Command And Conquer Quotes

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.

An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of command. The patients, they're the ones doing the tour of duty. The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they've left off from the previous visit. It is the nurses who are the seasoned sergeants -- the ones who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor might still have Popsicles left to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners know how to remove the stains of blood and chemotherapies from clothing. The nurses know the name of your daughter's stuffed walrus and show her how to make tissue paper flowers to twine around her IV stand. The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.

To conquer new territories you must have courage to lose sight of the shore. Dream big, then dare to wake up and accomplish it. Motivational speaker Robert J. Kriegel has said, “The shame in life is not to fail to reach your dream, but to fail to have a dream to reach.

The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

You will be what you "will" to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word, "environment", But spirit scorns it, and is free. It masters time, it conquers space; It cowes that boastful trickster, Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance To uncrown, and fill a servant's place. The human will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew a way to any goal, Though walls of graite intervene. Be not impatient in delay But wait as one who understands; When spirit rises and commands Then God is ready to obey.

It's the ultimate story of survival! Nemo is taken by the enemy, but his father doesn't give up trying to retrieve him. He forms unlikely alliances and conquers his fears to get his son back. Nemo also refuses to remain a prisoner and follows the warrior's code to escape and return to his family unit.

We had no ambition for more land or power, and nothing in the religion commands us to conquer non-Yazidis and spread our faith.

I will give you a few guarantees of my own, Mukthar. I guarantee that before the sun sets, even if you win, even if my cold, dead body is lying on the field, you will rue the day you ever set foot in the Plains. For every inch you advance I'll exact gallons of Mukthar blood. I guarantee that there will be not one family of the Bear Mukthars or they will mourn at least one of theirs. I guarantee that even if you are triumphant the fruits of victory will taste like dust in your mouth. I guarantee that if you fail to kill me today, you will meet me again. You will meet me at the Ximerionian border. You will meet me at every city, town, village, and hamlet. You will meet me on every Amirathan crossroad, on every hill. I will fight you with every sword at my command, with every arrow, with every dagger. I will fight you with pitchforks. I will fight you with the very rocks of the land you try to conquer. I will never, never, never give up. ~Anaxantis, before the Battle of the Zinchara (May 29th, 1453 aed)

Conquering the world was a simple thing; commanding one's spirit was the real challenge.

The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. Accordingly,

If the bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. 'Our heavenly Father' commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite God was once a savage.

His lips covered hers swiftly, his tongue taking advantage of her gasp and sweeping in commandingly. He had asked for the caress earlier that morning, now he demanded. He conquered, he licked and stroked her tongue and gloried in her instant, if hesitant, response. She was shy. Wary. She wouldn’t give in to the heat pulsing between them easily. But she was curious enough about it to allow the kiss.

Staring at her in his arms, he knew that he would lay his life down for hers without regret. He would slay dragons and move mountains for her. He would conquer whole worlds at her command and starve to skin and bones just to ensure she had food. She was not his sun or moon, but his galaxy.

So You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word, 'environment,' But spirit scorns it, and is free. "It masters time, it conquers space; It cowes that boastful trickster, Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown, and fill a servant's place. "The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew a way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene. "Be not impatient in delays But wait as one who understands; When spirit rises and commands The gods are ready to obey.

Its Seventh Commandment, italicized by the authors, stated: “Battles are beyond everything else struggles of morale. Defeat is inevitable as soon as the hope of conquering ceases to exist. Success comes not to him who has suffered the least but to him whose will is firmest and morale strongest.

14.  By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat. 15.  The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer:—let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:—let such a one be dismissed!

The long wait is over. I go to Spain to command an army legally at last; I will put my hands on a living machine which in the right hands -my hands- cannot be stopped, warped, dislocated, ground down. I have yearned for a supreme military command since I sat, a boy, at old Gaius Marius's knee and listened spellbound to a master of warfare telling stories. But until this moment I did not undestand how passionately, how fiercely I have lusted for that military command. I will lay my hands on a Roman army and conquer the world, for I believe in Rome, I believe in our Gods. And I believe in myself. I am the soul of the Roman army. I cannot be stopped, warped, dislocated, ground down.

Once upon a time..They came from Europe, yielding swords, they robbed, raped, conquered Africa , and gave us The Ten Commandments.

The dictators, commanders or emperors who want to conquer the world soon realize that the world has already been conquered by the artists and their arts!

Nothing is quite that overwhelming. A strong belief in your unlimited spirit and an unshakeable faith that God has your back, will handover the command back to you.

4. So reason makes all sorts of life easy, and every change pleasant. Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: Do not you think it a matter worthy of lamentation, that, when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one? But Crates with only his scrip and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival. The great power and command of Agamemnon gave him an equal disturbance:

SAVE. If you want to test a young man and ascertain whether nature made him for a king or a subject, give him a thousand dollars and see what he will do with it. If he is born to conquer and command, he will put it quietly away till he is ready to use it as opportunity offers. If he is born to serve, he will immediately begin to spend it in gratifying his ruling propensity. —Parton.

It’s time to stop hiding. It’s time to know your power, claim your voice, and tip the balance back toward a feminine future. To restore balance. It’s not about man vs. woman. Rulers vs. religion. Command and conquer. This is about harmony. Unity. Removing what has defined and divided us. It’s time to become activated Goddesses. Understand. These shifts are going to make your earth move. So if you know one thing, know this, that if you hold your Goddess energy, your truthful emotion, in your soul, nothing can shake you.

There was no politics in Persia because the great king was the master of slaves, not rulers of citizens. The point is beautifully made by Herodotus, the father of history and our own starting point. The exiled Spartan king, Demaratus, had taken refuge at the court of the great king of Persia, Darius I, in 491 BCE. Darius made him the ruler of Pergamum and some other cities. In 480 Darius's son and successor, Xerxes, took him to see the enormous army he had assembled to avenge his father's humiliation by the Athenians in an earlier attempt to conquer Greece. 'Surely,' he said to Demaratus, "the Greeks will not fight against such odds.' He was displeased when Demaratus assured him that they certainly would. 'How is it possible that a thousand men-- or ten thousand, or fifty thousand should stand up to an army as big as mine, especially if they were not under a single master but all perfectly free to do as they pleased?' He could understand that they might feign courage if they were whipped into battle as his Persian troops would be, but it was absurd to suppose that they would fight against such odds. Not a bit of it, said Demaratus. THey would fight and die to preserve their freedom. He added, 'They are free--yes--but they are not wholly free; for they have a master, and that master is Law, which they fear much more than your subjects fear you. Whatever this master commands they do; and his command never varies: it is never to retreat in battle, however great the odds, but always to remain in formation and to conquer or die.' They were Citizens, not subjects, and free men, not slaves; they were disciplined but self-disciplined. Free men were not whipped into battle.

Consumer debt is the lifeblood of our economy. All modern nation-states are built on deficit spending. Debt has come to be the central issue of international politics. But nobody seems to know exactly what it is, or how to think about it. The very fact that we don't know what debt is, the very flexibility of the concept, is the basis of its power. If history shows anything, it is that there's no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt- above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it's the victim who's doing something wrong. Mafiosi understand this. So do the commanders of conquering armies. For thousands of years, violent men have been able to tell their victims that these victims owe them something. If nothing else, they "owe them their lives" (a telling phrase) because they haven't been killed.

Don't strive to be clever, strive to be sensible. Don't strive to be mighty, strive to be amiable. Don't strive to be eminent, strive to be helpful. Don't strive to be successful, strive to be useful. Don't strive to be rich, strive to be valuable. Don't strive to be great, strive to be humble. Don't strive to teach, strive to be knowledgable. Don't strive to preach, strive to be insightful. Don't strive to compete, strive to be impactful. Don't strive to command, strive to be resourceful. Don't strive to dominate, strive to be skillful. Don't strive to conquer, strive to be masterful. If you strive to be a preacher, strive to be spiritual. If you strive to be teacher, strive to be approachable. If you strive to be a leader, strive to be teachable. If you strive to be a warrior, strive to be thoughtful. If you strive to be a commander, strive to be gentle. If you strive to be a conqueror, strive to be merciful.

The Middle Ages in Europe are traditionally seen as the time of Crusades, chivalry and the growing power of the papacy, but all this was little more than a sideshow to the titanic struggles taking place further east. The tribal system had led the Mongols to the brink of global domination, having conquered almost the whole continent of Asia. Europe and North Africa yawned open; it was striking then that the Mongol leadership focused not on the former but on the latter. Put simply, Europe was not the best prize on offer. All that stood in the way of Mongol control of the Nile, of Egypt’s rich agricultural output and its crucial position as a junction on the trade routes in all directions was an army commanded by men who were drawn from the very same steppes: this was not just a struggle for supremacy, it was the triumph of a political, cultural and social system. The battle for the medieval world was being fought between nomads from Central and eastern Asia.

p. 274 ...his trademark decision to surrender power as commander in chief and then president, was not...a sign that he had conquered his ambitions, but rather that he fully realized that all ambitions were inherently insatiable and unconquerable. He knew himself well enough to resist the illusion that he transcended human nature. Unlike Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell before him, and Napoleon, Lenin, and Mao after him, he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment. If you aspire to live forever in the memory of future generations, you must demonstrate the ultimate self-confidence to leave the final judgment to them. And he did.

No animal species had managed to conquer the world and it's resources like humans had. Even dinosaurs were now extinct. Human beings had won the overall victory, they had sourced and evolved, developing knowledge which allowed them to command and control their environment. The world and all its resources were now a slave to humanity.

If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt—above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong. Mafiosi understand this. So do the commanders of conquering armies.

