Dread Master Quotes

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Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.
W. Somerset Maugham (The Moon and Sixpence)
He was resentful against all those in authority over him, and this, combined with a lazy indifference toward his work, exasperated every master in school. He grew discouraged and imagined himself a pariah; took to sulking in corners and reading after lights. With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the elite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
Albert Camus
Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master?
George Eliot (Silas Marner)
French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me— A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life. For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life. And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat. To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Edgar Lee Masters
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid, Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds, And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ‘em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book.
William Shakespeare (The Tempest)
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
W.H. Auden
The thought that he might, and very probably would die that night occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful. It did not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been not a continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of toil of which he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem particularly dreadful, because besides the masters he had served here, like Vasili Andreevich, he always felt himself dependent on the Chief Master, who had sent him into this life, and he knew that when dying he would still be in that Master's power and would not be ill-used by Him.
Leo Tolstoy (Master and Man)
It's paradoxical that an ordinary man like Nemur presumes to devote himself to making other people geniuses. He would like to be thought of as the discoverer of new laws of learning—the Einstein of psychology. And he has the teacher's fear of being surpassed by the student, the master's dread of having the disciple discredit his work.
Daniel Keyes
And he has the teacher's fear of being surpassed by the student, the master's dread of having the disciple discredit his work. (Not that I am in any real sense Nemur's student or disciple as Burt is.) I guess Nemur's fear of being revealed as a man walking on stilts among giants is understandable.
Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)
The newly created Darth Vader flexes his Force-muscle as the Emperor's enforcer to maintain order and obedience in a galaxy reeling from civil war and the destruction of the Jedi Order. To the galaxy at large, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker - the Chosen One - died on Coruscant during the siege of the Jedi Temple. And, to some extent, the was true - Anakin was dead. But from the site of Anakin Skywalker's last stand - on the molten surface of the planet Mustafa, where he sought to destroy his friend and former master, Obi-Wan Kanobi - a fearsome spectre in black has risen. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi order he is not a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy's ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead ... and Darth Vader lives ...
James Luceno
Suddenly, Tara's accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school's various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school's history. She was like a master builder who could bend materials like stone and steel and clay to her will... except her materials were flesh and spirit.
Neal Shusterman (Dread Locks (Dark Fusion, #1))
The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and a determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.
Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
My da—” Diccon looked at the ground. “… my da calls me ‘Bent.’” Robin smiled. “No. Sorry, Diccon. It’s a good name, but a master archer had it and it died with him. Got another?” “My mother calls me a God-Damned Fool,” Diccon said with a smile. “Good, you’ll fit right in.
Miles Cameron (The Dread Wyrm (The Traitor Son Cycle, #3))
Of course," agreed Basil, "if you read it carelessly, and act on it rashly, with the blind faith of a fanatic; it might very well lead to trouble. But nature is full of devices for eliminating anything that cannot master its environment. The words 'to worship me' are all-important. The only excuse for using a drug of any sort, whether it's quinine or Epsom-salt, is to assist nature to overcome some obstacle to her proper functions. The danger of the so-called habit-forming drugs is that they fool you into trying to dodge the toil essential to spiritual and intellectual development. But they are not simply man-traps. There is nothing in nature which cannot be used for our benefit, and it is up to us to use it wisely. Now, in the work you have been doing in the last week, heroin might have helped you to concentrate your mind, and cocaine to overcome the effects of fatigue. And the reason you did not use them was that a burnt child dreads fire. We had the same trouble with teaching Hermes and Dionysus to swim. They found themselves in danger of being drowned and thought the best way was to avoid going near the water. But that didn't help them to use their natural faculties to the best advantage, so I made them confront the sea again and again, until they decided that the best way to avoid drowning was to learn how to deal with oceans in every detail. It sounds pretty obvious when you put it like that, yet while every one agrees with me about the swimming, I am howled down on all sides when I apply the same principles to the use of drugs.
Aleister Crowley (Diary of a Drug Fiend)
All this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master's left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
If you dread ending up in the bunker, practice these tricky out-of-the-sand shots until you master them. Think of it as insurance—we all have learned that, once you know you can make that shot easily, you will seldom need to!
Lorii Myers (Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace (3 Off the Tee, #1))
A beam of pink light blinded him; he felt dreadful pain in his head, and clapped his hands to his eyes. I am blind! he realized. With the pain and the pink light came understanding, an acute knowledge; he knew that Zina was not a human woman, and he knew, further, that the boy Manny was not a human boy. This was not a real world he was in; he understood that because the beam of pink light had told him that. This world is a simulation, and something living and intelligent and sympathetic wanted him to know. Something cares about me and it has penetrated this world to warn me, he realized, and it is camouflaged as this world so that the master of this world, the lord of this unreal realm, will not know; not know it is here and not know it has told me. This is a terrible secret to know, he thought. I could be killed for knowing this.
Philip K. Dick (The Divine Invasion)
The psychoanalyst Otto Rank declared modern love a religious problem. As we grow increasingly secular and move away from the towns where we were born, we can no longer use religion or community to confirm our meaning in the world, so we seize a love partner instead, someone to distract us from the fact of our animal existence. French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
When she had arranged her household affairs, she came to the library and bade me follow her. Then, with the mirror still swinging against her knees, she led me through the garden and the wilderness down to a misty wood. It being autumn, the trees were tinted gloriously in dusky bars of colouring. The rowan, with his amber leaves and scarlet berries, stood before the brown black-spotted sycamore; the silver beech flaunted his golden coins against my poverty; firs, green and fawn-hued, slumbered in hazy gossamer. No bird carolled, although the sun was hot. Marina noted the absence of sound, and without prelude of any kind began to sing from the ballad of the Witch Mother: about the nine enchanted knots, and the trouble-comb in the lady's knotted hair, and the master-kid that ran beneath her couch. Every drop of my blood froze in dread, for whilst she sang her face took on the majesty of one who traffics with infernal powers. As the shade of the trees fell over her, and we passed intermittently out of the light, I saw that her eyes glittered like rings of sapphires. ("The Basilisk")
R. Murray Gilchrist (Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror)
Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd. It
W. Somerset Maugham (Moon and Sixpence)
Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ... The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not.
James Joyce
His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will. As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor. He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows. Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. 'And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
I have in mind a man who all his life believes that something dreadful will happen to him," Henry said. "He tells a woman of this unknown catastrophe and she becomes his greatest friend, but what he does not see is that his failure to believe in her, his own coldness, is the catastrophe, it has come already, it has lived within him all along.
Colm Tóibín (The Master)
Doubt, Master Liu always said, is death.
Steve Hockensmith (Dreadfully Ever After (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, #2))
My master says that I am Young, Middle, and Old now,” the Young Dread told her, her eyes downcast, looking at the athame in her hand. “Or perhaps I am none of these. We shall see.
Arwen Elys Dayton (Seeker (Seeker, #1))
The Supreme Grand Master raised his arms. ‘Brethren,’ he said, ‘let us begin . . .’ It was so easy. All you had to do was channel that great septic reservoir of jealousy and cringing resentment that the Brothers had in such abundance, harness their dreadful mundane unpleasantness which had a force greater in its way than roaring evil, and then open your own mind . . .  .
Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8))
Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?" But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it." But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!" No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
It was not a column, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the people of the abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters. I had seen the people of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was now looking on it for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was now dynamic—a fascinating spectacle of dread.
Jack London (The Iron Heel)
The biggest challenge in working on a task you consider to be boring, difficult, or unappealing, is starting on it. But a strange things happens once you start: the anxiety and dread associated with it rapidly declines.
Damon Zahariades (The Procrastination Cure: 21 Proven Tactics For Conquering Your Inner Procrastinator, Mastering Your Time, And Boosting Your Productivity!)
MR. BONES KNEW THAT WILLY WASN'T LONG FOR THIS WORLD. The cough had been inside him for over six months, and by now there wasn't a chance in hell that he would ever get rid of it. Slowly and inexorably, without once taking a turn for the better, the thing had assumed a life of its own, advancing from a faint, phlegm-filled rattle in the lungs on February third to the wheezy sputum-jigs and gobby convulsions of high summer. All that was bad enough, but in the past two weeks a new tonality had crept into the bronchial music - something tight and flinty and percussive - and the attacks came now so often as to be almost constant. Every time one of them started, Mr. Bones half expected Willy's body to explode from the rockets of pressure bursting agaisnt his rib cage. He figured that blood would be the next step and when that fatal moment finally occurred on Saturday afternoon, it was as if all the angels in heaven had opened their mouths and started to sing. Mr. Bones saw it happen with his own eyes, standing by the edge of the road between Washington and Baltimore as Willy hawked up a few miserable clots of red matter into his handkerchief, and right then and there he knew that every ounce of hope was gone. The smell of death had settled upon Willy G. Christmas, and as surely as the sun was a lamp in the clouds that went off and on everyday, the end was drawing near. What was a poor dog to do? Mr. Bones had been with Willy since his earliest days as a pup, and by now it was next to impossible to imagine a world that did not have his master in it. Every thought, every memory, every particle of the earth and air was saturated with Willy's presence. Habits die hard, and no doubt there's some truth to the adage about old dogs and new tricks, but it was more than just love or devotion that caused Mr. Bones to dread what was coming. It was pure ontological terror. Substract Willy from the world, and the odds were that the world itself would cease to exist.
