Farmer And Soldier Quotes

He consumed me in a different way- the way his eyes made everything jump inside of me when I looked into them, his laughter, temper, the way he sometimes struggled for words, the way his jaw twitched when he was angry, the thoughtful way he listened to me, his incredible restraint and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. When I looked at him, I saw the easygoing farmer he could have been, but I also saw the soldier and prince that he was.

Gay people are born into, and belong to, every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths. They are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes. And whether we know it or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Being gay is not a Western invention. It is a human reality.

He was a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was a beggar, and a king. He was a farmer, gleeman, sailor, carpenter. He was born, lived, and died Aiel. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age. He was executed, and multitudes cheered his death. He proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn and flung his banner across the sky; he ran from the Power and hid; he lived and died never knowing. He held off the madness and the sickness for years; he succumbed between two winters. Sometimes Moiraine came and took him away from the Two Rivers, alone or with those of his friends who had survived Winternight; sometimes she did not. Sometimes other Aes Sedai came for him. Sometimes Red Ajah. Egwene married him; Egwene, stern-faced in stole of Amyrlin Seat, led Aes Sedai who gentled him; Egwene, with tears in her eyes, plunged a dagger into his heart, and he thanked her as he died. He loved other women, married other women. Elayne, and Min, and a fair-haired farmer's daughter met on the road to Caemlyn, and women he had never seen before he lived those lives. A hundred lives. More. So many he could not count them. And at the end of every life, as he lay dying, as he drew his final breath, a voice whispered in his ear. I have won again, Lews Therin. Flicker.

The Taoists realized that no single concept or value could be considered absolute or superior. If being useful is beneficial, the being useless is also beneficial. The ease with which such opposites may change places is depicted in a Taoist story about a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbor commiserated only to be told, "Who knows what's good or bad?" It was true. The next day the horse returned, bringing with it a drove of wild horses it had befriended in its wanderings. The neighbor came over again, this time to congratulate the farmer on his windfall. He was met with the same observation: "Who knows what is good or bad?" True this time too; the next day the farmer's son tried to mount one of the wild horses and fell off, breaking his leg. Back came the neighbor, this time with more commiserations, only to encounter for the third time the same response, "Who knows what is good or bad?" And once again the farmer's point was well taken, for the following day soldiers came by commandeering for the army and because of his injury, the son was not drafted. According to the Taoists, yang and yin, light and shadow, useful and useless are all different aspects of the whole, and the minute we choose one side and block out the other, we upset nature's balance. If we are to be whole and follow the way of nature, we must pursue the difficult process of embracing the opposites.

What is the price of Experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy And in the wither'd field where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan; To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast To hear sounds of love in the thunderstorm that destroys our enemies' house; To rejoice in the blight that covers his field and the sickness that cuts off his children While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door and our children bring fruits and flowers Then the groan and the dolour are quite forgotten and the slave grinding at the mill And the captive in chains and the poor in the prison and the soldier in the field When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity: Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

No wizard has ever made himself useful by magic, or, if they've tried, they've only made matters worse. No wizard ever stopped a war or mended a fence. It's better that they stay in their marshes, out of the way of worldly folk like farmers and soldiers and merchants and kings.

Rafe pulled against the soldiers who twisted his hands behind his back to chain him, but his eyes never left mine. I looked at him, not a stranger, but not a farmer either. It had been a clever deception from the very beginning. The wind swirled between us, threw mist in our faces. Whispered. In the farthest corner … I will find you. I wiped at my eyes, the real and true blurring. But I knew this much. He came. He was here. And maybe, for now, that was all the truth I needed.

Farmers and soldiers knew about the weather. Weather could be the great determiner between failure and success, the great test of one's staying power.

Conversation between Siddhartha, who has temporarily given up all worldly possessions in order to experience total poverty first hand, talks to a merchant. That seems to be the way of things. Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that" (said Siddhartha) Ah, but if you are without possessions, how can you give?" Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instructions, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish." Very well and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give(the merchant asks of Siddhartha) I can think, I can wait, I can fast." Is that all?" I think that is all." And of what use are they? For example, fasting, what good is that?" It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But, as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Therefore, fasting is useful, sir.

Boudicca MacDaede was not the most striking of women, but she had a wryness in character and heartiness in form that recommended her to the rough demands of a farmer’s daughter and a soldier’s sufferance." ~ First two lines of book 1 in the Haanta Series

I am made to sow the thistle for wheat; the nettle for a nourishing dainty I have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a poison tree I have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog for a schoolmaster to my children I have blotted out from light & living the dove & the nightingale And I have caused the earthworm to beg from door to door I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morning My heavens are brass my earth is iron my moon a clod of clay My sun a pestilence burning at noon & a vapor of death in night What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun And in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season When the red blood is filled with wine & with the marrow of lambs It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements To hear a dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast To hear the sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits and flowers Then the groans & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field When the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify--capriciously--their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships--and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes--husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer...

Stalin has died. The ardent heart of the great leader of progressive mankind has ceased to beat. This sad news has spread over Korean territory like lightning, inflicting a bitter blow to the hearts of millions of people. Korean People’s Army soldiers, workers, farmers, and students, as well as all residents of both South and North Korea, have heard the sad news with profound grief." – Kim Il Sung

As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld. The second mode is shamanistic incantation. As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless repetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable. The systematic use of nicknames such as “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself. Yet through blunt repetition over Twitter, our president managed the transformation of individuals into stereotypes that people then spoke aloud. At rallies, the repeated chants of “Build that wall” and “Lock her up” did not describe anything that the president had specific plans to do, but their very grandiosity established a connection between him and his audience. The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict. It is as if a farmer said he were taking an egg from the henhouse, boiling it whole and serving it to his wife, and also poaching it and serving it to his children, and then returning it to the hen unbroken, and then watching as the chick hatches. Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today. One of his former students implored him to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present.” Twelve years later, after all the atrocities, and at the end of a war that Germany had clearly lost, an amputated soldier told Klemperer that Hitler “has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler.” The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that “understanding is useless, you have to have faith. I believe in the Führer.

Home. This magnificent palace had been her home since she was eleven. She’d came to it as a farmer’s daughter, and now she’d leave it as a soldier.

A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love.

all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America.” “How?” Almanzo asked. “Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.

To his left he saw the other regiments, men from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Men like these, he thought, just farmers and shopkeepers, and now we are soldiers, and now we are about to die.

Thus, in that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American war as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America. And so on, to the limited extent that any one person, however he or she strains, can “see” history from the standpoint of others.