Phaethon asked: “Do you think there is something wrong with the Sophotechs? We are Manorials, father! We let Rhadamanthus control our finances and property, umpire our disputes, teach our children, design our thoughtscapes, and even play matchmaker to find us wives and husbands!” “Son, the Sophotechs may be sufficient to advise the Parliament on laws and rules. Laws are a matter of logic and common sense. Specially designed human-thinking versions, like Rhadamanthus, can tell us how to fulfill our desires and balance our account books. Those are questions of strategy, of efficient allocation of resources and time. But the Sophotechs, they cannot choose our desires for us. They cannot guide our culture, our values, our tastes. That is a question of the spirit.” “Then what would you have us do? Would you change our laws?” “Our mores, not our laws. There are many things which are repugnant, deadly to the spirit, and self-destructive, but which law should not forbid. Addiction, self-delusion, self-destruction, slander, perversion, love of ugliness. How can we discourage such things without the use of force? It was in response to this need that the College of Hortators evolved. Peacefully, by means of boycotts, public protests, denouncements, and shunnings, our society can maintain her sanity against the dangers to our spirit, to our humanity, to which such unboundried liberty, and such potent technology, exposes us.” (...) But Phaethon certainly did not want to hear a lecture, not today. “Why are you telling me all this? What is the point?” “Phaethon, I will let you pass through those doors, and, once through, you will have at your command all the powers and perquisites I myself possess. The point of my story is simple. The paradox of liberty of which you spoke before applies to our entire society. We cannot be free without being free to harm ourselves. Advances in technology can remove physical dangers from our lives, but, when they do, the spiritual dangers increase. By spiritual danger I mean a danger to your integrity, your decency, your sense of life. Against those dangers I warn you; you can be invulnerable, if you choose, because no spiritual danger can conquer you without your own consent. But, once they have your consent, those dangers are all-powerful, because no outside force can come to your aid. Spiritual dangers are always faced alone. It is for this reason that the Silver-Gray School was formed; it is for this reason that we practice the exercise of self-discipline. Once you pass those doors, my son, you will be one of us, and there will be nothing to restrain you from corruption and self-destruction except yourself. “You have a bright and fiery soul, Phaethon, a power to do great things; but I fear you may one day unleash such a tempest of fire that you may consume yourself, and all the world around you.

In our desire to have a political tribe to belong to, we create an idol. When we cast aside our intellectual curiosity, refuse to adapt our opinions on policy when presented with new information, and lose our ability to view each candidate and every issue independently, we have cast our lot with a political party. We have sworn allegiance to something or someone who is not God and was never designed to be worshipped.

The Elsinore's bow tilted skyward while her stern fell into a foaming valley. Not a man had gained his feet. Bridge and men swept back toward me and fetched up against the mizzen-shrouds. And then that prodigious, incredible old man appeared out of the water, on his two legs, upright, dragging with him, a man in each hand, the helpless forms of Nancy and the Faun. My heart leapt at beholding this mighty figure of a man-killer and slave-driver, it is true, but who sprang first into the teeth of danger so that his slaves might follow, and who emerged with a half-drowned slave in either hand. I knew augustness and pride as I gazed--pride that my eyes were blue, like his; that my skin was blond, like his; that my place was aft with him, and with the Samurai, in the high place of government and command. I nearly wept with the chill of pride that was akin to awe and that tingled and bristled along my spinal column and in my brain. As for the rest--the weaklings and the rejected, and the dark-pigmented things, the half-castes, the mongrel-bloods, and the dregs of long-conquered races--how could they count? My heels were iron as I gazed on them in their peril and weakness. Lord! Lord! For ten thousand generations and centuries we had stamped upon their faces and enslaved them to the toil of our will.

O Fabricius! What would your great soul have thought, if to your own misfortune you had been called back to life and had seen the pompous face of this Rome saved by your efforts and which your honourable name had distinguished more than all its conquests? 'Gods,' you would have said, 'what has happened to those thatched roofs and those rustic dwelling places where, back then, moderation and virtue lived? What fatal splendour has succeeded Roman simplicity? What is this strange language? What are these effeminate customs? What do these statues signify, these paintings, these buildings? You mad people, what have you done? You, masters of nations, have you turned yourself into the slaves of the frivolous men you conquered? Are you now governed by rhetoricians? Was it to enrich architects, painters, sculptors, and comic actors that you soaked Greece and Asia with your blood? Are the spoils of Carthage trophies for a flute player? Romans, hurry up and tear down these amphitheatres, break up these marbles, burn these paintings, chase out these slaves who are subjugating you, whose fatal arts are corrupting you. Let other hands distinguish themselves with vain talents. The only talent worthy of Rome is that of conquering the world and making virtue reign there. When Cineas took our Senate for an assembly of kings, he was not dazzled by vain pomp or by affected elegance. He did not hear there this frivolous eloquence, the study and charm of futile men. What then did Cineas see that was so majestic? O citizens! He saw a spectacle which your riches or your arts could never produce, the most beautiful sight which has ever appeared under heaven, an assembly of two hundred virtuous men, worthy of commanding in Rome and governing the earth.

The self is ever listening and self-seeking; it compares, compels, conquers, and destroys. It rules and is also the I’s ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty commander, an unknown wise man-he is called self . . . Your self laughs at your ego and its proud leaps. 'What are these leaps and flights to me?' it says to itself. 'A detour to my purpose. I am the leading reins of the I and the prompter of its conception.

The self is ever listening and self-seeking; it compares, compels, conquers, and destroys. It rules and is also the I’s ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty commander, an unknown wise man-he is called self . . . Your self laughs at your ego and its proud leaps. 'What are these leaps and flights to me?' it says to itself. 'A detour to my purpose. I am the leading reins of the I and the prompter of its conception.

Aboard a Chesapeake Bay steamer, not long after his surrender, the general heard a fellow passenger insisting that the South had been “conquered but not subdued.” Asked in what command he had served, the bellicose young man — one of those stalwarts later classified as “invisible in war and invincible in peace” — replied that, unfortunately, circumstances had made it impossible for him to be in the army. “Well, sir, I was,” Johnston told him. “You may not be subdued, but I am.

We shall see clearly that it is greater to despise the world than to have it at one's command; that it is infinitely preferable to submit to the humblest of men for God's sake, than to command kings and princes; that an humble knowledge of ourselves surpasses the deepest sciences; in short, that greater praise is due to him who curbs his passions on the most trivial occasions, than to him who conquers the strongest cities, defeats entire armies, or even works miracles and raises the dead to life.

It doesn’t cost much to hate, but it costs you everything to love. It doesn’t cost much to fall, but it costs you everything to rise. It doesn’t cost much to doubt, but it costs you everything to believe. It doesn’t cost much to forget, but it costs you everything to remember. It doesn’t cost much to take, but it costs you everything to give. It doesn’t cost much to create, but it costs you everything to destroy. It doesn’t cost much to seek, but it costs you everything to find. It doesn’t cost much to command, but it costs you everything to obey. It doesn’t cost much to destroy, but it costs you everything to build. It doesn’t cost much to hinder, but it costs you everything to help. It doesn’t cost much to harm, but it costs you everything to heal. It doesn’t cost much to revenge, but it costs you everything to forgive. It doesn’t cost much to condenm, but it costs you everything to sympathize. It doesn’t cost much to assume, but it costs you everything to prove. It doesn’t cost much to ignore, but it costs you everything to understand. It doesn’t cost much to despise, but it costs you everything to honor. It doesn’t cost much to blame, but it costs you everything to praise. It doesn’t cost much to denounce, but it costs you everything to appluad. It doesn’t cost much to rest, but it costs you everything to work. It doesn’t cost much to surrender, but it costs you everything to conquer. It doesn’t cost much to lose, but it costs you everything to win. It doesn’t cost much to fail, but it costs you everything to succeed. It doesn’t cost much to rest, but it costs you everything to work. It doesn’t cost much to die, but it costs you everything to live. It doesn’t cost much to sit, but it costs you everything to stand. It doesn’t cost much to walk, but it costs you everything to run. It doesn’t cost much to jog, but it costs you everything to soar. It doesn’t cost much to follow, but it costs you everything to lead. It doesn’t cost much to give up, but it costs you everything to persevere.

When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in two parts. One part he leaves behind. That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed. “That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.” The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard. “Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside. “This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath. “What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy’s spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell? “When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees. “What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.” Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops. “I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased. I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods. “Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event. But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment. “The Persian!

Scipio asked Hannibal, “Whom he thought the greatest captain?” The latter answered, “Alexander . . . because with a small force he defeated armies whose numbers were beyond reckoning, and because he had overrun the remotest regions, merely to visit which was a thing above human aspirations.” Scipio then asked, “ To whom he gave the second place ? ” and Hannibal replied, “To Pyrrhus, for he first taught the method of encamping, and besides, no one ever showed such exquisite judgment in choosing his ground and disposing his posts; while he also possessed the art of conciliating mankind to himself to such a degree that the natives of Italy wished him, though a foreign prince, to hold the sovereignty among them, rather than the Roman people. . . .” On Scipio proceeding to ask, “Whom he esteemed the third? ” Hannibal replied, “Myself, beyond doubt.” On this Scipio laughed, and added, “What would you have said if you had conquered me? ” “Then I would have placed Hannibal not only before Alexander and Pyrrhus, but before all other commanders.

The priesthood of Christ is “not according to the law of a fleshy commandment, but according to the power of an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16). Aaron was constituted high priest according to the powerless letter of the law, but Christ according to the powerful element of an indestructible life. Our High Priest is constituted of a life which nothing can conquer, but which rather conquers everything! It is a life which cannot be destroyed. A life which saves to the uttermost. The endless, eternal, divine, uncreated life. The resurrection life which has passed the test of death and Hades.

We come to conquer this land by his command, that all may come to a knowledge of God and of His Holy Catholic Faith; and by reason of our good mission, God, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things in them, permits this, in order that you may know Him and come out from the bestial and diabolical life that you lead. It is for this reason that we, being so few in number, subjugate that vast host. When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land by order of his Majesty the King of Spain. Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.

Esper had not directly criticized the commander in chief, but his predecessor, Jim Mattis, finally delivered the rebuke of Trump he had held in for years. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, before invoking “the Nazi slogan for destroying us . . . ‘Divide and Conquer.’ “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort,” Mattis went on. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.

The situation is therefore the same as with the fish-king, for the magician is the personification of the water of death, which in its turn stands for the devouring mother. This great deed of Hiawatha’s, when he conquers the Terrible Mother and death-bringing daemon in the guise of the negative father, is followed by his marriage with Minnehaha. He can only turn to his human side after he has fulfilled his heroic destiny: firstly the transformation of the daemon from an uncontrolled force of nature into a power that is his to command; secondly the final deliverance of ego-consciousness from the deadly threat of the unconscious in the form of the negative parents. The first task signifies the creation of will-power, the second the free use of it.

