“
To tell the truth, I couldn't care less about the relativity of knowledge, simply because the world does not deserve to be known.
”
”
Emil M. Cioran (On the Heights of Despair)
“
There are people who are destined to taste only the poison in things, for whom any surprise is a painful surprise and any experience a new occasion for torture. if someone were to say to me that such suffering has subjective reasons, related to the individual's particular makeup, i would then ask; is there an objective criterion for evaluating suffering? who can say with precision that my neighbor suffers more than i do or that jesus suffered more than all of us? there is no objective standard because suffering cannot be measured according to the external stimulation or local irritation of the organism, but only as it is felt and reflected in consciousness. alas, from this point of view, any hierarchy is out of the question. each person remains with his own suffering, which he believes absolute and unlimited. how much would we diminish our own personal suffering if we were to compare it to all the world's sufferings until now, to the most horrifying agonies and the most complicated tortures, the mostcruel deaths and the most painful betrayals, all the lepers, all those burned alive or starved to death? nobody is comforted in his sufferings by the thought that we are all mortals, nor does anybody who suffers really find comfort in the past or present suffering of others. because in this organically insufficient and fragmentary world, the individual is set to live fully, wishing to make of his own existence an absolute.
”
”
Emil M. Cioran (On the Heights of Despair)
“
To gain height, lose all your tall friends.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you. But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Luna and the Lie)
“
We essentially had to build a docking mechanism between the two capsules. We didn't have to share a lot of data, and we did that at the height of the Cold War, which was pretty symbolic." –Bill Gerstenmaier
”
”
Ron Garan (The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles)
“
Literature is, to my mind, the great teaching power of the world, the ultimate creator of all values, and it is this, not only in the sacred books whose power everybody acknowledges, but by every movement of imagination in song or story or drama that height of intensity and sincerity has made literature at all. Literature must take the responsibility of its power, and keep all its freedom: it must be like the spirit and like the wind that blows where it listeth; it must claim its right to pierce through every crevice of human nature, and to descrive the relation of the soul and the heart to the facts of life and of law, and to describe that relation as it is, not as we would have it be...
”
”
W.B. Yeats
“
I am sitting down to write in a state of some confusion; I have been reading a lot of different things that are merging into one another, and if one hopes to find a solution for oneself by this kind of reading, one is mistaken; one comes up against a wall, and cannot proceed. Your life is so very different, dearest. Except in relation to your fellow men, have you ever known uncertainty? Have you ever observed how, within yourself and independent of other people, diverse possibilities open up in several directions, thereby actually creating a ban on your every movement? Have you ever, without giving the slightest thought to anyone else, been in despair simply about yourself? Desperate enough to throw yourself on the ground and remain there beyond the Day of Judgment? How devout are you? You go to the synagogue; but I dare say you have not been recently. And what is it that sustains you, the idea of Judaism or of God? Are you aware, and this is the most important thing, of a continuous relationship between yourself and a reassuringly distant, if possibly infinite height or depth? He who feels this continuously has no need to roam about like a lost dog, mutely gazing around with imploring eyes; he never need yearn to slip into a grave as if it were a warm sleeping bag and life a cold winter night; and when climbing the stairs to his office he never need imagine that he is careering down the well of the staircase, flickering in the uncertain light, twisting from the speed of his fall, shaking his head with impatience. There are times, dearest, when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.
”
”
Franz Kafka (Letters to Felice)
“
And a man who is six feet three in height has six feet and three inches of evil to do battle with, if he has not six feet three of strength and honesty to fight for him.
”
”
Frances Hodgson Burnett (His Grace of Osmonde: Being the Portions of the Nobleman's Life Omitted in the Relation of His Lady's Story Presented to the World of Fashion)
“
It does appear that in some other cultures the work of motherhood is not left entirely up to one person the way it is here, so a baby can be handed around to many relatives, which gives the mother some blessed relief. Our society tends to elevate pregnancy and childbirth to unrealistic romantic heights then leave women on their own to struggle with the task, making them wonder what they are doing wrong when at times it all seems too much.
”
”
Robin Barker (Baby Love)
“
Mia stood between the bed and the broken window, holding an active plasma blade at waist-height in front of her. A thick coat of blood stained the plasma nearly from hilt to tip, hissing as it dribbled from blade to floor.
“Are you all right?”
Mia gave her a wan, distant smile. “It’s okay. I’ve done it before.
”
”
G.S. Jennsen (Relativity (Aurora Resonant, #1))
“
Art is at present the only construction complete unto itself, about which nothing more can be said, it is such richness, vitality, sense, wisdom. Understanding, seeing. Describing a flower: relative poetry more or less paper flower. Seeing.
…We want to make men realize afresh that the one unique fraternity exists in the moment of intensity when the beautiful and life itself are concentrated on the height of a wire rising toward a burst of light, a blue trembling linked to the earth by our magnetic gazes covering the peaks with snow. The miracle. I open my heart to creation.
”
”
Tristan Tzara
“
This was fresh, rich, heavenly, succulent, soft, creamy, kiss-my-ass, cows-gotta-die-for-this, delightfully salty, moo-ass, good old white folks cheese, cheese to die for, cheese to make you happy, cheese to beat the cheese boss, cheese for the big cheese, cheese to end the world, cheese so good it inspired a line every first Saturday of the month: mothers, daughters, fathers, grandparents, disabled in wheelchairs, kids, relatives from out of town, white folks from nearby Brooklyn Heights, and even South American workers from the garbage-processing plant on Concord Avenue, all patiently standing in a line that stretched from the interior of Hot Sausage’s boiler room to Building 17’s outer doorway, up the ramp to the sidewalk, curling around the side of the building and to the plaza near the flagpole.
”
”
James McBride (Deacon King Kong)
“
YOU CAN ARGUE that all fear is related to death. Fear of spiders? You’re really afraid of being bitten and killed. Fear of heights? Falling to your death. Fear of flying? Crashing. Snakes, fire—you get it.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Book of Two Ways)
“
This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics," as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier" - techniques I am, as one who received his formation in the 1930s, untutored. A colleague has offered to provide a mathematical model to decorate the work. It might be useful to some readers, but not to me. Catastrophe mathematics, dealing with such events as falling off a height, is a new branch of the discipline, I am told, which has yet to demonstrate its rigor or usefulness. I had better wait. Econometricians among my friends tell me that rare events such as panics cannot be dealt with by the normal techniques of regression, but have to be introduced exogenously as "dummy variables." The real choice open to me was whether to follow relatively simple statistical procedures, with an abundance of charts and tables, or not. In the event, I decided against it. For those who yearn for numbers, standard series on bank reserves, foreign trade, commodity prices, money supply, security prices, rate of interest, and the like are fairly readily available in the historical statistics.