Look,” he tried, “put two men in a rail car, one a soldier, the other a farmer. One talks war, the other wheat; and bore each other to sleep. But let one spell long-distance running, and if the other once ran the mile, why, those men will run all night like boys, sparking a friendship up from memory. So, all men have one business in common: women, and can talk that till sunrise and beyond. Hell.

For the Mongols, the lifestyle of the peasant seemed incomprehensible. The Jurched territory was filled with so many people and yet so few animals; this was a stark contrast to Mongolia, where there were normally five to ten animals for each human. To the Mongols, the farmers’ fields were just grasslands, as were the gardens, and the peasants were like grazing animals rather than real humans who ate meat. The Mongols referred to these grass-eating people with the same terminology that they used for cows and goats. The masses of peasants were just so many herds, and when the soldiers went out to round up their people or to drive them away, they did so with the same terminology, precision, and emotion used in rounding up yaks.

Our farmers make enough rice to feed all of us, yet we must eat millet and barley. All that rice goes to feed the Imperial soldiers sent the Japanese residents...some even gets sent back to Japan...and the prices they charge us for the little rice that remains! Did you see the look of satisfaction on Captain Narita's face as he looked at these coarse little cookies?

If you have a million fans and no talent, you’re still not a success. a million students and no lesson, you’re still not a teacher. a million sermons and no compassion, you’re still not a priest. a million children and no affection, you’re still not a father. a million anniversaries and no devotion, you’re still not a husband. If you have a million sheep and no courage, you’re still not a shepherd. a million seeds and no harvest, you’re still not a farmer. a million titles and no integrity, you’re still not a champion. a million thoughts and no insights, you’re still not a philosopher. a million predictions and no prophecy, you’re still not a prophet. If you have a million soldiers and no unity, you’re still not an army. a million monks and no camaraderie, you’re still not a monastery. a million cities and no borders, you’re still not a country. a million musicians and no harmony, you’re still not an orchestra. a million armies and no strategy, you’re still not a general. If you have a million titles, and no influence, you’re still not a leader; a million ideas and no creations, you’re still not an artist. a million theories, and no facts, you’re still not a scholar; a million books, and no wisdom, you’re still not a sage; a million virtues, and no love, you’re still not a saint.

But we’re not outnumbered!” a voice called out from behind the soldiers. Lampton and his soldiers turned toward the voice and they saw it wasn’t alone. Slowly emerging from behind the Charming Palace and from the streets surrounding the capital were hundreds and hundreds of civilians. The men and women carried pots and pans, pitchforks and hoes, rolling pins and knives, scissors and shears, mops and buckets. They were bakers and farmers, locksmiths and seamstresses, teachers and butchers, maids and butlers—and they all had come to stand proudly with the soldiers of their kingdom. “What’s going on?” Xanthous asked the civilians. “We’ve come to join the fight!” a farmer declared, and all the men and women of his party cheered. “This is our home, too!” a seamstress yelled. “We won’t let our kingdom fall into the hands of anyone else but our king and queen,” a butcher shouted.

Japanese soldiers split open the stomachs of pregnant women and bayoneted the fetuses; they tied up local farmers and used them for target practice; they tortured thousands of innocent people in ways that rival the Gestapo at its worst; and they were pursuing deadly medical experiments long before Dr. Mengele and Auschwitz.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!" Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

He was a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was a beggar, and a king. He was a farmer, gleeman, sailor, carpenter. He was born, lived, and died Aiel. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age. He was executed, and multitudes cheered his death. He proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn and flung his banner across the sky; he ran from the Power and hid; he lived and died never knowing.

We soften the language. We take out all references to “Chinks” and “Coolies.” Perhaps you mean this as subversive, writes Daniella in the comments, but in this day and age, there’s no need for such discriminatory language. We don’t want to trigger readers. We also soften some of the white characters. No, it’s not as bad as you think. Athena’s original text is almost embarrassingly biased; the French and British soldiers are cartoonishly racist. I get she’s trying to make a point about discrimination within the Allied front, but these scenes are so hackneyed that they defy belief. It throws the reader out of the story. Instead we switch one of the white bullies to a Chinese character, and one of the more vocal Chinese laborers to a sympathetic white farmer. This adds the complexity, the humanistic nuance that perhaps Athena was too close to the project to see.

King George III, who had made the monumental mistake of learning English, was very much the head of the war party, and so, more in anger than in sorrow, he dropped the mask of Mr. Nice Guy. He would now use his Indians, some thirty thousand German soldiers, mostly from Hesse, a Rhineland province bordering his family’s Hanoverian place of origin. The Hessians turned out to be more generally effective than the American or, indeed, the British troops. They were also considered uncommonly attractive by American girls, who found the homegrown lads a bit on the scrawny, sallow side, later to be caricatured as “Uncle Sam.” By the end of the Revolution, a great many Hessians had married American girls and settled down as contented farmers in the German sections of Pennsylvania and Delaware, their lubricious descendants to this day magically peopling the novels of Mr. John Updike.

From all over the planet they came…. They came in companies and alone, with money and without, knowing and naïve. They tore themselves from warm hearths and good homes, promising to return; they fled from cold hearts and bad debts, never to return. They were farmers and merchants and sailors and slaves and abolitionists and soldiers of fortune and ladies of the night. They jumped bail to start their journey, and jumped ship at journey’s end. They were the pillars of their communities, and their communities’ dregs….

Charlotte was used to all the marks of war: the shabbiness of things, bad food, shop queues, posters about the war effort, people with worried faces, people dressed in black. She was used to seeing the wounded men from the hospital with their bright blue uniforms and bright red ties, the colours, she thought, if not the clothes of Arthur's soldiers. Such things did not disturb her, and the war seemed quite remote. But this disturbed her, the grotesque kind of circus that came now. It did not seem remote at all, nor did it fit with her vague ideas of war gained from those books of Arthur's she had read, with their flags and glory and brave drummer boys. How could you dare to become a soldier, knowing that you might end like this? There were men like clowns with white heads, white arms, white legs, men with crutches, slings, and bloodied bandages, and all so distressingly like men you would expect to see walking down the street, two armed, two legged, in hats instead of bandages and suits of black not battered khaki. Some came on stretchers borne by whole and ordinary men, some hobbled and leaned on whole ordinary arms. Most had mud dried thick across their clothes, and all came from the dark station's mouth with the spewings of trains behind, the clankings, thumpings, grindings, the sounds like great devils taking in breaths and blowing them out again.