I didn’t let myself touch him, not just then, because I was trying to be what I thought of as strategic. Christian had been an influential lesson. Men—rich men, handsome men, powerful men; poor men, hideous men, weak men—men do not want women they can simply have. Men are socialized to chase and dominate, to win, to esteem combativeness. History as it is written is the history of men conquering, men pillaging, men owning, men commanding. Everything around us, from the faces on our money to the statues in the streets, reiterates that we value men who conquer—men who take something from others. And women are property. We have been property forever. It is so rare for a woman to belong to herself. Even now, as I write these words, grasping for order and truth, I wonder if I am yet possessed of myself.

The Jewish doctrine of Marxism denies the noble goal of Nature and sets mass and dead weight of numbers in place of the eternal privilege of strength and power. It denies the value of personality in man, disputes the significance of nation and race, and deprives mankind of the essentials of its survival and civilization. As a foundation of the universe, Marxism would be the end of any order conceivable to man. The result of applying such a law could only be chaos. Destruction would be the only result for the inhabitants of this planet. If, through his Marxist faith, the Jew conquers the peoples of this world, his crown will be the death and destruction of all mankind. Earth would again move uninhabited through space as it did millions of years ago. Eternal Nature takes revenge for violation of her commandments.

By the law we fear God; by faith we hope in God: but from those who fear punishment grace is hidden. And the soul which labours under this fear, since it has not conquered its evil concupiscence, and from which this fear, like a harsh master, has not departed,--let it flee by faith for refuge to the mercy of God, that He may give it what He commands, and may, by inspiring into it the sweetness of His grace through His Holy Spirit, cause the soul to delight more in what He teaches it, than it delights in what opposes His instruction. In this manner it is that the great abundance of His sweetness,--that is, the law of faith,--His love which is in our hearts, and shed abroad, is perfected in them that hope in Him, that good may be wrought by the soul, healed not by the fear of punishment, but by the love of righteousness.

MASTER SUN SAYS, Of old, those who excelled in battle thought first to make themselves invincible, and so they waited for the moment when their enemies could be defeated. It is you who determine your own invincibility, but whether the enemy can be conquered or not rests with him. Therefore, whoever excels in battle can make himself invincible, but he cannot always make the enemy vulnerable. Hence I say, “The conditions for victory can be known, but they cannot be forced.”1 Go on the defensive when your enemy cannot be overcome. Go on the offensive against a vulnerable enemy. Defend when your troop strength is lacking. Attack when you have surplus strength. To excel at defense means hiding oneself away in the deepest recesses of the earth. To excel at offense means striking from the highest reaches of the heavens. Therefore, the commander who is good at both offense and defense can preserve himself and achieve total victory.

God’s goodness comes to us amidst the battle and dust of our own suffering, our own long defeat. God always arrives with healing. But he is humble and meek, a king who comes in through the back door of our hearts not to conquer and raze our imperfections away but to hold and heal us by the intimacy of his touch, his presence here with us in the inmost rooms of our suffering. The power of God is radically gentle, never rough with our needs or careless with our yearning. God is fixed upon the restoration of our whole selves and souls, not just the bits that everyone else can see. Yet the very tenderness of his power is something we sometimes treat as his weakness or cruelty because we crave a more visible result. The healing kind of power is not the sort we’ve been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force. We want the swift and the visible: illness zapped away, money in our hands, brilliant doctors, prosperous lives, and conversion stories by the thousands. We crave visibility and approbation and health and big crowds that make us feel important enough to forget the frail selves we used to be. When we pray for God to come in power to save us, we often picture a scenario in which God invades our lives as the ultimate mighty man to banish our frailty and make us something entirely other than we are, capable of the will and force whose lack we so deeply feel. But God cradles and cherishes our frailty, and that is where the true power of his love is known. I always think it intriguing that in the Gospels Jesus seems far less interested in the faith and hope at work in broken people than merely the healing of their bodies. For I think God knows there is no real healing until our hearts are healed of their fear, our minds cleansed of doubt. Broken bodies, shattered hopes, suffering minds, terrible pasts - they leave us deathly ill with the twisted belief that love can never be great enough to encompass the whole of the story. We feel that we must subtract or conceal part of ourselves if we are ever to win the love of other people or God himself. We are diminished in our own eyes by our suffering, taught to despair of our dreams, to give up our hope that God will come with goodness in his hands. So God creeps in, gentle, and we know his touch because we are not discarded or dismissed, but healed. He comes to unravel our self-doubt, to untangle the evil we have believed, to call us back from the dark lands of our insecurity. He calls us by name and wakes us from sleep so that we rise to ask what this kind and precious King commands, and so often his command is simply to open our hands so that they may be filled with his goodness. For when God arrives as the healer, we learn anew that the anguished hopes we carry are held within God’s hand like the hazelnut of Mother Julian’s vision. The story he weaves for us may look radically different from what we thought we desired, but when it arrives, we will recognize it as the intimate gift of a love whose will for us is always so much greater than our own.

I here behold a Commander in Chief who looks idle and is always busy; who has no other desk than his knees, no other comb than his fingers; constantly reclined on his couch, yet sleeping neither in night nor in daytime. A cannon shot, to which he himself is not exposed, disturbs him with the idea that it costs the life of some of his soldiers. Trembling for others, brave himself, alarmed at the approach of danger, frolicsome when it surrounds him, dull in the midst of pleasure, surfeited with everything, easily disgusted, morose, inconstant, a profound philosopher, an able minister, a sublime politician, not revengeful, asking pardon for a pain he has inflicted, quickly repairing an injustice, thinking he loves God when he fears the Devil; waving one hand to the females that please him, and with the other making the sign of the cross; receiving numberless presents from his sovereign and distributing them immediately to others; preferring prodigality in giving, to regularity in paying; prodigiously rich and not worth a farthing; easily prejudiced in favor of or against anything; talking divinity to his generals and tactics to his bishops; never reading, but pumping everyone with whom he converses; uncommonly affable or extremely savage, the most attractive or most repulsive of manners; concealing under the appearance of harshness, the greatest benevolence of heart, like a child, wanting to have everything, or, like a great man, knowing how to do without; gnawing his fingers, or apples, or turnips; scolding or laughing; engaged in wantonness or in prayers, summoning twenty aides de camp and saying nothing to any of them, not caring for cold, though he appears unable to exist without furs; always in his shirt without pants, or in rich regimentals; barefoot or in slippers; almost bent double when he is at home, and tall, erect, proud, handsome, noble, majestic when he shows himself to his army like Agamemnon in the midst of the monarchs of Greece. What then is his magic? Genius, natural abilities, an excellent memory, artifice without craft, the art of conquering every heart; much generosity, graciousness, and justice in his rewards; and a consummate knowledge of mankind. There

AUGUST 19 THE “ACCURSED THINGS” And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. . . . But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan . . . took of the accursed things; so the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel. —Joshua 6:18; 7:1 (NKJV) We have to leave “accursed things” behind. Led by Joshua, God delivered the city of Jericho into the Israelites’ hands. God just had one requirement: after the city is conquered, the Israelites should leave the “accursed things”—the idols, the spoils, the wicked items that corrupted Jericho—behind. After the victory, most of the Israelites obeyed God’s command. But one man, Achan, “took of the accursed things; so the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel.” We have to scan our lives to see if there are items within them not of God. Are we watching, consuming, or participating in things that the enemy can use for our destruction? If so, we have to leave them behind—not only for our sake, but for our children, and our children’s children.   Dear God, help me leave behind the “accursed things.” Break me of any dependencies, and bring me into your light. Amen.

The lack of traces is the trace of his Perfect One. In the immensity of the strength of his spirit, compared to the limited consciousness of human beings, he appears to hardly know he exists. In the guise of weakness, he has true strength; he knows he is powerful and yet appears weak. He knows he is enlightened and yet appears small and mediocre. He dulls what is sharp, clarifies what is confused, tones down his shining nature, and is outwardly identical with what is ordinary. He progresses without advancing; he absorbs without conquering; he has without owning. Becoming like everybody else, he becomes different from everybody. As he goes on, he is as prudent as one who crosses a winter stream; vigilant as one who knows he is surrounded by enemies; cold as a stranger; ephemeral as a melting snowflake; rough as a tree trunk; wide as the great valleys; impenetrable as deep water; inaccessible as solitary peaks. He arrives without walking; he penetrates without looking; achieves without willing; acts without doing; he just vanishes. He is obeyed without commanding; he wins without struggling; he draws people to himself without calling for them. How disheartening to those who uphold the myth of manhood based on muscles and metallic strength: this alone is the true man, the absolute man! He absorbs within himself the ambiguous virtue of the female.

Perhaps because the Beatles commanded enormous space across the country’s newspaper real estate, Bob Dylan seemed the far more likely music figure to assume the mantle of bard, or at the very least start issuing volumes of poetry. Already, Dylan attracted British esteem as a “poet,” long before this debate started up in America, and allowed skeptics to disdain Lennon as a mere pop star while Dylan still wore his acoustic folkie halo. Many writers gloss over how Dylan’s leap to rock ’n’ roll during the coming season came as a far greater shock to British sensibilities than it did to American ears. For Lennon to issue verse in book form ahead of Dylan had a kind of weird British advance revenge to it, as though they could not just conquer American music but best them at the word game as well, and who better to do so than the giant pop star whose brains were obviously way too advanced for this rock stuff he would surely grow out of? Lennon and Dylan began to spar in the British imagination, the antic Scouser who always threatened to go round the bend against the oddly prolific American whose epic abstractions quite nearly absolved him of being Jewish. Since In His Own Write’s release on April 7, 1964, reviewers had gone overboard to praise Lennon’s unlikely literary success while conservative scribblers—like that old man on A Hard Day’s Night’s train—lambasted yet another example of youth’s ingratitude. In His Own Write became another Beatlemania sideshow that gave Lennon’s pop stature heft.

