Firm Resolution Quotes

We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.

Waste not a day in vain digression; with resolute, courageous trust seek every possible impression and make it firmly your posession you'll then work on because you must.

She made a firm resolution, one of the resolutions she was making almost daily these days. No more sleepovers, no more writing poetry, no more wasting time. Time to tidy up your life. Time to start again.

Her whole body stiffened as with a great and firm resolution. This she meant to do, if God gave her wits and strength.

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.

what I want you to be - I don't mean physically but morally: you are very well physically - is a firm fellow, a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own, with resolution. with determination. with strength of character that is not to be influenced except on good reason by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father, & your mother might both have been

She knows her timing, always knows. The time to strike or the time to starve. Her eyes as a clock, she watches she waits she learns, and in the second she blinks, she changes her mind just like that.

It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable - when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us - that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

There is no chance, no fate, no destiny that can circumvent, or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery. On the other hand—and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand—once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.

Since when is failure more appealing? Never give up.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.” Leticia stared up at me and for a long time said

Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

What's left undone to-day, To-morrow will not do. Waste not a day in vain digression: With resolute, courageous trust Seize every possible impression, And make it firmly your possession; You'll then work on, because you must.

My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed.

The initial response the Buddha intends to arouse in us is an ethical one. By calling our attention to our bondage to old age and death, he seeks to inspire in us a firm resolution to turn away from unwholesome ways of living and to embrace instead wholesome alternatives.

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, as as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

For fortune having hitherto seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm in his opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature herself submitted to him.

No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.

we often make fun of intellectuals for their doubts, their split personalities, their Hamlet-like indecisiveness. When I was young I despised that side of myself. Now, though, I’ve changed my mind: humanity owes many great books and great discoveries to people who were indecisive and full of doubts; they have achieved at least as much as the simpletons who never hesitate. And when it comes to the crunch, they too are prepared to go to the stake; they stand just as firm under fire as the people who are always strong-willed and resolute.

Dantes had entered the Chateau d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself.

There is no nature that exists devoid of nurture; there is no nurture that develops without nature. To say otherwise is like saying that the area of a field is determined by its length but not its width. Every behavior is the product of an instinct trained by experience. The study of human beings remained resolutely unreformed by these ideas until a few years ago. Even now, most anthropologists and social scientists are firmly committed to the view that evolution has nothing to tell them. Human bodies are products of "culture," and human culture does not reflect human nature, but the reverse. This restricts social scientists to investigation only differences between cultures and between individuals--and to exaggerating them. Yet what is most interesting to me about human beings is the things that are the same, not what is different--things like grammatical language, hierarchy, romantic love, sexual jealousy, long-term bongs between the genders ("marriage", in a sense). These are trainable instincts peculiar to out species and are just as surely the products of evolution as eyes and thumbs.

If you intend to become spiritual, you must analyze your actions and thoughts each day before you go to bed at night. You must assess the good actions and the evil actions and come to a firm resolution not to repeat evil actions anymore.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.

My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.

He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. 18. We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself. Self-realization is not something apart. One rupee can purchase for us poison or nectar, but knowledge or devotion cannot buy us salvation or bondage. These are not media of exchange. They are themselves the thing we want. In other words, if the means and the end are not identical, they are almost so. The extreme of means is salvation. Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.

He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. CHAPTER

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

It's all there, it's all waiting. Of course it can be done; it depends upon ourselves. You say: "But again, we're scattered individuals. Everything's against us. Governments, money, press, television - all the new forces are used against us." All the great forces, all the material powers of the world, you say, are against you. And so they are - you're quite right to feel that. And I don't underrate them, but I don't despair and you shouldn't despair. Because you, like I, have read something of history. You know something of the record of the achievement of Europeans. And dark as this hour is, it's no darker, it's not as dark as some of the hours you've known in European history. When everything was cowardice, treachery, and betrayal. And when the Saracen hordes from far outside Europe swept right across that continent, and would've come on over our own Britain too, if they hadn't been stopped. And it didn't only happen once, it's happened more than once. Small bands of men in resolution, in absolute determination, giving themselves completely and saying "Europe shall live!" And they stood firm and faced the menace to Europe: its values, its civilizations, the glory of its achievement - all those things in mortal danger. And they stood firm, they faced it, they came together, and more and more ran it to their standards, and those hordes were thrown back. Again and again and again, our Europe lived in triumph because the will of Europe still endured! We've got other forces against us - not those particular forces, but the power of money, the power of press. All those things are against us. And how can you stop it? My friends, by an act of will, an act of the European will. My friends, today, just as much as in the past, we can meet the dark forces which in another way threaten our European life with eternal night. We can rally those forces, and in the end, we can prevail and we can triumph!

Had I been less firmly resolved upon settling down definitively to work, I should perhaps have made an effort to begin at once. But since my resolution was explicit, since within twenty-four hours, in the empty frame of the following day where everything was so well-arranged because I myself was not yet in it, my good intention would be realized without difficulty, it was better not to start on an evening when I felt ill-prepared. The following days were not, alas, to prove more propitious. But I was reasonable. It would have been puerile, on the part of one who had waited now for years, not to put up with a postponement of two or three days. Confident that by the day after tomorrow I should have written several pages, I said not a word more to my parents of my decision; I preferred to remain patient and then to bring to a convinced and comforted grandmother a sample of work that was already under way. Unfortunately the next day was not that vast, extraneous expanse of time to which I had feverishly looked forward. When it drew to a close, my laziness and my painful struggle to overcome certain internal obstacles had simply lasted twenty-four hours longer. And at the end of several days, my plans not having matured, I had no longer the same hope that they would be realized at once, and hence no longer the heart to subordinate everything else to their realization: I began once again to keep late hours...

left them filled with admiration not only at his remarks but at his firm and sensible resolution.