After hearing visionaries like Vikram Sarabhai and working at T.E.R.L.S. I began to understand that being self sufficient also meant developing our own technologies and using that for the good of the nation. Our satellites provide many benefits to the ordinary people of the country—from communication to information that is utilized by soldiers, fishermen, farmers, teachers, students and people from almost every walk of life. By making our own rockets that could go into space and put satellites into orbit or touch the surface of the moon or even reach Mars, we have become a nation that is respected for our technological capabilities. Our satellite launch vehicles and facilities bring in valuable revenue when they are used by other countries.

The matter of sedition is of two kinds: much poverty and much discontentment....The causes and motives of sedition are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy persons, strangers; dearths; disbanded soldiers; factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth them in a common cause.' The cue of every leader, of course, is to divide his enemies and to unite his friends. 'Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions...that are adverse to the state, and setting them at a distance, or at least distrust, among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies; for it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united.' A better recipe for the avoidance of revolutions is an equitable distribution of wealth: 'Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.' But this does not mean socialism, or even democracy; Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; 'the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people;' and 'Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?' What Bacon wants is first a yeomanry of owning farmers; then an aristocracy for administration; and above all a philosopher-king. 'It is almost without instance that any government was unprosperous under learned governors.' He mentions Seneca, Antonius Pius and Aurelius; it was his hope that to their names posterity would add his own.

There was once a stonecutter, who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house, and through the open gateway, saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around, who had to bow down before him as he passed. It was a hot summer day, and the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, hated and feared by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it--a huge, towering stone "How powerful that stone is”" he thought. I wish that I could be a stone!" Then he became the stone, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the solid rock, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the stone?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the fixture of a stonecutter.

Other men might deride farmers-turned-soldiers. Not he. Farmers knew what they were fighting for; farmers were used to death and killing, for they did it every autumn when they killed the cattle and swine that would feed them through the winter. The average citydweller might never see meat that was not already rendered into its component parts; the farmer had raised that “meat” from a baby, and had resisted his children’s efforts to name it and make a pet of it. Killing a cow was easier than killing a man? Not when the farmer had delivered the cow as a calf, had agonized over its illnesses, had called it to its food every day for all of its life, brought it all unaware into the killing shed, and stared into its eyes before killing it. Whereas the man he faced was a stranger, was hidden in his helm, and wanted to kill him. Then wanted to take his land, his goods, and his women. A farmer would have no difficulty in making the decision to kill a man.

Edinolochniks [individual peasant farmers] are whitewashing their khatas [simple Ukrainian houses]. They look at us with a challenge in their eyes: ‘It’s Easter.’ The implication behind this strange remark in autumn was the hint that they were celebrating the arrival of the most joyful moment of the year. Some historians have suggested that the Germans, with black crosses on their vehicles, were seen as bringing Christian liberation to a population oppressed by Soviet atheism. Many Ukrainians did welcome the Germans with bread and salt, and many Ukrainian girls consorted cheerfully with German soldiers. It is hard to gauge the scale of this phenomenon in statistical terms, but it is significant that the Abwehr, the Germany Army intelligence department, recommended that an army of a million Ukrainians should be raised to fight the Red Army. This was firmly rejected by Hitler who was horrified at the suggestion of Slavs fighting in Wehrmacht uniform.

Alas, great is my sorrow. Your name is Ah Chen, and when you were born I was not truly pleased. I am a farmer, and a farmer needs strong sons to help with his work, but before a year had passed you had stolen my heart. You grew more teeth, and you grew daily in wisdom, and you said 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' and your pronunciation was perfect. When you were three you would knock at the door and then you would run back and ask, 'Who is it?' When you were four your uncle came to visit and you played the host. Lifting your cup, you said, 'Ching!' and we roared with laughter and you blushed and covered your face with your hands, but I know that you thought yourself very clever. Now they tell me that I must try to forget you, but it is hard to forget you. "You carried a toy basket. You sat at a low stool to eat porridge. You repeated the Great Learning and bowed to Buddha. You played at guessing games, and romped around the house. You were very brave, and when you fell and cut your knee you did not cry because you did not think it was right. When you picked up fruit or rice, you always looked at people's faces to see if it was all right before putting it in your mouth, and you were careful not to tear your clothes. "Ah Chen, do you remember how worried we were when the flood broke our dikes and the sickness killed our pigs? Then the Duke of Ch'in raised our taxes and I was sent to plead with him, and I made him believe that we could not pay out taxes. Peasants who cannot pay taxes are useless to dukes, so he sent his soldiers to destroy our village, and thus it was the foolishness of your father that led to your death. Now you have gone to Hell to be judged, and I know that you must be very frightened, but you must try not to cry or make loud noises because it is not like being at home with your own people. "Ah Chen, do you remember Auntie Yang, the midwife? She was also killed, and she was very fond of you. She had no little girls of her own, so it is alright for you to try and find her, and to offer her your hand and ask her to take care of you. When you come before the Yama Kings, you should clasp your hands together and plead to them: 'I am young and I am innocent. I was born in a poor family, and I was content with scanty meals. I was never wilfully careless of my shoes and my clothing, and I never wasted a grain of rice. If evil spirits bully me, may thou protect me.' You should put it just that way, and I am sure that the Yama Kings will protect you. "Ah Chen, I have soup for you and I will burn paper money for you to use, and the priest is writing down this prayer that I will send to you. If you hear my prayer, will you come to see me in your dreams? If fate so wills that you must yet lead an earthly life, I pray that you will come again to your mother's womb. Meanwhile I will cry, 'Ah Chen, your father is here!' I can but weep for you, and call your name.

Why weep at strangers dead by the road? They resemble friends unseen in forty years. Why laugh when clowns are hit by pies? We taste custard, we taste life. Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes in the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. Billions of prickling textures. Cut one sense away, cut part of life away. Cut two senses; life halves itself on the instant. We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common cause, common cause of mouth, eye, ear, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart, and soul. But...how to say it? “Look,” he tried, “put two men in a rail car, one a soldier, the other a farmer. One talks war, the other wheat; and bore each other to sleep. But let one spell long-distance running, and if the other once ran the mile, why, those men will run all night like boys, sparking a friendship up from memory.