”
”
Charles P. Kindleberger (Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises)
“
This was possibly the first time anyone had used the phrase "too cerebral" when describing Pinky's advertising. Because someone somewhere in the Pinky's marketing scheme had made the brilliant connection that sub sandwiches are vaguely phallic. And from that, all the penis-related Pinky sub campaigns were born.
Like the commercial where you see the guy standing from the back, and then a woman in front of him, and she says, "Nine inches????" in this insane lusty voice, and then they pan to the side and show he's holding a Pinky sub right at groin height? It's the worst. It is literally the worst. I'm a cog in the world's dumbest corporate sandwich machine.
”
”
Emma Mills (Foolish Hearts)
“
But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
Another study that winds up in half the textbooks makes the same point, if more subtly. The subjects of the “experiment” were children reared in two different orphanages in Germany after World War II. Both orphanages were run by the government; thus there were important controls in place—the kids in both had the same general diet, the same frequency of doctors’ visits, and so on. The main identifiable difference in their care was the two women who ran the orphanages. The scientists even checked them, and their description sounds like a parable. In one orphanage was Fräulein Grun, the warm, nurturing mother figure who played with the children, comforted them, and spent all day singing and laughing. In the other was Fräulein Schwarz, a woman who was clearly in the wrong profession. She discharged her professional obligations, but minimized her contact with the children; she frequently criticized and berated them, typically among their assembled peers. The growth rates at the two orphanages were entirely different. Fräulein Schwarz’s kids grew in height and weight at a slower pace than the kids in the other orphanage. Then, in an elaboration that couldn’t have been more useful if it had been planned by a scientist, Fräulein Grun moved on to greener pastures and, for some bureaucratic reason, Fräulein Schwarz was transferred to the other orphanage. Growth rates in her former orphanage promptly increased; those in her new one decreased.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping)
“
A species of willow developed that does not grow vertically upwards, like it's European and American relatives. To do so would to risk being flattened by the ferocious Artic wind. Instead it grows horizontally, keeping close to the ground. Even in the most favorable circumstances it seldom exceeds four inches in height. But it may become as long as some if it's southern relatives are tall. When you walk across a carpet of such prostrate tree, you are, in effect walking over a woodland canopy.
”
”
David Attenborough (The Private Life of Plants)
“
All the experiments led to one unifying conclusion: The overall structure, the shape, the pattern, of any animal is as real a part of its body as are its cells, heart, limbs, or teeth. Living things are called organisms because of the overriding importance of organization, and each part of the pattern somehow contains the information as to what it is in relation to the whole. The ability of this pattern to maintain itself reaches its height in the newts, mud puppies, and other amphibians collectively called salamanders.
”
”
Robert O. Becker (The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life)
“
There is one type of scientific illustration in which this effect of scale on impression is acknowledged officially, as it were. Geographers who draw sections of mountain ranges will exaggerate the relation of height to width according to a stated proportion. They have found that a true rendering of vertical relationship looks false. Our mind refuses to accept the fact that the distance of 28,000 feet to which Mount Everest soars from sea level is no more than the distance of just over 5 miles which a car traverses in a matter of minutes.
”
”
E.H. Gombrich (Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation)
“
True prayer is not only of the mouth, it is of the heart, that is, of the whole being. It is a cry de profundis, out of the deep. There is a correspondence between the depths of the heart and the heights of heaven, understood not in a physical sense but in the sense of a 'beyond' in relation to the centre.
”
”
Olivier Clément (Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from Patristic Era with Commentary)
“
The color of the emitted light depends on the relative heights of the starting and ending energy levels. A crash between closely spaced levels (such as two and one) releases a pulse of low-energy reddish light, while a crash between more widely spaced levels (say, five and two) releases high-energy purple light.
”
”
Sam Kean (The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements)
“
The tallest adults are the ones who had the most childhood and adolescent growth before puberty started; puberty typically tacks on a standard nine inches, and then the game's over. "The children who are going to be the biggest adults are those who are tall by age one or two, and have a relatively late puberty," says Rosenfeld.
”
”
Arianne Cohen (The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High)
“
It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of these wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages. You must surely have seen instances enough of that frailty. You have yourself heard many such marvellous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at last been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be assured, that those renowned lies, which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
“
All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skillful, and in doing this they have what the want of skill is. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one the other; that length and shortness fashion out the one the figure of the other; that height and lowness arise from the contrast of the one with the other; that the musical notes and tones become harmonious through the relation of one with another; and that being before and behind give the idea of one following another. Therefore the enlightened security guard manages affairs without doing anything. All things spring up, and there is not one which declines to show itself; they grow, and there is no claim made for their ownership; they go through their processes, and there is no expectation. The work is accomplished, and there is no resting in it. The work is done, but how no one can see; 'Tis this that makes the power not cease to be
”
”
Lao Tzu
“
Only a few days after my encounter with the police, two patrolmen tackled Alton Sterling onto a car, then pinned him down on the ground and shot him in the chest while he was selling CDs in front of a convenience store, seventy-five miles up the road in Baton Rouge. A day after that, Philando Castile was shot in the passenger seat of his car during a police traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, as his girlfriend recorded the aftermath via Facebook Live.
Then, the day after Castile was killed, five policemen were shot dead by a sniper in Dallas. It felt as if the world was subsumed by cascades of unceasing despair. I mourned for the family and friends of Sterling and Castille. I felt deep sympathy for the families of the policemen who died. I also felt a real fear that, as a result of what took place in Dallas, law enforcement would become more deeply entrenched in their biases against black men, leading to the possibility of even more violence.
The stream of names of those who have been killed at the hands of the police feels endless, and I become overwhelmed when I consider all the names we do not know—all of those who lost their lives and had no camera there to capture it, nothing to corroborate police reports that named them as threats. Closed cases. I watch the collective mourning transpire across my social-media feeds. I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is meant to function. This sense of anxiety is something I have become unsettlingly accustomed to. The familiar knot in my stomach. The tightness in my chest. But becoming accustomed to something does not mean that it does not take a toll. Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.
”
”
Clint Smith
“
At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I propose that egoism belongs to the nature of a noble soul, I mean that unshakable faith that to a being such as 'we are' other beings must be subordinate by nature and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts this fact of its egoism without any question mark, without a feeling that it might contain hardness, constraint, or caprice, but rather as something that may be founded in the primordial law of things: if it sought a name for this fact it would say ‘it is justice itself.’ Perhaps it admits under certain circumstances, which, at first, make it hesitate, that there are some who have rights equal to its own; as soon as this matter of rank is settled, it moves among these equals, with their equal privileges, showing the same sureness of modesty and delicate reverence that characterize its relations with itself – in accordance with an innate heavenly mechanism, understood by all stars. It is merely another aspect of its egoism, this refinement and self-limitation in its relations with its equals – every star is such an egoist – it honors itself in them, and in the rights it cedes to them; it does not doubt that the exchange of honors and rights is of the nature of all social relations, and thus also belongs to the natural condition of things.