Paul Auster (Timbuktu)
We ought to take what our Master has given us and return it to Him with interest (Matt. 25:26–27). But ambition can be a slippery thing. Our motives are often hard to pin down, and we must remember that God’s economy is one of paradox: the way to glory is the way of the cross.
Hannah K. Grieser (The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God)
Jazz. Here in Germany it become something worse than a virus. We was all of us damn fleas, us Negroes and Jews and low-life hoodlums, set on playing that vulgar racket, seducing sweet blond kids into corruption and sex. It was a plague sent out by the dread black hordes, engineered by the Jews. Us Negroes, see, we was only half to blame - we just can't help it. Savages just got a natural feel for filthy rhythms, no self-control to speak of. But the Jews, brother, now they cooked up this jungle music on purpose. All part of their master plan to weaken Aryan youth, corrupt its janes, dilute its bloodlines.
Esi Edugyan
Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies, and become master of the whole animal creation: but does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the daemons of his fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors, and blast every enjoyment of life? His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes, in their eyes, a crime: his food and repose give them umbrage and offense: his very sleep and dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear: and even death, his refuge from every other ill, presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes. Nor does the wolf molest more the timid flock, than superstition does the anxious breast of wretched mortals.
David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)
Each day forty thousand children die of hunger. The superpowers now have more than fifty thousand nuclear warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects.
Thich Nhat Hanh (Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series))
Morality and performance of duty are artificial measures that become necessary when something essential is lacking. The more successfully a person was denied access to his or her feelings in childhood, the larger the arsenal of intellectual weapons and the supply of moral prostheses has to be, because morality and a sense of duty are not sources of strength or fruitful soil for genuine affection. Blood does not flow in artificial limbs; they are for sale and can serve many masters. What was considered good yesterday can--depending on the decree of government or party--be considered evil and corrupt today, and vice versa. But those who have spontaneous feelings can only be themselves. They have no other choice if they want to remain true to themselves. Rejection, ostracism, loss of love, and name calling will not fail to affect them; they will suffer as a result and will dread them, but once they have found their authentic self they will not want to lose it. And when they sense that something is being demanded of them to which their whole being says no, they cannot do it. They simply cannot.
Alice Miller (For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence)
As a rule, I found that each person is especially good at one of these three phases and especially bad at one. Each of us has a transition superpower, if you will, and a transition kryptonite. Our research suggests that people gravitate to the phase they’re naturally adept at and bog down in the one they’re weakest at. If you’re comfortable saying goodbye, you might knock that off quickly and move on to the next challenge; but if you’re conflict averse and don’t like to disappoint people, you might remain in a situation that’s toxic far longer than you should. The same applies to the messy middle: Some people thrive in chaos; others are paralyzed by it. As for new beginnings, some people embrace the novelty; others dread it—they like things the way they were.
Bruce Feiler (Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age)
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.
Ben Okri (A Way of Being Free)
The offerings of Machiavelli (1469–1527), Guicciardini (1483–1540), La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) and La Bruyère (1645–96) give us an indication of the manoeuvres that workers may, aside from their regular advertised roles, have to perform in order to flourish: The need to beware of colleagues: ‘Men are so false, so insidious, so deceitful and cunning in their wiles, so avid in their own interest, and so oblivious to others’ interests, that you cannot go wrong if you believe little and trust less.’ GUICCIARDINI ‘We must live with our enemies as if they might one day become our friends, and live with our friends as if they might some time or other become our enemies’. LA BRUYÈRE The need to lie and exaggerate: ‘The world more often rewards signs of merit than merit itself.’ LA ROCHEFOUCAULD ‘If you are involved in important affairs, you must always hide failures and exaggerate successes. It is swindling but since your fate more often depends upon the opinion of others rather than on facts, it is a good idea to create the impression that things are going well.’ GUICCIARDINI ‘You are an honest man, and do not make it your business either to please or displease the favourites. You are merely attached to your master and to your duty. You are finished.’ LA BRUYÈRE The need to threaten: ‘It is much safer to be feared than loved. Love is sustained by a bond of gratitude which, because men are excessively self-interested, is broken whenever they see a chance to benefit themselves. But fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that is always effective.’ MACHIAVELLI ‘Since the majority of men are either not very good or not very wise, one must rely more on severity than on kindness.’ GUICCIARDINI
Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety (NON-FICTION))
Why is it that we claim to want certainty? Only fools and cowards seek certainty. Certainty is a dead end; it’s a rich old widow living out the rest of her days on the Upper East Side with a little dog and big memories. Unless you are a senior citizen, you’ll go nuts after a few weeks of knowing what the rest of your life will bring. You’ll die of boredom. But uncertainty is what keeps us alive. It is that flip of a coin, that brief moment when it’s in the air or spinning on its side, that snaps us out of our daily stasis. Some invisible Odds Gods are giving you a chance to become better, smarter, richer. What fun it is to get paid if you earned it by the skin of your teeth, by the close call. And how dreadful it is to shoot fish in a barrel. Exposure to uncertainty earns you membership in a select tribe: You are a Padawan mastering the Force. Once the trade is on, once the die has been cast, you’re in a parallel, auspicious universe.
K. G. Cohen
Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it! ... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the еleventh chapter of St. John.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
Silence fell between them, until the Young Dread finally dared ask, “Were you a great mind, master?” A real smile crossed his face. “You don’t ask if I am a great mind, child? Because I speak gibberish now? Let me tell you – I once thought I was a great mind.” “And now?” “Now it does not matter. Great minds are not what’s wanted. Only good hearts. Good hearts choose wisely. “How does one find a good heart?” “It is luck child. Always luck. With you, I have been very lucky.
Arwen Elys Dayton (Seeker (Seeker, #1))
What is my place? Who and what am I now? Am I the sum of my life or only of the past months? Oh, how impatient they get when I try to discuss it with them. They don’t like to admit that they don’t know. It’s paradoxical that an ordinary man like Nemur presumes to devote himself to making other people geniuses. He would like to be thought of as the discoverer of new laws of learning—the Einstein of psychology. And he has the teacher’s fear of being surpassed by the student, the master’s dread of having the disciple discredit his work.
Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)
To Philip, intoxicated with the beauty of the scene, it seemed that it was the whole world which was spread before him, and he was eager to step down and enjoy it. He was free from degrading fears and free from prejudice. He could go his way without the intolerable dread of hell-fire. Suddenly he realised that he had lost also that burden of responsibility which made every action of his life a matter of urgent consequence. He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.
W. Somerset Maugham
There’s the story of the two men who visit a Zen master. The first man says: “I’m thinking of moving to this town. What’s it like?” The Zen master says: “What was your old town like?” The first man says: “It was dreadful. Everyone was hateful. I hated it.” The Zen master says: “This town is very much the same. I don’t think you should move here.” The first man left and a second man came in. The second man said: “I’m thinking of moving to this town. What’s it like?” The Zen master said: “What was your old town like?” The second man said: “It was wonderful. Everyone was friendly and I was happy. Just interested in a change now.” The Zen master said: “This town is very much the same. I think you will like it here.
James Altucher (The Rich Employee)
I attended a master’s program at a nearby university some years later I was able to visit the Carlisle Historical Society and learn the truth about Indian schools and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in particular: how they broke up families, erased Native culture, victimized vulnerable children, and hired out students for backbreaking labor to nearby farms and households in a system that was eerily reminiscent of chattel slavery. This exploitative school system became the basis for the fictional combat school system in the alternate historical timeline of Dread Nation. Because if well-meaning Americans could do such a thing to an already wholly subjugated community in a time of peace, what would they do in a time of desperation?
Justina Ireland (Dread Nation (Dread Nation, #1))
[...]Chaos extends its talons towards you, still uncertain if you will be its tool or an obstacle in its design. That which Chaos shows you in your dreams is this very uncertainty. Chaos is afraid of you, Child of Destiny. But it wants you to be the one who feels fear." There was a flash of lightning and a long rumble of thunder. Ciri trembled with cold and dread. "Chaos cannot show you what it really is. So it is showing you the future, showing you what is going to happen. It wants you to be afraid of the coming days, so that fear of what is going to happen to you and those closest to you will start to guide you, take you over completely. That is why Chaos is sending you those dreams. Now, you are going to show me what you see in your dreams. And you are going to be frightened. And then you will forget and master your fear.[...]
