Delivered Best Quotes

One cannot seperate truth from actions...Physically inevitable or not, truth stands above all things. It is independant of who has the best army, who can deliver the longest sermons, or even who has the most priests. It can be pushed down, but it will always surface. Truth is the one thing you can never intimidate.

Joy is thankfulness, and when we are joyful, that is the best expression of thanks we can offer the Lord, Who delivers us from sorrow and sin.

Life, it seems, delivers the best punch lines only after we've forgotten we were part of a joke.

The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.

When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream.  It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.

I want your best room,' said Laurent, 'with a big bed and a private bath, and if you send up the house boy, you'll find out the hard way that I don't like sharing.' He delivered the innkeeper a long, cool look. "He's expensive,' said Damen to the innkeeper, by way of apology.

When you love your work, you will be exceptionally diligent in what you do and you will excel in delivering both quality and quantity.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preéstablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give hint no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Greatness makes you a legend; being the best makes you an icon. If you want to be great, deliver the unexpected. If you want to be the best, deliver a miracle.

One can’t prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person.

One of the best parts of being human is other humans. It's true, because life is hard; but people get to show up for one another, as God told us to, and we remember we are loved and seen and God is here and we are not alone. We can't deliver folks from their pits, but we can sure get in there with them until God does.

Romantic Love delivers us into the passionate arms of someone who will ultimately trigger the same frustrations we had with our parents, but for the best possible reason! Doing so brings our childhood wounds to the surface so they can be healed.

If I am seeking to get identity from you ,I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you to fundamentally. I will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. But none of us will ever get the well-being that comes from knowing who we are from our relationships. Instead we will be left with damaged relationships filled with hurt, frustration and anger.

Your decision not to join the crowd may be what God is waiting for to grant you revelation on how to deliver your family, your country, business, profession or even your church!

Rose, I’m sorry I had to leave so quickly, but when the Alchemists tell me to jump … well, I jump. I’ve hitched a ride back to that farm town we stayed in so that I can pick up the Red Hurricane, and then I’m off to Saint Petersburg. Apparently, now that you’ve been delivered to Baia, they don’t need me to stick around anymore. I wish I could tell you more about Abe and what he wants from you. Even if I was allowed to, there isn’t much to say. In some ways, he’s as much a mystery to me as he is to you. Like I said, a lot of the business he deals in is illegal—both among humans and Moroi. The only time he gets directly involved with people is when something relates to that business—or if it’s a very, very special case. I think you’re one of those cases, and even if he doesn’t intend you harm, he might want to use you for his own purposes. It could be as simple as him wanting to contract you as a bodyguard, seeing as you’re rogue. Maybe he wants to use you to get to others. Maybe this is all part of someone else’s plan, someone who’s even more mysterious than him. Maybe he’s doing someone a favor. Zmey can be dangerous or kind, all depending on what he needs to accomplish. I never thought I’d care enough to say this to a dhampir, but be careful. I don’t know what your plans are now, but I have a feeling trouble follows you around. Call me if there’s anything I can help with, but if you go back to the big cities to hunt Strigoi, don’t leave any more bodies unattended! All the best, Sydney P.S. “The Red Hurricane” is what I named the car. P.P.S. Just because I like you, it doesn’t mean I still don’t think you’re an evil creature of the night. You are.

An autobiography encouraging the reader to like the author is not a true autobiography. No one is likable from the inside out. One should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for its author. I will deliver.

When we hear a fact, a few isolated areas of our brain light up, translating words and meanings. When we hear a story, however, our brain lights up like Las Vegas, tracing the chains of cause, effect, and meaning. Stories are not just stories; they are the best invention ever created for delivering mental models that drive behavior.

A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he’d left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn’t given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets.

If a book did nothing else for you, other than to save you from the company of other people; if all it did was to deliver you from their gossip, and their dull affairs, and their appalling manners, and their rotten Arabic, and their stupid ideas, and their woefully misguided opinions, and above all, from the need to be polite to them; if a book did nothing more than that, it would still be the best friend you ever had.

I feel like a pink worm in the core of this green room, as though I have eaten my way in and should be working on becoming a butterfly, or something. I’m not real awake, here, at the moment. I hear somebody coughing. I hear my heart beating and the high-pitched sound which is my nervous system doing its thing. Oh, God, let today be a normal day. Let me be normally befuddled, normally nervous; get me to the church on time, in time. Let me not startle anyone, especially myself. Let me get through our wedding day as best I can, with no special effects. Deliver Clare from unpleasant scenes. Amen.

She had no illusions of becoming a master knife fighter. This wasn't the Realms, where a thought delivered result. But she also knew she'd giver herself a better chance. And in life, at least in her new life, chances were the best she could hope for. They were like her rocks. Imperfect& surprising & maybe better in the long run than certainties. Chances, she thought, were life.

Do you want to know the best, most effective transmitter of contagion known to man? Edgerton asks me with a pinprick of mad light dancing in each iris. It's love. Love is the absolute killer. Care. The milk of human kindness. People try so hard to save the people they love that they end up catching the contagion themselves. They give comfort, deliver aid, and in doing so they acquire the infection. Then those people are cared for by others and they get infected. On and on it goes. He shrugs. But that's people. People care too much. They love at all costs. And so they pay the ultimate price.

Don’t start any sentence with “From a design perspective...” because that’s usually just another way of saying “from my perspective.” Remember, we don’t care about your perspective; we care about the user’s perspective.

Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.

What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.

Threats generally work best when delivered in a neutral key.

Do not despair. Have faith. It is going to work out and you will be delivered.

We aren’t doing user experience design if we haven’t actually seen a user experience it.

It disappointed me when I discerned as an adolescent that my father had married my mother only for her beauty, but this was before I realized that parents disappoint us in many ways and it is best not to expect anything of them at all, for chances are that they won't be able to deliver it.