The Jewel in Her Crown, which showed the old Queen (whose image the children now no doubt confused with the person of Miss Crane) surrounded by representative figures of her Indian Empire: princes, landowners, merchants, moneylenders, sepoys, farmers, servants, children, mothers, and remarkably clean and tidy beggars. The Queen was sitting on a golden throne, under a crimson canopy, attended by her temporal and spiritual aides: soldiers, statesmen and clergy. The canopied throne was apparently in the open air because there were palm trees and a sky showing a radiant sun bursting out of bulgy clouds such as, in India, heralded the wet monsoon. Above the clouds flew the prayerful figures of the angels who were the benevolent spectators of the scene below. Among the statesmen who stood behind the throne one was painted in the likeness of Mr. Disraeli holding up a parchment map of India to which he pointed with obvious pride but tactful humility. An Indian prince, attended by native servants, was approaching the throne bearing a velvet cushion on which he offered a large and sparkling gem. The children in the school thought that this gem was the jewel referred to in the title. Miss Crane had been bound to explain that the gem was simply representative of tribute, and that the jewel of the title was India herself, which had been transferred from the rule of the British East India Company to the rule of the British Crown in 1858, the year after the Mutiny when the sepoys in the service of the Company (that first set foot in India in the seventeenth century) had risen in rebellion, and attempts had been made to declare an old Moghul prince king in Delhi, and that the picture had been painted after 1877, the year in which Victoria was persuaded by Mr. Disraeli to adopt the title Empress of India.

The American Anti-Slavery Society, on the other hand, said the war was “waged solely for the detestable and horrible purpose of extending and perpetuating American slavery throughout the vast territory of Mexico.” A twenty-seven-year-old Boston poet and abolitionist, James Russell Lowell, began writing satirical poems in the Boston Courier (they were later collected as the Biglow Papers). In them, a New England farmer, Hosea Biglow, spoke, in his own dialect, on the war: Ez fer war, I call it murder,—     There you hev it plain an’ flat; I don’t want to go no furder     Than my Testyment fer that. . . . They may talk o’ Freedom’s airy     Tell they’er pupple in the face,— It’s a grand gret cemetary     Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Californy     So’s to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an’ to scorn ye,     An’ to plunder ye like sin. The war had barely begun, the summer of 1846, when a writer, Henry David Thoreau, who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, refused to pay his Massachusetts poll tax, denouncing the Mexican war. He was put in jail and spent one night there. His friends, without his consent, paid his tax, and he was released. Two years later, he gave a lecture, “Resistance to Civil Government,” which was then printed as an essay, “Civil Disobedience”: It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. . . . Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers . . . marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.

My morning schedule saw me first in Cannan’s office, conferring with my advisor, but our meeting was interrupted within minutes by Narian, who entered without knocking and whose eyes were colder than I had seen them in a long time. “I thought you intended to control them,” he stated, walking toward the captain’s desk and standing directly beside the chair in which I sat.” He slammed a lengthy piece of parchment down on the wood surface, an unusual amount of tension in his movements. I glanced toward the open door and caught sight of Rava. She stood with one hand resting against the frame, her calculating eyes evaluating the scene while she awaited orders. Cannan’s gaze went to the parchment, but he did not reach for it, scanning its contents from a distance. Then he looked at Narian, unruffled. “I can think of a dozen or more men capable of this.” “But you know who is responsible.” Cannan sat back, assessing his opposition. “I don’t know with certainty any more than you do. In the absence of definitive proof of guilt on behalf of my son and his friends, I suggest you and your fellows develop a sense of humor.” Then the captain’s tone changed, becoming more forbidding. “I can prevent an uprising, Narian. This, you’ll have to get used to.” Not wanting to be in the dark, I snatched up the parchment in question. My mouth opened in shock and dismay as I silently read its contents, the men waiting for me to finish. On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

Liberty is poorly served by men whose good intent is quelled from one failure or two failures or any number of failures, or from the casual indifference or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp show of the tushes of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or any penal statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and knows no discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat…the enemy triumphs…the prison, the handcuffs, the iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote and leadballs do their work…the cause is asleep…the strong throats are choked with their own blood…the young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they pass each other…and is liberty gone out of that place? No never. When liberty goes it is not the first to go nor the second or third to go…it waits for all the rest to go…it is the last…When the memories of the old martyrs are faded utterly away…when the large names of patriots are laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators…when the boys are no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants and traitors instead…when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted and laws for informers and bloodmoney are sweet to the taste of the people…when I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no man master—and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves…when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night and surveys its experience and has much extasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority…when those in all parts of these states who could easier realize the true American character but do not yet—when the swarms of cringers, suckers, dough-faces, lice of politics, planners of sly involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no…when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart…and when servility by town or state or the federal government or any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried on without its own punishment following duly after in exact proportion against the smallest chance of escape…or rather when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth—then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth.

The Indian makes a good citizen, a good farmer, a good soldier. He is a real American, and all those of us who have come to share with him the great land that was his heritage should do their share toward seeing that he is dealt with justly and fairly, and that his rights and liberties are never infringed by the scheming politician or the short-sighted administration of law.

The only thing that disturbed our equanimity during the wonderful days of rest and peace were American and Russian fighter-planes that sometimes came diving from the sky, and with their guns turned road users into bloody shreds. These attacks were not just against us soldiers, but also against the farmers in the fields, their wives and daughters, and against the small children on their way to school. This made us furious.

could not overcome their fear of bullets and arrows and the scalping knife. Protect us,they hollered to the president and the Supreme Executive Council. Send more money, cried battalion colonels. Despite amendments to the Militia Act, Pennsylvania's Revolutionary government failed to win the hearts of Northampton's militiamen. The farmers had grown weary of their role as soldiers. Moreover, a byzantine relationship between Northampton's county lieutenant, a civilian commander of the militia who had been appointed by the president, and battalion officers, who had been elected by their men, foiled the dictates of the law. Isolated by natural boundaries, hampered by poor communications, red tape, and intramural disputes, each Northampton battalion became a fiefdom whose leaders distanced themselves from the county lieutenant, county officials, the president, and the Council. Apprized of mutinous rumblings in Northampton, the president pleaded with the militia: "Let there be one dispute:who shall serve his country best?"" But pep talks and patriotic slogans had lost their sizzle in Northampton. Fearing for his life, the sheriff refused to collect fines from 300 delinquent militiamen. "They wont suffer no sheriff, constable, or any other fit person to serve any executions on them,"he reported." Later, when Indians and Tories threatened to clear settlers from the frontier, the president promised battalion commanders ammunition and money for scouting parties and scalps,but he warned them that the militia could not be useful if "they meet at taverns and spend their time in amusement and frolick."'$ In the months ahead, the mutiny escalated.

