sent back to the front to fight. A week later, Patton slapped another soldier at a hospital, who, in tears, told the general he was there because of “his nerves,” and that he simply couldn’t “stand the shelling anymore.” Enraged, Patton brandished his white-handled, single-action Colt revolver and bellowed: Your nerves, Hell, you are just a goddamned coward, you yellow son of a bitch. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won’t have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying…You’re a disgrace to the Army and you’re going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed, but you’re going to fight. If you don’t I’ll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact I ought to shoot you myself, you God-damned whimpering coward.

As he gazed at the sun-darkened, battle-worn warriors before him, he decided that he would rather fight a hundred enemies by himself than have to stand up in public and risk the disapproval of others. Until the moment he opened his mouth, Eragon was not sure what he was going to say. Once he started, the words seemed to pour out of their own accord, but he was so tense, he could not remember much of what he said. The speech passed in a blur; his main impressions were of heat and sweat, the groans of the warriors when they learned of Nasuada’s fate, the ragged cheers when he exhorted them to victory, and the general roar from the crowd when he finished. With relief, he jumped down from the back of the wagon to where Arya and Orik were waiting next to Saphira. As he did, his guards formed a circle around the four of them, shielding them from the crowd and holding back those who wished to speak with him. “Well done, Eragon!” said Orik, clapping him on the arm. “Was it?” Eragon asked, feeling dazed. “You were most eloquent,” said Arya. Eragon shrugged, embarrassed. It intimidated him to remember that Arya had known most of the leaders of the Varden, and he could not help but think that Ajihad or his predecessor, Deynor, would have done a better job with the speech. Orik pulled on his sleeve. Eragon bent toward the dwarf. In a voice barely loud enough to be heard over the crowd, Orik said, “I hope that whatever you find is worth the trip, my friend. Take care you don’t get yourselves killed, eh?” “I’ll try not to.” To Eragon’s surprise, Orik grabbed him by the forearm and pulled him into a rough embrace. “May Gûntera watch over you.” As they separated, Orik reached over and slapped the palm of his hand against Saphira’s side. “And you as well, Saphira. Safe journeys to the both of you.” Saphira responded with a low hum. Eragon looked over at Arya. He suddenly felt awkward, unable to think of anything but the most obvious things to say. The beauty of her eyes still captivated him; the effect she had on him never seemed to lessen. Then she took his head in her hands, and she kissed him once, formally, on the brow. Eragon stared at her, dumbstruck. “Guliä waíse medh ono, Argetlam.” Luck be with you, Silverhand. As she released him, he caught her hands in his own. “Nothing bad is going to happen to us. I won’t let it. Not even if Galbatorix is waiting for us. If I have to, I’ll tear apart mountains with my bare hands, but I promise, we’re going to make it back safely.” Before she could respond, he let go of her hands and climbed onto Saphira’s back.

Speech to the Reichstag April 26, 1942 The British Jew, Lord Disraeli, once said that the race problem is the key to the history of the world. We National Socialists have become great in this knowledge. By devoting our attention to the existence of the race problem, we have found the solution for many problems which would have otherwise have seemed incomprehensible. The hidden forces which incited England already in 1914, in the first world war, were Jews. The force which paralyzed us at that time and finally forced us to surrender with the slogan that Germany was no longer able to bear homeward a victorious flag, came from the Jews. It was the Jews who fomented the revolution among our people and thus robbed us of every possibility at further resistance. Since 1939 the Jews have maneuvered the British Empire into the most perilous crisis it has ever known. The Jews were the carriers of that Bolshevist infection which once threatened to destroy Europe. It was also they who incited the ranks of the plutocracies to war, and it is the Jews who have driven America to war against all her own interests, simply and solely from the Jewish capitalistic point of view. And President Roosevelt, lacking ability himself, lends an ear to his brain trust, whose leading men I do not need to mention by name; they are Jews, nothing but Jews. And once again, as in the year 1915, she (America) will be incited by a Jewish President and his completely Jewish entourage to go to war without any reason or sense whatever, with nations which have never done anything to America, and with people from whom America can never win anything. For what is the sense of a war waged by a state having territory without people against people without territory. In the terms of the war it is no longer a question of the interests of individual nations; it is, rather, a question of conflict between nations which want to make the lives of their people secure on this earth, and nations which have become the helpless tools of an international world parasite. The German soldiers and the allies have had an opportunity to witness at first hand the actual work of this Jewish International-war mongers in that country in which Jewish dictatorship has exclusive power and in which it is being taught as the most ideal form of government in the world for future generations and to which low subjects of other nations have become inexplicably subservient just as this was the case with us at one time. And at this juncture this seemingly senile Europe has, as always in the course of its history, raised aloft the torch of its perception and today the men of Europe are marching as the representatives of a new and better order as the genuine youth of social and national liberty throughout the world. Gentlemen! In the course of this winter a decision has been reached in international struggle which as regards to problems involved far exceeds in scope those difficulties which must and can be solved in normal warfare; when in November 1918 the German nation being befogged by the hypocritical phraseology of the American President at that time, Wilson, laid down its arms, although undefeated, and withdrew from the field of battle it was acting under the influence of that Jewish race which hoped to succeed in establishing a secure bulwark of Bolshevism in the very heart of Europe. We know the theoretical principles and the cruel truth regarding the aims of this world-wide pestilence. It is called, "the Rule of the Proletariat," and it really is "Jewish Dictatorship," the extermination of national government and of the intelligent element among the nations, and the rule over the proletariat after it has thus deprived of its leaders and through its own fault ended defenseless by the concerted efforts of Jewish international criminals.