The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know— dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (...) Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent. When she was twelve, her father found out. “Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess,” he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher. Cimorene tilted her head to one side. “Why not?” “It’s ... well, it’s simply not done.” Cimorene considered. “Aren’t I a princess?” “Yes, of course you are, my dear,” said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands. “Well, I fence,” Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. “So it is too done by a princess.

Anyaele Sam Chiyson Leadership Law of Leading: Superlative leaders are fully equipped to deliver in destiny; they locate eternally assigned destines.

Better is the most important step to becoming your best. If you want to be your best, you need to start by getting better. Start doing better. Good, better, best. That's how it works.

This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality. If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me. The consolations of religion, my beloved, can alone support you and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours A H72

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE ADD ADULTS 1. Do what you’re good at. Don’t spend too much time trying to get good at what you’re bad at. (You did enough of that in school.) 2. Delegate what you’re bad at to others, as often as possible. 3. Connect your energy to a creative outlet. 4. Get well enough organized to achieve your goals. The key here is “well enough.” That doesn’t mean you have to be very well organized at all—just well enough organized to achieve your goals. 5. Ask for and heed advice from people you trust—and ignore, as best you can, the dream-breakers and finger-waggers. 6. Make sure you keep up regular contact with a few close friends. 7. Go with your positive side. Even though you have a negative side, make decisions and run your life with your positive side.

Bragging is how criminals get caught and men with deep secrets deliver themselves to their enemies. It’s bonehead human nature. We all want to look special. Knowing something is one of the best ways.

That’s where we find ourselves today. In a meeting with people who have no idea how to do our jobs, yet consistently find it their place to tell us how to do it. It’s enough to drive any designer insane.

Your best chance to make it through is to have reliable people on either side of you. And that means you have to be reliable yourself. for loyalty is fundamentally reciprocal, and reliability is all about delivering on your part of the bargain when it matters.

I plastered on my best poker face, attempting to appear cool and casual even thought I had never been so eager to deliver two Chicken Parmagianas in my life. "Just be careful, hon," Rosanna said. "Oh, are the plates hot?" I flinched back just before my hands made contact. Rosanna laughed. "No, but hot boys can burn just as easily.

It motivates us to care so much about the challenges of another person that we’re driven to action. Empathy is the ultimate form of understanding.

designers come up with definitions that sound like something straight out of a Jonathan Ive memoir. I

I did not believe in stalemates. I believed in resolutions, one way or another, and if I found myself on the losing end, so be it. Losing meant quiet, and forgetting quickly, and giving up nothing of any real worth to me. I did not debate restaurant bills, politics, wrongly delivered mail, divorces. These things were officiously loud, and silence was always best.

I had a dream about you. You were crying, and I couldn’t tell if it was because you were sad or because you’d been laughing too hard. So I decided to find out by telling you that I’d just heard from the cops, and your mother had been murdered. Before I got to the punch line you started sobbing in a different manner, so I realized you’d been laughing earlier. By that time the mood had changed, and I decided it best not to deliver the punch line after all. So I sat down next to you and put my arm around you and tried to console you for your perceived loss. 


YANNI “JOHNNY” BACOLAS: I would always tell him, “Layne [Staley], why don’t you take off, go to some deserted island, hire the best counselors, and just kick this shit? Go for six months if you have to.” And his rebuttal was, “Johnny, I have celebrity status and I have a lot of money. I could fly planes out to deliver me the dope if I wanted to — and that’s what I would do. I can’t escape.

In the movie I was played by an actor who actually looked more like me than the character the author portrayed in the book: I wasn't blond, I wasn't tan, and neither was the actor. I also suddenly became the movie's moral compass, spouting AA jargon, castigating everyone's drug use and trying to save Julian. (I'll sell my car," I warn the actor playing Julian's dealer. "Whatever it takes.") This was slightly less true of Blair's character, played by a girl who actually seemed like she belonged in our group-- jittery, sexually available, easily wounded. Julian became the sentimentalized version of himself, acted by a talented, sad-faced clown, who has an affair with Blair and then realizes he has to let her go because I was his best bud. "Be good to her," Julian tells Clay. "She really deserves it." The sheer hypocrisy of this scene must have made the author blanch. Smiling secretly to myself with perverse satisfaction when the actor delivered that line, I then glanced at Blair in the darkness of the screening room.

Physically inevitable or not, truth stands above all things. It is independent of who has the best army, who can deliver the longest sermons, or even who has the most priests. It can be pushed down, but it will always surface. Truth is the one thing you can never intimidate.

Think before you click. If people do not know you personally and if they cannot see you as you type, what you post online can be taken out of context if you are not careful in the way your message is delivered.

For I think we may look upon our little private war with death somewhat in this light. If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon thieves....So every bit of brisk living, and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in our stomachs, when he cries stand and deliver. --An Inland Voyage

reality usually delivers results a little worse than the 'worst-case scenario'. It's called the planning fallacy, and the best way to fix it is to ask how long things took the last time you tried them. That's called using the outside view instead of the inside view. But when you're doing something new and can't do that, you just have to be really, really, really pessimistic. Like, so pessimistic that reality actually comes out better than you expected around as often and as much as it comes out worse. It's actually really hard to be so pessimistic that you stand a decent chance of undershooting real life.

The Father of Winter says tells Ista, "...For my great-souled child is very late, and lost upon his road. My calling voice cannot reach him. He cannot see the light in my window, for he is sundered from me, blind and deaf and stumbling, with none to take his hand and guide him. Yet you may touch him, in his darkness. And I may touch you, in yours. Then take you this thread to draw him through the maze, where I cannot go." Later, Ista delivers the message, "Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true. Bend your head.

You and your organization have the power to change everything. To create remarkable products and services. To over deliver. To be the best in the world. How dare you squander that resource by spreading it too thin. How dare you settle for mediocre just because you’re busy coping with too many things on your agenda, racing against the clock to get it all done.

The best speakers are voracious readers. Reading is like priming the pump. If we only rely on our own imagined creativity and genius, we will soon be out of material and out of work. Creativity is really at its peak when we are stimulated by the thoughts and work of others.