They told tales as they sat at their work, and every one related what wonderful things he had seen or experienced. One afternoon I heard an old man among them say that God knew every thing, both what had happened and what would happen. That idea occupied my whole mind, and towards evening, as I went alone from the court, where there was a deep pond, and stood upon some stones which were just within the water, the thought passed through my head, whether God actually knew everything which was to happen there. Yes, he has now determined that I should live and be so many years old, thought I; but, if I now were to jump into the water here and drown myself, then it would not be as he wished; and all at once I was firmly and resolutely determined to drown myself. I ran to where the water was deepest, and then a new thought passed through my soul. "It is the devil who wishes to have power over me!" I uttered a loud cry, and, running away from the place as if I were pursued, fell weeping into my mother's arms. But neither she nor any one else could wring from me what was amiss with me.

The only way out of this trap is to learn to say no firmly, resolutely, and yet gracefully. Because once we do, we find, not only that our fears of disappointing or angering others were exaggerated, but that people actually respect us more. Since becoming an Essentialist I have found it almost universally true that people respect and admire those with the courage of conviction to say no.

What is your state of soul with respect to mortal sin? Are you firmly resolved never to commit it for any reason whatsoever? . . . In this resolution consists the foundation of the spiritual life.

I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable resolution in the things that he had determined after due deliberation; and no vainglory in those things that men call honors; and a love of labor and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in giving to every man according to his deserts; and a knowledge derived from experience of the occasions for vigorous action and for remission.

The forgiveness of God In God, there is another perfection, which inclines Him to forgive immediately the gravest and most numerous offenses, if we make a firm resolution to turn from them and truly to amend. Even more, God forgets these offenses in return for a single lamentation for a contrite heart, as Scripture says. And if we remain in this good will, He does not contemplate vengeance for our sins later, nor does He contemplate reproaching us with them in order to dismay us, nor charging us with them in order to love us less, nor driving us away from Him by withdrawing His intimacy.

This was my moment in heaven and, young as I was, I knew it wouldn't last and that I should at least enjoy it for what it was rather than ruin it with my oft-cranked resolution to firm up our friendship or take it to another plane. There'll never be a friendship, I thought, this is nothing, just a minute of grace.

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's [Right Whale] expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

Ibn al-Qayyim has a profound statement in his book Al-Fawaid. Referring to the effect of negative and sinful thoughts, he said: “You should repulse a thought. If you do not do so, it will develop into a desire. You should therefore wage war against it. If you do not do so, it will become a resolution and firm intention. If you do not repulse this, it will develop into a deed. If you do not make up for it by doing the opposite [the opposite of that evil deed], it will become a habit. It will then be very difficult for you to give it up”. Another similar quote: “You should know the initial stage of every knowledge that is within your choice is your thoughts and notions. These thoughts and notions lead you into fantasies. These fantasies lead towards the will and desire to carry out [those fantasies]. These wills and desires demand the act should be committed. Repeatedly committing these acts causes them to become a habit. So the goodness of these stages lies in the goodness of thoughts and notions, and the wickedness of these thoughts lies in the wickedness of thoughts and notions”. May Allah be pleased with him! He offers a deep insight into something so subtle. We should all memorise these words and use it whenever we feel unable to control the tsunami of negative thoughts that overtake our minds.

Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind -- and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.

Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.

my father[A] I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable resolution in the things which he had determined after due deliberation; and no vain-glory in those things which men call honors; and a love of labor and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in giving to every man according to his deserts;

He was never conscious of pity at moments like this and not even of anger, although that might come later and would have to be resisted. He liked to fix the sight of the murdered body firmly in his mind. This had been a habit since his first big case seven years ago when he had looked down at the battered corpse of a Soho prostitute in silent resolution and had thought, “This is it. This is my job.

Fifth Rule. The fifth: In time of desolation never to make a change; but to be firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which one was the day preceding such desolation, or in the determination in which he was in the preceding consolation. Because, as in consolation it is rather the good spirit who guides and counsels us, so in desolation it is the bad, with whose counsels we cannot take a course to decide rightly.

Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

Resolutely and firmly I repeated what I said—‘Come to New York with me; I’ve got the money.’ I looked at him; my eyes were watering with embarrassment and tears. Still he stared at me. Now his eyes were blank and looking through me. It was probably the pivotal point of our friendship when he realized I had actually spent some hours thinking about him and his troubles, and he was trying to place that in his tremendously involved and tormented mental categories.

My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when their’s are failing.

Yet, for a while, I saw—but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white—whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words—and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immoveable resolution—of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded.

Zhenevyeva, we often make fun of intellectuals for their doubts, their split personalities, their Hamlet-like indecisiveness. When I was young I despised that side of myself. Now, though, I’ve changed my mind: humanity owes many great books and great discoveries to people who were indecisive and full of doubts; they have achieved at least as much as the simpletons who never hesitate. And when it comes to the crunch, they too are prepared to go to the stake; they stand just as firm under fire as the people who are always strong-willed and resolute.

There is another typical feature of ideological pursuit: the victims supported by ideologues are always innocent (and it is sometimes true that victims are innocent), and the perpetrators are always evil (evil perpetrators are also not in short supply). But the fact that there exist genuine victims and perpetrators provides no excuse to make low-resolution, blanket statements about the global locale of blameless victimization and evil perpetration—particularly of the type that does not take the presumed innocence of the accused firmly into account. No group guilt should be assumed—and certainly not of the multigenerational kind.