The noble soul gives as it takes from that passionate and irritable instinct of repayment that lies in its depth. The concept of grace has no meaning or good odor inter pares; there may be a sublime way to let presents from above happen to one, as it were, and to drink them up thirstily, like drops, but for this art and gesture the noble soul has no aptitude. Its egoism hinders it: quite generally it does not like to look 'up,' but either ahead , horizontally and slowly, or down: it knows itself to be at a height.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
“
Sup, guys,” Will said. “This is your new brother, Leo—um, what’s your last name?” “Valdez.” Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he’d always just had his mom—until she died. Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he’d never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming. None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You’d never think, Hey, look, it’s the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn’t have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
“
It seems to me that this is the method that must guide the actions of the Negro in the present crisis in race relations. Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. The Negro must work passionately and unrelentingly for full stature as a citizen, but he must not use inferior methods to gain it. He must never come to terms with falsehood, malice, hate, or destruction.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (King Legacy Book 1))
“
Qarun was every day swallowed by the earth the length of his height. 'Abd bin Humaid related from 'Ikrimah that when Qarun was being swallowed, Musa (Peace be upon him) was near him, and the former said, "O Musa, invoke your Lord to have mercy on me." Musa did not answer him, and Qarun was completely swallowed by the earth. Then Allah (the Exalted) revealed to Musa,: "He sought help from you, but you didn't help him. By My Honor and Might, had he said, 'My Lord,' I would have had mercy on him.
”
”
Abdul Malik Mujahid (Gems & Jewels)
“
I spent the rest of the film miserable, hardly seeing it. Or, rather, I was seeing it but in a wholly different way: not the ecstatic prodigy; not the mystic, the solitary, heroically quitting the concert stage at the height of his fame to retreat into the snows of Canada - but the hypochondriac, the recluse, the isolate. The paranoiac. The pill popper. No: the drug addict. The obsessive: glove-wearing, germ-phobic, bundled year round with scarves, twitching and racked with compulsions. The hunched nocturnal weirdo so unsure how to conduct even the most basic relations with people that (in an interview which I was suddenly finding torturous) he had asked a recording engineer if they couldn't go to a lawyer and legally be declared brothers - sort of the tragic, late-genius version of Tom Cable and me pressing cut thumbs in the darkened back-yard of his house, or - even more strangely - Boris seizing my hand, bloody at the knuckles where I'd punched him on the playground, and pressing it to his own bloodied mouth.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
“
Thanks largely to the attempts to integrate women into the armed forces of many modern countries, the physical differences between the sexes have been precisely measured.[296] One study found the average U.S. Army female recruit to be 12 centimeters shorter and 14.3 kilograms lighter than her male brethren. Compared to the average male recruit, females had 16.9 fewer kilograms of muscle and 2.6 more kilograms of fat, as well as 55 percent of the upper body strength and 72 percent of the lower body strength. Fat mass is inversely related to aerobic capacity and heat tolerance, hence women are also at a disadvantage when performing activities such as carrying heavy loads, working in the heat and running. Even when the samples were controlled for height, women possessed only 80 percent of the overall strength of men. Only the upper 20 percent of women could do as well physically as the lower 20 percent of men. Had the 100 strongest individuals out of a random group consisting of 100 men and 100 women been selected, 93 would be male and only seven female.[297] Yet another study showed gthat only the upper 5 percent of women are as strong as the median male.[298]
”
”
Martin van Creveld (The Privileged Sex)
“
As for the description, it might, like most other tabulated descriptions, have fitted tens of thousands of men. With most persons, recognition, even of an intimate, was based on the perception of vague, half-observed quantities which together formed a caricature significant more in its relation to the observer than to the observed. A short man, conscious of his lack of height, would describe a man of medium height as tall. For the ordinary business of hating and loving and getting from the cradle to the deathbed with the least possible discomfort, such caricatures were, no doubt, satisfactory.
”
”
Eric Ambler (A Coffin for Dimitrios (Charles Latimer #1))
“
Paris. Reuters News Agency informs us that the gigantic and entirely useless structure of iron rods with which the French intend to astound visitors to the Fifteenth World Fair has finally been completed. This dangerous project is causing justified anxiety among the inhabitants of Paris. How can this interminable factory chimney be allowed to tower over Paris, dwarfing all the marvelous monuments of the capital with its ridiculous height? Experienced engineers express concern about whether such a tall and relatively slim structure, erected on a foundation only a third of its own height, is capable of withstanding the pressure of the wind.
”
”
Boris Akunin (Special Assignments (Erast Fandorin Mysteries, #5))
“
The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you.
But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.
There’s a whole lot you don’t get a choice in, but there’s a whole lot more you do.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Luna and the Lie)
“
The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you. But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something. There’s a whole lot you don’t get a choice in, but there’s a whole lot more you do.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Luna and the Lie)
“
The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you.
But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.
There’s a whole lot you don’t get a choice in, but there’s a whole lot more you do.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Luna and the Lie)
“
... and for the first time in his life the possibility of death presented itself, not in relation to the living world, or any effect it might have on other people, but purely in relation to himself and his own soul, and it seemed so vivid, almost a dependable certainty, stark and terrible. And from the heights of this vision everything that had once tormentingly preoccupied him seemed suddenly bathed in a cold, white light with no shadows, no perspective, no outline. His whole life seemed like a magic-lantern show that he had been staring at through glass by artificial light. Now suddenly the glass was gone, and he could see those awful daubings in the clear light of day. 'Yes, yes, here they are, these false images that I used to find so worrying, enthralling and agonizing,' he told himself, giving his imagination a free rein to run over the main pictures in the magic lantern of his life, looked anew in the cold, white daylight brought on by a clear vision of death. 'Here they are, these crudely daubed figures that used to seem so magnificent and mysterious. Honour and glory, philanthropy, love of a woman, love of Fatherland -- how grand these pictures used to seem, filled with such deep meanings! And now it all looks so simple, colourless and crude in the cold light of the morning I can feel coming upon me.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
“
The greatest heights of self-expression—in poetry, music, painting—are achieved by men who are supremely alone. And it is for this reason that the idea of ‘the beatific vision’ is easier for the artist to grasp than for anyone else. He has only to imagine his moment of ‘greatest aloneness’ intensified to a point where it would fill up his life and make all other relations impossible or unnecessary. They never are, of course, for the artist; his moments of highest inspiration leave him glad enough to get back to people, but at least he knows something of that complete independence of other human beings the theoretical existence of which most people prefer to doubt.