She had no illusions of becoming a master knife fighter. This wasn’t the Realms, where a thought delivered a result. But she also knew she’d given herself a better chance. And in life, at least in her new life, chances were the best she could hope for. They were like her rocks. Imperfect and surprising and maybe better in the long run than certainties. Chances, she thought, were life.

The written word is an attempt at completeness when there is no one impatiently awaiting you in a dimly lit bedroom--awaiting your tales of the day, as the healing hands of someone who knew turn to you and touch you, and you lose yourself so completely in another that you are momentarily delivered from yourself. Whispering across the pillow comes a kind voice that might tell you how to get out of certain difficulties, from someone who might mercifully detach you from your complications. When there is no matching of lives, and we live on a strict diet of the self, the most intimate bond can be with the words that we write: Oh often have I washed and dressed And what's to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest: Ten thousand times I've done my best And all's to do again. I ask myself if there is an irresponsible aspect in relaying thoughts of pain as inspiration, and I wonder whether Housman actually infected the sensitives further, and pulled them back into additional darkness. Surely it is true that everything in the imagination seems worse then it actually is--especially when one is alone and horizontal (in bed, as in the coffin). Housman was always alone--thinking himself to death, with no matronly wife to signal to the watching world that Alfred Edward was quite alright--for isn't that partly the aim of scoring a partner: to trumpet the mental all-clear to a world where how things seem is far more important than how things are? Now snugly in eternity, Housman still occupies my mind. His best moments were in Art, and not in the cut and thrust of human relationships. Yet he said more about human relationships than those who manage to feast on them. You see you can't have it both ways

Now, I believe the best way for you to learn is immersion and since we can't teleport you all to France," he grinned at me, and there were once again sighs from the girls. "I'll be speaking only in French and will expect you to do the same. Is anyone here already proficient in the language?" I narrowed my eyes at him. He knew darn well I was fluent in French and several other languages. "Eveline, I believe your dad mentioned at dinner the other night that you are?" What was he doing? "Umm. Yes-" He shook his head at me. "En français s'il vous plait." More sighs from the class. I clenched my jaw and spoke rapidly. "Oui, Monsieur Smith. Je parle français. Qu'est-ce que tu veux?" Yes, Mr.Smith. I speak French. What do you want? His eyes smoldered and caressed my face as he delivered his swift reply, "Je veux plus de toi que vous imaginez, ma petit lueur.

People do not buy fortune cookies because they taste better than every other cookie on the shelf. They buy them for the delight they deliver at the end of a meal. Marketers spend most of their time selling the cookie, when what they should be doing is finding a way to create a better fortune. Of course your job is to bake a good cookie, the very best that you can, but you must also spend time figuring out how to tell a great story.

The best leaders are those that lead by example and are both team followers as well as team leaders. We believe that in general, the best ideas and decisions are made from the bottom up, meaning by those on the front lines that are closest to the issues and/or the customers. The role of a manager is to remove obstacles and enable his/her direct reports to succeed. This means the best leaders are servant-leaders. They serve those they lead.

What I aim to do here is to deliver in plain English the inspiring science connecting exercise and the brain and to demonstrate how it plays out in the lives of real people. I want to cement the idea that exercise has a profound impact on cognitive abilities and mental health. It is simply one of the best treatments we have for most psychiatric problems.

Six Telltale Signs of a Winning Strategy 1) An activity system that looks different from any competitor's system. It means you are tempting to deliver value in a distinctive way. 2) Customers who absolutely adore you, and noncustomers who can't see why anybody would buy from you. This means you have been choiceful. 3) Competitors who make a good profit doing what they are doing. It means your strategy has left where-to-play and how-to-win choices for competitors, who don't need to attack the heart of your market to survive. 4) More resources to spend on an ongoing basis than competitors have. This means you are winning the value equation and have the biggest margin between price and costs and best capacity to add spending to take advantage of an opportunity to defend your turf. 5) Competitors who attack one another, not you. It means that you look like the hardest target in the (broadly defined) industry to attack. 6) Customers who look first to you for innovations, new products, and service enhancement to make their lives better. This means that your customers believe that you are uniquely positioned to create value for them.

The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path.

They were intent, utterly focused, fearful of letting the commander down, but not fearful. He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn't deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was. This was a great man in action. It was a quiet greatness.

The digital communications technology that was once imagined as a universe of transparent and perpetual illumination, in which cancerous falsehoods would perish beneath a saturation bombardment of irradiating data, has instead generated a much murkier and verification-free habitat where a google-generated search will deliver an electronic page on which links to lies and lunacy appear in identical format as those to truths and sanity. But why should we ever have assumed that technology and reason would be mutually self-reinforcing? The quickest visit to say, a site called Stormfront will persuade you that the demonic is in fact the best customer of the electronic.

Fear is lack of trust: in oneself, those around us and the world at large. So maybe the lesson we are trying to teach ourselves is to trust. Trust the universe, but ultimately, trust ourselves. We have the best indicators for our messages and growth right in our core. It’s just a matter of tapping in and listening and not being afraid to experience the emotion to see the message that is being delivered.

Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as our own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. ... Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves? You sow crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows—to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labour in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him stronger and the mightier to hold you in check. From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not be taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.

Reasercher 101, I do not long for the old, unreachable days. When I'm plugged in I can go anywhere, do and learn anything. Today, for instance, I visited a tiny library in Portugal. I learned how the Shakers weave baskets and I discovered my best friend in middle school loves blood-orange sorbet. Okay, I also learned that a certain pop star actually believes she's a fairy, an honest-to-goodness fairy from the fey people, but my point is access. Access to information. I don't even have to look out my window to see what the eather is like. I can have the weather delivered every morning to my phone. What could be better? Sincerely, Wife 22 Wife 22, Getting caught in the rain? All the best, Researcher 101

I bet if I were pharaoh, I’d have had my tomb planned and designed by the time I was ten. I've always wanted to be five steps ahead of where I am. And my mind does it right now: I picture the king on his deathbed, and Ay delivers the awful news to me, but I'm the best embalmer in Thebes thanks to Anubis, so I'm alone in a dark room, and I cut open his soft chest, and take out a heart filled with dreams and love and sadness.