Andrzej Sapkowski (Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1))
(Pericles:) If you are still unsatisfied I will indicate one element of your superiority which appears to have escaped you, although it nearly touches your imperial greatness. I too have never mentioned it before, nor would I now, because the claim may seem too arrogant, if I did not see that you are unreasonably depressed. You think that your empire is confined to your allies, but I say that of the two divisions of the world accessible to man, the land and the sea, there is one of which you are absolute masters, and have, or may have, the dominion to any extent which you please. Neither the great King nor any nation on earth can hinder a navy like yours from penetrating whithersoever you choose to sail. When we reflect on this great power, houses and lands, of which the loss seems so dreadful to you, are as nothing. (Book 2 Chapter 62.1-2)
Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War: Bk. 1-2)
In 1919, 1920, 1921, the entire Jewish press was assaulting the Romanian state, unleashing disorder everywhere, urging violence against the regime, the form of government, the church, Romanian order, the national idea, patriotism. Now, as if by a miracle, the same press, controlled by the same men, changed into a defender of the state’s order, of laws; declares itself against violence. While we become: ‘the country’s enemies’, ‘extremists of the Right’, ‘in the pay and service of Romania’s enemies’, etc. And in the end we will hear also this: that we are financed by the Jews. ... We have endured outrage after outrage, ridicule after ridicule, slap after slap, until we have come to see ourselves in this frightening situation: Jews are considered to be defenders of Romanianism, sheltered from any unpleasantness, leading a life of peace and plenty, while we are considered enemies of our nation, with our liberty and life endangered, and we are hunted down like rabid dogs by all the Romanian authorities. I witnessed with my own eyes these times and lived through them, and I was saddened to the depths of my soul. It is dreadful to fight for years on end for your fatherland, your heart as pure as tears, while enduring misery and hunger, then find yourself suddenly declared an enemy of your country, persecuted by your own kind, told that you fight because you are in the pay of foreigners, and see the entire Jewry master your land, assuming the role of defender of Romanianism and caretaker of the Romanian state, menaced by you, the youth of the country. Night after night we were troubled by these thoughts, occasionally feeling disgusted and immensely ashamed and we were seized by sadness.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (The Prison Notes)
Only a fool says in his heart There is no Creator, no King of kings, Only mules would dare to bray These lethal mutterings. Over darkened minds as these The Darkness bears full sway, Fruitless, yet, bearing fruit, In their fell, destructive way. Sterile, though proliferate, A filthy progeny sees the day, When Evil, Thought and Action mate: Breeding sin, rebels and decay. The blackest deeds and foul ideals, Multiply throughout the earth, Through deadened, lifeless, braying souls, The Darkness labours and gives birth. Taking the Lord’s abundant gifts And rotting them to the core, They dress their dish and serve it out Foul seeds to infect thousands more. ‘The Tree of Life is dead!’ they cry, ‘And that of Knowledge not enough, Let us glut on the ashen apples Of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ Have pity on Thy children, Lord, Left sorrowing on this earth, While fools and all their kindred Cast shadows with their murk, And to the dwindling wise, They toss their heads and wryly smirk. The world daily grinds to dust Virtue’s fair unicorns, Rather, it would now beget Vice’s mutant manticores. Wisdom crushed, our joy is gone, Buried under anxious fears For lost rights and freedoms, We shed many bitter tears. Death is life, Life is no more, Humanity buried in a tomb, In a fatal prenatal world Where tiny flowers Are ripped from the womb, Discarded, thrown away, Inconvenient lives That barely bloomed. Our elders fare no better, Their wisdom unwanted by and by, Boarded out to end their days, And forsaken are left to die. Only the youthful and the useful, In this capital age prosper and fly. Yet, they too are quickly strangled, Before their future plans are met, Professions legally pre-enslaved Held bound by mounting student debt. Our leaders all harangue for peace Yet perpetrate the horror, Of economic greed shored up Through manufactured war. Our armies now welter In foreign civilian gore. How many of our kin are slain For hollow martial honour? As if we could forget, ignore, The scourge of nuclear power, Alas, victors are rarely tried For their woeful crimes of war. Hope and pray we never see A repeat of Hiroshima. No more! Crimes are legion, The deeds of devil-spawn! What has happened to the souls Your Divine Image was minted on? They are now recast: Crooked coins of Caesar and The Whore of Babylon. How often mankind shuts its ears To Your music celestial, Mankind would rather march To the anthems of Hell. If humanity cannot be reclaimed By Your Mercy and great Love Deservedly we should be struck By Vengeance from above. Many dread the Final Day, And the Crack of Doom For others the Apocalypse Will never come too soon. ‘Lift up your heads, be glad’, Fools shall bray no more For at last the Master comes To thresh His threshing floor.
E.A. Bucchianeri (Vocation of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #2))
Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and distracted step mother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it! ... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Adelia began to get cross. Why was it women who were to blame for everything—everything, from the Fall of Man to these blasted hedges? “We are not in a labyrinth, my lord,” she said clearly. “Where are we, then?” “It’s a maze.” “Same difference.” Puffing at the horse: “Get back, you great cow.” “No, it isn’t. A labyrinth has only one path and you merely have to follow it. It’s a symbol of life or, rather, of life and death. Labyrinths twist and turn, but they have a beginning and an end, through darkness into light.” Softening, and hoping that he would, too, she added, “Like Ariadne’s. Rather beautiful, really.” “I don’t want mythology, mistress, beautiful or not, I want to get to that sodding tower. What’s a maze when it’s at home?” “It’s a trick. A trick to confuse. To amaze.” “And I suppose Mistress Clever-boots knows how to get us out?” “I do, actually.” God’s rib, he was sneering at her, sneering. She’d a mind to stay where she was and let him sweat. “Then in the name of Christ, do it.” “Stop bellowing at me,” she yelled at him. “You’re bellowing.” She saw his teeth grit in the pretense of a placatory smile; he always had good teeth. Still did. Between them, he said, “The Bishop of Saint Albans presents his compliments to Mistress Adelia and please to escort him out of this hag’s hole, for the love of God. How will you do it?” “My business.” Be damned if she’d tell him. Women were defenseless enough without revealing their secrets. “I’ll have to take the lead.” She stumped along in front, holding Walt’s mount’s reins in her right hand. In the other was her riding crop, which she trailed with apparent casualness so that it brushed against the hedge on her left. As she went, she chuntered to herself. Lord, how disregarded I am in this damned country. How disregarded all women are. ... Ironically, the lower down the social scale women were, the greater freedom they had; the wives of laborers and craftsmen could work alongside their men—even, sometimes, when they were widowed, take over their husband’s trade. Adelia trudged on. Hag’s hole. Grendel’s mother’s entrails. Why was this dreadful place feminine to the men lost in it? Because it was tunneled? Womb-like? Is this woman’s magic? The great womb? Is that why the Church hates me, hates all women? Because we are the source of all true power? Of life? She supposed that by leading them out of it, she was only confirming that a woman knew its secrets and they did not. Great God, she thought, it isn't a question of hatred. It’s fear. They are frightened of us. And Adelia laughed quietly, sending a suggestion of sound reverberating backward along the tunnel, as if a small pebble was skipping on water, making each man start when it passed him. “What in hell was that?” Walt called back stolidly, “Reckon someone’s laughing at us, master.” “Dear God.
Ariana Franklin (The Serpent's Tale (Mistress of the Art of Death, #2))
Elizabeth was not entirely right. The climb was steep enough, but the trunk, which originally felt quite light, seemed to gain a pound of weight with every step they took. A few yards from the house both ladies paused to rest again, then Elizabeth resolutely grabbed the handle on her end. “You go to the door, Lucy,” she said breathlessly, worried for the older woman’s health if she had to lug the trunk any further. “I’ll just drag this along.” Miss Throckmorton-Jones took one look at her poor, bedraggled charge, and rage exploded in her breast that they’d been brought so low as this. Like an angry general she gave her gloves an irate yank, turned on her heel, marched up to the front door, and lifted her umbrella. Using its handle like a club, she rapped hard upon the door. Behind her Elizabeth doggedly dragged the trunk. “You don’t suppose there’s no one home?” She panted, hauling the trunk the last few feet. “If they’re in there, they must be deaf!” said Lucinda. She brought up her umbrella again and began swinging at the door in a way that sent rhythmic thunder through the house. “Open up, I say!” she shouted, and on the third downswing the door suddenly lurched open to reveal a startled middle-aged man who was struck on the head by the handle of the descending umbrella. “God’s teeth!” Jake swore, grabbing his head and glowering a little dizzily at the homely woman who was glowering right back at him, her black bonnet crazily askew atop her wiry gray hair. “It’s God’s ears you need, not his teeth!” the sour-faced woman informed him as she caught Elizabeth’s sleeve and pulled her one step into the house. “We are expected,” she informed Jake. In his understandably dazed state, Jake took another look at the bedraggled, dusty ladies and erroneously assumed they were the women from the village come to clean and cook for Ian and him. His entire countenance changed, and a broad grin swept across his ruddy face. The growing lump on his head forgiven and forgotten, he stepped back. “Welcome, welcome,” he said expansively, and he made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand that encompassed the entire dusty room. “Where do you want to begin?” “With a hot bath,” said Lucinda, “followed by some tea and refreshments.” From the corner of her eye Elizabeth glimpsed a tall man who was stalking in from a room behind the one where they stood, and an uncontrollable tremor of dread shot through her. “Don’t know as I want a bath just now,” Jake said. “Not for you, you dolt, for Lady Cameron.” Elizabeth could have sworn Ian Thornton stiffened with shock. His head jerked toward her as if trying to see past the rim of her bonnet, but Elizabeth was absolutely besieged with cowardice and kept her head averted. “You want a bath?” Jake repeated dumbly, staring at Lucinda. “Indeed, but Lady Cameron’s must come first. Don’t just stand there,” she snapped, threatening his midsection with her umbrella. “Send servants down to the road to fetch our trunks at once.” The point of the umbrella swung meaningfully toward the door, then returned to jab Jake’s middle. “But before you do that, inform your master that we have arrived.” “His master,” said a biting voice from a rear doorway, “is aware of that.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
Rhysand mastered himself, a cool mask sliding into place. “You live in such a world.” It wasn’t entirely a question. But Bryce nodded. “Yes.” “And they want to bring all of that … here.” “Yes.” Rhysand stared ahead. Thinking it through. Azriel just kept his eyes on the space where the orb had displayed the utter destruction of her world. Dreading—and yet calculating. She’d seen that look before on Hunt’s face. A warrior’s mind at work. Amren turned to Rhys, meeting his stare. Bryce knew that look, too. A silent conversation passing between them. As Bryce and Ruhn had often spoken. Her heart wrenched to see it, to remember. It steadied her, though. Sharpened her focus. The Asteri had been here—under a different name, but they’d been here. The ancestors of these Fae had defeated them. And Urd had sent her here—here, not Hel. Here, where she’d instantly encountered a dagger that made the Starsword sing. Like it had been the lodestone that had drawn her to this world, to that riverbank. Could it really be the knife from the prophecy? She’d believed that destroying the Asteri would be as simple as obliterating that firstlight core, yet Urd had sent her here.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
Who is Mr. Jasper?" Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master." "You do not love him?" "Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror. "You know that he loves you?" "O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her. "Try to tell me more about it, darling." "Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards." "My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way." "He has never spoken to me about - that. Never." "What has he done?" "He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever." "What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?" "I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is." "And was this all, to-night?" "This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.