”
”
Colin Wilson
“
The doctrine of Relativity is carried to a fallacious pitch, when applied to prove that there must be something absolute, because the Relative must suppose the non- Relative. If there be Relation, it is said, there must be something Un-related, or above all relation. But Relation cannot in this way, be brought round on itself, except by a verbal juggle. Relation means that every conscious state has a correlative state ; which brings us at last to a couple (the subject-mind, and the object or extended world). This is the final end of all possible cognition. We may view the two facts separately or together; and we may call the conjunct view an Absolute (as Ferrier does), but this adds nothing to our knowledge. A self-contradiction is committed by inferring from * everything is relative,' that * something is non-relative.'
Fallacies of Relativity often arise in the hyperboles of Rhetoric. In order to reconcile to their lot the more humble class of manual labourers, the rhetorician proclaims the dignity of all labour, without being conscious that if all labour is dignified, none is ; dignity supposes inferior grades ; a mountain height is abolished if all the surrounding plains are raised to the level of its highest peak. So, in spurring men to industry and perseverance, examples of distinguished success are held up for universal imitation ; while, in fact, these cases owe their distinction to the general backwardness.
”
”
Alexander Bain (Logic: Deductive And Inductive)
“
It was a stick-figure drawing. Two people holding hands. A thin man in black and a girl, half his height with short hair, and wide eyes. The stick-girl’s head was cocked slightly, and a small red spot marked her arm. Three similar spots, no bigger than periods, dotted the stick-man’s chest. The stick-man’s mouth was nothing more than a faint grim line.
Beneath the drawing ran a single sentence: I made a friend.
Victor.
“You okay?”
Eli blinked, felt the cop’s hand on his arm. He slid free, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket before anyone could see or say otherwise…Eli went back the way he’d come. He didn’t stop, not until he was safely in his car. In the relative privacy of the side street in Merit, he pressed his hand against the drawing in his pocket, and a phantom pain started in his stomach.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (Vicious (Villains, #1))
“
Evil people relate more to the black pole. It's - this is not exact, of course, as the science of magic is as complex as the magic of electronics - it's like traveling past a mountain. The white pole is at the apex, and it is an exhilarating height, but it takes a lot of work and few missteps to ascend it. The black pole is at the nadir, and it is easy to walk downhill; sometimes you can just sit down and slide or roll and, if you fall, you can get there very fast indeed. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, you'll tend to go down, because it is the course of least resistance. Since the average person has only the vaguest notion where he is going and tends to shut out awareness of the consequence of evil, he inevitably drifts downward. There is much more space at the base of the mountain than at the peak!
”
”
Piers Anthony
“
We were a heap of living creatures, irritated, embarrassed at ourselves, we hadn't the slightest reason to be there, none of us, each one, confused, vaguely alarmed, felt in the way in relation to the others. *In the way*: it was the only relationship I could establish between these trees, these gates, these stones. In vain I tried *count* the chestnut trees, to *locate* them by their relationship to the Velleda, to compare their height with the height of the plane trees: each of them escaped the relationship in which I tried to enclose it, isolated itself, and overflowed. Of these relations (which I insisted on maintaining in order to delay the crumbling of the human world, measures, quantities, and directions) - I felt myself to be the arbitrator; they no longer had their teeth into things. *In the way*, the chestnut tree there, opposite me, a little to the left ...
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre (Nausea)
“
The bottom line is that not only are NBA players outlandishly tall, they are also preposterously long, even relative to their stature. And when an NBA player does not have the height required to fit into his slot in the athletic body types universe, he nearly always has the arm span to make up for it. In the post–Big Bang of body types era, whether with height or reach, almost no player makes the NBA without a functional size that is typical for his position and often on the fringe of humanity. Only two players from a 2010–11 NBA roster with available official measurements have arms shorter than their height. One is J. J. Redick, the Milwaukee Bucks guard who is 6'4" with a 6'3¼" arm span, downright Tyrannosaurus rex-ian in the NBA.* The other is now-retired Rockets center Yao Ming. But at a height just over 7'5", Yao, whose gargantuan parents were brought together for breeding purposes by the Chinese basketball federation, fit into his niche just fine.
”
”
David Epstein (The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance)
“
When my prince had fallen, the spirit ofthe depths opened my vision and let me become aware of the birth of the new God. The divine child approached me out of the terrible ambiguity, the hateful-beautiful, the evil-good, the laughable-serious, the
sick-healthy, the inhuman-human and the ungodly-godly.129
I understood that the Godl3o whom we seek in the absolute was not to be found in absolute beauty, goodness, seriousness,
elevation, humanity or even in godliness. Once the God was there. I understood that the new God would be in the relative. If the God is absolute beauty and goodness, how should he encompass the of life, which is beautiful and hateful, good and evil, laughable and serious, human and inhuman? How can man live in the womb of the God if the Godhead
himself attends only to one-half of him?131
If we have risen near the heights of good and evil, then our
badness and hatefulness lie in the most extreme torment. Man's torment is so great and the air of the heights so wealc that he can hardly live anymore. The good and the beautiful freeze to the ice of the absolute idea/32 and the bad and hateful become mud puddles full of crazy life.
Therefore after his death Christ had to journey to Hell, otherwise the ascent to Heaven would have become impos- sible for him. Christ first had to become his Antichrist, his underworldly brother.
No one knows what happened during the three days Christ was in Hell. I have experienced it.133 The men ofyore said that he had preached there to the deceased.134 What they say is true, but do you know how this happened?
It was folly and monkey business, an atrocious Hell's masquerade of the holiest mysteries. How else could Christ have saved his Antichrist? Read the unknown books of the ancients, and you will learn much from them. Notice that Christ did not remain in Hell, but rose to the heights in the beyond.135
Our conviction of the value of the good and beautiful has become strong and unshakable, that is why life can extend beyond this and still fulfil everything that lay bound and yearning. But the bound and yearning is also the,hateful and bad. Are you again indignant about the hateful and the bad?
Through this you can recognize h()w great are their force and value for life. Do you think that it is dead in you? But this dead can also change into serpents.136These serpents will extinguish the prince ofyour days.
