Defeated King Quotes

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

You're right though. I should have discussed my plan with you. I'm sorry. From now on, I promise I will consult with you before I do anything you don't expect. Is that exceptable?' (Eragon) Only if it involves weapons, magic, kings, or family members.' (Saphira) Or flowers.' (Eragon) Or flowers. I don't need to know if you decide to eat some bread and cheese in the middle of the night.' (Saphira) Unless a man with a very long knife is waiting for me outside of my tent.'(Eragon) If you could not defeat a single man with a very long knife, you would be a poor excuse for a Rider indeed.' (Saphira)

And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen. Do you not hear her footfalls? She has never quite managed the trick of hiding them as well as one of the Folk. Surely you've heard of her, Jude Duarte, who defeated the redcap Grima Mog, who brought the Court of Teeth to their knees? She's forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don't know what I would do without her.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

I know how strong you are, Nina. My death will not be the thing that defeats you.

Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box abd cover it with wet weeds to die? Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

Glorious victories make fine songs, Yarvi, but inglorious ones are no worse once the bards are done with them. Glorious defeats, meanwhile, are just defeats.

[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.

This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.

It is the mark of a fine chess player to tip over his own king when he sees that defeat is inevitable, no matter how many moves remain in the game.

The Elder of Ewart spoke out. “Your words are powerful, Ala Moire, yet they will not suffice. The Dewar commands 50,000 troops in Erbea. We are unskilled in war. We have no hope of defeating or even slowing down this invasion. All we can do is hope to treat with them and negotiate some settlement. If this means we bow our heads, so be it. I will not call simple allegiance to a foreign king slavery. Unless the Dewar wants to rape our land, he can have my fealty.

I need a book that says 'Here's how to defeat Spring and restore power to your king, and while you're at it, here's how to prove you matter when no one else thinks you do—” I stop. I'm staring at the bookshelves and not at Theron, and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him again without shriveling up from embarrassment. I can still hear what I said hanging around me, my weak, weak admission, and I can't bring myself to breathe, let alone face him. Theron doesn't give me a choice. He crawls up onto his knees and moves into my line of sight, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes darting over mine like he's trying to figure me out the same way he figured out that passage. After a moment of silence, he grimaces. “You matter,” is all he says.

Ka is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn. The spin of ka always brings us back to the same place, to face and reface our mistakes and defeats until we can learn from them. When we learn from the past, the wheel continues to move forward, towards growth and evolution. When we don’t, the wheel spins backward, and we are given another chance. If once more we squander the opportunity, the wheel continues its rotation towards devolution, or destruction.

If I were to be made a knight," said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it." "That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlyn, "and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it." "I shouldn't mind." "Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see." "Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?" "Oh dear," said Merlyn. '"You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?" "I don't think that is an answer at all," replied the Wart, justly. Merlyn wrung his hands. "Well, anyway," he said, "suppose they did not let you stand against all the evil in the world?" "I could ask," said the Wart. "You could ask," repeated Merlyn. He thrust the end of his beard into his mouth, stared tragically into the fire, and began to munch it fiercely.

That was the strength of Ellysetta's weave. Bright, unyielding,indefatigable love. Love that did not know surrender. Love that did not understand limitations or even basic self-preservation. Love that would batter itself to death before giving in to defeat.

The prosaic fact of the universe's existence alone defeats both the pragmatist and the romantic.

If you want to know a king, see how he treats his defeated foes. All are gracious to their equals; one in a thousand is gracious to an enemy he has conquered.

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.

Did they all live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing that they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I love them all, and am not ashamed of my love.

He has bragged greatly about you. The Lahnahsahna, a true warrior’s wife. He told his people he did not claim you. He told his people he battled you before he won you. He told his people you challenged him. The warrior king’s bride fought like a warrior. She did not lay back and accept her fate. She stood strong and shouted in the face of a king. She fought and did not give up. Even knowing she’d taste defeat, she fought on, like a true warrior. He told his people you are not his queen. You are his warrior queen.

Life as a defeated warrior with dignity is lot better than the king ruling without it.

If you're the king that rules the court, I'll have to defeat you, and I'll be the last one standing!

Let the sun go down on you like King Harold at the battle of Hastings — fighting gloriously. Maybe a loser but what a loser! Greater in defeat than the conqueror. Certainly not a coward that rusted out lurking in his tent.

The locust has no king Just noise and hard language They talk me over

The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows. You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die? Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity. If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

We defeated the Dark Fae King. We can cope with one precocious child.

Yes, of course Yahweh could defeat all of Judah’s enemies.” “Then why didn’t He, Grandpa?” Zechariah’s face looked sad as he shook his head. “Because our nation no longer believes in Him... and so no one bothered to ask Him to.

The resurrection is the revelation to chosen witnesses of the fact that Jesus who died on the cross is indeed king - conqueror of death and sin, Lord and Savior of all. The resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat but the proclamation of a victory. The King reigns from the tree. The reign of God has indeed come upon us, and its sign is not a golden throne but a wooden cross.

Human beings with all their faults and strengths constitute the mechanism of a social movement. They must make mistakes and learn from them, make more mistakes and learn anew. They must taste defeat as well as success, and discover how to live with each. Time and action are the teachers.