On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

I walked out onto the stage and I started telling the tale of the “Untold Story of the Origin of Zombies.” And it went like this: Where do Zombies come from? Not many people know. But after some extensive investigative Zombie journalism, we’ve discovered the truth. It all began when the human government decided that they wanted to create stronger soldiers. They had lost too many battles, and now they wanted to win every war that they fought. So they approached some soldiers in their army to join a special secret project. The only requirement was that the soldiers they chose had no living relatives. This way, no one could claim their bodies in case something went wrong. So, they exposed these soldiers to an experimental virus to enhance their abilities and make them into super soldiers. The experiment seemed to be working. But then, something terrible happened... The soldiers went crazy, and they were horribly disfigured. Ultimately, the experiment claimed their lives. But, when the soldiers were being prepared for burial, they suddenly came to life. They were not only walking, but they had enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell and enhanced hearing. They attacked the soldiers in charge of burying them. And the recently bitten soldiers also transformed into the living dead. Before long, the entire army base was contaminated with the virus. Once everyone in the base was exposed, the virus mutated and the soldiers began having an overwhelming craving for something warm and mushy. They longed for brains! Soon, the army of the living dead found their way to the next unsuspecting town in search of brains. They attacked that town, biting anything that moved both human and animal. Soon that town was overrun. The virus spread from town to town, and city to city, until the entire world was contaminated. It was the first Zombie Apocalypse. After hundreds of years had passed, the Zombies started to evolve and began developing intelligent thoughts. They began forming villages, and then towns, and then entire cities of Zombies were created. The Zombies made great advances in health and science, and became highly advanced technologically. But, eventually the Zombies’ appetite for brains and warm flesh gave way to an even greater craving... The craving for CAKE! Their overwhelming desire for cake resulted in an explosive rise in the baking industry. Cake shops began springing up on every corner of every Zombie city street. They just couldn’t get enough! The human race began growing again, too. Human villages of farmers and miners began springing up. And because the Zombies were a peaceful race, they coexisted with the humans by staying away from them. But soon, the Zombie’s resources began to become scarce, especially the cake. So Zombies began scaring villagers in order to get the supplies they needed, especially the highly valued resource of cake. Now Zombies send their kids to Scare School to train their children from a very young age. They train them on how to effectively scare humans in order to get their needed supplies, especially cake. And so it has been until today. Thank you.

The only American soldier convicted in the [My Lai Massacre in Vietnam], Lieutenant William Calley, served three months under house arrest. What the massacre drove home to me was that Oriental life was not terribly valuable. You could extinguish hundreds of Orientals - unarmed villagers, farmers, women, toddlers, infants - and the penalty would be napping and watching television in your apartment for twelve weeks.

The men on the ramparts watched in horror as they realized that the first wave of soldiers was actually comprised entirely of captured villagers from the outlying settlements—poor, imprisoned farmers forced under pain of death to push forward massive siege engines, catapults, and ballistae, assigned the cruel task of bringing destruction and mayhem to their own kinsmen. The soldiers reluctantly opened fire on these wretched saps, but even an endless stream of arrows couldn’t stem the tide of heavy equipment being brought up to the massive moat surrounding the city. To their amazement, the defenders then saw the invading barbarians shoving their prisoners into the moat—using their bodies as a living bridge over which they rolled their infernal contraptions.

His enlistment papers indicate his occupation was “farmer”, a term often used by the Army to designate a former slave, but the papers also recorded that he could read and white. This must have made him stand out among his fellow recruits, because Stance received a promotion to the rank of Sergeant in March 1867.

When I was a kid, I really didn’t want to be a farmer. What a total waste of a life, I thought. Everything you’ll ever know you’ve learned by the time you’re fifteen, and every year’s the same as the year before and the year after. You know exactly what you’ll be doing this day twelve months hence, because it’s what you’re doing today. I can’t do that, I thought, I’ll go mad. So I made them let me go to college and be a soldier.

viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American war as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America.

THE GRANDEST, MOST eloquent evocation of Depression-era populism came from the Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, whose 1936 offering was a book-length poem called The People, Yes. Aside from its iconic title, the work is almost completely forgotten today, a strange outlier amidst the last century’s highbrow taste in poetry. Sandburg’s verse is not abstract; it is not avant-garde. But let us put our cynicism aside for a moment. As the title suggests, The People, Yes was a full-throated celebration of ordinariness: the manners of the people, their dreams, their folly, their aspirations, and above all their speech, the “plain and irregular sounds and echoes from / the roar and whirl of street crowds, work gangs, sidewalk clamor,” as he wrote in the introduction. As with Ballad for Americans and so many other works of the time, there is a compulsive listing of identities, repeated efforts to name-check everyone. Sandburg gives us cantos that are lists of occupations, cantos made up of slang expressions and lines from folktales and popular jokes. There are strikers, angry farmers, tricksters, soldiers, armies, and, of course, a big fat rich guy, ordering others off his property. Naturally Sandburg attacks the elite, mocking the pretenses of aristocracy and reminding his Depression-era audience of something they knew all too well—that justice treats rich and poor differently. He reminds us that bank robbers go to prison but, if you’re a bank officer who loots the company, “all you have to do is start another bank.

War killed some soldiers, sure, but it left the rest with money, and songs to sing, and a fire to sit around. It killed a lot more farmers, and left the rest with nought but ashes.

To drill them in the new European manner he next appointed two Christian mercenaries. The first was Walter Reinhardt, nicknamed Sumru or Sombre, a gloomy and coldly emotionless Alsatian German soldier of fortune. He had been born to a poor farmer with a smallholding on the Moselle in the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine,

What galled soldiers the most was the apparent well-being of those who chose not to fight. Although many civilians, like their counterparts in the army, suffered from shortages and high prices, the men who endured hunger, cold, and enemy fire on behalf of their country could not abide by those farmers and merchants who appeared to prosper

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is recommended by many guests in this book. There is one specific takeaway that Naval Ravikant (page 546) has reinforced with me several times on our long walks over coffee. The protagonist, Siddhartha, a monk who looks like a beggar, has come to the city and falls in love with a famous courtesan named Kamala. He attempts to court her, and she asks, “What do you have?” A well-known merchant similarly asks, “What can you give that you have learned?” His answer is the same in both cases, so I’ve included the latter story here. Siddhartha ultimately acquires all that he wants. Merchant: “. . . If you are without possessions, how can you give?” Siddhartha: “Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.” Merchant: “Very well, and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give?” Siddhartha: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” Merchant: “Is that all?” Siddhartha: “I think that is all.” Merchant: “And of what use are they? For example, fasting, what good is that?” Siddhartha: “It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But, as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. ” I think of Siddhartha’s answers often and in the following terms: “I can think” → Having good rules for decision-making, and having good questions you can ask yourself and others. “I can wait” → Being able to plan long-term, play the long game, and not misallocate your resources. “I can fast” → Being able to withstand difficulties and disaster. Training yourself to be uncommonly resilient and have a high pain tolerance.