Eunice Goddard," he said, all pretense of sleepiness gone from his eyes, "will you marry me? I have no flowery speech prepared and would feel remarkably idiotic delivering it even if I had. Will you just simply marry me, my love? Because I love you? Will you take the risk? I am fully aware that there is a risk. I can only urge you to take a chance on me while I promise to do my very best to love and cherish you for the rest of my days and even perhaps beyond them.

To live a life of excellence, you will have to take risks. You will have to step into new territory and climb new mountains. If you’re up to something that’s as big as you are, it’s going to be scary. If it feels perfectly safe, you are probably underachieving. To leave your mark in the world, you will have to stand someplace you’ve never been willing to stand before. And you will have to have the courage to aspire to excellence. To create an extraordinary life you will have to be present in each moment and give 100 percent of yourself. You will have to commit each day to being the best you can be, and aspire to perform your daily tasks in the most conscious way possible. Living your best year requires you to take a moment each time you’re about to make a move—whether you are about to deliver a communication, make a decision, or put something into your body—and make sure that move reflects the very highest choice you could make. 

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

Within the next couple of years, whatever your job, you will be able to consult an on-demand expert, ask it about your latest ad campaign or product design, quiz it on the specifics of a legal dilemma, isolate the most effective elements of a pitch, solve a thorny logistical question, get a second opinion on a diagnosis, keep probing and testing, getting ever more detailed answers grounded in the very cutting edge of knowledge, delivered with exceptional nuance. All of the world’s knowledge, best practices, precedent, and computational power will be available, tailored to you, to your specific needs and circumstances, instantaneously and effortlessly. It is a leap in cognitive potential at least as great as the introduction of the internet. And that is before you even get into the implications of something like ACI and the Modern Turing Test.

Lila had an idea. It was a very stupid idea. But a stupid idea was better than no idea, at least in theory. So she dragged the words into shape and delivered them with her sharpest smile. “Nas,” she said, slowly. “An to eran gast.” No. I am your best thief. She held the captain’s gaze when she said it, her chin high and proud. The others grumbled and growled, but to her they didn’t matter, didn’t exist. The world narrowed to Lila and the captain of the ship. His smile was almost imperceptible. The barest quirk of his lips.

Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive. The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not. Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors. The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy.

I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables [...] our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honorable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle [...] more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave with you.

She swung her fist at Nicolae’s head. He raised an arm to block the blow, and she delivered a killing stab with her wooden dagger. Nicolae laughed, staggering dramatically to the ground. “Dead, again, at the hands of the ugliest girl in creation.” He stuck out his tongue, face contorted in a grimace. Lada kicked him in the stomach. “I am no girl. Who is next?” The other Janissaries, gathered in a loose circle around Lada and Nicolae, shuffled their feet and avoided eye contact. Nicolae pushed himself up on an elbow. “Really? Cowards!” “I still have bruises from the last time.” “I cannot sit without pain.” “She fights dirty.” Ivan did not even respond, having never forgiven Lada for besting him when they were introduced. He refused to fight her and rarely acknowledged her presence. Lada laughed, showing all her sharp teeth. “Because when you are on the battlefield, honor will mean so much. You will die with a blade between your ribs, secure in the knowledge that you fought with manners.” She picked up her dull practice sword, abandoned on the edge of the circle, and swung it through the air, sweeping it across the line of the Janissaries’ collective throats.

Every few weeks I get a letter from Léopoldville, which holds me on track. My heart races when I see the long blue envelope in a sister's hand, delivered to me under her sleeve as if a man himself were inside. And, oh, he is! Still sweet and bitter and wise and, best of all, still alive. I squeal, I can't help it, and run outside to the courtyard to taste him in private like a cat with a stolen pullet. I lean my face against the cool wall and kiss its old stones in praise of captivity, because it's only my being here and his being in prison that saves us both for another chance at each other.

It is easy to get bogged down trying to find the optimal plan for change: the fastest way to lose weight, the best program to build muscle, the perfect idea for a side hustle. We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action. As Voltaire once wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.” I refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result. Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome. If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action.

During superfast reactions, the best-performing experts instinctively know when to pause, if only for a split-second. The same is true over longer periods: some of us are better at understanding when to take a few extra seconds to deliver the punch line of a joke, or when we should wait a full hour before making a judgment about another person. Part of this skill is gut instinct, and part of it is analytical.

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.

Maybe he didn't realize it then, but David saved my life. He brought me to the horses, he showed me a world I never knew existed. He was the first person to lift me onto a pony. The first person to lead me around the ring. He opened the door that changed everything for me. He handed me the map that led me out of the same streets that would take his life so many years later. When it came to his safety, David has always been fearless, reckless even. But when it came to me, his little brother, he didn't let me take a single chance. He delivered me to the best, safest place he could find, and then, as always, he slipped away.

Randy is my gynecologist. I have had a number of gynecologists over the years, all talented in their own ways, but Randy is the best. He is an older Jewish man who, before deciding to inspect ladies down there for a living, played for the Mets. He still has the can-do determination of a pitcher on an underdog team and, to my mind, that is exactly the kind of man you want delivering your babies or rooting around in your vagina.

Listen, if you are an entrepreneur who is passionate about your product, but you never ask anyone to buy what you are selling, it will never get sold. Sure, there’s a possibility that you can deliver your best sales pitch in your best Sunday suit and they will still say no. But so what? Do you know how many times I’ve been told no for movie scripts, television shows, and comedy specials? A whole hell of lot more times than I heard yes.