If I were to be made a knight," said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it.

She would defy laws and kings and Mages and demons and even the Church of Light to be with him. She would tear down the barriers that still lived in her mind, confront whatever darkness lurked behind them, and defeat the Mage who thought to claim her soul. That soul--and every part of her--belongs to Ranier vel'En Daris. There would never be happiness for her that did not include him.

The Stadium Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators. At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.

In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride in the boundless extension of the territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the planispheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax of seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies’ protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell. It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption’s gangrene has spread too far to be healed by our scepter, that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing.

The prosaic fact of the universe's existence single-handedly defeats the pragmatist and the cynic.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

Why is it,” Royce murmured, gazing into her intoxicating eyes, “that every time you surrender willingly, like this, you make me feel like a king who has conquered. Yet when I conquer you against your will, you make me feel like a defeated beggar?

But I am a knight of the Round Table," he protested, weakly. "I am a protector of the realm, a slayer of evil, I defeat all those who raise their swords in opposition to Arthur, King of all Britain." "Trust me, kid, women prefer a man who can cook.

It cannot be defeated: Just when a gardener thinks he has won and eradicated it from his lawn, a rain would bring the yellow florets right back. Yet it’s never arrogant: Its color and fragrance never overwhelm those of another. Immensely practical, its leaves are delicious and medicinal, while its roots loosen hard soils, so that it acts as a pioneer for other more delicate flowers. But best of all, it’s a flower that lives in the soil but dreams of the skies. When its seeds take to the wind, it will go farther and see more than any pampered rose, tulip, or marigold.

The screen blanked, then produced a book cover. The jacket image—in black-and-white—showed barking dogs surrounding a scarecrow. In the background, shoulders slumped in a posture of weariness or defeat (or both), was a hunter with a gun. The eponymous Cortland, probably.

Because if everyone in this world waits for another Hero to save them, I don’t know if this world will survive. And if I’m content to wait and let another person risk their life for me, I don’t know if I’m worth saving.

It is a child speaking," said Merlin, "not a king and not a knight, but a hurt and angry child, or you would know, my lord, that there is more to a king than a crown, and far more to a knight than a sword. You were a knight when you grappled Pellinore unarmed." "And he defeated me." "You were a knight," said Merlin. "Somewhere in the world there is defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

He'll be here, Damen had said, and he believed that, even as the first wave hit and the men around him began to die. There was a dark logic to it. Have your slave convince the Akielons to fight. Let your enemies do your fighting for you, the casualties taken by the people you despise, the Regent defeated or weakened, and the armies of Nikandros wiped out. It wasn't until the second wave hit them from the north-west that he realised they were totally alone.

Since then I have searched for my heroes among small-t truths. I always find them among people learning the art of acceptance: not acceptance of defeat or acceptance of some inability to influence their own futures, but rather acceptance of life on the planet, acceptance of the grays rather than the black-and-whites, acceptance of the astonishing range of human emotion and human behavior.

Living with the daily ugliness of slum life, educational castration and economic exploitation, some ghetto dwellers now and then strike out in spasms of violence and self-defeating riots. A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard. It is the desperate, suicidal cry of one who is so fed up with the powerlessness of his cave existence that he asserts that he would rather be dead than ignored.

He was standing in the Inner Court, shouting for his enemy. When Guenever saw him, and he saw her, the electric message went between their eyes before they spoke a word. It was as if Elaine and the whole Quest for the Grail had never been. So far as we can make it out, she had accepted her defeat. He must have seen in her eyes that she had given in to him, that she was prepared to leave him to be himself-to love God, and to do whatever he pleased-so long as he was only Lancelot. she was serene and sane again. she had renounced her possessive madness and was joyful to see him living, whatever he did. They were young creatures-the same creatures whose eyes had met with the almost forgotten click of magnets in the smoky Hall of Camelot so long ago. And, in truly yielding, she had won the battle by mistake.

What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appall the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing—no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me “villain”? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' th' throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?

Third, we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win his friendship and understanding. At times we are able to humiliate our worst enemy. Inevitably, his weak moments come and we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat. But this we must not do. Every wood and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill that have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate.

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

In the movie White Men Can’t Jump, the final boss duo that the two street hustlers must defeat are called King and Duck. I felt that, because I’m The Duck King, and I didn’t have to win a basketball game for the title—I was elected via unanimous and cacophonous quack.

A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity—and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as 'Napoleon the Great.

And it came to pass that in the hour of defeat Aragorn came up from the sea and unfurled the standard of Arwen in the battle of the fields of Pelennor, and in that day he was first hailed as king. And at last when all was done he entered into the inheritance of his fathers and received the crown of Gondor and the Sceptre of Arnor; and at midsummer in the year of the Fall of Sauron he took the hand of Arwen Undomiel, and they were wedded in the city of the kings.

Be brave, my heart [wrote the poet and mercenary Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep. The ancients resisted innovation in warfare because they feared it would rob the struggle of honor. King Agis was shown a new catapult, which could shoot a killing dart 200 yards. When he saw this, he wept. “Alas,” he said. “Valor is no more.

Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

His crucifixion is the key; His resurrection is the door... it is only by his death that we have the mandate to enter into the gates of eternal life. His doors are open always. Christ is king!