There was Brunhilde, a star shining high above the hillside behind her, dark, rippling hair hanging below her waist, standing in full command, spear in hand. Constance could not help thinking the star so large and bright might have shone over Bethlehem. She was momentarily grateful for her veil, not only for the concealment of her identity but also of her amused response to the scene before her. She struggled to contain herself as her eyes moved to the second vignette: here was fair Juliet, standing beneath rather than on her balcony, garbed in simple lines, her head wreathed in flowers, a cross of stars high above her. Ah, those star-crossed lovers, thought Constance. Again, she was glad that she could hide her amusement. How clever these women, she thought. The third was Semiramis, a quarter moon low above the exotic turrets behind her crowned head, a long-handled fan in her hand, like the fan of a servant. How should Constance interpret this? At once she noticed the replication of the shape of Brunhilde’s spear, but it was enlarged. Semiramis, the queen who had served for her son yet had conquered her foes and enlarged her kingdom. And was this moon waxing or waning? Rising or setting? Or perhaps the enigma of a waxing moon rising. Ah, somehow that was comfort. Last, before a rising sun, framed by trees that reached out to touch one another, stood Pocahontas, her costume appearing authentic, a feather in her headdress, the emblematizing dawn of a new age, a new woman in a new world. May it be so, thought Constance.

There is safety in learning doctrine in gatherings which are sponsored by proper authority. Some members, even some who have made covenants in the temple, are associating with groups of one kind or another which have an element of secrecy about them and which pretend to have some higher source of inspiration concerning the fulfillment of prophecies than do ward or stake leaders or the General Authorities of the Church. Know this: There are counterfeit revelations which, we are warned, “if possible . . . shall deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant.” (JS—M 1:22.) . . . For the past several years we have watched patterns of reverence and irreverence in the Church. While many are to be highly commended, we are drifting. We have reason to be deeply concerned. The world grows increasingly noisy. Clothing and grooming and conduct are looser and sloppier and more disheveled. Raucous music, with obscene lyrics blasted through amplifiers while lights flash psychedelic colors, characterizes the drug culture. Variations of these things are gaining wide acceptance and influence over our youth. . . . This trend to more noise, more excitement, more contention, less restraint, less dignity, less formality is not coincidental nor innocent nor harmless. The first order issued by a commander mounting a military invasion is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer. Irreverence suits the purposes of the adversary by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and spirit.

Until every cell of your body thrills in joyful response to the command, "Be Still," and instantly obeys; And every vagrant thought hovering around your mind hides itself off into nothingness. Then, as the Words reverberate through the caverns of your now empty being; Then, as the Sun of Knowing begins to rise on the horizon of your consciousness; Then, will you feel the swell of a wondrous strange Breath filling you to the extreme of all your mortal members, causing your senses almost to burst with the ecstasy of it; then, will there come surge after surge of a mighty, resistless Power rising within you, lifting you almost off the earth; then, will you feel within the Glory, the Holiness, the Majesty of My Presence; And then, then you will KNOW, I AM, God. You, when you have felt Me thus in such moments within, when you have tasted of My Power, hearkened to My Wisdom, and know the ecstasy of My all-embracing Love, no disease can touch, no circumstance can weaken, no enemy can conquer you. For now you KNOW I AM within, and you always hereafter will turn to Me in your need, putting all your trust in Me, and allowing Me to manifest My Will. You, when you turn thus to Me, will always find Me an unfailing and ever-present help in time of need; for I will so fill you with a Realization of My Presence and of My Power, that you need only Be Still and allow Me to do whatever you want done heal your ills and those of others, illumine your mind so you can see with My eyes the Truth you seek, or perform perfectly the tasks which before seemed almost impossible of accomplishment

Hartung tells of a horrifying study by the Israeli psychologist George Tamarin. Tamarin presented to more than a thousand Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, the account of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua:   Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.’ . . . Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire, and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.   Tamarin then asked the children a simple moral question: ‘Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?’ They had to choose between A (total approval), B (partial approval) and C (total disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gave total approval and 26 per cent total disapproval, with rather fewer (8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are three typical answers from the total approval (A) group:   In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim.   In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.   Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth.   The justification for the genocidal massacre by Joshua is religious in every case. Even those in category C, who gave total disapproval, did so, in some cases, for backhanded religious reasons. One girl, for example, disapproved of Joshua’s conquering Jericho because, in order to do so, he had to enter it:   I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse.   Two others who totally disapproved did so because Joshua destroyed everything, including animals and property, instead of keeping some as spoil for the Israelites:   I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have spared the animals for themselves.   I think Joshua did not act well, as he could have left the property of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the property it would have belonged to the Israelites.   Once again the sage Maimonides, often cited for his scholarly wisdom, is in no doubt where he stands on this issue: ‘It is a positive commandment to destroy the seven nations, as it is said: Thou shalt utterly destroy them. If one does not put to death any of them that falls into one’s power, one transgresses a negative commandment, as it is said: Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth!

In the earliest strand of the conquest narratives, Joshua's violence was associated with an ancient Canaanite custom called the "ban" (herem). Before a battle, a military leader would strike a deal with his god: if this deity undertook to give him the city, the commander promised to "devote" (HRM) all valuable loot to his temple and offer the conquered people to him in a human sacrifice. Joshua had made such a pact with Yahweh before attacking Jericho, and Yahweh responded by delivering the town to Israel in a specular miracle, causing its famous walls to collapse when the priests blew their rams' horns. Before allowing his troops to storm the city, Joshua explained the terms of the ban and stipulated that no one in the city should be spared, since everybody and everything in the town had been "devoted" to Yahweh. Accordingly, the Israelites "enforced the ban on everything in the town, men, and women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all." But the ban had been violated when one of the soldiers kept booty for himself, and consequently the Israelites failed to take the town of Ai the following day. After the culprit had been found and executed, the Israelites attached Ai again, this time successfully, setting fire to the city so that it became a sacrificial pyre and slaughtering anybody who tried to escape: "The number of those who fell that day, men and women together, were twelve thousand all (the) people of Ai." Finally Joshua hanged the king from a tree, built a monumental cairn over his body, and reduced the city to "a ruin for ever more, a desolate place, even today.

He considered accordingly that he was not able to conquer it by any means other than if he should mutilate himself and desert to their side. So, counting himself little, he maltreated his own body in a manner which could not be cured; for he cut off his nose and his ears, and shaved his hair round in an unseemly way, and scourged himself, and so entered the presence of Darius. And Darius was distraught when he saw the man of most repute with him thus maltreated; and leaping up from his seat he cried aloud and asked him who was the person who had mutilated him, and for what deed. He replied: “That man does not exist, except you, who has so great power as to bring me into this condition; and not any stranger, 0 king, has done this, but I myself to myself, accounting it a very grievous thing that the Assyrians should mock the Persians.” He replied: “You most reckless of men, you set the fairest name to the foulest deed when you said that on account of those who are besieged you did bring yourself into a condition which cannot be cured. How, 0 senseless one, will the enemy surrender to “us more quickly, because you have mutilated yourself? Surely you were out of your mind in thus destroying yourself.” And he said, “If I had communicated to you that which I was about to do, you would not have permitted me to do it; but as it was, I did it on my own account. Now therefore, unless something is wanting on your part, we shall conquer Babylon: for I shall go straightway as a deserter to the wall; and I shall say to them that I suffered this treatment at your hands: and I think that when I have convinced them that this is so, I shall obtain the command of a part of their forces.

• “Arthur’s whole demeanor shifted as he gestured with so much animation he nearly spilled his drink. “Did you see him fight? Oh, he is magnificent. I have longed to declare a tournament for him, but the problem with rule of law is that you have to abide by your own silly ideas.” P.73 “There was a dangerous magic in pretending… But when Arthur looked across the room and his entire being lit up with happiness at seeing her, she forgot again. She beamed at him as he rushed to her and gave her an exaggerated, silly bow. In the space of crossing the floor, he had transformed from conquering king commanding men twice his age to … Arthur.” P.83 “Iron bites, but it does not kill. And I am accustomed to pain.” P.319 “You cannot let her rise. You know what it would mean.” “A return to nature. A return to the wild magic at the heart of this country. Do you know who carved Camelot out of the mountain? It was not men. Men came in and claimed it, because that is what men do.” He held his sword and stared at how it caught the moonlight. “I do not want men to die. But they need to be reminded of their place in this world. Someone has to stop them claiming everything worth having. Stop them claiming everyone worth having.” He held a hand out to Guinevere. “You do not belong in Camelot.” P.320 “Guinevere understood Mordred’s anger. She felt it herself. Everything wondrous was being unmade, and it was terrible beyond comprehension. But wonder, too, was terrible.” P.321 “She looked into Arthur’s warm eyes. The boy king. He carried the weight of a kingdom. She nodded. “Do it.” Arthur held her gaze. And then the king disappeared, leaving only her friend. Her Arthur. He sheathed his sword.” P.325

MAC. Fear not then any longer the hostile spear of the Argives; for I myself, old man, before I am commanded, am prepared to die, and to stand for slaughter; for what shall we say if the city thinks fit for our sakes to encounter a great danger, but we putting toils on others, avoid death when we can be saved? Not so, since this would be ridiculous for suppliants sitting at the shrines of the Gods to mourn, but being of such a sire as we are, to be seen to be cowards; how can this seem good! it were more noble, I think, (which may it never happen!) to fall into the hands of the enemy, this city being taken, and afterward, being born of a noble father, having suffered dreadful things, to see Hades none the less; but shall I wander about, driven from this land, and shall I not indeed be ashamed if any one says, "Why have ye come hither with your suppliant branches, yourselves being too fond of life! Depart from the land, for we will not aid cowards." But neither, indeed, if these die, and I myself am saved, have I any hope to fare well; for before now many have in this way betrayed their friends. For who would choose to have me, a solitary damsel, for his wife, or to raise children from me? therefore it is better to die than to have such an unworthy fate as this; and this may even be more seemly for some other, who is not illustrious as I. Lead me then where this body must needs die, and crown me and begin the rites, if you think fit, and conquer your enemies; for this life is ready for you, willing, and not unwilling; and I promise to die for these my brethren, and for myself; for not caring for life, I have found this most glorious thing to find, namely, to leave life gloriously.