A great lawyer listens first, speaks second, and always thinks strategically." "Effective lawyering is less about winning arguments and more about crafting solutions that stand the test of justice." "The power of a lawyer lies in their ability to turn complexity into clarity." "A true lawyer is an advocate for the truth, not just for their client." "Lawyering is the art of persuasion, guided by reason and grounded in integrity." "A good lawyer knows the law; a great lawyer knows how to apply it wisely and ethically." "The essence of lawyering is not just in knowing the law, but in understanding people." "A lawyer's greatest skill is turning conflict into resolution with words that heal, not hurt." "Lawyering requires the courage to stand firm in principle and the flexibility to adapt in practice." "To be a lawyer is to be a guardian of justice, ensuring fairness prevails over power.

knowest not what thou sayest. I am but an ignorant man myself.” “Yes, yes,” says he, “you teachee me good, you teachee them good.” “No, no, Friday,” says I, “you shall go without me; leave me here to live by myself, as I did before.” He looked confused again at that word, and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, comes and gives it to me. “What must I do with this?” says I to him. “You take kill Friday,” says he. “What must I kill you for?” said I again. He returns very quick, “What you send Friday away for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away.” This he spoke so earnestly that I saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from me if he was willing to stay with me. Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought or intention or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from the discourse, viz., that there were seventeen bearded men there; and, therefore, without any more delay I went to work with Friday, to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua, or canoe, to undertake the voyage. There were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of periaguas and canoes, but even of good large vessels. But the main thing I looked at was, to get one so near the water that we might launch it when it

In the end, we must trust the path we choose to walk, anchored by a firm sense of our potential, inspired by the people with whom we surround ourselves, and bolstered by our willingness to keep on. As I often tell the young people I talk to, including my own college-age daughters, ordinary humans can do extraordinary things. So go ahead, and dream as enormously and as courageously as you can. If you are diligent and well-prepared, relentlessly optimistic, and resolute in purpose, you will be capable of creating a brilliant future for yourself. And, as my own life has shown, no matter where we began our journey, or the missteps we will surely make along the way, we must press forward, girded by our blessings and strengthened by our hardships, whether we are laboring quietly outside the spotlight, or in full view on a public stage, we are, each of us, called to write our story in the chronicle of history, too.

Dantes had entered the Chateau d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been smooth, and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself.

Z[If any one says that the outward world is so constituted that one cannot resist it, let him study his own feelings and movements, and see whether there are not some plausible motives to account for his approval and assent, and the inclination of his reason to a particular object. To take an illustration, suppose a man to have made up his mind to exercise self-control and refrain from sexual intercourse, and then let a woman come upon the scene and solicit him to act contrary to his resolution; she is not cause sufficient to make him break his resolution. It is just because he likes the luxury and softness of the pleasure, and is unwilling to resist it, or stand firm in his determination, that he indulges in the licentious practice. On the contrary, the same thing may happen to a man of greater knowledge and better disciplined; he will not escape the sensations and incitements; but his reason, inasmuch as it is strengthened and nourished by exercise, and has firm convictions on the side of virtue, or is near to having them, stops the excitements short and gradually weakens the lust.

[T]he devotion required by the Gita is no soft-hearted effusiveness. It certainly is not blind faith. The devotion of the Gita has the least to do with the externals. A devotee may use, if he likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make offerings, but these things are no test of his devotion. He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself.

Tranquillity is a certain equality of mind which no condition of fortune can either exalt or depress. Nothing can make it less, for it is the state of human perfection: it raises us as high as we can go, and makes every man his own supporter, whereas he that is borne up by anything else may fall. … The joy of a wise man stands firm without interruption; in all places, at all times, and in all conditions, his thoughts are cheerful and quiet. Into what dangerous and miserable servitude he falls who suffers pleasures and sorrows (two unfaithful and cruel commanders) to possess him successively! I do not speak this either as a bar to the fair enjoyment of lawful pleasures, or to the gentle flatteries of reasonable expectations. On the contrary, I would have men to be always in good humour, provided that it arises from their own souls, and is cherished in their own breasts. Other delights are trivial; they may smooth the brow, but they do not fill and affect the heart. True joy is a serene and sober motion, and they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing. The seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a brave mind, that has fortune under its feet. He that can look death in the face, and bid it welcome; open his door to poverty, and bridle his appetites; this is the man whom Providence has established in the possession of inviolable delights. The pleasures of the vulgar are ungrounded, thin, and superficial; but the others are solid and eternal.

The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." Psalm 138:8 Most manifestly the confidence which the Psalmist here expressed was a divine confidence. He did not say, "I have grace enough to perfect that which concerneth me--my faith is so steady that it will not stagger--my love is so warm that it will never grow cold--my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it"; no, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we indulge in any confidence which is not grounded on the Rock of Ages, our confidence is worse than a dream, it will fall upon us, and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. All that Nature spins time will unravel, to the eternal confusion of all who are clothed therein. The Psalmist was wise, he rested upon nothing short of the Lord's work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is he who has carried it on; and if he does not finish it, it never will be complete. If there be one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness which we are to insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence, the Lord who began will perfect. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates--"You will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart, you can never conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that beset you, you will be certainly allured by them and led astray." Ah! yes, we should indeed perish if left to our own strength. If we had alone to navigate our frail vessels over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in despair; but, thanks be to God, he will perfect that which concerneth us, and bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in him alone, and never too much concerned to have such a trust.

It's all there, it's all waiting. Of course it can be done; it depends upon ourselves. You say: "But again, we're scattered individuals. Everything's against us. Governments, money, press, television - all the new forces are used against us." All the great forces, all the material powers of the world, you say, are against you. And so they are - you're quite right to feel that. And I don't underrate them, but I don't despair and you shouldn't despair. Because you, like I, have read something of history. You know something of the record of the achievement of Europeans. And dark as this hour is, it's no darker, it's not as dark as some of the hours you've known in European history. When everything was cowardice, treachery, and betrayal. And when the Saracen hordes from far outside Europe swept right across that continent, and would've come on over our own Britain too, if they hadn't been stopped. And it didn't only happen once, it's happened more than once. Small bands of men in resolution, in absolute determination, giving themselves completely and saying "Europe shall live!" And they stood firm and faced the menace to Europe: its values, its civilizations, the glory of its achievement - all those things in mortal danger. And they stood firm, they faced it, they came together, and more and more ran it to their standards, and those hordes were thrown back. Again and again and again, our Europe lived in triumph because the will of Europe still endured! We've got other forces against us - not those particular forces, but the power of money, the power of press. All those things are against us. And how can you stop it? My friends, by an act of will, an act of the European will. My friends, today, just as much as in the past, we can meet the dark forces which in another way threaten our European life with eternal night. We can rally those forces, and in the end, we can prevail and we can triumph!