THE phrase Daring Greatly is from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic.” The speech, sometimes referred to as “The Man in the Arena,” was delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910. This is the passage that made the speech famous: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…

In 90% of cases, you can start with one of the two most effective ways to open a speech: ask a question or start with a story. Our brain doesn’t remember what we hear. It remembers only what we “see” or imagine while we listen. You can remember stories. Everything else is quickly forgotten. Smell is the most powerful sense out of 4 to immerse audience members into a scene. Every sentence either helps to drive your point home, or it detracts from clarity. There is no middle point. If you don’t have a foundational phrase in your speech, it means that your message is not clear enough to you, and if it’s not clear to you, there is no way it will be clear to your audience. Share your failures first. Show your audience members that you are not any better, smarter or more talented than they are. You are not an actor, you are a speaker. The main skill of an actor is to play a role; to be someone else. Your main skill as a speaker is to be yourself. People will forgive you for anything except for being boring. Speaking without passion is boring. If you are not excited about what you are talking about, how can you expect your audience to be excited? Never hide behind a lectern or a table. Your audience needs to see 100% of your body. Speak slowly and people will consider you to be a thoughtful and clever person. Leaders don’t talk much, but each word holds a lot of meaning and value. You always speak to only one person. Have a conversation directly with one person, look him or her in the eye. After you have logically completed one idea, which usually is 10-20 seconds, scan the audience and then stop your eyes on another person. Repeat this process again. Cover the entire room with eye contact. When you scan the audience and pick people for eye contact, pick positive people more often. When you pause, your audience thinks about your message and reflects. Pausing builds an audiences’ confidence. If you don’t pause, your audience doesn’t have time to digest what you've told them and hence, they will not remember a word of what you've said. Pause before and after you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. After you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. Speakers use filler words when they don’t know what to say, but they feel uncomfortable with silence. Have you ever seen a speaker who went on stage with a piece of paper and notes? Have you ever been one of these speakers? When people see you with paper in your hands, they instantly think, “This speaker is not sincere. He has a script and will talk according to the script.” The best speeches are not written, they are rewritten. Bad speakers create a 10 minutes speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Great speakers create a 5 minute speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Explain your ideas in a simple manner, so that the average 12-year-old child can understand the concept. Good speakers and experts can always explain the most complex ideas with very simple words. Stories evoke emotions. Factual information conveys logic. Emotions are far more important in a speech than logic. If you're considering whether to use statistics or a story, use a story. PowerPoint is for pictures not for words. Use as few words on the slide as possible. Never learn your speech word for word. Just rehearse it enough times to internalize the flow. If you watch a video of your speech, you can triple the pace of your development as a speaker. Make videos a habit. Meaningless words and clichés neither convey value nor information. Avoid them. Never apologize on stage. If people need to put in a lot of effort to understand you they simply won’t listen. On the other hand if you use very simple language you will connect with the audience and your speech will be remembered.

On the contrary, I’m too weak for it. I mean, everyone is, but I am especially susceptible to its false rewards, you know? It’s designed to addict you, to prey on your insecurities and use them to make you stay. It exploits everybody’s loneliness and promises us community, approval, friendship. Honestly, in that sense, social media is a lot like the Church of Scientology. Or QAnon. Or Charles Manson. And then on top of that—weaponizing a person’s isolation—it convinces every user that she is a minor celebrity, forcing her to curate some sparkly and artificial sampling of her best experiences, demanding a nonstop social performance that has little in common with her inner life, intensifying her narcissism, multiplying her anxieties, narrowing her worldview. All while commodifying her, harvesting her data, and selling it to nefarious corporations so that they can peddle more shit that promises to make her prettier, smarter, more productive, more successful, more beloved. And throughout all this, you have to act stupefied by your own good luck. Everybody’s like, Words cannot express how fortunate I feel to have met this amazing group of people, blah blah blah. It makes me sick. Everybody influencing, everybody under the influence, everybody staring at their own godforsaken profile, searching for proof that they’re lovable. And then, once you’re nice and distracted by the hard work of tallying up your failures and comparing them to other people’s triumphs, that’s when the algorithmic predators of late capitalism can pounce, enticing you to partake in consumeristic, financially irresponsible forms of so-called self-care, which is really just advanced selfishness. Facials! Pedicures! Smoothie packs delivered to your door! And like, this is just the surface stuff. The stuff that oxidizes you, personally. But a thousand little obliterations add up, you know? The macro damage that results is even scarier. The hacking, the politically nefarious robots, opinion echo chambers, fearmongering, erosion of truth, etcetera, etcetera. And don’t get me started on the destruction of public discourse. I mean, that’s just my view. Obviously to each her own. But personally, I don’t need it. Any of it.” Blandine cracks her neck. “I’m corrupt enough.

Images surround us; cavorting broadcast in the minds of others, we wear the motley tailored by their bad digestions, the shame and failure, plague pandemics and private indecencies, unpaid bills, and animal ecstasies remembered in hospital beds, our worst deeds and best intentions will not stay still, scolding, mocking, or merely chattering they assail each other, shocked at recognition. Sometimes simplicity serves, though even the static image of Saint John Baptist received prenatal attentions (six months along, leaping for joy in his mother's womb when she met Mary who had conceived the day before): once delivered he stands steady in a camel's hair loincloth at a ford in the river, morose, ascetic on locusts and honey, molesting passers-by, upbraiding the flesh on those who wear it with pleasure. And the Nazarene whom he baptized? Three years pass, in a humility past understanding: and then death, disappointed? unsuspecting? and the body left on earth, the one which was to rule the twelve tribes of Israel, and on earth, left crying out - My God, why dost thou shame me? Hopelessly ascendent in resurrection, the image is pegged on the wind by an epileptic tentmaker, his strong hands stretch the canvas of faith into a gaudy caravanserai, shelter for travelers wearied of the burning sand, lured by forgetfulness striped crimson and gold, triple-tiered, visible from afar, redolent of the east, and level and wide the sun crashes the fist of reality into that desert where the truth still walks barefoot.