”
”
C.G. Jung
“
Due to his unique position at the Met, John had access to the vaults that housed the museum’s entire photography collection, much of it never seen by the public. John’s specialty was Victorian photography, which he knew I was partial to as well. He invited Robert and me to come and see the work firsthand. There were flat files from floor to ceiling, metal shelves and drawers containing vintage prints of the early masters of photography: Fox Talbot, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Thomas Eakins. Being allowed to lift the tissues from these photographs, actually touch them and get a sense of the paper and the hand of the artist, made an enormous impact on Robert. He studied them intently—the paper, the process, the composition, and the intensity of the blacks. “It’s really all about light,” he said. John saved the most breathtaking images for last. One by one, he shared photographs forbidden to the public, including Stieglitz’s exquisite nudes of Georgia O’Keeffe. Taken at the height of their relationship, they revealed in their intimacy a mutual intelligence and O’Keeffe’s masculine beauty. As Robert concentrated on technical aspects, I focused on Georgia O’Keeffe as she related to Stieglitz, without artifice. Robert was concerned with how to make the photograph, and I with how to be the photograph.
”
”
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
“
Ground may be classified according to its nature as accessible, entrapping, indecisive, constricted, precipitous, and distant.
Ground which both we and the enemy can traverse with equal ease is called accessible. In such ground, he who first takes high sunny positions convenient to his supply routes can fight advantageously.
Ground easy to get out of but difficult to return to is entrapping. The nature of this ground is such that if the enemy is unprepared and you sally out you may defeat him. If the enemy is prepared and you go out and engage, but do not win, it is difficult to return. This is unprofitable.
Ground equally disadvantageous for both the enemy and ourselves to enter is indecisive. The nature of this ground is such that although the enemy holds out a bait I do not go forth but entice him by marching off. When I have drawn out half his force, I can strike him advantageously.
If I first occupy constricted ground I must block the passes and await the enemy. If the enemy first occupies such ground and blocks the defiles I should not follow him; if he does not block them completely I may do so.
In precipitous ground I must take position on the sunny heights and await the enemy. If he first occupies such ground I lure him by marching off; I do not follow him.
When at a distance from an enemy of equal strength it is difficult to provoke battle and unprofitable to engage him in his chosen position.
These are the principles relating to six different types of ground. It is the highest responsibility of the general to inquire into them with the utmost care.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
The one thing that seemed to be on our side, however, was the reality on the streets of Egypt. Day after day, the protests spread and Mubarak’s regime seemed to crumble around him. On February 11, I woke to the news that Mubarak had fled to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh and resigned.
It was, it seemed, a happy ending. Jubilant crowds celebrated in the streets of Cairo. I drafted a statement for Obama that drew comparisons between what had just taken place and some of the iconic movements of the past several decades—Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesians upending a dictatorship, Indians marching nonviolently for independence.
I went up to the Oval Office that morning to review the statement with Obama. “You should feel good about this,” he said.
“I do,” I replied. “Though I’m not sure all of the principals do.”
“You know,” he said, “one of the things that made it easier for me is that I didn’t really know Mubarak.” He mentioned that George H. W. Bush had called Mubarak at the height of the protests to express his support. “But it’s not just Bush. The Clintons, Gates, Biden—they’ve known Mubarak[…] “for decades.” I thought of Biden’s perennial line: All foreign policy is an “extension of personal relationships. “If it had been King Abdullah,” Obama said, referring to the young Jordanian monarch with whom he’d struck up a friendship, “I don’t know if I could have done the same thing.”
As Obama delivered a statement to a smattering of press, it seemed that history might at last be breaking in a positive direction in the Middle East. His tribute to the protests was unabashed. Yet our own government was still wired to defer to the Egyptian military, and ill equipped to support a transition to democracy once the president had spoken.
”
”
Ben Rhodes (The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House)
“
The well-known phrase, 'Women have no character,' really means the same thing. Personality and individuality (intelligible), ego and soul, will and (intelligible) character, all these are different expressions of the same actuality, an actuality the male of mankind attains, the female lacks.
But since the soul of man is the microcosm, and great men are those who live entirely in and through their souls, the whole universe thus having its being in them, the female must be described as absolutely without the quality of genius. The male has everything within him, and, as Pico of Mirandola put it, only specialises in this or that part of himself. It is possible for him to attain to the loftiest heights, or to sink to the lowest depths; he can become like animals, or plants, or even like women, and so there exist woman-like female men.
The woman, on the other hand, can never become a man. In this consists the most important limitation to the assertions in the first part of this work. Whilst I know of many men who are practically completely psychically female, not merely half so, and have seen a considerable number of women with masculine traits, I have never yet seen a single woman who was not fundamentally female, even when this femaleness has been concealed by various accessories from the person herself, not to speak of others. One must be (chap. i. part I.) either man or woman, however many peculiarities of both sexes one may have, and this 'being,' the problem of this work from the start, is determined by one's relation to ethics and logic; but whilst there are people who are anatomically men and psychically women, there is no such thing as a person who is physically female and psychically male, notwithstanding the extreme maleness of their outward appearance and the unwomanliness of their expression.
”
”
Otto Weininger (Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles)
“
Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions, and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy “the thrill of the chase” for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They’re relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame. Our personalities also shape our social styles. Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. They tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great need of company. Extroverts think out loud and on their feet; they prefer talking to listening, rarely find themselves at a loss for words, and occasionally blurt out things they never meant to say. They’re comfortable with conflict, but not with solitude. Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions. A few things introverts are not: The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope. Introverts can be these things, but most are perfectly friendly. One of the most humane phrases in the English language—“Only connect!”—was written by the distinctly introverted E. M. Forster in a novel exploring the question of how to achieve “human love at its height.” Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.
”
”
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
“
the office. “What can I do for you, Hill?” he asked. “Sir, I need to talk to you about this Hatfield and McCoy thing. And the Gunsmith.” “I know, General,” he said, “you don’t approve of Pinkerton’s plan—but we’re paying the man for his expertise.” “May I sit, sir?” Buckner waved to his visitor’s chair. Hill folded his excess height into it. “Sir, I believe my men and I can go into West Virginia and find Devil Anse Hatfield.” The leader of the Hatfields was William Anderson, but everyone knew him as “Devil Anse.” “Then why haven’t you?” “Excuse me, sir, but you haven’t taken the shackles off me,” Hill said. “Just let me go in and do it my way.” “I want Devil Anse arrested, not killed,” Buckner said. “Yes, sir, but he doesn’t have the same scruples that you do. Innocent people are getting killed because they’re finding themselves in the middle of his feud, which has been going on for years. And it’s a family feud, since the two sides are now related by marriage—a marriage neither one approved of, by the way.” “I don’t need a history lesson on the Hatfields and McCoys,
”
”
J.R. Roberts (Deadly Feud (The Gunsmith Book 436))
“
Nate was sitting in the relative dark of the room, doors open, the long gauzy sheers floating in the wind. He peripherally registered movement on the lawn. It was Dominika, holding a small case in her hand. She had somehow gotten through the gate and come around the side of the house. Two hours early. Nate dis not move, watching her through the French doors. She faced the water, dropped her bag, shook out her hair in the breeze, and looked at a freighter thrumming down the channel. She lifted one foot, then the other, slipping sandals off her feet. Her dark-blue summer dress billowed in the breeze, right out of Wuthering Heights. Nate walked to the open door and leaned against the frame. “I’m sorry, but the property is not for sale,” he said. Dominika did not turn, but continued to look at the water. “Are you the owner?” said Dominika over her shoulder. “I represent the owners,” said Nate, stepping down to the grass and walking up behind her. “Are you sure they will not consider selling?” she said. She turned around and brushed wind-blown hair off her face. She took a step toward him. They were inches apart. “How much are you willing to offer?” said Nate. “For a view like this, price is no object,” said Dominika. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Nate lightly held her waist. They stood like that for a long minute, then Dominika stepped back and wiped her wet cheek. “Kak ty?” she wispered, in Russian, how are you? “Privet,” said Nate, Hi. “I missed you.