In the fall of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in the run-up to the Gulf War, Americans were sickened by a story that emerged. On October 10, 1990, a fifteen-year-old refugee from Kuwait appeared before a congressional Human Rights Caucus.23 The girl—she would give only her first name, Nayirah—had volunteered in a hospital in Kuwait City. She tearfully testified that Iraqi soldiers had stolen incubators to ship home as plunder, leaving over three hundred premature infants to die. Our collective breath was taken away—“These people leave babies to die on the cold floor; they are hardly human.” The testimony was seen on the news by approximately 45 million Americans, was cited by seven senators when justifying their support of war (a resolution that passed by five votes), and was cited more than ten times by George H. W. Bush in arguing for U.S. military involvement. And we went to war with a 92 percent approval rating of the president’s decision. In the words of Representative John Porter (R-Illinois), who chaired the committee, after Nayirah’s testimony, “we have never heard, in all this time, in all circumstances, a record of inhumanity, and brutality, and sadism, as the ones that [Nayirah had] given us today.” Much later it emerged that the incubator story was a pseudospeciating lie. The refugee was no refugee. She was Nayirah al-Sabah, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. The incubator story was fabricated by the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton, hired by the Kuwaiti government with the help of Porter and cochair Representative Tom Lantos (D-California). Research by the firm indicated that people would be particularly responsive to stories about atrocities against babies (ya think?), so the incubator tale was concocted, the witness coached. The story was disavowed by human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) and the media, and the testimony was withdrawn from the Congressional Record—long after the war.

Charles Bean, the official historian of Australia’s part in World War I, was unusual in dealing closely with the deeds of the soldiers on the front line, and not just the plans and orders of their leaders. At the end of his account of the Gallipoli landing in the Official History, he asked what made the soldiers fight on. What motive sustained them? At the end of the second or third day of the Landing, when they had fought without sleep until the whole world seemed a dream, and they scarcely knew whether it was a world of reality or of delirium – and often, no doubt, it held something of both; when half of each battalion had been annihilated, and there seemed no prospect before any man except that of wounds or death in the most vile surroundings; when the dead lay three deep in the rifle-pits under the blue sky and the place was filled with stench and sickness, and reason had almost vanished – what was it then that carried each man on? It was not love of a fight. The Australian loved fighting better than most, but it is an occupation from which the glamour quickly wears. It was not hatred of the Turk. It is true that the men at this time hated their enemy for his supposed ill-treatment of the wounded – and the fact that, of the hundreds who lay out, only one wounded man survived in Turkish hands has justified their suspicions. But hatred was not the motive which inspired them. Nor was it purely patriotism, as it would have been had they fought on Australian soil. The love of country in Australians and New Zealanders was intense – how strong, they did not realise until they were far away from their home. Nor, in most cases was the motive their loyalty to the tie between Australia and Great Britain. Although, singly or combined, all these were powerful influences, they were not the chief. Nor was it the desire for fame that made them steer their course so straight in the hour of crucial trial. They knew too well the chance that their families, possibly even the men beside them, would never know how they died. Doubtless the weaker were swept on by the stronger. In every army which enters into battle there is a part which is dependent for its resolution upon the nearest strong man. If he endures, those around him will endure; if he turns, they turn; if he falls, they may become confused. But the Australian force contained more than its share of men who were masters of their own minds and decisions. What was the dominant motive that impelled them? It lay in the mettle of the men themselves. To be the sort of man who would give way when his mates were trusting to his firmness; to be the sort of man who would fail when the line, the whole force, and the allied cause required his endurance; to have made it necessary for another unit to do his own unit’s work; to live the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that he had set his hand to a soldier’s task and had lacked the grit to carry it through – that was the prospect which these men could not face. Life was very dear, but life was not worth living unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood.

Before their chaise drew to a complete halt in front of the house a door was already being flung open, and a tall, stocky man was bouncing down the steps. “It would appear that our greeting here is going to be far more enthusiastic than the one we received at our last stop,” Elizabeth said in a resolute voice that still shook with nerves as she drew on her gloves, bravely preparing to meet and defy the next obstacle to her happiness and independence. The door of their chaise was wrenched open with enough force to pull it from its hinges, and a masculine face poked inside. “Lady Elizabeth!” boomed Lord Marchman, his face flushed with eagerness-or drink; Elizabeth wasn’t certain. “This is indeed a long-awaited surprise,” and then, as if dumbstruck by his inane remark, he shook his large head and hastily said, “A long-awaited pleasure, that is! The surprise is that you’ve arrived early.” Elizabeth firmly repressed a surge of compassion for his obvious embarrassment, along with the thought that he might be rather likeable. “I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you overmuch,” she said. “Not overmuch. That is,” he corrected, gazing into her wide eyes and feeling himself drowning, “not at all.” Elizabeth smiled and introduced “Aunt Berta,” then allowed their exuberant host to escort them up the steps. Beside her Berta whispered with some satisfaction, “I think he’s as nervous as I am.” The interior of the house seemed drab and rather gloomy after the sunny splendor outside. As their host led her forward Elizabeth glimpsed the furnishings in the salon and drawing room-all of which were upholstered in dark leathers that appeared to have once been maroon and brown. Lord Marchman, who was watching her closely and hopefully, glanced about and suddenly saw his home as she must be seeing it. Trying to explain away the inadequacies of his furnishings, he said hastily, “This home is in need of a woman’s touch. I’m an old bachelor, you see, as was my father.” Berta’s eyes snapped to his face. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed in outraged reaction to his apparent admission of being a bastard.” “I didn’t mean,” Lord Marchman hastily assured, “that my father was never married. I meant”-he paused to nervously tug on his neckcloth, as if trying to loosen it-“that my mother died when I was very young, and my father never remarried. We lived here together.” At the juncture of two hallways and the stairs Lord Marchman turned and looked at Berta and Elizabeth. “Would you care for refreshment, or would you rather go straight to bed?” Elizabeth wanted a rest, and she particularly wanted to spend as little time in his company as was possible. “The latter, if you please.” “In that case,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the staircase, “let’s go.” Berta let out a gasp of indignant outrage at what she perceived to be a clear indication that he was no better than Sir Francis. “Now see here, milord! I’ve been putting her in bed for nigh onto two score, and I don’t need help from the likes of you!” And then, as if she realized her true station, she ruined the whole magnificent effect by curtsying and adding in a servile whisper, “if you don’t mind, sir.” “Mind? No, I-“ It finally occurred to John Marchmen what she thought, and he colored up clear to the roots of his hair. “I-I only meant to show you how,” he began, and then he leaned his head back and briefly closed his eyes as if praying for deliverance from his own tongue. “How to find the way,” he finished with a gusty sigh of relief. Elizabeth was secretly touched by his sincerity and his awkwardness, and were the situation less threatening, she would have gone out of her way to put him at his ease.