Charles Dickens (The Mystery of Edwin Drood)
Darkness: I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd, And men were gather'd round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And twin'd themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food. And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again: a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought—and that was death Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails—men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devour'd, Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answer'd not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they rak'd up, And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe.
Lord Byron
The stranger drew the curtains round the bed, took up the light, and inspected the apartment. The walls of both rooms were hung with drawings of masterly excellence. A portfolio was filled with sketches of equal skill,—but these last were mostly subjects that appalled the eye and revolted the taste: they displayed the human figure in every variety of suffering,—the rack, the wheel, the gibbet; all that cruelty has invented to sharpen the pangs of death seemed yet more dreadful from the passionate gusto and earnest force of the designer. And some of the countenances of those thus delineated were sufficiently removed from the ideal to show that they were portraits; in a large, bold, irregular hand was written beneath these drawings, “The Future of the Aristocrats.” In a corner of the room, and close by an old bureau, was a small bundle, over which, as if to hide it, a cloak was thrown carelessly. Several shelves were filled with books; these were almost entirely the works of the philosophers of the time,—the philosophers of the material school, especially the Encyclopedistes, whom Robespierre afterwards so singularly attacked when the coward deemed it unsafe to leave his reign without a God.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Zanoni Book One: The Musician: The Magical Antiquarian Curiosity Shoppe, A Weiser Books Collection)
CUCHULAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE SEA A MAN came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.’ Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all raddled with the dye, Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. That swineherd stared upon her face and said, ‘No man alive, no man among the dead, Has won the gold his cars of battle bring.’ ‘But if your master comes home triumphing Why must you blench and shake from foot to crown?’ Thereon he shook the more and cast him down Upon the web-heaped floor, and cried his word: ‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.’ ‘You dare me to my face,’ and thereupon She smote with raddled fist, and where her son Herded the cattle came with stumbling feet, And cried with angry voice, ’It is not meet To idle life away, a common herd.’ ‘I have long waited, mother, for that word: But wherefore now?’ ‘There is a man to die; You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’ ‘Whether under its daylight or its stars My father stands amid his battle-cars.’ ‘But you have grown to be the taller man.’ ‘Yet somewhere under starlight or the sun My father stands.’ ‘Aged, worn out with wars On foot, on horseback or in battle-cars.’ ‘I only ask what way my journey lies, For He who made you bitter made you wise.’ ‘The Red Branch camp in a great company Between wood’s rim and the horses of the sea. Go there, and light a camp-fire at wood’s rim; But tell your name and lineage to him Whose blade compels, and wait till they have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Among those feasting men Cuchulain dwelt, And his young sweetheart close beside him knelt, Stared on the mournful wonder of his eyes, Even as Spring upon the ancient skies, And pondered on the glory of his days; And all around the harp-string told his praise, And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings, With his own fingers touched the brazen strings. At last Cuchulain spake, ‘Some man has made His evening fire amid the leafy shade. I have often heard him singing to and fro, I have often heard the sweet sound of his bow. Seek out what man he is.’ One went and came. ‘He bade me let all know he gives his name At the sword-point, and waits till we have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Cuchulain cried, ‘I am the only man Of all this host so bound from childhood on. After short fighting in the leafy shade, He spake to the young man, ’Is there no maid Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round, Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground, That you have come and dared me to my face?’ ‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place,’ ‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s head That I loved once.’ Again the fighting sped, But now the war-rage in Cuchulain woke, And through that new blade’s guard the old blade broke, And pierced him. ‘Speak before your breath is done.’ ‘Cuchulain I, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’ ‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’ While day its burden on to evening bore, With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed; Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid, And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed; In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast. Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men, Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten, Spake thus: ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and brood For three days more in dreadful quietude, And then arise, and raving slay us all. Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea.’ The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days. Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.
W.B. Yeats
Mr. Thornton, Miss Margaret. He is in the drawing-room.” Margaret dropped her sewing. “Did he ask for me? Isn’t papa come in?” “He asked for you, miss; and master is out.” “Very well, I will come,” said Margaret, quietly. But she lingered strangely. Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, with his back to the door, apparently absorbed in watching something in the street. But, in truth, he was afraid of himself. His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming. He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick. Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home and resting-place. One moment, he glowed with impatience at the thought that she might do this, the next, he feared a passionate rejection, the very idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it.
Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South)
Why do we despise, ostracize and punish the drug addict when as a social collective we share the same blindness and engage in the same rationalizations? To pose that question is to answer it. We despise, ostracize and punish the addict because we don’t wish to see how much we resemble him. In his dark mirror our own features are unmistakable. We shudder at the recognition. This mirror is not for us, we say to the addict. You are different, and you don’t belong with us. Like the hardcore addict’s pursuit of drugs, much of our economic and cultural life caters to people’s craving to escape mental and emotional distress. In an apt phrase, Lewis Lapham, long-time publisher of Harper’s Magazine, derides “consumer markets selling promises of instant relief from the pain of thought, loneliness, doubt, experience, envy, and old age.” According to a Statistics Canada study, 31 per cent of working adults aged nineteen to sixty-four consider themselves workaholics, who attach excessive importance to their work and are “overdedicated and perhaps overwhelmed by their jobs.” “They have trouble sleeping, are more likely to be stressed out and unhealthy, and feel they don’t spend enough time with their families,” reports the Globe and Mail. Work doesn’t necessarily give them greater satisfaction, suggested Vishwanath Baba, a professor of Human Resources and Management at McMaster University. “These people turn to work to occupy their time and energy” — as compensation for what is lacking in their lives, much as the drug addict employs substances. At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear. The addict dreads and abhors the present moment; she bends feverishly only towards the next time, the moment when her brain, infused with her drug of choice, will briefly experience itself as liberated from the burden of the past and the fear of the future — the two elements that make the present intolerable. Many of us resemble the drug addict in our ineffectual efforts to fill in the spiritual black hole, the void at the centre, where we have lost touch with our souls, our spirit, with those sources of meaning and value that are not contingent or fleeting. Our consumerist, acquisition-, action- and image-mad culture only serves to deepen the hole, leaving us emptier than before. The constant, intrusive and meaningless mind-whirl that characterizes the way so many of us experience our silent moments is, itself, a form of addiction— and it serves the same purpose. “One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove the emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.” So writes Eckhart Tolle. Even our 24/7 self-exposure to noise, emails, cell phones, TV, Internet chats, media outlets, music downloads, videogames and non-stop internal and external chatter cannot succeed in drowning out the fearful voices within.
Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)
The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in rome and the senate, or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. "Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror.
Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)
Your God is a child, so long as you are not childlike. Is the child order, meaningi' Or disorder, capricei' Disorder and meaninglessness are the mother oforder and meaning. Order and meaning are things that have become and are no longer becoming. You open the gates ofthe soul to let the darkffood ofchaosffow into your order and meaning. I f you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness. You are aftaid to open the doori' I too was ayaid, since we hadforgotten that God is terrible. Christ taught: God is love. 66 But you should know that love is also terrible. I spoke to a loving soul and as I drew nearer to her, I was overcome by horror, and I heaped up a wall ofdoubt, and did not anticipate that I thus wanted to protect myselfyom myftaiful soul. You dread the depths; it should horrify you, since the way ofwhat is to come leads through it. You must endure the temptation offtar and doubt, and at the same time acknowledge to the bone that your ftar is justified and your doubt is reasonable. How otherwise / could it be a true temptation and a true overcomingi' Christ totally overcomes the temptation ofthe devil, but not the temptation ofGodtogoodandreason.67 Christthussuccumbstocursing.68 Youstillhavetolearnthis,tosuccumbtonotemptation,buttodo thing ofyour own will; then you will befree and beyond christianity. I have had to recognize that I must submit to what I ftar; yes, even more, that I must even love what horrifies me. We must learn suchyom that saint who was disgusted by the plague inftctions; she drank the pus cifplague boils and became aware that it smelled like roses. The acts cifthe saint were not in vain. 69 I n everything regarding your salvation and the attainment ofmercy, you are dependent on your soul. Thus no sacrifice can be too(greatfor you. I f your virtues hinder youyom salvation, discard them, since they have become evil to you. The slave to virtuefinds the way as little as the slave to vices.70 Ifyou believe that you are the master ofyour soul, then become her vant. I f you were her servant, make yourselfher master, since she needs to be ruled. These should be yourfirst steps.
C.G. Jung
But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled.