”
”
Jason Matthews (The Kremlin's Candidate (Red Sparrow Trilogy, #3))
“
It’s not that I’m clumsy exactly. Well I am clumsy, but clumsy for a reason if you know what I mean. I’ve got this thing they call Asperger’s, which means I’m usually thinking about something more important than where my arms and legs are. Talking of arms and legs I suppose you want to know what I look like. ‘Dai, your breakfast is on the table.’ You could say I’m short (one metre and twenty six centimetres), but height is relative, isn’t it? Compared to an adult I’m a titch, but when compared to the other ten year old boys in my class, I’m the twentieth tallest, or sixth shortest, depending on which end you’re looking at. Win is three centimetres taller than me and never lets me forget it. ‘Dai, hurry up! We have to leave in fifteen minutes.’ My hair is red and straight, very ordinary and not very stylish.
”
”
Jenny O'Brien (Boy Brainy (Dai Monday #1))
“
spaces strongly affect our perceptions while we are occupying them. For instance, dimmer light increases creativity, whereas brighter light improves analytical thinking.84 Ceiling height improves abstract and relational thinking, and lower ceilings do the opposite.85 A view of generative landscapes improves generativity, whereas mild exertion temporarily improves memory and attention.86
”
”
Beau Lotto (Deviate: 'A more accessible THINKING FAST AND SLOW' Wired)
“
Even on good days, my family often experienced strained relations. My mother and I in particular, despite being the same height, had rarely seen eye to eye.
”
”
Jennifer Pharr Davis (Becoming Odyssa : Adventures on the Appalachian Trail)
“
When we think of foreign direct investment, most of us think about Intel building a new microchip factory in Costa Rica or Volkswagen laying down a new assembly line in China-this is known as 'green-field' investment. But a lot of foreign direct investment is made by foreigners buying into an existing local company- or 'brownfield' investment. Brownfield investment has accounted for over half of total world FDI since the 1990s, although the share is lower for developing countries, for the obvious reason that they have relatively fewer firms that foreigners want to take over. At its height in 2001, it accounted for as much as 80% of total world FDI.
”
”
Ha-Joon Chang (Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism)
“
The educational environment of children should encourage them to continue to explore the open-ended connections between their experiences, and to be receptive to new interconnections and interpretations of theories and explanations that they have either learned or developed. An oft-repeated story illustrates the deadening effect of thinking in terms of narrowly defined fields.16 A high school physics student was given the following problem on an examination: “Suppose you were in a tall building, and had a sensitive barometer in your possession. How would you use it to find the height of the building?” As anyone who has studied introductory physics will instantly recognize, the instructor was looking for the answer he had prepared his students to give—namely, measure the barometric pressure at the bottom and the top of the building, and calculate the height of the building, using the formula that relates the drop in barometric pressure to the increase in elevation going from the ground to the top of the building. The student in question, a very bright and highly independent soul, found it demeaning to provide an answer that he thought was trivially easy. Instead, he answered, “You can do it several ways. One is to drop the barometer from the top of the building and measure how long it takes to hit the ground [thus illustrating that he knew the relationship between height, distance, and time in gravitational free fall, another piece of ‘physics’]. Another is to attach the barometer to a long string, lower it to the ground, and measure the length of the string [no longer ‘physics,’ but rather ‘carpentry’].” The answer, of course, was declared wrong. The student objected strenuously and brought a storm of protest to bear on the examiner—who then agreed to repeat the same question and give the student an opportunity to provide the “correct” answer. The student, no more inclined to be compliant than before, answered, “I would go to the superintendent of the building and offer to give him the barometer as a gift if he would tell me how high his building is [now we have entered ‘economics’].” Leaving
”
”
Russell L. Ackoff (Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track)
“
Also intriguing was all the bowing. The association of height and status did not, of course, faze him. If anything, it made the Japanese seem noble. But where were the ones who made themselves big? That was the question. With so many people bowing down, it seemed to Majnoun like a competition amongst the low to see who could be lowest. In which case, discretion was strength, a paradox that Majnoun found almost as compelling as the film's relative absence of dogs.
”
”
André Alexis (Fifteen Dogs (Quincunx, #2))
“
You can measure how often the wave repeats itself in a given amount of time—how many times the duck reaches its maximum height in a minute, say—and that gives you the “frequency” of the wave, which is another critical number used to describe the wave. Wavelength and frequency are related to each other—longer wavelengths mean lower frequency, and vice versa.
”
”
Chad Orzel (How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog)
“
According to most surveys, the average penis ranges from five to six inches in length when erect and three to four inches in length when flaccid, or nonerect. Contrary to popular belief, penis length is not closely related to height.
”
”
David M. Buss (Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations - From Adventure to Revenge)
“
Anyone can bark out orders. It doesn’t take strength to yell at people, write them up or blame them for mistakes. It doesn’t take courage to boss people around in private and public when the organizational chart gives them the power to do that. It is the height of cowardice to manage a team with the presumption that they have to listen to you, because of your job title relative to theirs.