Stand firm in the faith The next charge is to stand firm. A common theme of leadership is the need to be steadfast and stable. Be resolute, especially in your convictions. Plant your feet shoulder length apart so that you can’t be easily blown off course. But stand firm in the faith. Stand on what is solid (Matthew 7:24- 27). Take a stand on the rock of absolute truth in a sandy world without absolutes. To stand firm in the faith you have to know the faith. You have to be grounded in the scriptures. You have to be truth-driven, scripture- soaked and washed. You have to know and articulate the Gospel. You’re only able to stand firm and put off the fear of man when you are informed by the fear of God. You need a dogged tenacity, a voraciousness for the truth of the word of God marked by a red-hot devotional life. Ransack your Bible, tear through it with urgency and let it work your soul out and work into the DNA of who you are. You need that spiritual stability. Remember how Jesus responded when he was tempted by Satan — He went to scripture. Again and again He said, “It is written...” To stand firm in the faith, you have be able to call on scripture when you’re under attack. Think of it in the context of hand to hand combat in the military. When you’re standing firm, you’re able to take a punch. You’ve got your dukes up. You’re alert and watching. You’re dodging and weaving. You’re steady and able to fight. That’s the picture Paul’s giving. In his letter to the Ephesians, he adds the context of doing this in the “whole armor of God”: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God,” he writes, “that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Eph. 6:13).

It is clear that the confidence that the psalmist expresses is a divine confidence. He did not say, “I have enough grace to perfect that which concerns me—my faith is so steady that it will not falter—my love is so warm that it will never grow cold—my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it.” No, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we display a confidence that is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream; it will fall upon us and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. The

Four on two sounds like long odds; add darkness, a need for quick resolution, and our adversaries’ firmness of purpose, and I can only claim youth and chivalric love to explain my determination. In retrospect, I wonder if I was off my head.

The prospects of large, well-established firms have less uncertainty, so their stocks prices are generally more reflective of actual prospects than of optimistic prospects. For example, the business potential of General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and Intel are well known and leave little room for a high degree of optimism and pessimism. For firms with a high degree of uncertainty, optimists tend to set the stock price until that uncertainty is resolved. This resolution usually includes a downward revision of optimism and a decline in the stock price.

Our cleaving to them, and having their God for our God and their people for our people, depends on our resolution and choice; and that in two respects. 1. The firmness of resolution in using means in order to it, is the way to have means effectual. There are means appointed in order to our becoming some of the true Israel and having their God for our God; and the thorough use of these means is the way to have success; but not a slack or slighty use of them.

Boyd continued, “They had brought with them a large Federal flag, which they were now preparing to hoist over our roof in token of our submission to their authority; but to this my mother would not consent. Stepping forward with a firm step, she said, very quietly, but resolutely, "Men, every member of my household will die before that flag shall be raised over us." Upon this, one of the soldiers, thrusting himself forward, addressed my mother and myself in language as offensive as it is possible to conceive.” In

The man's face was round, but only at first sight, for a strong, sharp jaw was nearly hidden by a multitude of chins, his high cheekbones were hardly noticeable, they looked so round and ruddy, and the firm, resolute line of his mouth was concealed by full lips and the languid smile of a man who possessed great wealth and little happiness.

In answer to what has long been awaited, the government in Brussels will announce before Parliament today a program of reforms which will open a decisive period for the future of our African population. I feel that i owe it to the memory of my illustrious predecessors, the founders and conciliators of our enterprise in Africa, to acquaint you personally with the charter and spirit of this program. The purpose of our presence on the African continent was defined by Leopold Ii: To open the backward countries to European civilization, summon their populations to emancipation, to freedom and to progress after having freed them from slavery, disease and misery, continuing these lofty aims, our firm resolution, today is to lead the Congolese people without harmful procrastination, but also without thoughtless haste toward independence, in prosperity and peace.

Descartes arrives at four precepts that “would prove perfectly sufficient for me, provided I took the firm and unwavering resolution never in a single instance to fail in observing them.” They amount to a kind of diagram for how to think. He writes: The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such … to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution. The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence. And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.

Don't be complacent; be firm but be slow. Stand resolute in your growth, yet approach yourself with the patience of slow change. Be grounded, yet gentle through each step toward who you wish to become, for true transformation honors the time it takes.