They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that’s the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king.

Have you thought of doing it? Being a cattle farmer? If that's what it's called? I think we should do that, but replace cattle with bunnies and then we don't milk or eat the bunnies. We just let them multiply. Then we'll take over the world. Me the queen. You the king. Our bunnies the army nobody can defeat.

Ladies, your power can influence for right or wrong, for victory or defeat. Remember, people have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be, not what you nag them to be. Speak to the fool in your child, and the fool will stand up. Speak to the champion in your child, and the champion will stand up. Speak to the fool in your husband, and the fool will stand up; but speak to the king in your husband, and he’ll hurt himself trying to please you.

... WHEN ONE LOOKS INTO THE DARKNESS THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE... Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise In Druid vapour and make the torches dim; Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him Who met Fand walking among flaming dew By a grey shore where the wind never blew, And lost the world and Emer for a kiss; And him who drove the gods out of their liss, And till a hundred morns had flowered red Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods: And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, And sought through lands and islands numberless years, Until he found, with laughter and with tears, A woman of so shining loveliness That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, A little stolen tress. I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? Out of sight is out of mind: Long have man and woman-kind, Heavy of will and light of mood, Taken away our wheaten food, Taken away our Altar stone; Hail and rain and thunder alone, And red hearts we turn to grey, Are true till time gutter away. ... the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

It took Aaron a minute to find his voice again. He still sounded angry, but there was a muted edge to his, "You wouldn't even look at me. You wouldn't say a word to me unless I said something first. I'm not psychic. How was I supposed to know?" "Because I made you a promise," Andrew said. "I did not forget it just because you chose not to believe me. I did what I said I would do, and fuck you for expecting anything else." There it was again: a hint of that infinite anger at Andrew's core. Aaron opened his mouth, closed it again, and dropped his eyes. Andrew stared at his brother's bowed head for an endless minute. Aaron had given up the fight, but every passing second seemed to put more tension in Andrew's frame. Neil watched Andrew's fingers curl against his thighs, not into fists but a mimicry of crushing the life from someone, and knew Andrew's temper was nearing a breaking point. He put his hand up between them, trying to block Andrew's view of Aaron, and Andrew cut a vicious look at him. A heartbeat later Andrew's expression went dead. Neil regretted his intervention immediately. No one could let go of that much rage that easily; Andrew had simply buried it where it could hurt only him. It was too late to take it back, so Neil dropped his hand to his lap in defeat.

Every Holy Saturday, the Church waits as it were beside the tomb, meditating on Christ's death while awaiting the announcement of his resurrection. Like John, we can take Mary into our homes and ponder with her the last words of Christ. Like her, we can rest in a place between anguish and joy, waiting in quiet hope. We can pray the Divine Office, which parts the veil to show us Christ defeating death and releasing sinners from captivity. The King is not dead; he rests from his work. A new day will come. His Cross is not defeat; it is victory!

I was quick to pounce on his moral flaws and slow to recognize my own blind sin. But because he stayed faithful, by offering his body as a target but never as a weapon, he broke through my moral calluses. The real goal, King used to say, was not to defeat the white man, but “to awaken a sense149 of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority…. The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.” And that is what Martin Luther King Jr. finally set into motion, even in racists like me.

Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word “maladjusted.” This word is the ringing cry to modern child psychology. Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well‐adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities. But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good‐will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self‐defeating effects of physical violence… In other words, I’m about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment‐‐men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. Who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I mean,” he said, “that by your own showing, the greatest threat to heaven comes from within the ranks of the angels themselves. Before you can prove to me that heroes can defeat villains with nothing but the purest chivalric ideals, you must convince me that heroes do exist, and that villains are not a fanciful tale for children. You must tell me, sir, if you dare, that you are incorruptible, and that your colleagues and commanders are as pure as you.

It has been estimated that at least a thousand Indians were sold into slavery during King Philip’s War, with over half the slaves coming from Plymouth Colony alone. By the end of the war, Mount Hope, once the crowded Native heart of the colony, was virtually empty of inhabitants. Fifty-six years after the sailing of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims’ children had not only defeated the Pokanokets in a devastating war, they had taken conscious, methodical measures to purge the land of its people.

Serilda wanted to rail. To howl. To tell the old gods and whoever was listening that this was not how the story was meant to end. The prince should have defeated the wicked king, saved his sister, saved them all. He should never have been trapped in this horrid place. He should never have been forgotten. The Erlking was not supposed to win.

Sometimes the defeat can have even more severe consequences. If a dominant lobster is badly defeated, its brain basically dissolves. Then it grows a new, subordinate’s brain—one more appropriate to its new, lowly position.8 Its original brain just isn’t sophisticated to manage the transformation from king to bottom dog without virtually complete dissolution and regrowth. Anyone who has experienced a painful transformation after a serious defeat in romance or career may feel some sense of kinship with the once successful crustacean.