February 9 MORNING “And David enquired of the Lord.” — 2 Samuel 5:23 WHEN David made this enquiry he had just fought the Philistines, and gained a signal victory. The Philistines came up in great hosts, but, by the help of God, David had easily put them to flight. Note, however, that when they came a second time, David did not go up to fight them without enquiring of the Lord. Once he had been victorious, and he might have said, as many have in other cases, “I shall be victorious again; I may rest quite sure that if I have conquered once I shall triumph yet again. Wherefore should I tarry to seek at the Lord’s hands?” Not so, David. He had gained one battle by the strength of the Lord; he would not venture upon another until he had ensured the same. He enquired, “Shall I go up against them?” He waited until God’s sign was given. Learn from David to take no step without God. Christian, if thou wouldst know the path of duty, take God for thy compass; if thou wouldst steer thy ship through the dark billows, put the tiller into the hand of the Almighty. Many a rock might be escaped, if we would let our Father take the helm; many a shoal or quicksand we might well avoid, if we would leave to His sovereign will to choose and to command. The Puritan said, “As sure as ever a Christian carves for himself, he’ll cut his own fingers;” this is a great truth. Said another old divine, “He that goes before the cloud of God’s providence goes on a fool’s errand;” and so he does. We must mark God’s providence leading us; and if providence tarries, tarry till providence comes. He who goes before providence, will be very glad to run back again. “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go,” is God’s promise to His people. Let us, then, take all our perplexities to Him, and say, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Leave not thy chamber this morning without enquiring of the Lord.

He missed the women he’d never get to sleep with. On the other side of the room, tantalizing at the next table, that miracle passing by the taqueria window giving serious wake. They wore too much make up or projected complex emotions onto small animals, smiled exactly so, took his side when no one else would, listened when no one else cared to. They were old money or fretted over ludicrously improbable economic disasters, teetotaled or drank like sailors, pecked like baby birds at his lips or ate him up greedily. They carried slim vocabularies or stooped to conquer in the wordsmith board games he never got the hang of. They were all gone, these faceless unknowables his life’s curator had been saving for just the right moment, to impart a lesson he’d probably never learn. He missed pussies that were raring to go when he slipped a hand beneath the elastic rim of the night-out underwear and he missed tentative but coaxable recesses, stubbled armpits and whorled ankle coins, birthmarks on the ass shaped like Ohio, said resemblance he had to be informed of because he didn’t know what Ohio look like. The size. They were sweet-eyed or sad-eyed or so successful in commanding their inner turbulence so that he could not see the shadows. Flaking toenail polish and the passing remark about the scent of a nouveau cream that initiated a monologue about its provenance, special ingredients, magic powers, and dominance over all the other creams. The alien dent impressed by a freshly removed bra strap, a garment fancy or not fancy but unleashing big or small breasts either way. He liked big breasts and he liked small breasts; small breasts were just another way of doing breasts. Brains a plus but negotiable. Especially at 3:00am, downtown. A fine fur tracing an earlobe, moles at exactly the right spot, imperfections in their divine coordination. He missed the dead he’d never lose himself in, be surprised by, disappointed in.

[MINERVA appears.] MIN. Whither, whither sendest thou this troop to follow [the fugitives,] king Thoas? List to the words of me, Minerva. Cease pursuing, and stirring on the onset of your host. For by the destined oracles of Loxias Orestes came hither, fleeing the wrath of the Erinnyes, and in order to conduct his sister's person to Argos, and to bear the sacred image into my land, by way of respite from his present troubles. Thus are our words for thee, but as to him, Orestes, whom you wish to slay, having caught him in a tempest at sea, Neptune has already, for my sake, rendered the surface of the sea waveless, piloting him along in the ship. But do thou, Orestes, learning my commands, (for thou hearest the voice of a Goddess, although not present,) go, taking the image and thy sister. And when thou art come to heaven-built Athens, there is a certain sacred district in the farthest bounds of Atthis, near the Carystian rock, which my people call Alœ—here, having built a temple, do thou enshrine the image named after the Tauric land and thy toils, which thou hast labored through, wandering over Greece, under the goad of the Erinnyes. But mortals hereafter shall celebrate her as the Tauric Goddess Diana. And do thou ordain this law, that, when the people celebrate a feast in grateful commemoration of thy release from slaughter, [188] let them apply the sword to the neck of a man, and let blood flow on account of the holy Goddess, that she may have honor. But, O Iphigenia, thou must needs be guardian of the temple of this Goddess at the hallowed ascent of Brauron; [189] where also thou shalt be buried at thy death, and they shall offer to you the honor of rich woven vestments, which women, dying in childbed, may leave in their houses. But I command thee to let these Grecian women depart from the land on account of their disinterested disposition, [190] I, having saved thee also on a former occasion, by determining the equal votes in the Field of Mars, Orestes, and that, according to the same law, he should conquer, whoever receive equal suffrages. But, O son of Agamemnon, do thou remove thy sister from this land, nor be thou angered, Thoas.

We usually think of empires as violent undertakings. As Frantz Fanon observed in the 1960s, the process of conquering and governing a colony is, by definition, violent. But in the context of global capitalism, empire has a more expansive meaning. Capitalist empires are not simply the states capable of winning the most wars; they are the command centers of the capitalist world system. Their corporations are the largest and most powerful multinationals, extracting profits from all corners of the globe and sucking them back to the imperial core. Their financial institutions are some of the most important nodes in the networks of global finance. The priorities of their governments are forcefully communicated to -and sometimes enforced upon- less powerful states. In fact, at the global level it is much easier to see the equivalence between economic and political power than it is domestically. The power of US businesses abroad is maintained through an international order that prioritizes the interests of US capital, promulgated by the US government and its allies. The power of US finance rests on the central role played by the dollar as the global reserve currency, which is it self a function of American military, political, and economic might. American military power, meanwhile, stems from and helps to reinforce the power of a web of military contractors, weapons manufacturers, and research hubs that provide the expertise and equipment needed to maintain its supremacy. In certain parts of the world, as in Iraq after its invasion, the US government has rules through private corporations like Halliburton. Empire is, then, about more than formal colonization -it refers to all the processes through which the world's most powerful capitalist institutions plan who gets what at the level of the world economy. Throughout history, this imperial power has often been exercised through horrendous acts of violence that have warped the development of entire societies for decades. But today, it is often exerted in far more covert ways, such as through the secretive system of international courts or international financial institutions imposing rigid conditions on countries trying to access emergency lending.

As each German and Italian and Frankish nobleman arrived in Constantinople with his own private army, ready to cross over the Bosphorus Strait and face the enemy, Alexius had demanded a sacred oath. Whatever “cities, countries or forces he might in future subdue . . . he would hand over to the officer appointed by the emperor.” They were, after all, there to fight for Christendom; and Alexius Comnenus was the ruler of Christendom in the east.1 Just as Alexius had feared, the chance to build private kingdoms in the Holy Land proved too tempting. The first knight to bite the apple was the Norman soldier Bohemund, who had arrived in Constantinople at the start of the First Crusade and immediately became one of the foremost commanders of the Crusader armies. Spearheading the capture of the great city Antioch in 1098, Bohemund at once named himself its prince and flatly refused to honor his oath. (“Bohemund,” remarked Alexius’s daughter and biographer, Anna, “was by nature a liar.”) By 1100, Antioch had been joined by two other Crusader kingdoms—the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Edessa—and Bohemund himself was busy agitating the Christians of Asia Minor against Byzantium. By 1103, Bohemund was planning a direct attack against the walls of Constantinople itself.2 To mount this assault, Bohemund needed to recruit more soldiers. The most likely source for reinforcements was Italy; Bohemund’s late father, Robert Guiscard, had conquered himself a kingdom in the south of Italy (the grandly named “Dukedom of Apulia and Calabria”), and Bohemund, who had been absent from Italy since heading out on crusade, had theoretically inherited its crown. Alexius knew this as well as Bohemund did, so Byzantine ships hovered in the Mediterranean, waiting to intercept any Italy-bound ships from the principality of Antioch. So Bohemund was forced to be sneaky. Anna Comnena tells us that he spread rumors everywhere: “Bohemond,” it was said, “is dead.” . . . When he perceived that the story had gone far enough, a wooden coffin was made and a bireme prepared. The coffin was placed on board and he, a still breathing “corpse,” sailed away from Soudi, the port of Antioch, for Rome. . . . At each stop the barbarians tore out their hair and paraded their mourning. But inside Bohemond, stretched out at full length, was . . . alive, breathing air in and out through hidden holes. . . . [I]n order that the corpse might appear to be in a state of rare putrefaction, they strangled or cut the throat of a cock and put that in the coffin with him. By the fourth or fifth day at the most, the horrible stench was obvious to anyone who could smell. . . . Bohemond himself derived more pleasure than anyone from his imaginary misfortune.3 Bohemund was a rascal and an opportunist, but he almost always got what he wanted; when he arrived in Italy and staged a victorious resurrection, he was able to rouse great public enthusiasm for his fight against Byzantium. In fact, his conquest of Antioch in the east had given him hero stature back in Italy. People swarmed to see him, says one contemporary historian, “as if they were going to see Christ himself.”4