Josh Waitzkin (The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance)
If the human race ever wishes to master time travel then the answer is through chemical and not mechanical means. Speed is time travel. It will pilfer away at the space-time around you without your consent, propelling you forward through time. The human body is a vehicle of flux. It is exhilarating to move rhythmically, pulsing, stepping through pockets of your existence in fluid motions. The time that speed steals from you, it gives back with interest, cold and hard on a Monday morning. It brings with it a terrifying despair that creeps upon you. It is a black, slow-motion suicide. The ceiling begins to drip and ooze grey-brown sludge. Aural hallucinations, the demons of psychosis, speak wordless words of pure dread... Sometimes I would laugh and giggle hysterically at inane nonsensical stories that would play out in my mind. I would watch them unfold, like a lucid dream, weird images, Boschian forms, twisted nightmares... And I would weep. I would weep for nothing with salty tears, rivers of anguish and existential pain running down my face, dripping quietly onto the carpet. Day after day, I would unravel myself, dissect, and analyse my life over and over until I was exhausted and insane. Speed is not an insightful drug. It will not delude you into a false sense of spirituality like hallucinogens. It is the aftermath and the come down from speed that will rip open your ego and show you the bare, horrible bones of yourself. It will open the beautiful black doorway inside you and it will show you nothing. Through the darkness of internal isolation, the amphetamine comedown will show you no god, no spirituality, no soul, just your own perishable flesh, and your own animal self-preservation. It will show you clearly just how ugly you really are inside. In the emptiness of yourself, there is only the knowledge of your eventual death. When you have truly faced yourself and recognised yourself as purely animal then you become liberated from the societal pretence that you are above or better than any other creature. You are a human animal. You are naturally motivated to be selfish. Everything you do, every act you partake of, is in its essence an act of survival. No act of the human-animal happens without the satisfaction of the ego’s position in existence…
Steven LaVey (The Ugly Spirit)
Thou mastering me God! giver of breath and bread; World’s strand, sway of the sea; Lord of living and dead; Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread, Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh? Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Many people still feel so scared about spirit or ghost, not yet realizing that there are so many unidentified living creatures on this planet earth which might be even more dreadful.
Toba Beta (Master of Stupidity)
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life, and now I know that we must lift the sail and catch the winds of destiny whever they drive the boat to put meaning in ones life may end in madness but life without meaning is torture of resllessnes and vague desire - it is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Edger Lee Masters
46. Master the an of public speaking. There are few natural speakers. One great trial lawyer stammered dreadfully but through courage and strength of conviction, he developed into a brilliant orator. Role model anyone you think is a
Robin S. Sharma (MegaLiving: 30 Days To A Perfect Life)
Mr. White is a biology professor at a posh suburban girl’s school. One day during class he says, “Miss Smith, would you name the organ in the human body which, under the appropriate conditions, expands to six times its normal size? And please define the conditions.” “Mr. White,” the student gasps, “I don’t think that is a proper question to ask me. I assure you that my parents will hear of this.” With that, she sits down red faced. Unperturbed, Mr. White asks Miss Jones the same question. With complete composure she replies, “Why, of course, it is the pupil of the eye, which expands in dim light.” “Correct,” says the teacher. “Now, Miss Smith, I have three things to say to you: one, you have not studied your lessons. Two, you have a dirty mind. And three, you will someday be faced with a dreadful disappointment.
Barry Dougherty (Friars Club Private Joke File: More Than 2,000 Very Naughty Jokes from the Grand Masters of Comedy)
December 29 “And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” Isaiah 46:4 THE year is very old, and here is a promise for our aged friends; yes, and for us all, as age creeps over us. Let us live long enough, and we shall all have hoar hairs; therefore we may as well enjoy this promise by the foresight of faith. When we grow old our God will still be the I AM, abiding evermore the same. Hoar hairs tell of our decay, but he decayeth not. When we cannot carry a burden, and can hardly carry ourselves, the Lord will carry us. Even as in our young days he carried us like lambs in his bosom, so will he in our years of infirmity. He made us, and he will care for us. When we become a burden to our friends, and a burden to ourselves, the Lord will not shake us off, but the rather he will take us up and carry and deliver us more fully than ever. In many cases the Lord gives his servants a long and calm evening. They worked hard all day and wore themselves out in their Master’s service, and so he said to them, “Now rest in anticipation of that eternal Sabbath which I have prepared for you.” Let us not dread old age. Let us grow old graciously, since the Lord himself is with us in fulness of grace.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (The Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Precious Promises Arranged for Daily Use with Brief Comments)
PARTIES, CONFERENCES AND NETWORKING EVENTS. You’ve got to be honest with yourself; this was the actual lesson you’ve been dreading, only if you are a natural extrovert, there are some things that are more stressful than going to parties and other networking activities. Today is going to be a bit tough, so you are going to have to be tougher. This is where all the lessons you’ve learnt so far will pay off. When you’re in a party, a conference or networking event, you are likely to hold one of four possible roles. How you react to the event will depend on this role. The possibilities include: Host/Greeter. Guest. Networker. Support. People will definitely come to you if you’re in the first category, making introduction moderately easy and opportunities for small talk plentiful. You may be in charge of giving a presentation or attending to a table at a convention or any similar event. Make sure to create eye contact and smile at strangers to acknowledge them, someone will approach you in no time. Topics that may outstand may include how successful the turnout was or other positive factors that craved out of the event. If you happen to be a guest or a visitor, the challenge is on you to approach and kick start conversations. The golden rule for breaking ice at events and starting small talks ate networking arena are remarkably the same. You have to keep one thing in mind; everyone attends a party with the intention of meeting a new person and talking with them. So, if you find out that your introduction is not so much an imposition as making it up to meet new people, you will find it much compelling and easy. Your best topics in this case are basically probing enquires about what brings your other party to the event and if you have mutual acquaintances. Your own work as a networker is a little bit different from being a host or guest. As a networker, you have to join groups, or even groups of groups in a cohesive way. You may need to go in to many conversations in the middle. The best way to go about this is to smile or enthusiastically go with something that was just said. When this is done, be careful not to shoehorn your conversation topics in to small talks, but try to carefully merge in to each of them as if you’re approaching from a highway on- ramp. Support is the final role, and the sad part about this is that you might find yourself at the end catering an event or working as a neutral staff. Even with that, you may still create opportunities for personal networking or even very revealing small talks during the course of the event. Conversation with other staff, special guests or even the host can turn out to invaluable connections that you can make use of later. With this at the back of your mind, always prepare for short conversations when you’re working an event just as seriously as if you were attending the event as a special guest. Maybe you’re not that kind of person that can withstand large crowd, take a break to regain who you are and review the topical assessments you prepared in the previous lessons. Don’t forget to excuse yourself so you can move around in the event centre on a regular basis, perhaps going for another role you think you’re capable of. This particular aspect does not have any other way to go about it. In fact, it might take the next 5 days before you put the whole concept together, and you may need to combine the zeal with tomorrow’s lesson. Now, you should go for a party or be the host to one yourself so you can utilize all these principles you learnt today. There’s no way to wave this, you have to learn it and be perfect. Bring your partner who has been your support all this while along to tackle the four roles and many more within the time frame. Until then, maintain the free flow with ease.
Jack Steel (Communication: Critical Conversation: 30 Days To Master Small Talk With Anyone: Build Unbreakable Confidence, Eliminate Your Fears And Become A Social Powerhouse – PERMANENTLY)
While most of the town were settling down to their dinners that evening, Hannah, a raven-haired servant girl, hurried across the marketplace and up the path to the ordinary, where she knocked on the door. Candlelight gleamed through the cracks in the closed shutter after a second knock; the door opened and she slipped inside. Tears started down her cheeks as soon as she tried to speak. “What is it?” said the widow Jennison, keeper of the establish¬ment. “What on earth is wrong?” “Tobias is in trouble.” Hannah sat at one of the trestle tables. Sniffing back her tears, she told the story of her lover’s misadventure. They’d been planning for several months to break away from their servitude and look for a better situation in the West Indies. He’d taken to theft to raise money for the trip, but his master, the tallow chandler Aaron Tuck, discovered his transgressions, and Tobias went into hiding. “There’s men a-lookin’ for him now,” Hannah said as tears came to her eyes again. “We can’t stay here another week. People are sayin’ dreadful things about us that just ain’t true.” “Where is Tobias now?” Nancy asked. “On the neck somewheres. I’m supposed to meet him at midnight.” The widow touched her friend’s hand. She herself had been in trouble years before, so she understood the errors to which the girl’s turbulent feelings were likely to bring her. “Yes, life must seem a prison to you. I can see why you want to leave.” “We’ve gut to leave!” Hannah said. “Just tonight they arrested Marthy Hubbard. Mr. Ridley may want to use us for an example, too.” Nancy went to the cupboard for a pitcher of cider. “I don’t like what’s happened to Martha either. I’ll help you, but you’ll have to promise to be patient and not make things worse.” “What do you mean?” Hannah looked around the dusky room with a frightened glance. Experience had taught her that her elders often resorted to compromise when they meant to help. “I’m going to talk with Governor Willoughby. Now don’t fret, child. He’ll be more sympathetic than you think. Besides, you don’t have any choice but to wait unless you want to live in the woods. There won’t be a ship headed south till next month.” Hannah frowned and took a quick swallow of cider. The two friends talked for a while longer by the light of an iron betty lamp, then Hannah went outside to look for Tobias. But all her hopes went for naught. The constable’s men found him just before midnight on the slender strip of marsh and pasture that connected the Botolph peninsula to the mainland. Now happy that they would get to bed at a decent hour, the men in the search party brought Tobias to the guard-house on the edge of town, where he sat till dawn on a slat bench, dozing or clutching his head in his hands.