”
”
Gifford Thomas (The Inspirational Leader: Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible)
“
We had ended up at a bar in Columbia Heights called The Getaway. The only two who hadn't joined us were Jessica and Daryl. Jessica had to debrief with Paris, Sergei, and Priya and I guess Daryl just did not enjoy socializing. It was a weeknight, so the place was relatively uncrowded and we scored a prime seat on the upstairs patio next to a propane heater, where we were able to watch the procession of hipsters and gentrifiers that would trickle down the sidewalk, on their way to yoga or story telling night or artisanal whatever. It
”
”
John Benedetto (Crimson: The Way of the Wolfhounds)
“
Indeed, it was perhaps the most iconic scene from any novel of its day, immortalised in engravings and artworks from the period and later. Werther, as Geothe’s narrator, describes the moment of desire in the first person: "I walked across the court to a well-built house, and, ascending the flight of steps in front, opened the door, and saw before me the most charming spectacle I had ever witnessed. Six children, from eleven to two years old, were running about the hall, and surrounding a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She was holding a rye loaf in her hand and was cutting slices for the little ones all around, in proportion to their age and appetite. She performed her task in a graceful and affec-tionate manner; each claimant awaiting his turn with outstretched hands, and boisterously shouting his thanks. Some of them ran away at once, to enjoy their evening meal; whilst others, of a gentler disposition, retired to the courtyard to see the strangers, and to survey the carriage in which their Charlotte was to drive away." The focus here is not on Lotte herself, of whom we learn only that she is ‘a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white’. Instead, for Werther what is important is what Barthes would call ‘the arrangements of objects’: Lotte’s relation to the children, the rye loaf, and the knife, all appear as scene-setting props which make desire possible. Lotte emerges from amidst these objects and Werther is ‘initiated’ as ‘the scene’ (described by Werther as the ‘most charming spectacle’) ‘consecrates the object [he is] going to love.’ It is that scene, that arrangement of objects, which makes desire – even love – possible. The technologies of our space, place and time set the scene for love to appear – make the emergence of desire possible. We don’t fall in love with an object in isolation but with how it appears in a curate scene determined by a variety of technologies. The Tinder profile card could hardly be a more perfect example from today.
”
”
Alfie Bown (Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Digital Barricades))
“
But if we believe the Essay, the state has to be reduced far below the relative height of earthly justice. “The state is the community of interests, the church is the community of conscience. The state recognises only necessity and utility.” What shall we say?
”
”
Frédéric de Rougemont (The Individualists in Church & State)
“
Kunal Nayyar: Just like Simon, I went through my own anxieties. Mine were not related to my performance on the show. The anxiety for me was how to navigate this new world where everywhere I turned, someone wanted something from me. And for the first time in my life I had to build a cage around myself. And in that cage, I was going nuts. I was having panic attacks while driving on the highway. All my worst fears of claustrophobia and heights sort of rose to the surface. And I think it’s because I began to believe an identity that didn’t really exist. When you begin to play a character on television, people want to meet that character; they don’t want to meet you. So I’m meeting people with love and adoration and respect, thinking that they want to get to know me and spend time with me. And what broke my heart was the realization that, No, they want to meet the character, and Kunal is no longer really an identity. Now you’re Raj. I had to be careful about the people I was allowing into my life, and it was difficult for me. My naivete dissipated quickly. It was hard to not be able to say hi to everyone, to hug everyone, hang out with everyone. You have to find your balance.
”
”
Jessica Radloff (The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series)
“
scan the pages quickly, feigning interest until I come upon a line drawing of a child next to a picture of a massive rifle, and then I really am interested. I read the associated paragraph: After the daughter was recovered, the M.E. examined the girl and found no evidence of bruising on her limbs or torso consistent with having fired a Winchester Magnum. Given the size of the weapon relative to the girl’s height and weight as well as the lack of physical evidence, the M.E. ruled that the daughter did not fire the rifle. My heart pounds. I place the folder carefully on the table and wipe my hands on my jeans and stick them under my legs to stop them from shaking. I don’t understand. I shot my mother. I killed her—I know I did. I’ve seen myself standing over her body with the rifle so many, many times.
”
”
Karen Dionne (The Wicked Sister)
“
...common phobias of heights and snakes can be cured relatively easily through short-term desensitization therapy.
”
”
David M. Buss (Evolutionary Psychology : The New Science of the Mind)
“
Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you ya dream — making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...
”
”
Book House (100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [newly updated] [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; The Count of ... (The Greatest Writers of All Time))
“
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to retain.
”
”
Book House (100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [newly updated] [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; The Count of ... (The Greatest Writers of All Time))
“
Height of Human (The Sonnet)
Enter a hall with high
ceiling, and you feel small,
in a room with low ceiling
you feel like a giant.
The height of human
doesn't depend on numbers,
we judge our height
relative to the world around.
Bigots hate an inclusive world
not because it is unorthodox,
but because it reminds them,
how puny they are - how small.
Hence they lash out at an island
of people, as an island of garbage.
Only garbage are those calling others
as such - time 'tis to hand them sentence.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
“
Enter a hall with high ceiling, and you feel small, in a room with low ceiling you feel like a giant. The height of human doesn't depend on numbers, we judge our height relative to the world around. Bigots hate an inclusive world not because it is unorthodox, but because it reminds them, how puny they are - how small.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
“
Relativity
The height of my intelligence
can only be determined
by the depths of your ignorance,
so, relatively speaking,
I'm Mt. Everest
and your the Mariana Trench.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
At the height of the witch craze the Duke of Brunswick invited two learned and famous Jesuits—both of whom believed in witchcraft and in torture as a means of eliciting a confession—to join him in the Brunswick dungeon to witness the torture of a woman accused of witchcraft. Suspecting that people will say anything to stop the pain, the duke told the woman on the rack that he had reasons to believe that the two men accompanying him were warlocks and that he wanted to know what she thought, instructing her torturers to jack up the pain a little more. The woman promptly “confessed” that she had seen both men turn themselves into goats, wolves, and other animals, that they had sexual relations with other witches, and that they had fathered many children with heads like toads and legs like spiders. “The Duke of Brunswick led his astounded friends away,” MacKay narrates. “This was convincing proof to both of them that thousands of persons had suffered unjustly; they knew their own innocence, and shuddered to think what their fate might have been if an enemy instead of a friend had put such a confession into the mouth of a criminal.
”
”
Michael Shermer (The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
“
James I (the sixteenth century King of England and Scotland) was the first psychopathic monarch to advocate the so-called “Divine Right of Kings.” He declared: The state of monarchy is the most supreme thing upon earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon god’s throne, but even by God himself are called gods...and so their power after a certain relation compared to divine power...for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king...to dispute what God does is blasphemy...so it is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power. I would not have you meddle with such ancient rights of mine as I have received from my predecessors
”
”
Michael Tsarion (Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation)
“
This progressive effacement of human relationships is not without certain problems for the novel. How, in point of fact, would one handle the narration of those unbridled passions, stretching over many years, and at times making their effect felt on several generations? We’re a long way from Wuthering Heights, to say the least. The novel form is not conceived for depicting indifference or nothingness; a flatter, more terse and dreary discourse would need to be invented. If human relations become progressively impossible this is due, precisely, to the multiplying of those degrees of freedom of which Jean-Yves Fréhaut declared himself the enthusiastic prophet. He himself had never known any intimate relationship, of that I’m sure; his state of freedom was extreme. There is no acrimony in what I say. Here was, as I’ve mentioned, a happy man; that said, I don’t envy him his happiness. The
”
”
Michel Houellebecq (Whatever)
“
I will miss myself in relation to others. The rareness. The exceptional differences. I will miss the gift that comes with hardship and paying the price. I will miss the tragedy of my own life. As I once spoke...emphatically, but I now repeat here, quietly—the pain, the pain is what made it so God damn beautiful. I endured. You can wait a lifetime for thirty seconds, five minutes, or for an hour to come into your life—a brief interval that makes all the suffering purposeful. In such moments of splendor and rapture—even if the rapture be stilled, the private hours and years of reckoning are unloaded, a burden lifted and the spirit feels as it did on the happiest day of its life when it was young and untormented Or rather, unconscious of the torment waiting to be ignited.