Where is the godmother?” said Vorling, turning toward her. He did not sound lost any longer. He sounded angry. “Was she behind you? Why am I being made a fool of in my own palace?” Kania’s hand crept to Marra's and squeezed in sudden fear. Marra lifted her chin and met Vorling’s eyes. You are not so big. You are only a living king. I saw an old woman defeat a dead one. You cannot hurt me any worse than spinning thread of nettle wool, and you cannot confuse me any more than the palace of dust. Even your cruelty is small compared to the blistered land. Perhaps he saw some of that defiance in her. Men like him always had a sense for it, did they not? He took a step forward and his hands clenched at his sides.

I come to you for help. We've been silent far too long. Many of you have turned your backs on Arman. Many never bothered to know Him at all. But Arman is the One God. He created Er'Rets and everything in it. He gave each of you life and purpose. He loves all of you as His own sons and daughters. To defeat Darkness, we must unite our faith. We must worship the One God, Arman. We must call out to Him for mercy. Though He hears my prayer now, my voice alone is not strong enough. I am only one man. But together, we are mighty. I ask you to join with me now. Worship Him.

Yes, she told me about how you defeated a great, big slime monster?” I gave her a half smile. “Oh…” “And how you fought with a powerful skeleton warlord?” “Ah, the Skeleton King…” “And how you’ve built a wall around this village to protect it?” “Well, actually, Tommy is building it now.” “You’re quite helpful, aren’t you?” I smiled. “Well, I try…” Cindy giggled a bit and Lisa laughed.

According to royal doctrine, the king’s role as defender of Egypt (and the whole of creation) involved the corresponding defeat of Egypt’s neighbors (who stood for chaos). To instill and foster a sense of national identity, it suited the ruling elite—as leaders have discovered throughout history—to cast all foreigners as the enemy. An ivory label from the tomb of Narmer shows a Palestinian dignitary stooping in homage before the Egyptian king. At the same time, in the real world, Egypt and Palestine were busy engaging in trade. The xenophobic ideology masked the practical reality.

From this point of view, Zafar could certainly be tried as a defeated enemy king; but he had never been a subject, and so could not possibly be called a rebel guilty of treason. Instead, from a legal point of view, a good case could be made that it was the East India Company which was the real rebel, guilty of revolt against a feudal superior to whom it had sworn allegiance for nearly a century.

Let me tell you something: once before-- a long, long time ago--the people of Jerusalem were defeated. The first Temple, the one King Solomon built, was destroyed. The people were taken captive to Babylon. Do you know what the prophet Jeremiah told them?" [...] "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat the fruit. Marry and have sons and daughters." He paused, then continued, "in other words, live. Live... And remember.

Let us fool ourselves no longer. At the very moment Western nations, threw off the ancient regime of absolute government, operating under a once-divine king, they were restoring this same system in a far more effective form in their technology, reintroducing coercions of a military character no less strict in the organization of a factory than in that of the new drilled, uniformed, and regimented army. During the transitional stages of the last two centuries, the ultimate tendency of this system might b e in doubt, for in many areas there were strong democratic reactions; but with the knitting together of a scientific ideology, itself liberated from theological restrictions or humanistic purposes, authoritarian technics found an instrument at hand that h as now given it absolute command of physical energies of cosmic dimensions. The inventors of nuclear bombs, space rockets, and computers are the pyramid builders of our own age: psychologically inflated by a similar myth of unqualified power, boasting through their science of their increasing omnipotence, if not omniscience, moved by obsessions and compulsions no less irrational than those of earlier absolute systems: particularly the notion that the system itself must be expanded, at whatever eventual co st to life. Through mechanization, automation, cybernetic direction, this authoritarian technics has at last successfully overcome its most serious weakness: its original dependence upon resistant, sometimes actively disobedient servomechanisms, still human enough to harbor purposes that do not always coincide with those of the system. Like the earliest form of authoritarian technics, this new technology is marvellously dynamic and productive: its power in every form tends to increase without limits, in quantities that defy assimilation and defeat control, whether we are thinking of the output of scientific knowledge or of industrial assembly lines. To maximize energy, speed, or automation, without reference to the complex conditions that sustain organic life, have become ends in themselves. As with the earliest forms of authoritarian technics, the weight of effort, if one is to judge by national budgets, is toward absolute instruments of destruction, designed for absolutely irrational purposes whose chief by-product would be the mutilation or extermination of the human race. Even Ashurbanipal and Genghis Khan performed their gory operations under normal human limits. The center of authority in this new system is no longer a visible personality, an all-powerful king: even in totalitarian dictatorships the center now lies in the system itself, invisible but omnipresent: all its human components, even the technical and managerial elite, even the sacred priesthood of science, who alone have access to the secret knowledge by means of which total control is now swiftly being effected, are themselves trapped by the very perfection of the organization they have invented. Like the Pharoahs of the Pyramid Age, these servants of the system identify its goods with their own kind of well-being: as with the divine king, their praise of the system is an act of self-worship; and again like the king, they are in the grip of an irrational compulsion to extend their means of control and expand the scope of their authority. In this new systems-centered collective, this Pentagon of power, there is no visible presence who issues commands: unlike job's God, the new deities cannot be confronted, still less defied. Under the pretext of saving labor, the ultimate end of this technics is to displace life, or rather, to transfer the attributes of life to the machine and the mechanical collective, allowing only so much of the organism to remain as may be controlled and manipulated.