Richard French (The Pilhannaw)
age of computers and programming, and he couldn’t understand either. Sure, he could send emails, had even mastered Word and Excel, but apart from that, the complexities of the machine left him baffled. There was unemployment, but he had never taken the dole, or he could go overseas, try his luck on an oil rig. Even if that were possible, he didn’t want to go, but these were desperate times, and now, to add confusion, there was a solution. Betty Galton, his former sister-in-law, had in her possession a million pounds in gold. He opened his laptop and switched it on. How does one melt gold? How does one dispose of it? he thought. He entered the search terms, fingering one key at a time, and pressed enter. If a criminal act was committed during the planning stage, then he was guilty as charged. And for once, he did not care. He hummed a tune to himself. It had been some time since he had been contented. For that night, he would forget what would be required and envisage what his life could be like with money in his pocket. Maybe a small place in the country, a dog, possibly a woman. How long had it been since he had enjoyed the closeness of another’s skin? He picked up his phone and made a call. It was a special treat for himself and for once the budget was going to be blown. He knew she’d look after him, the way she looked after so many others. Chapter 11 Clare woke early the next day; her phone was ringing. She leant over and picked it up. ‘Yarwood, I’m at the hospital,’ Tremayne said. She could tell by his voice that something was amiss. ‘I’ll be there in fifteen.’ ‘Thanks, and don’t tell anyone.’ A quick shower, some food for her cat, and Clare was out of her cottage. A murder enquiry was serious; her boss being ill, more so. Parking at the hospital, she soon found her way to outpatients, meeting someone she knew. ‘It’s Tremayne, he’s not well,’ Clare said. ‘And please, not a word to anyone.’ The woman, a friend, understood. Inside, behind some screens, Tremayne was lying flat on his back. His shoes had been removed, and his tie had been loosened. ‘How long have you been here?’ Clare said. She knew Tremayne would not appreciate lashings of sympathy, although he looked dreadful. ‘Since last night. I’d had a few drinks, a few cigarettes, and all of a sudden I’m in the back of an ambulance.’ ‘Does Jean know?’ ‘Not yet. Maybe you can phone her. She went to see her son for a few days, left me on my own.’ ‘Off the leash and into trouble, that’s you, guv.’ ‘Not today, Yarwood. Maybe Moulton’s right about me retiring.’ ‘Having you feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help, is it?’ The nurse, standing on the other side of the bed, looked over at Clare disapprovingly. ‘It’s how we work,’ Clare said. ‘That may be the case, but Mr Tremayne has had a bit of a scare. He needs to be here for a few days while we conduct a few checks.’ ‘What’s the problem?’ ‘It’s not for me to say. That’s for the doctor.’ ‘He told me to cut down on the beer, quit smoking, and take it easy.’ ‘Retire, is that it?’ Clare said. ‘They don’t get it, do they?’ Tremayne looked over at the nurse who was monitoring his condition. ‘Sorry. We’ve got a murder to deal with, nothing personal.’ ‘Don’t worry about me. We get our fair share of people, men mainly, who think they’re invincible. You’re not the first, not the last, who thinks they know more
Phillip Strang (Death by a Dead Man's Hand (DI Tremayne Thriller Series #5))
Sméagol,’ he said, ‘I will trust you once more. Indeed it seems that I must do so, and that it is my fate to receive help from you, where I least looked for it, and your fate to help me whom you long pursued with evil purpose. So far you have deserved well of me and have kept your promise truly. Truly, I say and mean,’ he added with a glance at Sam, ‘for twice now we have been in your power, and you have done no harm to us. Nor have you tried to take from me what you once sought. May the third time prove the best! But I warn you, Sméagol, you are in danger.’ ‘Yes, yes, master!’ said Gollum. ‘Dreadful danger! Sméagol’s bones shake to think of it, but he doesn’t run away. He must help nice master.’ ‘I did not mean the danger that we all share,’ said Frodo. ‘I mean a danger to yourself alone. You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Sméagol!’ Sam looked at his master with approval, but also with surprise: there was a look in his face and a tone in his voice that he had not known before. It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. Of course, he also firmly held the incompatible belief that Mr. Frodo was the wisest person in the world (with the possible exception of Old Mr. Bilbo and of Gandalf). Gollum in his own way, and with much more excuse as his acquaintance was much briefer, may have made a similar mistake, confusing kindness and blindness. At any rate this speech abashed and terrified him. He grovelled on the ground and could speak no clear words but nice master. Frodo waited patiently for a while, then he spoke again less sternly. ‘Come now, Gollum or Sméagol if you wish, tell me of this other way, and show me, if you can, what hope there is in it, enough to justify me in turning aside from my plain path. I am in haste.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
We must recognize our fear—and see it for what it is: the mind’s warning system. Once we’ve received the warning, fear has no place. Fear—if we let it—will focus our mind on the object of our fear, the event we dread or the outcome we can’t bear. It will operate like a horror film on repeat, playing endlessly in our minds. We must recognize fear as an alarm and turn it off. That is how we master excess fear—seeing it as a broken alarm, a common event in everyone’s life. With time and practice, you can learn to turn the alarm off.
A.G. Riddle (The Solar War (The Long Winter, #2))
You must control and direct your emotions not abolish them. Besides, abolition would be antimissile task. Emotions are like a river. Their power can be dammed up and released under control and direction, but is cannot be held forever in check. Sooner or later the dam will burst, unleashing catastrophic destruction. 카톡 ☎ ppt33 ☎ 〓 라인 ☎ pxp32 ☎ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. 아무런 말없이 한번만 찾아주신다면 뒤로는 계속 단골될 그런 자신 있습니다.저희쪽 서비스가 아니라 제품에대해서 자신있다는겁니다 팔팔정,구구정,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스,엠빅스,비닉스,센트립 등 많은 제품 취급합니다 확실한 제품만 취급하는곳이라 언제든 연락주세요 We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? 엠빅스구입,엠빅스구매,엠빅스판매,엠빅스가격,엠빅스후기,엠빅스파는곳,엠빅스팝니다,엠빅스구입방법,엠빅스구매방법,엠빅스복용법,엠빅스부작용,엠빅스약효,엠빅스효과 The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. Your negative emotions can also be controlled and directed. PMA and self-discipline can remove their harmful effects and make them serve constructive purposes. Sometimes fear and anger will inspire intense action. But you must always submit your negative emotions--and you positive ones--to the examination of your reason before releasing them. Emotion without reason is a dreadful enemy. What faculty provides the crucial balance between emotions and reason? It is your willpower, or ego, a subject which will be explored in more detail below. Self-discipline will teach you to throw your willpower behind either reason or emotion and amplify the intensity of their expression. Both your heart and your mind need a master, and they can find the master in your ego. However, your ego will fill their role only if you use self-discipline. In the absence of self-discipline, your mind and heart will fight their battles as they please. In this situation the person within whose mind the fight is carried out often gets badly hurt.
엠빅스구입 cia2.co.to 카톡:ppt33 엠빅스구매 엠빅스판매 엠빅스가격 엠빅스파는곳 엠빅스구입방법 엠빅스구매방법
Which is that the possessor of the wand must capture it from its previous owner, if he is to be truly master of it,’ said Xenophilius. ‘Surely you have heard of the way the wand came to Egbert the Egregious, after his slaughter of Emeric the Evil? Of how Godelot died in his own cellar after his son, Hereward, took the wand from him? Of the dreadful Loxias, who took the wand from Barnabas Deverill, whom he had killed?
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
Because you won't truly understand what it is we work toward until you have discovered it for yourself." Liath began to protest, but Meriam raised a hand for silence. "It is all very well to protest that because you have seen a horse ridden, you know how to ride. But you don't know how to ride until you have yourself ridden. Isn't that true?" "I don't see-" "You don't see because you persist in thinking that the art of the mathematici is like a story, something you can understand equally well whether it is read to you or you read it yourself. But the art of the mathematici isn't a story, it is a skill, like riding a horse, or fighting, or administering an estate, something that takes time and effort to master. Would you set an apprentice weaver to weave the king's royal robes? Ask a novice to illuminate the Holy Verses? Trust your life to a pilot who had never before sailed through these shoals? You, of all people, must understand fully." "Why?" Then Liath laughed, having picked up the habit from Sanglant. "Never mind, Sister. I know what you will say. You will say that when I understand fully, then I will also understand why I must understand fully." "There lies the beginning of understanding." Was Meriam amused? It was hard to tell. She was too ancient to be easily read. Like all the magi, she held layers within layers in herself, none of which were readily peeled off. "Is that why you're here, to understand?" "Nay", she replied to quietly that a hundred misgivings congealed into a dreadful foreboding in Liath's heart, and the night no longer seemed to tame. "I am here to save my child and my child's children from what will come.
Kate Elliott (The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars, #3))
think we all are, Angela. We share these fears. And we shouldn’t keep them bottled up, inside of us, running wild. We must recognize our fear—and see it for what it is: the mind’s warning system. Once we’ve received the warning, fear has no place. Fear—if we let it—will focus our mind on the object of our fear, the event we dread or the outcome we can’t bear. It will operate like a horror film on repeat, playing endlessly in our minds. We must recognize fear as an alarm and turn it off. That is how we master excess fear—seeing it as a broken alarm, a common event in everyone’s life. With time and practice, you can learn to turn the alarm off.