Oh, but Barack Obama was no mere man. He was a paragon of intelligence and civilized society. A savior to the world’s depressed. A lightbringer. A genius thinking thoughts the common man could never hope to comprehend. And his words—his beautiful words read from crystal panes—reached down to our souls and told us all would be well. With the simple act of casting a ballot for Barack Obama, we could make the world an immeasurably better place—a world of peace, of love, of understanding, of unicorns, of rainbows, of expanded entitlements. This was his promise. And now, having had him as president for more than two years, we can say without reservation that he has delivered all his promises and more and is the best president this country—or any country—has ever had or could even imagine to have.

When I leave this court I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they will go away convicted by Truth herself of depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as I accept mine...I tell you, my executioners, that as soon as I am dead, vengeance shall fall upon you with a punishment far more painful than your killing of me. You have brought about my death in the belief that through it you will be delivered from submitting your conduct to criticism; but I say that the result will be just the opposite. You will have more critics... If you expect to stop denunciation of your wrong way of life by putting people to death, there is something amiss with your reasoning.This way of escape is neither possible nor creditable; the best and easiest way is not to stop the mouths of others, but to make yourselves as good men as you can. This is my last message to you who voted for my condemnation.

So, let's get back to why the roots are the most important part of a tree. Conceivably, this is where the tree equivalent of a brain is located. Brain? you ask. Isn't that a bit farfetched? Possibly, but now we know that trees can learn. This means they must store experiences somewhere, and therefore, there must be some kind of a storage mechanism inside the organism. Just where it is, no one knows, but the roots are the part of the tree best suited to the task. The old spruce in Sweden also shows that what grows underground is the most permanent part of the tree-and where else would it store important information over a long period of time? Moreover, current research shows that a tree's delicate root networks is full of surprises. It is now an accepted fact that the root network is in charge of all chemical activity in the tree. And there's nothing earth shattering about that. Many of our internal processes are also regulated by chemical messengers. Roots absorb substances and bring them into the tree. In the other direction, they deliver the products of photosynthesis to the tree's fungal partners and even route warning signals to neighboring trees. But a brain? For there to be something we would recognize as a brain, neurological processes must be involved, and for these, in addition to chemical messages, you need electrical impulses. And these are precisely what we can measure in the tree, and we've been able to do so since as far back as the nineteenth century. For some years now, a heated controversy has flared up among scientists. Can plants think? Are they intelligent?

3.    Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; [Perhaps the word “balk” falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy’s stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter-attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: “When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by delivering our own attack first.”] the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; [Isolating him from his allies. We must not forget that Sun Tzu, in speaking of hostilities, always has in mind the numerous states or principalities into which the China of his day was split up.] the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; [When he is already at full strength.] and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. 4.    The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.

If A were to go to B, a merchant, and say to him, "Sir, I am a night-watchman, and I insist upon your employing me as such in protecting your property against burglars; and to enable me to do so more effectually, I insist upon your letting me tie your own hands and feet, so that you cannot interfere with me; and also upon your delivering up to me all your keys to your store, your safe, and to all your valuables; and that you authorize me to act solely and fully according to my own will, pleasure, and discretion in the matter; and I demand still further, that you shall give me an absolute guaranty that you will not hold me to any accountability whatever for anything I may do, or for anything that may happen to your goods while they are under my protection; and unless you comply with this proposal, I will now kill you on the spot,"—if A were to say all this to B, B would naturally conclude that A himself was the most impudent and dangerous burglar that he (B) had to fear; and that if he (B) wished to secure his property against burglars, his best way would be to kill A in the first place, and then take his chances against all such other burglars as might come afterwards. Our government constantly acts the part that is here supposed to be acted by A. And it is just as impudent a scoundrel as A is here supposed to be. It insists that every man shall give up all his rights unreservedly into its custody, and then hold it wholly irresponsible for any disposal it may make of them. And it gives him no alternative but death.

In his High Priestly prayer, he said, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4). He could shout the word “tetelestai” because he was a faithful Savior who accomplished the Father’s will. Jesus was faithful in spite of satanic opposition, in spite of the blindness and disobedience of the religious leaders, even in spite of the stupidity and slowness to believe of his own disciples. When sinful people were doing their worst, Jesus Christ was giving his best; and he did it because he loved the Father and loved a world of lost sinners. Jesus Christ is still a faithful Servant. Having finished His work on earth, he is now faithfully serving his people in heaven as High Priest and Advocate (Heb. 4:14–16; 1 John 2:1–3). When we’re tempted, we can come to his throne and receive the grace and mercy we need. If we sin, we can come to our heavenly Advocate, confess our sins, and be forgiven (1 John 1:9–2:2). He is faithful to deliver us in times of temptation (1 Cor. 10:13), faithful to forgive us when we fall, and faithful to keep us until we meet him face to face (2 Tim. 1:12; Jude 24).

It had personally pained Trump not to be able to give it to him. But if the Republican establishment had not wanted Trump, they had not wanted Christie almost as much. So Christie got the job of leading the transition and the implicit promise of a central job—attorney general or chief of staff. But when he was the federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Christie had sent Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, to jail in 2005. Charlie Kushner, pursued by the feds for an income tax cheat, set up a scheme with a prostitute to blackmail his brother-in-law, who was planning to testify against him. Various accounts, mostly offered by Christie himself, make Jared the vengeful hatchet man in Christie’s aborted Trump administration career. It was a kind of perfect sweet-revenge story: the son of the wronged man (or, in this case—there’s little dispute—the guilty-as-charged man) uses his power over the man who wronged his family. But other accounts offer a subtler and in a way darker picture. Jared Kushner, like sons-in-law everywhere, tiptoes around his father-in-law, carefully displacing as little air as possible: the massive and domineering older man, the reedy and pliant younger one. In the revised death-of-Chris-Christie story, it is not the deferential Jared who strikes back, but—in some sense even more satisfying for the revenge fantasy—Charlie Kushner himself who harshly demands his due. It was his daughter-in-law who held the real influence in the Trump circle, who delivered the blow. Ivanka told her father that Christie’s appointment as chief of staff or to any other high position would be extremely difficult for her and her family, and it would be best that Christie be removed from the Trump orbit altogether.