[I]n that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American War as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America. And so on, to the limited extent that any one person, however he or she strains, can “see” history from the standpoint of others.

You little idiot. How the hell do you propose to plow fields, fend off Indians and outlaws, and build a house all by yourself?” Lily was wounded. “Maybe I won’t be by myself,” she said, wanting to hurt him in the same way he’d hurt her. “Maybe I’ll meet a soldier at Fort Deveraux—one who wants to be a farmer. We could get married, and I wouldn’t be alone.” She started to turn away from him, intending to go back to the buggy, but he grasped her arm and wrenched her back. “You’re mine,” he breathed through his perfect white teeth. “And I’ll kill the man who lays a hand on you.” “I’m not yours!” “You are,” Caleb argued. “I saw to that last night.” Lily was outraged. He was treating her like a piece of land, one he’d homesteaded and laid a permanent claim to. “I told you, last night was a mistake.” Deftly,

The ‘listen/respect’ category came back everywhere, often in a passionate manner. A few quotes will give an impression of what I put under this heading:     I would be closer to the local people and listen to them more. I would encourage freedom of expression, so that people would talk. I would make sure that the administration would have close relationships with people, so that they would not get lies. (Eighteen-year-old former child soldier, now taxi-vélo driver, Busiga)     I would listen to everyone, rich and poor. This is rarely done in Burundi (Nineteen-year-old woman, Busiga) The first thing I would do is to let the little people express themselves, listen to everyone and apply justice without bias. (Thirty-year-old female farmer, Ruhororo, Banda colline)

As soon as I felt that we were a safe distance away from Bischoffsheim, I recovered my suitcases and fortunately got a ride from a farmer back to Rosheim, where I boarded the train leaving for Strasbourg. I recall looking out of the train window at newly dug trenches and wondered how many soldiers would make them their eternal resting place. There were also heaps of ammunition for weapons called Panzerschreck which were similar to American bazookas. If a soldier could approach close enough to a tank so that he could fire at it, it would cause the tank to explode. Here in Rosheim, the Germans were definitely expecting the arrival of the French Army and were preparing for the assault. Photo Caption: German Soldiers firing a Panzerschreck Captain Hank Bracker, who served with the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps, is the author of the multi-award winning book, “The Exciting Story of Cuba” has now written “Suppressed I Rise.” This book is for anyone interested in a very personal human view, of the history of World War II. A mother’s attempt to protect and raise her two young daughters in hostile NAZI Germany challenges her sensibilities and resourcefulness. Both books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, BooksAMillion.com and many Independent Book Stores.

I have not danced the waltz in several years, and what memories I have of it are few and dim. Perhaps you’d take pity on a lame soldier and see whether he can recall it?” He expected her to laugh. On his bad days he was lame, and most days he was at least unsound, as an old horse might be unsound. He had not danced the waltz since being injured, had never hoped to again because it required grace, balance, and a little derring-do. Also a willing partner. Louisa put her bare hand in his and rose. “The pleasure would be mine.” Her lips quirked as she stood, but she didn’t drop his hand. “You must not allow me to lead.” He’d watched a hundred couples dancing a hundred waltzes, and had enjoyed the dance himself when it was first becoming popular on the Continent. The steps were simple. What was not simple at all was the feel of Louisa Windham, matter-of-factly stepping quite close, clasping his palm to her own. “I like to just listen for a moment,” she said, “to feel the music inside, feel the way it wants to move you, to lift your steps and infuse you with lightness.” She slipped in closer, so close her hair tickled Joseph’s jaw. Her hand settled on his shoulder, and he felt her swaying minutely as the orchestra launched into the opening bars. She moved with the rhythm of the music, let it shift her even as she stood virtually in his embrace. What he felt inside was a marvelous sense of privilege, to be holding Louisa Windham close to his body, to have the warm, female shape of her there beneath his hands. Her scent, clean and a little spicy, was sweeter when she was this close. She wasn’t as tall in his embrace as she was in his imagination. Against his body, she fit… perfectly. And with the sense of privilege and wonder, there lurked a current of arousal. Louisa Windham was lovely, dear, smart, and brave, but she was also a grown woman whom Joseph had found desirable from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He waited until the phrasing felt right, closed his fingers gently around hers, then moved off with his partner. She shifted with him, the embodiment of grace, as weightless as sunshine, as fluid as laughter. “You lead well,” she whispered, her eyes half closed. “You’re a natural.” He was a man plagued by a bad knee and a questionable hip, but with Louisa Windham for a partner and the music of an eighteen-piece orchestra to buoy him, Joseph Carrington danced. The longer they moved together, the better they danced. Louisa let him lead, let him guide her this way and that, let him decide how much sweep to give the turns and how closely to enfold her. She gave herself up to the music, and thus a little to him, as well, and yet, she anchored him too. Dancing with a woman who enjoyed the waltz this much gave a man some bodily confidence. He brought her closer, wonderfully closer, and realized what gave him such joy was not simply the physical pleasure of holding her but the warmth in his heart generated by her trust. She was dancing with a lame soldier, with a pig farmer, and enjoying it. All too soon, the music wound to a sweet final cadence, but Louisa did not sink into the closing curtsy. She instead stood in the circle of Joseph’s arms and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “Sir Joseph, thank you.” What

The solution, Britain and its colonial leaders decided, was to import people who were loyal - but not necessarily inventive or talented or ambitious. The colonial administration was soon paying cashiered soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars and bankrupt but loyal British farmers to make the crossing. Reform politicians in Upper Canada complained that the colonial elite had issued a large number of land patents, often for sizable estates, to loyal Tories in Britain without regard for any other qualities….The strategy worked….But it also had the effect of choking the economic and civic life out of nascent Canada, at a moment when the Industrial Revolution was beginning to transform the rest of the Western world.

But even during an event as exceptional as the world famous troubadour's just concluded performance, the travelers kept to themselves remaining in clearly delineated groups. Elves stayed with elves. Dwarvish craftsman gathered with their kin who would often hide to protect their merchant caravans and were armed to the teeth. The groups tolerated at best the gnome miners and halfling farmers who camped beside them. All non-humans were uniformly distant towards humans. The humans re-payed in kind but were not seem to mix amongst themselves either. Nobility looked down on the merchants and traveling salesman with open scorn. While soldiers and mercenaries, distanced themselves from shepherds and their reeking sheepskins. The few wizards and their disciples, kept themselves entirely apart from the others and bestowed their arrogance on everyone in equal parts. A tied knit, dark and silent group of peasants lurked in the background resembling a forest with their rakes, pitchforks and flails, poking above their heads. They were ignored by all. The exception, as ever was the children. Freed from the constraints of silence which have been enforced during the bards performance, the children dashed into the woods with wild cries and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a game whose rules were incomprehensible to all those who have bidden farewell to the happy years of childhood. Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half elves, quarter elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance, neither knew or recognized racial or social divisions. At least, not yet.