Take a lesson from the carpenter, who, when he wishes to drive a large nail, is not satisfied with giving it a few strokes, but continues hammering until he is sure it is firmly fastened. You must imitate him, if you would firmly implant this resolution in your soul. Be not satisfied with renewing it from time to time, but daily take advantage of all the opportunities afforded you in meditation, in reading, in what you see or hear, to fix this horror of sin more deeply in your soul.

The standard God sets up in our interior ‘nations’ and tendencies is the gift and grace spoken of in the first part of this Letter, which is given to beginners who ask God for it with faith and a firm resolution to seek him. If you have not this gift, brother, beg it of our Lord, who will grant it you at once to incite you to seek and go to him. Do not complain that it is lacking to you; it would be truer to complain that you are lacking in correspondence to it. We fail God, who fails no one who seeks him faithfully,

We have to be firmly rooted in Him before we can be built up in Him

To be set free by you, Jesus, is to be free indeed (John 8:36). I will certainly enjoy the pageantry, food, and fun of the Fourth of July this week. But I will resolutely stand firm, for the rest of my life, in the freedom for which you have set us free. I praise you, Jesus, that I am free from the guilt of my sin, for you took my place on the cross, exhausting the judgment I deserve. I praise you for freedom over the power of sin, for you have broken its dominion in my life. I praise you for freedom from the fear of death, for you removed its sting and robbed the grave of its victory.

He had known from the moment he saw her that she was dangerous, but he’d had no idea how lethal. She had pulled feelings to the surface that he thought he’d been in control of and now it was here—he felt it all and he was completely lost. Terrified. He adored her. He couldn’t stand the thought of this ending. He had felt something almost this deep and powerful once before, when he was much younger. He had been twenty-four when he found the beautiful, raven-haired Felicia. In her arms, in her body, he had come to life. He’d never fallen so hard before, and certainly not since. He had been surprised by the passion and commitment he felt, but he let it sweep him away. He loved her hard for a year, and then he had to leave on a mission. He went to Somalia. When the conflict was at its worst, it was her face in his mind that helped him get through, gave him purpose, something strong and powerful to fight for. He had pledged his life to her; he was going to love her till the day he died. When he got home he found out it had all been a lie; she had never been his. She’d been unfaithful since before he left; she cut him loose the first day he was back. It had been an ugly, bitter parting that left everyone scarred—mostly him. To say his heart was ripped apart didn’t touch it. For a couple of years at least the pain was so bad he thought it might kill him. When the pain stopped, he was empty inside. He made a firm resolution: that would never happen to him again. His involvement with women was purely recreational from that point on. He wasn’t about to be vulnerable to a woman, open himself to that kind of pain. Yet beside him, all gentle and sweet, was an incredible woman. He wanted to pull her into his arms, tell her how much he loved her, how far he’d go to make her happy, beg her to either change her plans or include him. But he wouldn’t. It was too risky. Another deal like the last one would kill him. He wouldn’t give his heart. The problem was, without meaning to, without wanting to, he had. *

Mr. Golyadkin even forgot to repeat at every suitable occasion with his characteristic firmness and resolution his favourite phrase that “it all, maybe, most likely, indeed, might turn out for the best.

The low-trust, family-oriented societies with weak intermediate organizations we have observed have all been characterized by a similar saddle-shaped distribution of enterprises. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy, and France have a host of smaller private firms that constitute the entrepreneurial core of their economies and a small number of very large, state-owned firms at the other end of the scale. In such societies, the state plays an important role in promoting large-scale enterprises that might not be spontaneously created by the private sector, albeit at some cost in efficiency. We might postulate then that as a general rule, any society with weak intermediate institutions and low trust outside the family will tend to have a similar distribution of firms in its economy. The Republic of Korea, however, presents an apparent anomaly that needs to be explained in order to preserve the validity of the larger argument. Korea is similar to Japan, Germany, and the United States insofar as it has very large corporations and a highly concentrated industrial structure. On the other hand, Korea is much closer to China than to Japan in terms of family structure. Families occupy a similarly important place in Korea as in China, and there are no Japanese-style mechanisms in Korean culture for bringing outsiders into family groups. Following the Chinese pattern, this should lead to small family businesses and difficulties in institutionalizing the corporate form of organization. The answer to this apparent paradox is the role of the Korean state, which deliberately promoted gigantic conglomerates as a development strategy in the 1960s and 1970s and overcame what would otherwise have been a cultural proclivity for the small- and medium-size enterprises typical of Taiwan. While the Koreans succeeded in creating large companies and zaibatsu in the manner of Japan, they have nonetheless encountered many Chinese-style difficulties in the nature of corporate governance, from management succession to relations on the shop floor. The Korean case shows, however, how a resolute and competent state can shape industrial structure and

But I'm afraid to sleep!" Whispered Trista. "What if I fall to pieces before I wake up? What if tomorrow I'm just a pile of leaves and sticks tucked under a blanket? What if this is the last time I've got left, and I waste it all being asleep, then wake up dead?" For a moment Violet looked conflicted. Then her jaw set, and she took Trista by the shoulders. "You won't," she said gently but firmly. "I'll make sure you don't. I'll be watching you sleep. And if your hair starts to turn into leaves, or anything like that, I'll wake you up." "You promise?" Trista felt the icy, titanic force of her terror recede a step or two. "You... you won't leave me when I sleep and go out?" "I promise," said Violet, with a firmness in her tone that allowed no doubt. Her dark grey eyes were resolute as flint.