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Ps. 115:3). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is "The Governor among the nations" (Ps. 22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the "Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15). Such is the God of the Bible. How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.[1]

Captain Harcourt-Bruce was not only dashing, handsome, and brave, he was also rather romantic. The reappearance of magic in England thrilled him immensely. He was a great reader of the more exciting sort of history - and his head was full of ancient battles in which the English were outnumbered by the French and doomed to die, when all at once would be heard the sound of strange, unearthly music, and upon a hilltop would appear the Raven King in his tall, black helmet with it's mantling of raven-feathers streaming in the wind; he would gallop down the hillside on his tall, black horse with a hundred human knights and a hundred fairy knights at his back, and he would defeat the French by magic. That was Captain Harcourt-Bruce's idea of a magician. That was the sort of thing which he now expected to see reproduced on every battlefield on the Continent. So when he saw Mr Norrell in his drawing-room in Hanoversquare, and after he had sat and watched Mr Norrell peevishly complain to his footman, first that the cream in his tea was too creamy, and next that it was too watery - well, I shall not surprize you when I say he was somewhat disappointed. In fact he was so downcast by the whole undertaking that Admiral Paycocke, a bluff old gentleman, felt rather sorry for him and only had the heart to laugh at him and tease him very moderately about it.

Another reason for Buddha’s emphasis on detachment may have been the turbulent times he lived in: Kings and city-states were making war, and people’s lives and fortunes could be burned up overnight. When life is unpredictable and dangerous (as it was for the Stoic philosophers, living under capricious Roman emperors), it might be foolish to seek happiness by controlling one’s external world. But now it is not. People living in wealthy democracies can set long-term goals and expect to meet them. We are immunized against disease, sheltered from storms, and insured against fire, theft, and collision. For the first time in human history, most people (in wealthy countries) will live past the age of seventy and will not see any of their children die before them. Although all of us will get unwanted surprises along the way, we’ll adapt and cope with nearly all of them, and many of us will believe we are better off for having suffered. So to cut off all attachments, to shun the pleasures of sensuality and triumph in an effort to escape the pains of loss and defeat—this now strikes me as an inappropriate response to the inevitable presence of some suffering in every life.

The rise of the western crews may have shocked eastern fans, but it delighted newspaper editors across the country in the 1930s. The story fit in with a larger sports narrative that had fueled newspaper and newsreel sales since the rivalry between two boxers—a poor, part-Cherokee Coloradoan named Jack Dempsey and an easterner and ex-Marine named Gene Tunney—had riveted the nation’s attention in the 1920s. The East versus West rivalry carried over to football with the annual East-West Shrine Game and added interest every January to the Rose Bowl—then the nearest thing to a national collegiate football championship. And it was about to have additional life breathed into it when an oddly put together but spirited, rough-and-tumble racehorse named Seabiscuit would appear on the western horizon to challenge and defeat the racing establishment’s darling, the king of the eastern tracks, War Admiral.

It says in Romans 5:17, “We are to reign in life as kings.” When God looks at us He doesn’t see us defeated, barely getting by, or just taking the leftover positions. Not at all. God sees you as a king. He sees you as a queen. You have His royal blood flowing through your veins. You and I are supposed to reign in life. Do you know what that word reign means? It means, “time in power.” God said we’re to reign how long? In life. That means as long as you’re alive that is your time in power. You don’t have a two-year term like a mayor, a four-year term like a president. Your term is to reign every single day, to be victorious, to rise to new levels, to accomplish great things.

Speech is the pen and the sword of humankind and it is the foundation of their kingdom. Wherever the flag of speech waves, the most powerful armies are. defeated and scattered. In the arenas in which speech shouts out, the sounds of cannon balls become like the buzzing of bees. from behind the battlements on which the banner of speech has been raised, the sound of its drums are heard. In the precincts where its march reverberates, kings shake in their boots. The Master of Speech smashed to pieces many insurmountable walls, in the face of which Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and many others despaired or retread; and the pen of Speech, imparting and compliance, was saluted and praised.

What a glorious Savior he is! Once again consider Christ in his entire identity, life, and work. In his birth, he is the divine Son and Lord who chooses to become our Mediator in obedience to his Father’s will. In his life, as the incarnate Son, he is still the sovereign King who willingly and gladly chooses to die for us. In his death, he does not die as a victim or martyr but as one who is fully in control, choosing to die for us. By his death, he pays for our sin, destroys death, and defeats Satan by putting him under his feet in triumph. In his resurrection, which is inseparable from his life and death, the Father by the Spirit exalts the Son and inaugurates the glorious new covenant age of the new creation. From that posture of authority, the glorified and exalted Son pours out the Spirit, once again proof that he is Lord and Messiah/King. From that same posture of authority, the exalted and ascended Lord rules over his people, governs history, and will return in power to consummate all that he has begun in his first coming.

But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah, we have only to attend to the sequel of this story, which, though it is passed over in silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in the 28th chapter of the second Chronicles, and which is, that instead of these two kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to foretell in the name of the Lord, they succeeded; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed, a hundred and twenty thousand of his people were slaughtered, Jerusalem was plundered, and two hundred thousand women, and sons and daughters, carried into captivity. Thus much for this lying prophet and impostor, Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that bears his name.