Trying to get to 124 for the second time now, he regretted that conversation: the high tone he took; his refusal to see the effect of marrow weariness in a woman he believed was a mountain. Now, too late, he understood her. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn't count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn Sethe's rough choice. One or the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last. And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was a whole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths of witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents and petitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him again. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, "What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?" When he got to his house he was too tired to eat the food his sister and nephews had prepared. He sat on the porch in the cold till way past dark and went to his bed only because his sister's voice calling him was getting nervous. He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs' wish to consider what in the world was harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red. Mistaking her, upbraiding her, owing her, now he needed to let her know he knew, and to get right with her and her kin. So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on through the voices and tried once more to knock at the door of 124. This time, although he couldn't cipher but one word, he believed he knew who spoke them. The people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons. What a roaring.

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. For excellent reasons related to Darwinian survival, child brains need to trust parents, and elders whom parents tell them to trust. An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad. The child cannot know that ‘Don’t paddle in the crocodile-infested Limpopo’ is good advice but ‘You must sacrifice a goat at the time of the full moon, otherwise the rains will fail’ is at best a waste of time and goats. Both admonitions sound equally trustworthy. Both come from a respected source and are delivered with a solemn earnestness that commands respect and demands obedience. The same goes for propositions about the world, about the cosmos, about morality and about human nature.

No human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. And surely, no sinner is ever going to be able to pull that off day after day in the all-encompassing relationship of marriage! Your spouse, your friends, and your children cannot be the sources of your identity. When you seek to define who you are through those relationships, you are actually asking another sinner to be your personal messiah, to give you the inward rest of soul that only God can give. Only when I have sought my identity in the proper place (in my relationship with God) am I able to put you in the proper place as well. When I relate to you knowing that I am God’s child and the recipient of his grace, I am able to serve and love you. I have the hope and courage to get my hands dirty with the hard work involved when two sinners live together. And you are able to do the same with me! However, if I am seeking to get identity from you, I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you too fundamentally. I will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner, but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. But none of us will ever get the well-being that comes from knowing who we are from our relationships. Instead, we will be left with damaged relationships filled with hurt, frustration, and anger. Matt

Have you swallowed all that war stuff?" "No, of course I--" I was so committed to refuting him that I had half-denied the charge before I understood it; now my eyes swung back to his face. "All what war stuff?" "All that stuff about there being a war." "I don't think I get what you mean." "Do you really think that the United States of America is in a state of war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan?" "Do I really think..." My voice trailed off. He stood up, his weight on the good leg, the other resting lightly on the floor in front of him. "Don't be a sap," he gazed with cool self-possession at me, "there isn't any war." "I know why you're talking like this," I said, struggling to keep up with him. "Now I understand. You're still under the influence of some medicinal drug." "No, you are. Everybody is." He pivoted so that he was facing directly at me. "That's what this whole war story is. A medicinal drug. Listen, did you ever hear of the 'Roaring Twenties'?" I nodded very slowly and cautiously. "When they all drank bathtub gin and everybody who was young did just was they wanted?" "Yes." "Well, what happened was that they didn't like that, the preachers and the old ladies and all the stuffed shirts. So then they tried Prohibition and everybody just got drunker, so then they really got desperate and arranged the Depression. That kept the people who were young in the thirties in their places. But they couldn't use that trick forever, so for us in the forties they've cooked up this war fake." "Who are 'they' anyway?" "The fat old men who don't want us crowding them out of their jobs. They've made it all up. There isn't any real food shortage, for instance. The men have all the best steaks delivered to their clubs now. You've noticed how they've been getting fatter lately, haven't you?

...Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits—not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness...

Your character and soul, intelligence and creativity, love and experiences, goodness and talents, your bright and lovely self are entwined with your body, and she has delivered the whole of you to this very day. What a partner! She has been a home for your smartest ideas, your triumphant spirit, your best jokes. You haven’t gotten anywhere you’ve ever gone without her. She has served you well. Your body walked with you all the way through childhood—climbed the trees and rode the bikes and danced the ballet steps and walked you into the first day of high school. How else would you have learned to love the smell of brownies, toasted bagels, onions and garlic sizzling in olive oil? Your body perfectly delivered the sounds of Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Bon Jovi right into your memories. She gave you your first kiss, which you felt on your lips and in your stomach, a coordinated body venture. She drove you to college and hiked the Grand Canyon. She might have carried your backpack through Europe and fed you croissants. She watched Steel Magnolias and knew right when to let the tears fall. Maybe your body walked you down the aisle and kissed your person and made promises and threw flowers. Your body carried you into your first big interview and nailed it—calmed you down, smiled charmingly, delivered the right words. Sex? That is some of your body’s best work. Your body might have incubated, nourished, and delivered a whole new human life, maybe even two or three. She is how you cherish the smell of those babies, the feel of their cheeks, the sound of them calling your name. How else are you going to taste deep-dish pizza and French onion soup? You have your body to thank for every good thing you have ever experienced. She has been so good to you. And to others. Your body delivered you to people who needed you the exact moment you showed up. She kissed away little tears and patched up skinned knees. She holds hands that need holding and hugs necks that need hugging. Your body nurtures minds and souls with her presence. With her lovely eyes, she looks deliberately at people who so deeply need to be seen. She nourishes folks with food, stirring and dicing and roasting and baking. Your body has sat quietly with sad, sick, and suffering friends. She has also wrapped gifts and sent cards and sung celebration songs to cheer people on. Her face has been a comfort. Her hands will be remembered fondly—how they looked, how they loved. Her specific smell will still be remembered in seventy years. Her voice is the sound of home. You may hate her, but no one else does.