Rebellious"™ You're a barefoot odyssey, perched on a granite counter. Perched on edgeless intensity and arched reasoning. Why do I succumb to valiant persuasions? Just shatter me with your mammoth reality, break me into shards you think will clatter. But, I'm not made of material gravity I'm a symphony of notes looking to burst free! Call me lyrical, call it mercy, call this poetic justice and end my dispassionate existence so criminal. Bang your gavel against my criminalistic loins, I'm guilty of animalistic tendencies and tamed to humanoid inadequacies. I can shatter you in all aspects, and put you back in form in all retrospectives. I do not care to mold you into material to use as an art plateau. My hilly curves canvas's your mighty sword, burst free! Sing to me! Write me your lies. I beckon to endure your truths passionately, injustice webbed upon us is it poetic? Or law abiding? Where will it begin? Where will it end? Time has frozen around me, and all I can think of is this consumption of you. Wholely intoxicating, and wholely seductive. And I can't decide; When your limbs are apart and pinned displayed like a canvas to be ravaged, will you be entirely vulnerable to my demonstrations? Or will you swallow me whole? Swallow you, wallow in you... I'm invaded by your touch. Caught up! Caught up! Caught up! So caught up to us. I say; just lay down my body, tie up my mind, spank my assets, kisses so low and divine. This hasn't yet fully begun, and for sure won't end soon. So meet in our place of desire this noon, when footsteps cross the moon. Darkness descends during daylight when I draw the curtains tight, shutting out the world that claims our time. Now you're mine, you can't escape me, you can't escape this! I won't let you! Now you're a convoluted odyssey subdued by ministration firm, tender, meticulous, smitten, sensitized and shackled. You're a richly tainted taste of sin. A resolute candle of insatiable inspiration. Whose wick lit quick, whose burn smoulders on. Lights out, darkness nears and you burn within me. If I'm a sin, get on bended knees. Prey on me, and you're forgiven. To hell with Mary I want to cum quick see? Rebel no more, we've found retribution! Call it retribution, call it mercy, call this poetic justice, call this confession. I want the marks of your claws to escort me out the door. I want the ruthless indulgence of rebellion tattooed across your psyche! Exhale my name, and blow the flame out! I'll lay and lay som more, till the next time my rebellious lover comes through the door...

When those that we have formerly been conversant with, are turning to God, and joining themselves to his people, it ought to be our firm resolution, that we will not leave them; but that their people shall be our people, and their God our God. It

It should be our firm and inflexible resolution in such a case that it shall be no parting, but that we will follow them, that their people shall be our people, and their God our God; and that for the following reasons: I. Because their God is a glorious God.

His soul, filled with ecstasy, thirsted for freedom, space, latitude. Above him wide and boundless keeled the cupola of the heavens, full of quiet, brilliant stars. Doubled from zenith to horizon ran the Milky Way, as yet unclear. The cool night, quiet to the point of fixity, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral sparkled in the sapphire sky. In the flowerbeds luxuriant autumn flowers had fallen asleep until morning. The earth’s silence seemed to fuse with that of the heavens, the earth’s mystery came into contact with that of the stars … Alyosha stood, looked and suddenly cast himself down upon the earth like one who has had the legs cut from under him. Why he embraced it he did not know, he did not try to explain to himself why he so desperately wanted to kiss it, kiss it, all of it, but weeping he kissed it, sobbing and drenching it with his tears, and frenziedly he swore to love it, love it until the end of the ages. ‘Drench the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears of yours …’ resounded in his soul. What did he weep about? Oh, he wept in his ecstasy even about those stars that shone to him out of the abyss, and ‘was not ashamed of this frenzy’. As though threads from all these countless of God’s worlds had all coincided within his soul at once, and it trembled all over, in ‘the contiguity with other worlds’. He wanted to forgive all creatures for all things and to ask forgiveness, oh, not for himself, but for all persons, all creatures and all things, while ‘others asked the same for me’ – resounded again in his soul. But with each moment that passed he felt plainly and almost palpably that something as firm and unshakeable as this celestial vault was descending into his soul. Something that was almost an idea took mastery of his intellect – and now for the rest of his life and until the end of the ages. A feeble youth had he fallen to the earth, yet now he arose a resolute warrior for the rest of his life and knew and felt this suddenly, at that same moment of his ecstasy. And never, never for all the rest of his life would Alyosha be able to forget that moment. ‘Someone visited my soul in that hour,’ he would say later with resolute faith in his words …

Bea found his superiority so insufferable, she could not hold back her speech despite making a firm resolution before dinner to say nothing untoward that might upset her aunt during the meal.

I am firmly of the view that this societal fixation on forgiving others is just another way that we bypass our own rightful anger, confusion, sense of loss. It is also a way that victims end up feeling blamed for their experience. I do agree that we can’t forgive another until we self-honor, and that forgiveness is welcome if it's organic, but I also believe that forgiveness may have no place in certain dynamics. And that’s entirely okay. Forgiveness is not a measure of our emotional health and well-being. Resolution is. That is, how we come to a relatively resolved understanding of what we went through, how we come to terms with what it was, in a way that brings us to a deeper understanding and peace…Resolution of process, is where it’s at. And there is no reason to feel guilty if forgiveness does not arise within it. It’s enough to find peace in the aftermath.

Abdulaziz responded by calling his third national conference in less than a year. The meeting was held in September 1929 at Ash Sha’ra between Riyadh and Mecca, and this time it was decisive. The king sought and received firm public support for harsh retribution against Daweesh and his followers. The resolution stated that those who revolted would now be tried and punished as common criminals according to Islamic law for the deaths they had caused. Anyone giving them aid would have their property confiscated.26 Those living in the “corrupted” Ikhwan camps would be evicted. This was the turning point in Saudi Arabian history that established the supremacy of the central government over the tribes. Those who supported the old ways were now outlaws, not holy warriors. Nothing like this had ever happened in Arabia before—and still has not happened in either Yemen or Afghanistan.

it had taken years before their affair was truly over. You had to really cultivate an ending. To get it to last, you had to kneel and tend to the burial ground, continuously firming your resolution.