Two kinds of development help explain how a readiness built up to kill all Jews, including women and children. One is a series of “dress rehearsals” that served to lower inhibitions and provided trained personnel hardened for anything. First came the euthanasia of incurably ill and insane Germans, begun on the day when World War II began. Nazi eugenics theory had long provided a racial justification for getting rid of “inferior” persons. War provided a broader justification for reducing the drain of “useless mouths” on scarce resources. The “T-4” program killed more than seventy thousand people between September 1939 and 1941, when, in response to protests from the victims’ families and Catholic clergy, the matter was left to local authorities. Some of the experts trained in this program were subsequently transferred to the occupied east, where they applied their mass killing techniques to Jews. This time, there was less opposition. The second “dress rehearsal” was the work of the Einsatzgruppen, the intervention squads specially charged with executing the political and cultural elite of invaded countries. In the Polish campaign of September 1939 they helped wipe out the Polish intelligentsia and high civil service, evoking some opposition within the military command. In the Soviet campaign the Einsatzgruppen received the notorious “Commissar Order” to kill all Communist Party cadres as well as the Jewish leadership (seen as identical in Nazi eyes), along with Gypsies. This time the army raised no objections. The Einsatzgruppen subsequently played a major role, though they were far from alone, in the mass killings of Jewish women and children that began in some occupied areas in fall 1941. A third “dress rehearsal” was the intentional death of millions of Soviet prisoners of war. It was on six hundred of them that the Nazi occupation authorities first tested the mass killing potential of the commercial insecticide Zyklon-B at Auschwitz on September 3, 1941. Most Soviet prisoners of war, however, were simply worked or starved to death. The second category of developments that helped prepare a “willingness to murder” consisted of blockages, emergencies, and crises that made the Jews become a seemingly unbearable burden to the administrators of conquered territories. A major blockage was the failure to capture Moscow that choked off the anticipated expulsion of all the Jews of conquered eastern Europe far into the Soviet interior. A major emergency was shortages of food supplies for the German invasion force. German military planners had chosen to feed the invasion force with the resources of the invaded areas, in full knowledge that this meant starvation for local populations. When local supplies fell below expectations, the search for “useless mouths” began. In the twisted mentality of the Nazi administrators, Jews and Gypsies also posed a security threat to German forces. Another emergency was created by the arrival of trainloads of ethnic Germans awaiting resettlement, for whom space had to be made available. Faced with these accumulating problems, Nazi administrators developed a series of “intermediary solutions.” One was ghettos, but these proved to be incubators for disease (an obsession with the cleanly Nazis), and a drain on the budget. The attempt to make the ghettos work for German war production yielded little except another category of useless mouths: those incapable of work. Another “intermediary solution” was the stillborn plan, already mentioned, to settle European Jews en masse in some remote area such as Madagascar, East Africa, or the Russian hinterland. The failure of all the “intermediary solutions” helped open the way for a “final solution”: extermination.

The flower of that generous manhood which quitted peaceful civilian life in every kind of workaday occupation, which came at the call of Britain, and as we may still hope, at the call of humanity, and came from the most remote parts of her Empire, was shorn away for ever in 1916. Unconquerable except by death, which they have conquered, they have set up a monument of native virtue which will command the wonder, the reverence and the gratitude of our island people as long as we endure as a nation among men.

In May 2003, a bill aimed at requiring the Alabama Historical Commission to provide a current inventory of landmarks in the site eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places could thus state: The history of Africatown, USA originated in Ghana, West Africa, near the present city of Tamale in 1859. The tribes of Africa were engaged in civil war, and the prevailing tribes sold the members of the conquered tribes into slavery. The village of the Tarkbar tribe near the city of Tamale was raided by Dahomey warriors, and the survivors of the raid were taken to Whydah, now the People’s Republic of Benin, and put up for sale. The captured tribesmen were sold for $100 each at Whydah. They were taken to the United States on board the schooner Clotilde, under the command of Maine Capt. William Foster who had been hired by Capt. Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipper and shipyard owner who had built the schooner Clotilde in Mobile in 1856.15 This is the official version of the story, also found in a piece emanating from the office of former representative Herbert “Sonny” Callahan, created in 2000 for the Local Legacies Project of the Library of Congress.16 The Africatown Community Mobilization Project uses it on its brochure. In addition to the offensive misuse of “tribe,” almost everything in this text is historically inaccurate and unwittingly derogatory. The project’s brochure contains further mistakes that come from a 1993 article produced by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.17

But simple guilt in the face of global statistics doesn’t produce sustainable obedience to God’s commands. We may change our ways for a short time based upon guilt, but it won’t last. Instead, real, authentic, sustainable care for the poor will only happen when any low-grade sense of guilt is conquered by a high-grade sense of gospel.

Hoffman looked down at the body bag. The order had come directly from the Führer’s senior field officer, Reichsmarschall Haas to Hoffman’s commanding officer. Der Führer had asked to inspect this curious body for himself… and to ask the men who’d seen what happened to explain directly to him what they’d witnessed. The clattering from above had grown much louder. He looked up, carefully shading his eyes, to see the yawning loading bay was now only twenty or thirty feet above them. The freight platform finally jerked to a halt inside the bay where Hoffman saw a couple of SS Leibstandarte guards standing to attention, dressed crisply in ceremonial black. For an unhappy moment he thought they were going to take possession of the body bag and send Hoffman and his two men back down. But, with a perfunctory nod from one of them, they beckoned Hoffman and the others to follow. A stairwell guarded by two more men took them to the upper deck. The battleship-grey walls that Hoffman and his men had grown used to on the way over – living like battery chickens on the lower decks as Das Mutterschiff sailed gracefully south from the conquered area around New York – now gave way to dark oak panels. The floor no longer metal grilles but a soft maroon carpet that whispered beneath his muddied combat boots. Ahead of them, double doors guarded by two more SS Leibstandarte standing to attention. ‘Oberleutnant Hoffman, to see the Führer,’ announced one of the guards who’d escorted them up from the bay. One of the two standing guard announced their arrival into an intercom. A moment later a young smartly dressed adjutant appeared

It doesn’t cost much to hate, but it costs you everything to love. It doesn’t cost much to fall, but it costs you everything to rise. It doesn’t cost much to doubt, but it costs you everything to believe. It doesn’t cost much to forget, but it costs you everything to remember. It doesn’t cost much to take, but it costs you everything to give. It doesn’t cost much to create, but it costs you everything to destroy. It doesn’t cost much to seek, but it costs you everything to find. It doesn’t cost much to command, but it costs you everything to obey. It doesn’t cost much to destroy, but it costs you everything to build. It doesn’t cost much to hinder, but it costs you everything to help. It doesn’t cost much to harm, but it costs you everything to heal. It doesn’t cost much to revenge, but it costs you everything to forgive. It doesn’t cost much to condenm, but it costs you everything to sympathize. It doesn’t cost much to assume, but it costs you everything to prove. It doesn’t cost much to ignore, but it costs you everything to understand. It doesn’t cost much to despise, but it costs you everything to honor. It doesn’t cost much to blame, but it costs you everything to praise. It doesn’t cost much to denounce, but it costs you everything to appluad. It doesn’t cost much to rest, but it costs you everything to work. It doesn’t cost much to surrender, but it costs you everything to conquer. It doesn’t cost much to lose, but it costs you everything to win. It doesn’t cost much to fail, but it costs you everything to succeed. It doesn’t cost much to rest, but it costs you everything to work. It doesn’t cost much to die, but it costs you everything to live. It doesn’t cost much to sit, but it costs you everything to stand. It doesn’t cost much to walk, but it costs you everything to run. It doesn’t cost much to jog, but it costs you everything to soar. It doesn’t cost much to follow, but it costs you everything to lead. It doesn’t cost much to give up, but it costs you everything to persevere.

Being thoroughly a man, one whose nature was rooted in competition, Zachary had experienced jealousy before. But nothing like this. Not this mixture of rage and alarm that shredded his insides. He was no idiot—he had seen the way Holly was looking at Ravenhill in the ballroom, and he had understood it all too well. They were cut from the same cloth, and they shared a past that he'd had no part of. There were bonds between them, memories, and even more, the comfort of knowing exactly what to expect from each other. All of a sudden Zachary hated Ravenhill with an intensity that approached fear. Ravenhill was everything he was not… everything he could never be. If only this were a more primitive time, the period of history when simple brute force overrode all else and a man could have what he wanted merely by staking his claim. That was how most of these damned bluebloods had originated, in fact. They were the watered-down, inbred descendents of warriors who had earned their status through battle and blood. Generations of privilege and ease had tamed them, softened and cultured them. Now these pampered aristocrats could afford to look down their noses at a man who probably resembled their revered ancestors more than they themselves did. That was his problem, Zachary realized. He had been born a few centuries too late. Instead of having to mince and prance his way into a society that was clearly too rarefied for him, he should have been able to dominate… fight… conquer. As Zachary had seen Holly leave the ballroom, her small hand tucked against Ravenhill's arm, it had required all his will to appear collected. He had nearly trembled with the urge to snatch Holly into his arms and carry her away like a barbarian. For a moment, the rational part of his brain had commanded him to let Holly go without a struggle. She had never been his to lose. Let her make the right decisions for herself, the comfortable decisions. Let her find the peace she deserved. The hell I will, he had thought savagely. He had followed the pair, intent as a prowling tiger, letting nothing stand in the way of what he wanted. And now he found Holly sitting here alone in the garden, looking dazed and dreamy, and he wanted to shake her until her hair cascaded loose and her teeth rattled.

Roman general Flavius Silva arrived at the base of Masada Fortress in the winter of AD 72–73. History tells us he had a full legion of soldiers at his command, as well as thousands of slaves and camp followers. History does not preserve what he was thinking at that moment, but anyone who has ever seen Masada Fortress knows it must have been some version of, “Oh, shit.

Posture The first impression you make is likely to be from several feet away. An observer will assess your approachability from a general analysis of how you stand, so the right posture is something to be considered. A closed posture—sitting with arms and legs crossed, often with a hand covering the mouth or chin—gives the signal: “Stay away, I’m not interested in speaking with anyone.” Similarly, standing with arms crossed conveys defensiveness or displeasure, a poor impression to give anyone you’d like to get to know. An open posture—arms relaxed, not crossed, hands away from mouth—says: “I’m available for a conversation, and I’m friendly. Come on over and approach me.” When you are working toward friendly posture, keep in mind that the degree of muscle tension is another clue to whether someone is open to being approached. A relaxed posture indicates that a person is more receptive. A tightened posture indicates that the person feels threatened. Think about the muscle relaxation exercises in the previous chapter: Remember how much calmer you feel when you have given your muscles the “soft and loose” command? Similarly, deep, regular breathing creates an impression of approachability. Here is an exercise that makes use of biofeedback (information gathered, stored, and applied) to give you knowledge about your body language. Stand or sit in front of a mirror. Strive for an absence of tension. Look at your face. Use internal coaching to let your facial muscles go slack. Say, “My forehead, cheeks, and mouth are relaxed.” If you see a furrowed brow or tight cheeks or lips, continue giving yourself the relaxation message until your face looks different. Then, imprint the muscle memory of relaxation into your mind. When you interact with others, try to recall this relaxed state.