Thinking Out Loud So self-destructive I’m waiting for the implosion  For the Universe’s infinite wisdom to cave in my chest and abolish all my fears  To be driven so deep into the possibilities that I am blinded by the light  Until all I can do is close my eyes and be forced to once again dream genuinely Before the day of naysayers and doubts  I’m in the stairwell hiding from the people hiding from the noise  Can they see my insecurities as vividly as I do?  Do they possess that kind of vision?  Or are they so lost in their own self-turmoil that they don’t even notice I’m defeated, depleted A remnant of a dreamer gone mad A hopeless romantic who hasn’t been fed An artist starving for Life, to Live 

HOW ENGLISH BECAME A DOUBLE LANGUAGE After the Romans conquered England in the first century AD, they hired German and Scandinavian mercenaries from Anglia and Saxony to help fend off pirates and put down rebellions by the native Picts and Celts. When the Roman Empire abandoned England in 410 AD, more Anglo-Saxons migrated to the island, marginalizing the Gallic-speaking Celts, wiping out the Latin of the Romans, and imposing their Germanic tongue throughout England. But 600 years later Latin came back this roundabout way: In 911 AD Danish Vikings conquered territory along the north coast of France and named it after themselves, Normandy, land of the Norsemen. After 150 years of marriage to French women, these Danes spoke what their mothers spoke, a thousand-year-old French dialect of Latin. In 1066 King Wilhelm of Normandy (a.k.a. William the Conqueror) led his armies across the English Channel and defeated the English king. With that victory, French came to England. Throughout history, foreign conquests usually erase native languages. But England was the exception. For some mysterious reason, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons and the Latinate French of the Normans merged. As a result, the vocabulary of what became modern English doubled. English has at least two words for everything. Compare, for example, the Germanic-rooted words “fire,” “hand,” “tip,” “ham,” and “flow” to the French-derived words “flame,” “palm,” “point,” “pork,” and “fluid.

The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, as old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled. They wrestled with mysteries and transformed them into myths which coded the world and helped the community to live through one more darkness, with eyes wide open and hearts set alight. "I can see them now, the old masters. I can see them standing on the other side of the flames, speaking in the voices of lions, or thunder, or monsters, or heroes, heroines, or the earth, or fire itself -- for they had to contain all voices within them, had to be all things and nothing. They had to have the ability to become lightning, to become a future homeland, to be the dreaded guide to the fabled land where the community will settle and fructify. They had to be able to fight in advance all the demons they would encounter, and summon up all the courage needed on the way, to prophesy about all the requisite qualities that would ensure their arrival at the dreamt-of land. "The old masters had to be able to tell stories that would make sleep possible on those inhuman nights, stories that would counter terror with enchantment, or with a greater terror. I can see them, beyond the flames, telling of a hero's battle with a fabulous beast -- the beast that is in the hero." "The storyteller's art changed through the ages. From battling dread in word and incantations before their people did in reality, they became the repositories of the people's wisdom and follies. Often, conscripted by kings, they became the memory of a people's origins, and carried with them the long line of ancestries and lineages. Most important of all, they were the living libraries, the keepers of legends and lore. They knew the causes and mutations of things, the herbs, trees, plants, cures for diseases, causes for wars, causes of victory, the ways in which victory often precipitates defeat, or defeat victory, the lineages of gods, the rites humans have to perform to the gods. They knew of follies and restitutions, were advocates of new and old ways of being, were custodians of culture, recorders of change." "These old storytellers were the true magicians. They were humanity's truest friends and most reliable guides. Their role was both simple and demanding. They had to go down deep into the seeds of time, into the dreams of their people, into the unconscious, into the uncharted fears, and bring shapes and moods back up into the light. They had to battle with monsters before they told us about them. They had to see clearly." "They risked their sanity and their consciousness in the service of dreaming better futures. They risked madness, or being unmoored in the wild realms of the interspaces, or being devoured by the unexpected demons of the communal imagination." "And I think that now, in our age, in the mid-ocean of our days, with certainties collapsing around us, and with no beliefs by which to steer our way through the dark descending nights ahead -- I think that now we need those fictional old bards and fearless storytellers, those seers. We need their magic, their courage, their love, and their fire more than ever before. It is precisely in a fractured, broken age that we need mystery and a reawoken sense of wonder. We need them to be whole again.

The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Fortunately, the great king did not have to deal with Set on his own. The Egyptians also worshipped Horus, the son of Osiris. Horus took the twin forms of a falcon, the most visually acute of all creatures, and the still-famous hieroglyphic single Egyptian eye (as alluded to in Rule 7). Osiris is tradition, aged and willfully blind. Horus, his son, could and would, by contrast, see. Horus was the god of attention. That is not the same as rationality. Because he paid attention, Horus could perceive and triumph against the evils of Set, his uncle, albeit at great cost. When Horus confronts Set, they have a terrible battle. Before Set’s defeat and banishment from the kingdom, he tears out one of his nephew’s eyes. But the eventually victorious Horus takes back the eye. Then he does something truly unexpected: he journeys voluntarily to the underworld and gives the eye to his father.