I, Prayer (A Poem of Magnitudes and Vectors) I, Prayer, know no hour. No season, no day, no month nor year. No boundary, no barrier or limitation–no blockade hinders Me. There is no border or wall I cannot breach. I move inexorably forward; distance holds Me not. I span the cosmos in the twinkling of an eye. I knowest it all. I am the most powerful force in the Universe. Who then is My equal? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Surely, I may’st with but a Word. Who then is able to stand before Me? I am the wind, the earth, the metal. I am the very empyrean vault of Heaven Herself. I span the known and the unknown beyond Eternity’s farthest of edges. And whatsoever under Her wings is Mine. I am a gentle stream, a fiery wrath penetrating; wearing down mountains –the hardest and softest of substances. I am a trickling brook to fools of want lost in the deserts of their own desires. I am a Niagara to those who drink in well. I seep through cracks. I inundate. I level forests kindleth unto a single burning bush. My hand moves the Universe by the mind of a child. I withhold treasures solid from the secret stores to they who would wrench at nothing. I do not sleep or eat, feel not fatigue, nor hunger. I do not feel the cold, nor rain or wind. I transcend the heat of the summer’s day. I commune. I petition. I intercede. My time is impeccable, by it worlds and destinies turn. I direct the fates of nations and humankind. My Words are Iron eternaled—rust not they away. No castle keep, nor towers of beaten brass, Nor the dankest of dungeon helks, Nor adamantine links of hand-wrought steel Can contain My Spirit–I shan’t turn back. The race is ne’er to the swift, nor battle to the strong, nor wisdom to the wise or wealth to the rich. For skills and wisdom, I give to the sons of man. I take wisdom and skills from the sons of man for they are ever Mine. Blessed is the one who finds it so, for in humility comes honor, For those who have fallen on the battlefield for My Name’s sake, I reach down to lift them up from On High. I am a rose with the thorn. I am the clawing Lion that pads her children. My kisses wound those whom I Love. My kisses are faithful. No occasion, moment in time, instances, epochs, ages or eras hold Me back. Time–past, present and future is to Me irrelevant. I span the millennia. I am the ever-present Now. My foolishness is wiser than man’s My weakness stronger than man’s. I am subtle to the point of formlessness yet formed. I have no discernible shape, no place into which the enemy may sink their claws. I AM wisdom and in length of days knowledge. Strength is Mine and counsel, and understanding. I break. I build. By Me, kings rise and fall. The weak are given strength; wisdom to those who seek and foolishness to both fooler and fool alike. I lead the crafty through their deceit. I set straight paths for those who will walk them. I am He who gives speech and sight - and confounds and removes them. When I cut, straight and true is my cut. I strike without fault. I am the razored edge of high destiny. I have no enemy, nor friend. My Zeal and Love and Mercy will not relent to track you down until you are spent– even unto the uttermost parts of the earth. I cull the proud and the weak out of the common herd. I hunt them in battles royale until their cries unto Heaven are heard. I break hearts–those whose are harder than granite. Beyond their atomic cores, I strike their atomic clock. Elect motions; not one more or less electron beyond electron’s orbit that has been ordained for you do I give–for His grace is sufficient for thee until He desires enough. Then I, Prayer, move on as a comet, Striking out of the black. I, His sword, kills to give Life. I am Living and Active, the Divider asunder of thoughts and intents. I Am the Light of Eternal Mind. And I, Prayer, AM Prayer Almighty.