It was the ultimate sacrilege that Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, was rejected and even put to death. And it continues. In many parts of the world today we see a growing rejection of the Son of God. His divinity is questioned. His gospel is deemed irrelevant. In day-to-day life, His teachings are ignored. Those who legitimately speak in His name find little respect in secular society. If we ignore the Lord and His servants, we may just as well be atheists—the end result is practically the same. It is what Mormon described as typical after extended periods of peace and prosperity: “Then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One” (Helaman 12:2). And so we should ask ourselves, do we reverence the Holy One and those He has sent? Some years before he was called as an Apostle himself, Elder Robert D. Hales recounted an experience that demonstrated his father’s sense of that holy calling. Elder Hales said: "Some years ago Father, then over eighty years of age, was expecting a visit from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a snowy winter day. Father, an artist, had painted a picture of the home of the Apostle. Rather than have the painting delivered to him, this sweet Apostle wanted to go personally to pick the painting up and thank my father for it. Knowing that Father would be concerned that everything was in readiness for the forthcoming visit, I dropped by his home. Because of the depth of the snow, snowplows had caused a snowbank in front of the walkway to the front door. Father had shoveled the walks and then labored to remove the snowbank. He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety. My first concern was to warn him of his unwise physical efforts. Didn’t he know what the result of his labor would be? "'Robert,' he said through interrupted short breaths, 'do you realize an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to my home? The walks must be clean. He should not have to come through a snowdrift.' He raised his hand, saying, 'Oh, Robert, don’t ever forget or take for granted the privilege it is to know and to serve with Apostles of the Lord.'" [In CR, April 1992, 89; or “Gratitude for the Goodness of God,” Ensign, May 1992, 64] I think it is more than coincidence that such a father would be blessed to have a son serve as an Apostle. You might ask yourself, “Do I see the calling of the prophets and apostles as sacred? Do I treat their counsel seriously, or is it a light thing with me?” President Gordon B. Hinckley, for instance, has counseled us to pursue education and vocational training; to avoid pornography as a plague; to respect women; to eliminate consumer debt; to be grateful, smart, clean, true, humble, and prayerful; and to do our best, our very best. Do your actions show that you want to know and do what he teaches? Do you actively study his words and the statements of the Brethren? Is this something you hunger and thirst for? If so, you have a sense of the sacredness of the calling of prophets as the witnesses and messengers of the Son of God.

Transportation from One Place to Another Once whilst Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) was delivering one of his spiritually enlightening lectures, a person by the name of Abul Mu’aali was present in this gathering. He was seated directly in front of the great Saint. During the course of the lecture, Abul Mu’aali found that he needed to answer the call of nature (relieve himself). He tried to suppress this need because he found it disrespectful to leave the gathering of al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) He controlled the urge to the best of his ability, but when he could not do so any longer, he decided to leave. As he was about to stand, he saw the great Ghawth (r.a) walking down the first stair of the pulpit (Mimbar) onto the second stair. As the Saint came to the second stair, Abul Mu’aali saw an image of the great Saint on the mimbar. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) came down to him and threw his shawl over him. As this happened, Abul Mu’aali found that he was no longer in the gathering, but rather in a valley with beautiful lush vegetation. It was beautified even more by a stream, which flowed through it. He immediately answered the call of nature, performed Wudhu and then prayed two Rakaats Salaah. As he completed the Salaah, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) pulled the shawl off him. When Abul Mu’aali looked, he found to his amazement that he was still in the gathering of the great Saint (r.a) and he had not even missed one word of the lecture of the great Saint. However, much later Abul Mu’aali discovered that he did not have his set of keys with him. He then remembered that when he was transported to the valley by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a), he had hung his key ring on the branch of a tree beside the stream. Abul Mu’aali states that some time after this incident, he had the opportunity to go on a business expedition. During this journey, Abul Mu’aali reached a valley and rested there. He then noticed that the valley was the exact same place where the great Saint had transported him during his lecture. When he went beside the tree, he found that his missing keys were still hanging on the branch of the tree. Subhan-Allah! The business trip took fourteen days to complete. This miracle of al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) shows that not only did he transport Abul Mu’aali spiritually, but also physically.

Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue. On the other hand, when the manners of a nation are pure, when true religion and internal principles maintain their vigour, the attempts of the most powerful enemies to oppress them are commonly baffled and disappointed. . . . [H]e is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy to God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country. Do not suppose, my brethren, that I mean to recommend a furious and angry zeal for the circumstantials of religion, or the contentions of one sect with another about their peculiar distinctions. I do not wish you to oppose any body’s religion, but every body’s wickedness. Perhaps there are few surer marks of the reality of religion, than when a man feels himself more joined in spirit to a true holy person of a different denomination, than to an irregular liver of his own. It is therefore your duty in this important and critical season to exert yourselves, every one in his proper sphere, to stem the tide of prevailing vice, to promote the knowledge of God, the reverence of his name and worship, and obedience to his laws. . . . Many from a real or pretended fear of the imputation of hypocrisy, banish from their conversation and carriage every appearance of respect and submission to the living God. What a weakness and meanness of spirit does it discover, for a man to be ashamed in the presence of his fellow sinners, to profess that reverence to almighty God which he inwardly feels: The truth is, he makes himself truly liable to the accusation which he means to avoid. It is as genuine and perhaps a more culpable hypocrisy to appear to have less religion than you really have, than to appear to have more. . . . There is a scripture precept delivered in very singular terms, to which I beg your attention; “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, but shalt in any wise rebuke him, and not suffer sin upon him.” How prone are many to represent reproof as flowing from ill nature and surliness of temper? The spirit of God, on the contrary, considers it as the effect of inward hatred, or want of genuine love, to forbear reproof, when it is necessary or may be useful. I am sensible there may in some cases be a restraint from prudence, agreeably to that caution of our Saviour, “Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rent you.” Of this every man must judge as well as he can for himself; but certainly, either by open reproof, or expressive silence, or speedy departure from such society, we ought to guard against being partakers of other men’s sins.