And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude. Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

I want to sit around a Gypsy campfire, eating freshly caught rabbit in the company of bare knuckle fighters, and listen to stories about their fights. I want to sit with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table after they’ve defeated the barbarians in battle. I want to be there when Arthur pulls Excalibur from the stone, and I want to be surrounded by dragons, wizards and sorcerers. I want to meet the Muslim leader, Saladin, who occupied Jerusalem in 1187, and despite the fact that a number of holy Muslim places had been violated by Christians, preferred to take Jerusalem without bloodshed. He prohibited acts of vengeance, and his army was so disciplined that there were no deaths or violence after the city surrendered. I want to sit around the desert campfire with him. I want to drink with Caribbean buccaneers of the 17th century and listen to their tales of preying on shipping and Spanish settlements. I want to witness Celtic Berserkers fighting in ritual warfare in a trance-like fury. I want to spend time working on a scrap cruise, the very last cruise before the ship’s due to be scrapped, so there’s no future in it, and it attracts all the mad faces of the Merchant Navy. Faces that are known in that industry, who couldn’t survive outside ‘the life’ and who for the most part are quite dangerous and mad themselves. I’d rather have one friend who’ll fight like hell over ten who’ll do nothing but talk shit. And I want to ride with highwaymen on ribbons of moonlight over the purple moor.

What is this mysterious masculine force which spurs you onwards, whence comes this will, this heroic initiative which seems to precede the start of the great journey? This is what prevents you turning back on the path. If you were to do so, if you failed to travel the path to its end, you would be guilty, because the practices of your initiation have mobilised enormous forces which destroy men and drive them insane if they are not aimed in the right direction. The signs will help you open a way for yourself in the virgin forest where no roads exist. 'Even the Gods are your enemies; because their impersonal lives are at risk in this war. You will have to overcome the Archetypes, dethrone them, reincorporating their tremendous numinous energies within yourself. Do you remember the Greek legend? Man was a circular androgynous. He began to roll up Mount Olympus. The Gods were frightened, fearing defeat, and so they resorted to artifice: they divided the man-sphere in half. The result was that he was so busy trying to find his other half that he had no time to make war with them. But, luckily, the Gods made a mistake. Because one day we will bring them back to life as well, giving them a face. 'When the water runs downhill, it gives rise to Samsara and human generations, to the circular movement of the involuted earth; when it runs uphill, the opposite direction, it provokes the mutation of the Gods themselves, the divinisation of the hero; it creates a free, eternal race, without Gods, without a king. This is the Road of the Warrior.

Dorian might have found it funny—so typically Celaena to make such a flamboyant return—had he not been utterly petrified. She had drawn a line in the sand. Worse than that, she’d defeated one of the king’s deadliest generals. No one had done that and lived. Ever. Somewhere in Wendlyn, his friend was changing the world. She was fulfilling the promise she’d made him. She had not forgotten him, or any of them still here. And perhaps when they figured out a way to destroy that tower and free magic from his father’s yoke, she would know her friends had not forgotten her, either. That he had not forgotten her. So Dorian let his father rage. He sat in on those meetings and shut down his revulsion and horror when his father sent a third minister to the butchering block. For Sorscha, for the promise of keeping her safe, of someday, perhaps, not having to hide what and who he was, he kept on his well-worn mask, offered banal suggestions about what to do regarding Aelin, and pretended. One last time. When Celaena got back, when she returned as she’d sworn she would … Then they would set about changing the world together.

[a St. Luke 14:26.] Of course, the term 'hate' does not imply hatred of parents or relatives, or of life, in the ordinary sense. But it points to this, that, as outward separation, consequent upon men's antagonism to Christ, was before them in the near future, so, in the present, inward separation, a renunciation in mind and heart, preparatory to that outwardly, was absolutely necessary. And this immediate call was illustrated in twofold manner. A man who was about to begin building a tower, must count the cost of his undertaking. [b vv. 28-30.] It was not enough that he was prepared to defray the expense of the foundations; he must look to the cost of the whole. So must they, in becoming disciples, look not on what was involved in the present following of Christ, but remember the cost of the final acknowledgement of Jesus. Again, if a king went to war, common prudence would lead him to consider whether his forces were equal to the great contest before him; else it were far better to withdraw in time, even though it involved humiliation, from what, in view of his weakness, would end in miserable defeat. [c vv. 31, 32.] So, and much more, must the intending disciple make complete inward surrender of all, deliberately counting the cost, and, in view of the coming trial, ask himself whether he had, indeed, sufficient inward strength, the force of love to Christ, to conquer. And thus discipleship, then, and, in measure, to all time, involves the necessity of complete inward surrender of everything for the love of Christ, so that if, and when, the time of outward trial comes, we may be prepared to conquer in the fight. [d ver. 33.] He fights well, who has first fought and conquered within.