A.G. Riddle (The Solar War (The Long Winter, #2))
Of course, the real reason for the difficulty is that the raw materials that were created for the use and benefit of all have been stolen by a small number, who refuse to allow them to be used for the purposes for which they were intended. This numerically insignificant minority refuse to allow the majority to work and produce the things they need; and what work they do graciously permit to be done is not done with the object of producing the necessaries of life for those who work, but for the purpose of creating profit for their masters. And then, strangest fact of all, the people who find it a hard struggle to live, or who exist in dreadful poverty and sometimes starve, instead of trying to understand the causes of their misery and to find out a remedy themselves, spend all their time applauding the Practical, Sensible, Level-headed Business-men, who bungle and mismanage their affairs, and pay them huge salaries for doing so. Sir Graball D’Encloseland, for instance, was a ‘Secretary of State’ and was paid £5,000 a year. When he first got the job the wages were only a beggarly £2,000, but as he found it impossible to exist on less than £100 a week he decided to raise his salary to that amount; and the foolish people who find it a hard struggle to live paid it willingly, and when they saw the beautiful motor car and the lovely clothes and jewellery he purchased for his wife with the money, and heard the Great Speech he made – telling them how the shortage of everything was caused by Over-production and Foreign Competition, they clapped their hands and went frantic with admiration. Their only regret was that there were no horses attached to the motor car, because if there had been, they could have taken them out and harnessed themselves to it instead.
Robert Tressell (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists)
Here are several reasons why you should train yourself for success like a champion boxer! 카톡☛ppt33☚ 〓 라인☛pxp32☚ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 비닉스파는곳,비닉스구입방법,비닉스구매방법,비닉스구입사이트,비닉스구매사이트,비닉스판매사이트 필름형발기제판매,발기부전개선제판매,발기부전치료제판매,정력제판매,남성정력제판매,천연정력제판매 You don’t practice in the arena, that’s where your skills and your abilities are evaluated. This also means that you don’t practice solving problems and developing yourself when problems occur, you prepare yourself to face them long before you actually face them. Talent is good but training is even better. Back in college, one of my classmates in Political Science did not bring any textbook or notebook in our classes; he just listened and participated in discussions. What I didn’t understand was how he became a magna cum laude! Apparently, he was gifted with a great memory and analytical skills. In short, he was talented. Your negative emotions can also be controlled and directed. PMA and self-discipline can remove their harmful effects and make them serve constructive purposes. Sometimes fear and anger will inspire intense action. But you must always submit your negative emotions--and you positive ones--to the examination of your reason before releasing them. Emotion without reason is a dreadful enemy. What faculty provides the crucial balance between emotions and reason? It is your willpower, or ego, a subject which will be explored in more detail below. Self-discipline will teach you to throw your willpower behind either reason or emotion and amplify the intensity of their expression. Both your heart and your mind need a master, and they can find the master in your ego. However, your ego will fill their role only if you use self-discipline. In the absence of self-discipline, your mind and heart will fight their battles as they please. In this situation the person within whose mind the fight is carried out often gets badly hurt.
비닉스판매 via2.co.to 카톡:ppt33 비닉스가격 비닉스후기 비닉스지속시간 비닉스구입사이트
In most cases homeport for the sailor is the port where he feels most at ease. It’s the place he longs to be and normally where his sweetheart lives. Monrovia has none of these characteristics, but like a fungus it begins to grow on you! Day after day the fungus spreads and so it was with me. As I grew accustomed to the heat and incessant rain I found that I actually enjoyed sleeping in a hammock strung under the awning on the port side of the upper deck behind the stack. On the starboards side was the lifeboat which sheltered me some from the wind and driving rain. It was comfortable and cooler than my cabin below. You might say that I was as snug as a bug in a rug. Speaking of which; the mosquitos were usually blown away when the breeze was onshore, however the prevailing winds were easterlies off the continent which still wasn’t too bad but woe was me when they stopped blowing and the atmosphere became heavy hot and humid, laden with the insect that carried the dread parasite that caused malaria. My life was carefree, the food was good and for the most part I was the master not only of the MV Farmington but also of my destiny. When the cargo was secure and I had the time I would fire up my motor scooter and head into town. Life was good and although I missed my girlfriend Nora, the laid-back atmosphere of this nearly forgotten part of the world suited me. In time I joined the ranks of Monrovia’s cadre of transient misfits, backwater sailors, and ‘Typical Tropical Tramps’ or “TTT’s” as we proudly called ourselves. It wasn’t anything I wished for, but slowly although incessantly it happened. Like the black fungus on every building in this decrepit tropical capital city, it grew on me as it did on everyone else.
Hank Bracker
She also discovered that he was attracted by the dreadful, among the galactic wares cramming the narrow shops into which they ducked. He actually appeared to seriously consider for several minutes what was claimed to be a genuine twentieth-century reproduction lamp, of Jacksonian manufacture, consisting of a sealed glass vessel containing two immiscible liquids which slowly rose and fell in the convection currents. “It looks just like red blood corpuscles floating in plasma,” Vorkosigan opined, staring in fascination at the under-lit blobs. “But as a wedding present?” she choked, half amused, half appalled. “What kind of message would people take it for?” “It would make Gregor laugh,” he replied. “Not a gift he gets much. But you’re right, the wedding present proper needs to be, er, proper. Public and political, not personal.” With a regretful sigh, he returned the lamp to its shelf. After another moment, he changed his mind again, bought it, and had it shipped. “I’ll get him another present for the wedding. This can be for his birthday.” After
Lois McMaster Bujold (Komarr (Vorkosigan Saga, #11))
7 Traits you Need in an Employee to Really Help You Build Your Business As a counsel to new businesses, and a tutor many desiring business visionaries, despite everything i’m shocked at the number who are resolved to go at only it. Surprisingly more dreadful, when they make sense of that they truly require enable, the primary spot they to look is for an understudy or untrained helpers. They don’t understand that these lone increment their workload, because of preparing and administration, as opposed to offloading genuine work. Partners do what you say, while individuals more astute than you in their space do what you require, with no consideration from you. Truth be told, if you are focusing, you can really gain from what they do. For instance, creators need to stay with their imaginative abilities, and discover an accomplice who knows how to construct a business around it. That is a win-win for the two accomplices. In this manner top business people invest as much energy getting the correct group set up to maintain the business as building the item or administration. Tragically, some are so enamored with themselves (narcissistic), that they can’t be persuaded that any other person could run their accounts, or go up against marketing.True pioneers know how to appoint and tune in, and let others do what they know best. So, in case you’re executing yourself with work, and following up on everything about, might need to take a gander at your group to guarantee you’ve encircle yourself with the privilege people.Of course, the correct ones may cost you value, yet a little level of a major business is worth much more to you than a substantial piece of nothing. Here are a few ascribes to search for in the general population you require: 1. Related knowledge and abilities to supplement your qualities Would you endeavor to fabricate the place you had always wanted, with arbitrary assistants demonstrating no involvement? Discover an accomplice who has managed the substances of innovation, devices, and financing. A startup has enough questions, without numbness of the nuts and bolts. Try not to rehash the oversights of others. 2. Demonstrated reputation of completing things Diligent work is important, however not adequate to begin another business. Building a decent arrangement, and measuring against that arrangement is pivotal to developing any business. Regularly individuals with cutting edge degrees have scholarly smarts, however are not closers. You can’t stand to settle on each choice, or follow-up on each activity. 3. Create and propose their own concern arrangements How regularly do the general population around you prescribe arrangements, as opposed to feature issues? In case you’re cooperating with individuals who are more astute than you, you ought to be as often as possible amazed with their new thoughts and arrangements. You may not generally concur, but rather you will be always gaining from them. 4. Reliably enthusiastic and positive in a part The savvy individuals you need are as positive and enthusiastic about your business as you seem to be. They assume possession and liability for their activities. They persuade you with their activities that they comprehend the master plan. They contend unhesitatingly and intentionally, as opposed to protectively. 5. Invest more energy tuning in than talking It’s hard for colleagues to learn while they are talking. Search for colleagues who are attentive people, where you end up searching them out, as opposed to dependably the a different way. It’s awesome to group with individuals that you can imagine working for sometime in the not so distant future, or taking control of your business. 6. Push you to concentrate on vital components and being a superior pioneer You require individuals around you asking the correct inquiries, and testing you on key issues, as opposed to the emergency of the day.
Businessplans
You're my friend. You kept me safe after we busted out of Maximus's place. You dug that tunnel all the way from one end of the planet to the other so we could get here." Bella took his other hand. "You were created a slave to serve the purpose of an evil master. Somehow, you've thrown off those chains and taken control of your own destiny, Cinder. You may also call me friend.
John Corwin (Dread Nemesis of Mine (Overworld Chronicles, #4))
Surprise in finite play is the triumph of the past over the future. The Master Player who already knows what moves are to be made has a decisive advantage over the unprepared player who does not yet know what moves will be made. A finite player is trained not only to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past. This is the finite player in the mode of seriousness with its dread of unpredictable consequence. Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised. If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases. Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue.