[...] these soldiers don't have to do his bidding any more, [...]. They don't have to fight in any Long Wars. Why, they don't have to be soldiers at all. They can take control, be whatever they want to be. My Martha, the world is bored of armies. It can't bear another boy to die. It doesn't need killing. It needs farmers and tinkers. Shepherds and railwaymen and grocers. It's time we set the soldiers free.

the ruling classes, as the phrase Protestant Ascendancy indicates, tended one way, while their social inferiors, whether servants, farmers or soldiers, were almost universally Catholic.

Their soldiers run the farmers off the land before the deadening gets too bad. They drain money from the farmers’ pockets by charging land taxes, ensuring the little man hasn’t got enough coin left over to afford fertilizer. Then they kick him off his land under the guise of environmental protectionism: ‘If you can’t afford to preserve the soil, then we will.’ It’s all about consolidation of power. Taking the land away from the common people.

Every Farmer Understands Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity This is caught by Females bright And returnd to its own delight The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath Writes Revenge in realms of Death The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air Does to Rags the Heavens tear The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun Palsied strikes the Summers Sun The poor Mans Farthing is worth more Than all the Gold on Africs Shore One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands Or if protected from on high Does that whole Nation sell & buy He who mocks the Infants Faith Shall be mockd in Age & Death He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall neer get out He who respects the Infants faith Triumphs over Hell & Death —William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” (lines 67–90)

Merchant: “. . . If you are without possessions, how can you give?” Siddhartha: “Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.” Merchant: “Very well, and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give?” Siddhartha: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” Merchant: “Is that all?” Siddhartha: “I think that is all.

Soldiers are glorified in the Tranquiline Halls. But without farmers, soldiers can’t eat – so being a farmer is probably all right too. Better yourself with a Calling in life. But don’t get too ambitious or we’ll lock you away. Don’t get revenge upon the king for ordering the death of your grandparents. But do get revenge on the Parshendi for ordering the death of someone you never met.

William E. Miller previously a captain in the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, where in combat at Gettysburg he had won the Medal of Honor. During the action east of town on July 3, 1863, he engaged a Confederate horse soldier in a personal hand-to-hand duel, and in the melee his sabre blade had been broken off near the hilt. Fourteen years later in 1877, on the same ground where the engagement took place, Miller found, in a pile of useless battle junk collected by the farmer from the surrounding fields, his very own sword hilt which had been thrown away on that hot July afternoon so long before.

His neighbor commiserated only to be told, “Who knows what’s good or bad?” It was true. The next day the horse returned, bringing with it a drove of wild horses it had befriended in its wanderings. The neighbor came over again, this time to congratulate the farmer on his windfall. He was met with the same observation: “Who knows what is good or bad?” True this time too; the next day the farmer’s son tried to mount one of the wild horses and fell off, breaking his leg. Back came the neighbor, this time with more commiserations, only to encounter for the third time the same response, “Who knows what is good or bad?” And once again the farmer’s point was well taken, for the following day soldiers came by commandeering for the army and because of his injury, the son was not drafted.3

I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American war as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America.

As if guessing his thoughts, as mothers always do, true mothers who are mothers to every soldier, the farmer’s wife pressed Marcel’s shoulder slightly.

Short story: The true and incredible tale of David Kirkpatrick, a Scottish ex-boy scout, and miner, serving in WW2 with 2nd Highland Light Infantry and the legendary elite corps 2nd SAS. A man who becomes a hero playing his bagpipe during a secret mission in Italy, March 1945, where he saved the lives of hundreds just playing during the attack. After he fought in North Africa, Greece, Albania, Sicily and being reported as an unruly soldier, (often drunk, insulting superiors and so on) in Tuscany, 23 march 1945 he joined as volunteer in the 2nd Special Air Service ( the British elite forces), for a secret mission behind enemy line in Italy. He parachuted in the Italian Apennines with his kilt on (so he becomes known as the 'mad piper' ) for a mission organized with British elite forces and an unruly group of Italian-Russian partisans (code name: 'Operation Tombola' organized from the British secret service SOE and 2nd SAS and the "Allied Battalion") against the Gothic Line german headquarter of the 51 German Mountains Corps in Albinea, Italy. The target of the anglo-partisan group's mission is to destroy the nazi HQ to prepare the big attack of the Allied Forces (US 5th Army, British 8th Army) to the German Gothic Line in North Italy at the beginning of April. It's the beginning of the liberation of Italy from the nazi fascist dictatorship. The Allied Battalion guided by major Roy Farran, captain Mike Lees Italian partisan Glauco Monducci, Gianni Ferrari, and the Russian Viktor Pirogov is an unruly brigade of great fighters of many nationalities. Among them also not just British, Italian, and Russian but also a dutch, a greek, one Austrian paratrooper who deserted the German Forces after has killed an SS, a german who deserted Hitler's Army being in love with an Italian taffeta's, two Jewish escaped from nazi reprisal and 3 Spanish anti-Franchise who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War and then joined first the French Foreign Legion and the British Elite Forces. The day before the attack, Kirkpatrick is secretly guested in a house of Italian farmers, and he donated his white silk parachute to a lady so she could create her wedding dress for the Wedding with his love: an Italian partisan. During the terrible attack in the night of 27th March 1945, the sound of his bagpipe marks the beginning of the fight and tricked the nazi, avoiding a terrible reprisal against the civilian population of the Italian village of Albinea, saving in this way the life of hundreds The German HQ based in two historical villa's is destroyed and in flames, several enemy soldiers are killed, during the attack, the bagpipe of David played for more than 30 minutes and let the german believe that the "British are here", not also Italian and Russian partisan (in war for Hitler' order: for partisans attack to german forces for every german killed nazi were executing 10 local civilians in terrible and barbarian reprisal). During the night the bagpipe of David is also hit after 30 minutes of the fight and, three British soldiers of 2nd SAS are killed in the action in one of the two Villa. The morning later when Germans bring their bodies to the Church of Albinea, don Alberto Ugolotti, the local priest notes in his diary: "Asked if they were organizing a reprisal against the civilian population, they answered that it was a "military attack" and there would.

The first law of the 5% theory says: “For any job that exists, be it a TV presenter, a teacher, an astronaut, a soldier, a truck driver, a programmer, a salesperson or a police officer, only 5% of the population have a talent for it.” The second law of the 5% theory says: “All talents in the world are randomly distributed among people.” Which means that nature is very wise and it knows approximately how many artists, soldiers, architects, farmers or singers a society needs, and it seeds all people with certain talents for them to occupy their place in the world.