A bare two years after Vasco da Gama’s voyage a Portuguese fleet led by Pedro Alvarez Cabral arrived on the Malabar coast. Cabral delivered a letter from the king of Portugal to the Samudri (Samudra-raja or Sea-king), the Hindu ruler of the city-state of Calicut, demanding that he expel all Muslims from his kingdom as they were enemies of the ‘Holy Faith’. He met with a blank refusal; then afterwards the Samudra steadfastly maintained that Calicut had always been open to everyone who wished to trade there… During those early years the people who had traditionally participated in the Indian Ocean trade were taken completely by surprise. In all the centuries in which it had flourished and grown, no state or kings or ruling power had ever before tried to gain control of the Indian Ocean trade by force of arms. The territorial and dynastic ambitions that were pursued with such determination on land were generally not allowed to spill over into the sea. Within the Western historiographical record the unarmed character of the Indian Ocean trade is often represented as a lack, or failure, one that invited the intervention of Europe, with its increasing proficiency in war. When a defeat is as complete as was that of the trading cultures of the Indian Ocean, it is hard to allow the vanquished the dignity of nuances of choice and preference. Yet it is worth allowing for the possibility that the peaceful traditions of the oceanic trade may have been, in a quiet and inarticulate way, the product of a rare cultural choice — one that may have owed a great deal to the pacifist customs and beliefs of the Gujarati Jains and Vanias who played such an important part in it. At the time, at least one European was moved to bewilderment by the unfamiliar mores of the region; a response more honest perhaps than the trust in historical inevitability that has supplanted it since. ‘The heathen [of Gujarat]’, wrote Tomé Pires, early in the sixteenth century, ‘held that they must never kill anyone, nor must they have armed men in their company. If they were captured and [their captors] wanted to kill them all, they did not resist. This is the Gujarat law among the heathen.’ It was because of those singular traditions, perhaps, that the rulers of the Indian Ocean ports were utterly confounded by the demands and actions of the Portuguese. Having long been accustomed to the tradesmen’s rules of bargaining and compromise they tried time and time again to reach an understanding with the Europeans — only to discover, as one historian has put it, that the choice was ‘between resistance and submission; co-operation was not offered.’ Unable to compete in the Indian Ocean trade by purely commercial means, the Europeans were bent on taking control of it by aggression, pure and distilled, by unleashing violence on a scale unprecedented on those shores.

The modern age has carried with it a theoretical glorification of labor and has resulted in a factual transformation of the whole of society into a laboring society. The fulfilment of the wish, therefore, like the fulfilment of wishes in fairy tales, comes at a moment when it can only be self-defeating. It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won. Within this society, which is egalitarian because this is labor’s way of making men live together, there is no class left, no aristocracy of either a political or spiritual nature from which a restoration of the other capacities of man could start anew. Even presidents, kings, and prime ministers think of their offices in terms of a job necessary for the life of society, and among the intellectuals, only solitary individuals are left who consider what they are doing in terms of work and not in terms of making a living. What we are confronted with is the prospect of a society of laborers without labor, that is, without the only activity left to them. Surely, nothing could be worse.

Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man. He had such and such mistresses, and such and such ministers, and he governed France badly. The heirs of Louis XIV were also weak men, and also governed France badly. They also had such and such favourites and such and such mistresses. Besides which, certain persons were at this time writing books. By the end of the eighteenth century there gathered in Paris two dozen or so persons who started saying that all men were free and equal. Because of this in the whole of France people began to slaughter and drown each other. These people killed the king and a good many others. At this time there was a man of genius in France – Napoleon. He conquered everyone everywhere, i.e. killed a great many people because he was a great genius; and, for some reason, he went off to kill Africans, and killed them so well, and was so clever and cunning, that, having arrived in France, he ordered everyone to obey him, which they did. Having made himself Emperor he again went to kill masses of people in Italy, Austria and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. Now in Russia there was the Emperor Alexander, who decided to reestablish order in Europe, and therefore fought wars with Napoleon. But in the year ’07 he suddenly made friends with him, and in the year ’11 quarrelled with him again, and they both again began to kill a great many people. And Napoleon brought six hundred thousand men to Russia and conquered Moscow. But then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and then the Emperor Alexander, aided by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to raise an army against the disturber of her peace. All Napoleon’s allies suddenly became his enemies; and this army marched against Napoleon, who had gathered new forces. The allies conquered Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to renounce the throne, and sent him to the island of Elba, without, however, depriving him of the title of Emperor, and showing him all respect, in spite of the fact that five years before, and a year after, everyone considered him a brigand and beyond the law. Thereupon Louis XVIII, who until then had been an object of mere ridicule to both Frenchmen and the allies, began to reign. As for Napoleon, after shedding tears before the Old Guard, he gave up his throne, and went into exile. Then astute statesmen and diplomats, in particular Talleyrand, who had managed to sit down before anyone else in the famous armchair1 and thereby to extend the frontiers of France, talked in Vienna, and by means of such talk made peoples happy or unhappy. Suddenly the diplomats and monarchs almost came to blows. They were almost ready to order their troops once again to kill each other; but at this moment Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who hated him, all immediately submitted to him. But this annoyed the allied monarchs very much and they again went to war with the French. And the genius Napoleon was defeated and taken to the island of St Helena, having suddenly been discovered to be an outlaw. Whereupon the exile, parted from his dear ones and his beloved France, died a slow death on a rock, and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. As for Europe, a reaction occurred there, and all the princes began to treat their peoples badly once again.

The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows. “You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die? “Or one might take the tip of a pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil-tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become leagues, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity. “If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

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.

The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British empire. Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions. First, this is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually. A second point is that nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness. A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not just the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races. As I like to say to the people in Montgomery, Alabama: ‘The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.’ A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.