The South Korean economy is a paradox: it is utterly capitalist, yet at the same time it is in some ways still a command economy.

FOREWORD When Commander Perry opened up to the occidental world that shut-tight little island Kingdom, Japan, he did more than merely contact for our manufacturers a people who bought "Nifty Clothes," with two pair of pants. He gave us an insight into a world that was thoroughly organized and civilized long before Columbus discovered West where the East should have been. The Japanese learned much from the so-called civilized world, -but they taught us something we could never have learned from intercourse with any other nation. They gave our governmental forces of law and order a weapon that aided materially in the suppression of disorderly elements throughout our great cities. It took time, of course, to break down the prejudices that our early enforcement officers, in common with our then wild and wooly population, had against anything that was foreign. But when the great police forces of our largest metropolises realized that guns and billies alone would not be proof against big, burly lawbreakers, and that to instil respect in the hearts of "bruisers" they needed something other than armaments—pistols that could not be drawn fast enough,—they then discovered the wonder of Jiu-jitsu. They found that the wily little brown man depended on brain instead of brawn and that he had developed a Science and an Art that utilized another's strength to his own undoing. Strangely enough it was the layman who first appreciated the potential value of Jiu-jitsu. For many years before the Police Forces of our cities put a study of this Science into the training of every rookie policeman, there were physical culture experts in America who advocated the use of it by everyone who had any respect for physical prowess but who found the spirit more willing than the flesh. They showed that it needed no possession of unusual strength to overcome an opponent that depended entirely on his bulk and ferocious appearance to cow the meeker ones of the earth into submission. The Japanese, by the very fact of their small stature, are compelled to place more emphasis on strategy than on force. Thus they have thoroughly developed Jiu-jitsu and there is barely a saffron-hued tot in Japan that doesn't know something about the "Gentle-Art" as it is known. President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, one of the world's greatest educators, who, together with millions of his enlightened and progressive countrymen, is a firm believer in "a strong mind in a strong body," sought to teach every schoolboy in his country some knowledge of the wisest of all physical sciences. While it does not itself develop and build muscle, it is an invaluable aid to the sensible use of the body. It is a form of wrestling that combines the cunning of the fox with the lithe grace and agility of the panther. It sharpens the brain and quickens the nerve centers. The man or woman who has self-respect must not sit by and permit our people to become a nation of spectators watching athletic specialists perform, while we become obese and ungainly applauders. Jiu-jitsu gives the man, woman and child, denied by nature a great frame, the opportunity to walk without fear, to resist successfully the bullies of their particular world, and the self-confidence which only a "well-armed" athlete can have. By its use, differences in weight, height and reach are practically wiped out, so that he who knows, may smilingly face superior odds and conquer.

A meeting was held on 12 September at Führerhauptquartier Werwolf in Vinnitsa. Addressing Colonel General Maximilian von Weichs, Commander of Army Group B, and Colonel General Friedrich Paulus, Commander of Sixth Army, Hitler demanded that Stalingrad be conquered as soon as possible. According to Paulus, Hitler said that Soviet forces were spent and that any resistance they might mount would be of merely local significance, that they were incapable of making any strategic counter-maneuver. Therefore, it was needful to take the city and the adjacent Volga riverbank quickly, so that Stalingrad would not become a long-standing and devouring worry.

The act of driving the car made him feel he was a powerful being who could conquer the world. Up over hills, fast down on the other side. It was like playing god and commanding everything within hearing to awaken and listen to him. The people sleeping in the white farmhouses were at the mercy of the sound of his engine roaring past in the night.

Nigeria's army and police were the country's first national institutions, and both are ironically older than the country Although Nigerians are reluctant to admit it, the itself. story Nigeria is to some extent the story of its army. There are few countries where the country's fate and that of its army are as of tightly interwoven as Nigeria. For the first 102 years of its existence, Nigeria's army was under British command. At various points in time, the army has played different roles as conqueror, destroyer, ruler and protector of the country it is supposed to defend. Without it, Nigeria would not exist. Yet it has a com- plex history, including its role as a tool that helped foreign invaders conquer its own people

The British maintained in style these kingdoms, which had facilitated colonial conquest, as lavish museums of old India. At the same time, these states were constant reminders of the justifications of British rule: India had been unable to rule itself because its political system was commanded by grand but quarrelling kings who would shamelessly exploit their subjects in order to accumulate unlimited wealth and prestige, and had neither attended to basic principles of justice nor concerned themselves with the formation of organized administration and stable, centralized power. Thus Britain sustained the fiction that it had walked into a vacuum and had conquered India, as the Cambridge imperial historian John Seeley said, “in a fit of absence of mind,” after which the British ruled India for the sake of its own subjects, rather than for any gain of their own.

Of course, most of us, in the service of sanity, don’t fixate on the end. We go about the world focused on worldly concerns. We accept the inevitable and direct our energies to other things. Yet the recognition that our time is finite is always with us, helping to shape the choices we make, the challenges we accept, the paths we follow. As cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker maintained, we are under a constant existential tension, pulled toward the sky by a consciousness that can soar to the heights of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Einstein but tethered to earth by a physical form that will decay to dust. “Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.”2 According to Becker, we are impelled by such awareness to deny death the capacity to erase us. Some soothe the existential yearning through commitment to family, a team, a movement, a religion, a nation—constructs that will outlast the individual’s allotted time on earth. Others leave behind creative expressions, artifacts that extend the duration of their presence symbolically. “We fly to Beauty,” said Emerson, “as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.”3 Others still seek to vanquish death by winning or conquering, as if stature, power, and wealth command an immunity unavailable to the common mortal. Across the millennia, one consequence has been a widespread fascination with all things, real or imagined, that touch on the timeless. From prophesies of an afterlife, to teachings of reincarnation, to entreaties of the windswept mandala, we have developed strategies to contend with knowledge of our impermanence and, often with hope, sometimes with resignation, to gesture toward eternity. What’s new in our age is the remarkable power of science to tell a lucid story not only of the past, back to the big bang, but also of the future. Eternity itself may forever lie beyond the reach of our equations, but our analyses have already revealed that the universe we have come to know is transitory. From planets to stars, solar systems to galaxies, black holes to swirling nebulae, nothing is everlasting. Indeed, as far as we can tell, not only is each individual life finite, but so too is life itself. Planet earth, which Carl Sagan described as a “mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam,” is an evanescent bloom in an exquisite cosmos that will ultimately be barren. Motes of dust, nearby or distant, dance on sunbeams for merely a moment. Still, here on earth we have punctuated our moment with astonishing feats of insight, creativity, and ingenuity as each generation has built on the achievements of those who have gone before, seeking clarity on how it all came to be, pursuing coherence in where it is all going, and longing for an answer to why it all matters. Such is the story of this book.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" -Emma Lazarus

5.   Lack of self-discipline. Discipline comes through self-control. This means that one must control all negative qualities. Before you can control conditions, you must first control yourself. Self-mastery is the hardest job you will ever tackle. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. You may see at one and the same time both your best friend and your greatest enemy, by stepping in front of a mirror. 6.   Ill health. No person may enjoy outstanding success without good health. Many of the causes of ill health are subject to mastery and control. These in the main are: a. Overeating of foods not conducive to health. b. Wrong habits of thought; giving expression to negatives. c. Wrong use of, and over indulgence in sex. d. Lack of proper physical exercise. e. An inadequate supply of fresh air, due to improper breathing. 7.   Unfavorable environmental influences during childhood. “As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.” Most people who have criminal tendencies acquire them as the result of bad environment, and improper associates during childhood. 8.   Procrastination. This is one of the most common causes of failure. “Old Man Procrastination” stands within the shadow of every human being, waiting his opportunity to spoil one’s chances of success. Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the “time to be right” to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. 9.   Lack of persistence. Most of us are good “starters” but poor “finishers” of everything we begin. Moreover, people are prone to give up at the first signs of defeat. There is no substitute for persistence. The person who makes persistence his watch-word, discovers that “Old Man Failure” finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with persistence. 10. Negative personality. There is no hope of success for the person who repels people through a negative personality. Success comes through the application of power, and power is attained through the cooperative efforts of other people.

May I not hoard wealth, nor be foolish in my use of it. A meaningless life is a grievous evil because it is separation from You who are goodness itself. Let my words to You be few and sincere – for the more the words, the less the meaning. Father, every day with You is a better day. May You grant me the inheritance, shelter and life of Your wisdom. All I do is in Your hands. Perhaps it is making a difference or perhaps I am chasing the wind. You alone know. So, whatever I do, I will do to the best of my abilities. Let me not be dismayed about whether my efforts are recognised on this earth, for You see all that I do. I pray and hope that my wisdom will not be spoilt by folly and experimentation. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for giving me calmness and self-control. Let me not dig myself a pit with my own actions and words. I cannot understand Your work and Your ways, O God, maker of all things. But I understand that I can trust You and that You delight in walking alongside me. So I will not watch my circumstances, but will draw near to listen to You. I sowed my seed at work and at home, not knowing if I would succeed, but knowing You are there for me. Prepare me for days of darkness, for there is no dark that You do not give light to, no matter how dim the light seems. Let the days of my life honour You; let me fear You and keep Your commandments; let me enter into the joy of Your grace; let me do Your will; until my spirit returns to You who gave it. Amen

You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word, “environment,” But spirit scorns it, and is free. It masters time, it conquers space; It cows that boastful trickster, Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown, and fill a servant’s place. The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew a way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene. Be not impatient in delay, But wait as one who understands; When spirit rises and commands, The gods are ready to obey.