James P. Carse (Finite and Infinite Games)
His words and not-so-quiet whispers are around me like shards of glass that glint and cut. Fragments of thoughts. Ignorant banal ones. Hyde is the master of dumb nicknames and comes up with dreadful puns, and I remember what he said as recently as last month when a group of us met at the Cambridge watering hole Paddy’s to toast Pete Marino’s birthday. Hyde insisted on buying me a round, on treating me to a stiff drink, maybe a Bloody Mary or a Sudden Death or a Spontaneous Combustion
Patricia Cornwell (Depraved Heart (Kay Scarpetta, #23))
It has long been contended that, for some – and of course, never us, but always them – life as a slave proves more beneficial than detrimental…. For this rationalization to be effective, the victims need to be transformed – in the mind of the captor/master – from oppressed beings to thankful underlings; grateful for being used, appreciated, and protected, while fulfilling the needs of their superiors. Wrote Aristotle: For all tame animals there is an advantage in being under human control, as this secures their survival. And as regards the relationship between male and female, the former is naturally superior, the latter inferior, the former rules and the latter is subject. By analogy, the same must necessarily apply to mankind as a whole. Therefore all men who differ from one another by as much as the soul differs from the body or man from w a wild beast (and that is the sate of those who can work by using their bodies, and for whom that is the best they can do) – these people are slaves by nature, and it is better for them to be subject to this kind of control, and it is better for the other creatures I have mentioned. For a man who is able to belong to another person is by nature a slave (for that is why he belong so someone else)…. Assistance regarding the necessities of life is provided by both groups, by slaves and by domestic animals. Nature must therefore have intended to make the bodies of free men and of slaves different also; slaves’ bodies strong for the services they have to do, those of free men upright and not much use for that kind of work, but instead useful for community life.
Marjorie Spiegel (The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery: Revised and Expanded Edition)
Often, when a person is ill-treated or relegated to a demeaning position in society, they will respond by venting their frustrations at someone whose societal position is even lower than their own. It is not rational; their violent action in no way serves as a retaliation towards their own oppressors. Taking this concept one step further, we can see that by a torturing or dominating a powerful animal, such as a bull, or a tiger in a big-game hunt, the oppressors feel, unconsciously, that they have destroyed those who held power over them. By destroying or tormenting the weak, such as a rabbit or child, the oppressors become the master who has in turn tortured them, their own victims’ helpless writings echoing what they have so often felt. Temporarily replaced in the role of victim, these new reactive torturers ascend, momentarily in their own minds, to the social- or physical-power position of their own masters.
Marjorie Spiegel (The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery: Revised and Expanded Edition)
To those who would be master, what matters is not so much who their slaves will be, but that there are slaves to be had. As one group becomes off-bounds due to changing laws or the tie of social change, attention will be turned to a different weak group, or focused more intensely upon a prior class or victims. But even this shift comes begrudgingly, for the oppressors have come to enjoy their cruel pleasures. The most important things to masters, therefore, is that the public will not become cognizant of what is being done – often in its name – and that public opinion will not turn against them, thus depriving them of their slaves.
Marjorie Spiegel (The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery: Revised and Expanded Edition)
Social learning is widespread in animals and may continue well beyond the point at which it started. For example, as a student I worked in a laboratory in Utrecht where one scientist regularly caught monkeys out of a large group with a net. At first, the monkeys gave warning calls whenever they saw him approach with his dreadful net, but later they also did so when he only walked by. Still later, years after his research had ceased, I noticed that monkeys too young to have known the threat he once posed alarm-called for this man, and for no one else. They must have deduced from the reaction of their elders that he was not to be trusted. I recently heard that the group kept this alarm-call tradition up for decades, still always aimed at the same person!
Frans de Waal (The Ape and the Sushi Master: Reflections of a Primatologist)
NO GOD, NO SOUL? Dreadful, annihilating thought! The maddening nightmare of a lunatic — Atheist; presenting before his fevered vision, a hideous, ceaseless procession of sparks of cosmic matter created by no one; self-appearing, self-existent, and self-developing; this Self no Self, for it is nothing and nobody; floating onward from nowhence, it is propelled by no Cause, for there is none, and it rushes nowhither. And this in a circle of Eternity blind, inert, and — CAUSELESS.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Isis Unveiled (Vol.1&2): A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology)
When the mercy of the Master does not move you to become a merciful person, there is something dreadfully wrong with your soul. There is a disconnect between your head and your heart. You have truths in your head that have not permeated your heart; you have doctrines you espouse that have not been experientially transformational.
Rob Reimer (Soul Care: 7 Transformational Principles for a Healthy Soul)
Chink was just old enough to think himself very remarkable little dog; and so he was, but not in the way he fondly imagined. He was neither fierce nor dreadful, strong nor swift, but he was one of the noisiest, best-natured, silliest Pups that ever chewed his master’s boots to bits.
Ernest Thompson
Fear—if we let it—will focus our mind on the object of our fear, the event we dread or the outcome we can’t bear. It will operate like a horror film on repeat, playing endlessly in our minds. We must recognize fear as an alarm and turn it off. That is how we master excess fear—seeing it as a broken alarm, a common event in everyone’s life. With time and practice, you can learn to turn the alarm off.
A.G. Riddle (The Solar War (The Long Winter, #2))
So it is not surprising that in common with the majority she hails the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with the ensuing persecutions and enforced ‘conversions’, as a masterly stroke of King and Church to rid the country of Protestants, those dangerous and treacherous pests. Which raises the question of cruelty. She lived of course in a brutal age, for all its polish, and to modern eyes she appears hard and lacking in compassion, except when the sufferings of family or friends are concerned. But here again she is of her time. You had to accept the world as it is, and there is no point in sentimental gush and pity for people whose suffering and pain is the result of their own foolishness or evildoing; so she describes with relish the dreadful tortures inflicted upon the Brinvilliers woman, the notorious poisoner, for they were a just punishment for the agonies she had inflicted upon others. In our own day the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and it is fashionable to pity the criminal and forget all about his victim
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal de Sévigné (Selected Letters)
​“Many,” sighed Ashuri, “and from various faculties. A considerable number of them are not even registered at the university. They come to register, and I ignore the fact that they are not on the roster. This year, I closed registration after seventy-five students had signed up, but in reality over a hundred attended each lecture. For purely selfish reasons, because of my age, I suppose, I refused to accept any more. I have found lately that Kabbalah has shown signs of a resurgence of interest. As a result, many charlatans earn a fine living from it.” ​Elijah remembered that he was really on his way to the library. He parted from Prof. Ashuri in his normal awkward, hesitant and apologetic manner, thanking her profusely no less than three times; he would even have bowed down to her if that was what would have enabled him to expedite his exit. However, Prof. Ashuri had one more important observation to make. ​“I hope that your interest in the Kabbalah will not infect you with that dreaded disease...” she smiled. ​“What disease do you mean?” ​“Kabbalistic literature is generally divided into three major streams. The first and most important one is the cosmological, mission-oriented one. Here we find a direct line between ourselves and the Master of the Universes, by way of His influence on all the intermediate worlds. Note the term, ‘Master of the Universes’ in the plural. In this view, there are mutual influences, going from the upper worlds to us, and from us to the upper worlds. All the commandments and all the proper intentions and all the prayers are ultimately aimed at mending those spheres, which were damaged at the time of the Creation. In the language of the Kabbalah, this means repairing those vessels which were broken. ​“The second stream is Kabbalistic-prophetic. It is an attempt to attain what is known as cleaving to God and to achieve spiritual elevation. This can be accomplished by internal meditation, which includes reciting the Holy Names, internal and external purification, combining sacred letters and repeating them over and over, singing and moving the head, and breathing techniques. This can unite one with the higher worlds. One who does this properly can reach the level of prophecy. There are even books with detailed instructions on how to actually accomplish this and how to ascend to a higher spiritual level. I often hear of students who have embarked on such a course, and it is, indeed, a disease.” ​“Don’t worry about me. And what about the third stream?” ​“The third stream is the one which has elicited the most criticism. It is referred to as Practical Kabbalah. By that, we mean people who use the Kabbalah for their own personal purposes, as a way to exploit the secret knowledge to which they have access in order to control nature and man’s fate. Practical Kabbalah appeals directly to supernatural forces and sometimes even makes them solve the problems of the one calling upon them. These include attempts to foretell the future, to converse with the dead, to heal the sick, to banish evil spirits and the evil eye, and of course to acquire wealth, respect, and/or the love of a man or a woman. That, too, is a dangerous game to play.” Prof. Ashuri laughed, but Elijah could not tell whether or not she was serious.
Nathan Erez (The Kabbalistic Murder Code (Historical Crime Thriller #1))
But people are curious about the result, as they are about the result in a book — they want to know nothing about dread, distress, the paradox. They flirt aesthetically with the result, it comes just as unexpectedly but also just as easily as a prize in the lottery; and when they have heard the result they are edified. And yet no robber of temples condemned to hard labor behind iron bars, is so base a criminal as the man who pillages the holy, and even Judas who sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver is not more despicable than the man who sells greatness.
Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)
after the fall of Fingolfin, Sauron, greatest and most terrible of the servants of Morgoth, who in the Sindarin tongue was named Gorthaur, came against Orodreth, the warden of the tower upon Tol Sirion. Sauron was become now a sorcerer of dreadful power, master of shadows and of phantoms, foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, lord of werewolves; his dominion was torment. He took Minas Tirith by assault, for a dark cloud of fear fell upon those that defended it; and Orodreth was driven out, and fled to Nargothrond. Then Sauron made it into a watch-tower for Morgoth, a stronghold of evil, and a menace; and the fair isle of Tol Sirion became accursed, and it was called Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)