The State of Punjab is full of flavor, festivals, frolic, color, brave soldiers and hard working farmers. Punjab is one of the richest states in the nation which is rich in almost every respect. From the exquisite cuisine, spicy platters of fragrant Sarson ka Saag and Makki di Roti, good-natured and high-spirited people, music loving and devoted denizens, the land of Punjab is a must visit place which will have a long-lasting impression on your lives and tongues.We are the best car service jaipur to punjab.Lets have a great voyaging experience with LetsGo.

We are fun. But fun isn’t character. Character is in the ghosts of all the soldiers and hookers and farmers that still haunt our roads and trails.

For me, Louisiana has always been a haunted place. I believe the specters of slaves and Houma and Atakapa Indians and pirates and Confederate soldiers and Acadian farmers and plantation belles are still out there in the mist. I believe their story has never been adequately told and they will never rest until it is. I also believe my home state is cursed by ignorance and poverty and racism, much of it deliberately inculcated to control a vulnerable electorate. And I believe many of the politicians in Louisiana are among the most stomach-churning examples of white trash and venality I have ever known. To me, the fact that large numbers of people find them humorously picaresque is mind-numbing, on a level with telling fond tales about one’s rapist.

The US government needed to accelerate food production. Crop production needed to more than double, since the Allies and American soldiers stationed in Europe and the Pacific depended on food exports. The problem for American farmers was that they were being required to increase food production while the military draft was shrinking their labor force.70 In Texas, in anticipation of a projected farm labor shortage, and to avoid having to ask the Mexican government for assistance, Stevenson petitioned the Selective Service to exempt Texan agricultural workers from the draft. He requested that men employed in farm labor not be allowed to enlist. His petition was denied.

farmers and bakers for company, and, I hoped, no soldiers. When Milda heard me

On the Right between the duke and the peasant are all kinds of landowners and farmers, all artists and craftsmen, soldiers, sailors, clergymen and musicians. On the Left side are business men, stockbrokers, bankers, exporters, all men whose sole reason for working is to make money, and also mechanics and aviators. We on the Right cannot make money. When we have it, it has only come to us as an accident following on our work, or from luck. There are those whose place is on the right of the pale but who express the ideas of the Left. They are traitors.

It would be misleading, however, to give the impression that all who took up arms in 1861 were moved by hatred of Yankees, or that all who expressed hostility felt any considerable depth of antipathy. Later events proved the contrary. The dominant urge of many volunteers was the desire for adventure. War, with its offering of travel to far places, of intimate association with large numbers of other men, of the glory and excitement of battle, was an alluring prospect to farmers who in peace spent long lonely hours between plow handles, to mechanics who worked day in and day out at cluttered benches, to storekeepers who through endless months measured jeans cloth or weighed sowbelly, to teachers who labored year after year with indifferent success to drill the rudiments of knowledge into unwilling heads, and to sons of planters who dallied with the classics in halls of learning.

Such freedom as is granted by this society is the freedom given to conscript soldiers on leave; and no provision whatever is made for conscientious objectors, or for those who would work against the system. The American farmer who lately rebelled against legislation preventing him from growing more than his allotted quota of grain even to feed his own hogs found when he migrated to distant Australia in search of freedom that he had made only one mistake: even in that seemingly open and independent continent he was subject to a similar set of imbecile regulations.

Frau Heinchen, was the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in “Suppressed I Rise”. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

We are to be tough and focused like soldiers, to compete according to the rules like athletes, and to work hard like farmers.

Monsieur Alfred Backert, a resident of Bischoffsheim, lived near the village center. He recalled the war years in Alsace-Lorraine and remembered the women from Mannheim who were sent to Bischoffsheim, ostensibly for their safety by the Nazi Regime. He later served in the French army and was stationed in Germany for a number of years. Frau Heinchen, the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in this book. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

On a spring morning in 1964, Suleyman was tortured first and then killed. 4 Walked by Greek soldiers to a pig farmer’s house, his body was probed, cut, then desecrated with a severance that belongs to those who have learned to take. I have seen this sense of property in the eyes of men who step to their girlfriends, who walk into children’s bedrooms uninvited, in the policemen who slam a brown or black body against a wall for a half-smoked zoot –no, often less.

Concerning the history of Christianity. — Continual change of environment: Christian teaching is thus continually changing its centre of gravity. The favouring of low and paltry people .... The development of Caritas .... The type "Christian" gradually adopts everything that it originally rejected (and in the rejection of which it asserted its right to exist). The Christian becomes a citizen, a soldier, a judge, a workman, a merchant, a scholar, a theologian, a priest, a philosopher, a farmer, an artist, a patriot, a politician, a prince ... he re-enters all those departments of active life which he had forsworn (he defends himself, he establishes tribunals, he punishes, he swears, he differentiates between people and people, he contemns, and he shows anger). The whole life of the Christian is ultimately exactly that life from which Christ preached deliverance .... The Church is just as much a factor in the triumph of the Antichrist, as the modern State and modern Nationalism .... The Church is the barbarisation of Christianity.

The visitors, seeing Theobald look shy and wholly unmoved by the exhibition of so much consideration for his wishes, would remark to themselves that the boy seemed hardly likely to be equal to his father and would set him down as an unenthusiastic youth, who ought to have more life in him and be more sensible of his advantages than he appeared to be. No one believed in the righteousness of the whole transaction more firmly than the boy himself; a sense of being ill at ease kept him silent, but it was too profound and too much without break for him to become fully alive to it, and come to an understanding with himself. He feared the dark scowl which would come over his father’s face upon the slightest opposition. His father’s violent threats, or coarse sneers, would not have been taken au serieux by a stronger boy, but Theobald was not a strong boy, and, rightly or wrongly, gave his father credit for being quite ready to carry his threats into execution. Opposition had never got him anything he wanted yet, nor indeed had yielding, for the matter of that, unless he happened to want exactly what his father wanted for him. If he had ever entertained thoughts of resistance, he had none now, and the power to oppose was so completely lost for want of exercise that hardly did the wish remain; there was nothing left save dull acquiescence as of an ass crouched between two burdens. He may have had an ill-defined sense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might occasionally dream of himself as a soldier or a sailor far away in foreign lands, or even as a farmer’s boy upon the wolds, but there was not enough in him for there to be any chance of his turning his dreams into realities, and he drifted on with his stream, which was a slow, and, I am afraid, a muddy one.