John sums up the matter bluntly. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars” (1 John 4:20). To truly love God includes loving others with the same love God has for us and the same love God has for them. This is part of what it means to be a participant in the divine nature. It is, in fact, what it means to be Christian (Christ-like). “Whoever does not love,” John wrote, “does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). Our capacity to love—to fulfill the greatest two commandments—is the definitive evidence that we are in fact abiding in Christ and participating in the perfect love of the triune God. Christians sometimes try to assess how they or others are doing on the basis of such things as how successfully they conquer a particular sin, how much prayer and Bible study they do, how regularly they attend and give to church, and so forth. But rarely do we honestly ask the question that Scripture places at the center of everything: Are we growing in our capacity to love all people? Do we have an increasing love for our sisters and brothers in Christ as well as for those for whom Christ died who are yet outside the church? Are we increasing in our capacity to ascribe unsurpassable worth to people whom society judges to have no worth? If there is any distinguishing mark of the true disciple from a biblical perspective, this is it!

How could the Promised Land have been secured in the first place without Joshua? And was not the Book of Joshua a disturbing record of how far the Israelites were prepared to go to conquer the land which was theirs by divine command?

The Truth   The truth is that the Church was never given the task of conquering the world for Christ or solving all the world’s political and social problems. We were commanded to preach the Gospel and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). And yes, we were instructed to stand for righteousness (Matthew 5:1316). But the restoration of God’s creation is a task that will be accomplished by Jesus when He returns to reign in glory and majesty from Mt. Zion in Jerusalem (Acts 3:18-21 and Matthew 19:28-29). The sad thing is that the heresy concerning Bible prophecy is distracting people from the truth that we are living in the end times and that we are right on the threshold of the Tribulation when God will pour out His wrath on those who have rejected His grace, mercy and love. Satan must be very pleased, because that is a truth he does not want anyone to know.

The High Priestess met his eyes, evaluating him for another long moment. “I have wondered always what kind of man you would become, Narian. You can believe what you will, but to me you were never just a tool to be forged, an instrument of unique purpose and, therefore, worth. You came to me as a babe in arms, and I treated you as my son to the extent my brother would permit. Now I see that you are also a rare man.” Nantilam shifted her commanding eyes to me. “And you, Alera, are no doubt part of the reason. Had you been born Cokyrian, you would probably be at my side, one of my trusted shield maidens, for you have more than enough courage and ingenuity to merit such an honor. Again, something I did not expect to find in Hytanica.” “Then let’s come to it,” Narian snapped. “Be the wise and fair ruler I grew up believing you to be. If Cannan and his men should succeed in routing our troops, then accept that outcome and recognize Hytanica as a free land. Negotiate a peace treaty with Alera. Ask for whatever crops and goods Cokyri needs, but trade for them.” “You cannot rewrite history, Narian,” she reproached. “Hytanica asked to be conquered the day its king attacked us. I was charged with that crusade before I was even crowned.” “You cannot rewrite history, but you don’t have to be controlled by it, either,” he argued, and Nantilam’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “In the end, the Overlord’s crusade had little to do with history. He wanted to dominate Hytanica for domination’s sake. That was never your purpose--you fought to preserve your people’s pride and their heritage, you took the actions you believed necessary to ensure your empire’s growth and prosperity. Reaffirm your goals now--recognize that what is best for Cokyri is enduring peace with Hytanica.” “And are you giving me advice as the commander of my military, or are you issuing a threat?” “I am offering advice,” Narian replied, with a deferential bow, then his tone and posture subtly became more intimidating. “Although I will stand against you if I am forced to make that choice.” The High Priestess came to her feet, and for the first time, I saw indecision on her face. If Narian fought against her, any battle with Hytanica would be long and brutal, with no guarantee of victory. The Overlord’s powers had not passed to her, would not in all probability reemerge until Nantilam gave birth to a daughter, so for the time being, Narian held the upper hand.

You will be what you will to be;        Let failure find its false content        In that poor word “environment,”        But spirit scorns it, and is free.        It masters time, it conquers space;        It cows that boastful trickster, Chance,        And bids the tyrant Circumstance,        Uncrown, and fill a servant’s place.        The human Will, that force unseen,        The offspring of a deathless Soul,        Can hew a way to any goal,        Though walls of granite intervene.        Be not impatient in delay,        But wait as one who understands;        When spirit rises and commands,        The gods are ready to obey.

Moses was weeping as much as the rest of them. Joshua was angry. He had been in the tent when Yahweh commanded Moses what to do. He had seen the idolatry of Israel as it worshipped Ba’al and the other gods of the pantheon. They were not yet in their Promised Land of Canaan, and they were already playing the harlot with Ba’al of Peor. It was a form of spiritual adultery. Yahweh had taken care of them in the desert wilderness these forty years until all the original gripers and complainers were dead. They had just conquered the Transjordan and the mighty Og of Bashan as a prelude to Canaan. And still—still—these pathetic miserable backsliding wretches were already fornicating with Ba’al like wanton harlots. They worshipped household idols and even engaged in human sacrifice on Mount Nebo to the god of plague. The plague was therefore an ugly but fitting expression of a spiritual judgment. Afflicted Israelites would get puss filled boils and rashes in their genitals and anus like a sexual disease. Their excrement would be full of blood, both solid and liquid, and excruciatingly painful to release. After a few days, if the victim did not get well, their genitals would turn black and rot. Within a week, the victim would be dead.

Whenever there was any foreign war to be carried on with a distant nation or tribe, there was always a great eagerness among all the military officers of the state to be appointed to the command. They each felt sure that they should conquer in the contest, and they could enrich themselves still more rapidly by the spoils of victory in war, than by extortion and bribes in the government of a province in peace. Then, besides, a victorious general coming back to Rome always found that his military renown added vastly to his influence

they will live aesthetic lives in the caves of Pakistan and Afghanistan, not requiring huge financial resources. Secondly, and most important, they won’t care. Jihadists have a singular goal that they believe their Allah has demanded of them. They also believe that their Allah has provided to them the weapons to accomplish that singular goal. The Jihadists will readily conclude that, if it is necessary to destroy the world’s richest consuming nation (and also the world’s only military superpower), in order to conquer the rest of the nations in the world for Islam, so be it. If one thinks like the Jihadists, one understands their actions, past, present, and future, from the belief that Muhammad has demanded: “I command by Allah to go fight all the people of the world until they confess there is no God but Allah, and I am his messenger…” (From      the Hadith recorded by Sahih Al-Bukhari, Islam and Terrorism, Dr. Gabriel).

[Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn] nos sitúa en el año 1995, fecha en la que un meteorito de origen extraterrestre llega a la Tierra. Este muta en el medio ambiente terrestre y empieza a generar una nueva sustancia conocida como Tiberium, que se concentra en cristales de fácil recolección y constituye una excepcional fuente de recursos energéticos a pesar de ser dañino para toda forma de vida basada en el carbono. Como es lógico, el control de esta nueva y destructiva fuente de energía resulta fundamental para los intereses de diferentes facciones: la Primera Guerra Tiberiana ha comenzado.

On the one hand he derived his notion of himself as a lord from people who have had to cringe these many generations to hold on to the odd patch of land that is their only living; and on the other, though half belonging to them, he has been bred up to despise their religion, their language, their poverty, their manners and traditions. A conquering race, in the place of that conquest, is rarely amiable; the conquerors pay less obviously than the conquered, but perhaps in time they pay even more heavily, in the loss of the humane qualities. Hard, arrogant, profit-seeking adventurers flock to the spoil, and the natives, though outwardly civil, contemplate them with a resentment mingled with contempt, while at the same time respecting the face of conquest – acknowledging their greater strength.

Are you for us or for our adversaries?” he asked. “No,” said the figure. Caleb said, “No, you are not for us, or no, you are not for our adversaries?” The figure said, “Neither. I am the commander of the army of Yahweh.” Joshua whispered under his breath, “The Angel of Yahweh.” He was the Son of Man in an earthly presence. Joshua and Caleb dropped to their knees and worshipped the Angel, who said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are is holy.” Joshua and Caleb obeyed. Caleb knew in his heart this was another connection to Moses who had removed his sandals before the burning bush of Yahweh’s presence. The Angel spoke with a calm assurance, “I would wager you are wondering how in the world you are going to assault the mighty walls of Jericho.” Joshua said, “The thought had crossed our minds, my Lord. You would not happen to have any secrets about its weaknesses that might help us?” “No,” said the Angel. “But be strong and courageous this day, for I will tell you how you will conquer the city by the power of Yahweh.

In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death...

Islam divides the world into two parts: dar al-Islam (house of Islam), places where Sharia is the highest authority, and dar al-harb (house of war), places where Sharia is not the highest authority and must be brought within the fold of Islam.73 The distinction between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb proves that the Muslim ummah (community) is not limited by national boundaries or identities. Rather it is unified by Islam. That is why Muslim individuals from around the world leave their home countries to join ISIS and other terrorist groups to participate in jihad against the infidels. From the radical Muslim’s perspective, the jihad to transform dar al-harb into dar al-Islam does not end until the mission is fully accomplished. Although most Islamic jurists agree that only the head of state or the caliph (head of the Islamic ummah) has the authority to wage a holy war (jihad),74 radical Muslims argue that when the head of the state fails to faithfully perform his duties (one of which is to proclaim Sharia everywhere), it becomes incumbent on individual Muslims (members of the ummah) to carry out Allah’s commands.75 Only Allah is the legislator, and the prophet and his successors are vicegerents who enforce his law. Hence, peace occurs only when everything is either subject to Allah’s law or, for temporary periods, when Muslims regroup and prepare for the next campaign. Until then, a constant state of war between the ummah and nonbelievers exists. Israeli author and scholar of Arabic literature Mordechai Kedar said: Peace in their mind is not between Muslims and infidels. Peace is when infidels live under the umbrella of Islam. The conquest brings peace in their minds. Theoretically there cannot be [peace] between Islamic State, the Caliphate state, and other infidel states. Eternal war should be between them. Peace can reign only when everybody comes under the umbrella of Islam.76 Accordingly, the people who live in dar al-harb and do not accept Sharia are not considered innocent and can be killed or subdued. The Western mind views suicide bombing as an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people. To the radical Muslim mind, however, Western victims of suicide bombings are not innocent because they have not surrendered to Sharia and Muslim rule. They are still part of the house of war (dar al-harb). As a result, they have not acquired protected status under Islam, and accordingly, they are morally complicit in their own destruction. So the distinction between combatant and noncombatant status, as defined by international law, has no meaning to the Islamic radical’s mind.