..women are more complicated when it comes to their affections: They rarely love simply for what it is-- but for what it might be, and more importantly, how it might affect them. This is why a woman will endure a great deal of abuse in love-- as long as she believes there is something to be gained. But when a woman sees that a man can no longer help her, when his actions become detrimental to her lifestyle, she can fall out of love as suddenly and as firmly as an apple falling from a tree. There is no putting the apple back on the tree, just as there is no going back in love. Her heart closes against the man as resolutely as if he had never existed.

Whatever I can do to assist in your – or any other firm’s – hiring of Mr. Napp I will accomplish with resolution and zeal.

Let’s look at how some successful brands we all know about have positioned the purchasing of their products as the resolution to external, internal, and philosophical problems: TESLA MOTOR CARS: Villain: Gas guzzling, inferior technology External: I need a car. Internal: I want to be an early adopter of new technology. Philosophical: My choice of car ought to help save the environment. NESPRESSO HOME COFFEE MACHINES: Villain: Coffee machines that make bad coffee External: I want better-tasting coffee at home. Internal: I want my home coffee machine to make me feel sophisticated. Philosophical: I shouldn’t have to be a barista to make a gourmet coffee at home. EDWARD JONES FINANCIAL PLANNING: Villain: Financial firms that don’t listen to their customers External: I need investment help. Internal: I’m confused about how to do this (especially with all the tech-driven resources out there). Philosophical: If I’m going to invest my money, I deserve an advisor who will thoughtfully explain things in person.

Resolutely and firmly I repeated what I said—‘Come to New York with me; I’ve got the money.’ I looked at him; my eyes were watering with embarrassment and tears. Still he stared at me. Now his eyes were blank and looking through me. It was probably the pivotal point of our friendship when he realized I had actually spent some hours thinking about him and his troubles, and he was trying to place that in his tremendously involved and tormented mental categories.

In Calvinism my heart has found rest. From Calvinism have I drawn the inspiration firmly and resolutely to take my stand in the thick of this great conflict of principles.

Three American business school professors decided to find out. In a first-of-its-kind study, they analyzed more than 26,000 earnings calls from more than 2,100 public companies over six and a half years using linguistic algorithms similar to the ones employed in the Twitter study. They examined whether the time of day influenced the emotional tenor of these critical conversations—and, as a consequence, perhaps even the price of the company’s stock. Calls held first thing in the morning turned out to be reasonably upbeat and positive. But as the day progressed, the “tone grew more negative and less resolute.” Around lunchtime, mood rebounded slightly, probably because call participants recharged their mental and emotional batteries, the professors conjectured. But in the afternoon, negativity deepened again, with mood recovering only after the market’s closing bell. Moreover, this pattern held “even after controlling for factors such as industry norms, financial distress, growth opportunities, and the news that companies were reporting.”8 In other words, even when the researchers factored in economic news (a slowdown in China that hindered a company’s exports) or firm fundamentals (a company that reported abysmal quarterly earnings), afternoon calls “were more negative, irritable, and combative” than morning calls.9 Perhaps more important, especially for investors, the time of the call and the subsequent mood it engendered influenced companies’ stock prices. Shares declined in response to negative tone—again, even after adjusting for actual good news or bad news—“leading to temporary stock mispricing for firms hosting earnings calls later in the day.” While the share prices eventually righted themselves, these results are remarkable. As the researchers note, “call participants represent the near embodiment of the idealized homo economicus.” Both the analysts and the executives know the stakes. It’s not merely the people on the call who are listening. It’s the entire market. The wrong word, a clumsy answer, or an unconvincing response can send a stock’s price spiraling downward, imperiling the company’s prospects and the executives’ paychecks. These hardheaded businesspeople have every incentive to act rationally, and I’m sure they believe they do. But economic rationality is no match for a biological clock forged during a few million years of evolution. Even “sophisticated economic agents acting in real and highly incentivized settings are influenced by diurnal rhythms in the performance of their professional duties.

What is here required from the higher powers of the mind is a sense of unity, and a judgment raised to such a compass as to give the mind an extraordinary faculty of vision which in its range allays and sets aside a thousand dim notions which an ordinary understanding could only bring to light with great effort, and over which it would exhaust itself. But this higher activity of the mind, this glance of genius, would still not become matter of history if the qualities of temperament and character of which we have treated did not give it their support. Truth alone is but a weak motive of action with men, and hence there is always a great difference between knowing and action, between science and art. The man receives the strongest impulse to action through the feelings, and the most powerful succour, if we may use the expression, through those faculties of heart and mind which we have considered under the terms of resolution, firmness, perseverance, and force of character.

Saving Saboteurs from Themselves John Henry, a senior management consultant with one of the world’s largest firms, advises a diverse portfolio of senior executive clients and boards. Though he’s found that the social dynamics impeding productive work are often the same wherever he goes, it can be difficult to broach the topic without raising his clients’ hackles. That’s why he keeps a copy of the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a set of guidelines devised by U.S. government officials to sabotage terrorist organizations from the inside, in his briefcase. Originally developed by the OSS during World War II, the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is a guide for, as the CIA puts it, “teaching people how to do their jobs badly.” Here’s a sample of some of the tactics our nation’s best intelligence officers recommend you use to undermine the operations and efficiency of a terrorist cell—or a typical American board meeting: When possible, refer all matters to committees for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible—no fewer than five people. Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Haggle over the precise wording of communications, minutes, resolutions. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision.

I’m a firm believer that the international community must boycott Israel and pursue it for war crimes in the international courts. I also believe that the only possible and acceptable resolution at this point is a one-state solution. My vision is for us to live in a single democratic state where everyone is equal, Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Judaism is a religion, just like Islam. It is a different way of worshipping the same God we call Allah, and we respect that. But Zionism is a political ideology that says Judaism is not only a religion, but primarily a nationality—and that it needs a country. Not just any country, but our country, and that it needs this country to be for Jews alone. Zionism has taken our country, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have lived for centuries, and made it a country that is ruled by and for Jews alone.