”
”
Wheston Chancellor Grove (Who Has Known Heights)
“
Emissions of carbon dioxide reasonable commercial
For those who do not know each other with the phrase "carbon footprint" and its consequences or is questionable, which is headed "reasonable conversion" is a fast lens here.
Statements are described by the British coal climatic believe. "..The GC installed (fuel emissions) The issue has directly or indirectly affected by a company or work activities, products," only in relation to the application, especially to introduce a special procedure for the efforts of B. fight against carbon crank function
What is important?
Carbon dioxide ", uh, (on screen), the main fuel emissions" and the main result of global warming, improve a process that determines the atmosphere in the air in the heat as greenhouse gases greenhouse, carbon dioxide is reduced by the environment, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs more typically classified as).
The consequences are disastrous in the sense of life on the planet.
The exchange is described at a reasonable price in Wikipedia as "...geared a social movement and market-based procedures, especially the objectives of the development of international guidelines and improve local sustainability." The activity is for the price "reasonable effort" as well as social and environmental criteria as part of the same in the direction of production. It focuses exclusively on exports under the auspices of the acquisition of the world's nations to coffee most international destinations, cocoa, sugar, tea, vegetables, wine, specially designed, refreshing fruits, bananas, chocolate and simple. In 2007 trade, the conversion of skilled gross sales serious enough alone suffered due the supermarket was in the direction of approximately US $ 3.62 billion to improve (2.39 million), rich environment and 47% within 12 months of the calendar year. Fair trade is often providing 1-20% of gross sales in their classification of medicines in Europe and North America, the United States. ..Properly Faith in the plan ... cursed interventions towards closing in failure "vice president Cato Industries, appointed to inquire into the meaning of fair trade Brink Lindsey 2003 '. "Sensible changes direction Lindsay inaccurate provides guidance to the market in a heart that continues to change a design style and price of the unit complies without success. It is based very difficult, and you must deliver or later although costs Rule implementation and reduces the cost if you have a little time in the mirror. You'll be able to afford the really wide range plan alternatives to products and expenditures price to pay here.
With the efficient configuration package offered in the interpretation question fraction "which is a collaboration with the Carbon Fund worldwide, and acceptable substitute?"
In the statement, which tend to be small, and more? They allow you to search for carbon dioxide transport and delivery. All vehicles are responsible dioxide pollution, but they are the worst offenders?
Aviation.
Quota of the EU said that the greenhouse gas jet fuel greenhouse on the basis of 87% since 1990 years Boeing Company, Boeing said more than 5 747 liters of fuel burns kilometer. Paul Charles, spokesman for Virgin Atlantic, said flight CO² gas burned in different periods of rule. For example: (. The United Kingdom) Jorge Chavez airport to fly only in the vast world of Peru to London Heathrow with British Family Islands 6.314 miles (10162 km) works with about 31,570 liters of kerosene, which produces changes in only 358 for the incredible carbon.
Delivery.
John Vidal, Environment Editor parents argue that research on the oil company BP and researchers from the Department of Physics and the environment in Germany Wising said that about once a year before the transport height of 600 to 800 million tons. This is simply nothing more than twice in Colombia and more than all African nations spend together.
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PointHero
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I have another idea,” Tommy said with a grin that meant it was not an idea I would enjoy. “And that would be?” Olivia asked. “I noticed you have a helicopter,” Tommy said to the LOA agent. “I’m not jumping out of a helicopter,” I told everyone. They all completely ignored me and instead started working out exactly how I was going to jump out of said helicopter. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but my friends suck. They suck hard enough that when I was getting fitted with a parachute and loaded onto a helicopter, no one listened to me as I pointedly reiterated the fact that I did not wish to jump out of the fucking thing. I watched as the second part of Tommy’s glorious plan came to fruition, namely the part where the agents stood well back and shot at the Vanguard from the relative safety of being on the ground. “You done this before?” asked an agent who was sitting in the rear of the Eurocopter with me. “Once or twice. Not in one of these, though.” “The EC145 is excellent. Loads of room back here.” Indeed there was tons of room in the back of the helicopter, plenty to put five or six people without too much trouble. He glanced out of the window and then turned back to me. “We’re just over a thousand feet high, got a bit more to climb. You’ll be jumping at fifteen hundred feet.” “Screw you, Tommy,” I whispered, which caused the agent to laugh as he heard it through my microphone. “Not a fan of heights.” “Mostly I’m not a fan of hitting the ground at speed from a great height.
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Steve McHugh (Prison of Hope (Hellequin Chronicles, #4))
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Even at the height of the boom in credit and leverage in mortgage-related markets, we tried to lean against the winds of confidence, to encourage major banks and nonbanks to prepare for the worst. We recognized there was a lot of dry tinder in the system, even if we were late to see how subprime losses could be the spark that ignited it.
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Timothy F. Geithner (Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises)
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as long as a
great number of those impressions which form character, like the nice
motions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,
though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to
calculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periods
of the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and moral
weakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible.
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Thomas Robert Malthus (An Essay on the Principle of Population)
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sounded like another language entirely. I felt relieved, momentarily, to be a relatively worldly Lubavitcher, even if I didn’t entirely fit in with the Crown Heights crowd. — Much to my disappointment, Miri was rarely to be seen. Most days she left the apartment around ten in a giddy rush and returned in the early evening with armloads of shopping bags, only to leave again for dinner with her friends. But one morning, when Leah was otherwise engaged, I was finally recruited for shomeres service. We were going to Ratfolvi’s, in Flatbush, to pick up the sheitel that Miri would be required to wear as a married woman. Pulling up to a residential building, we let ourselves into Mrs. Ratfolvi’s wig shop/apartment and sat down in the reception area, where four or five women were chatting away on a damask sofa and chairs. While we waited our turn, I examined the rows of wigs on display: there were various shades of brunette, blonde, and ginger; short, teased bouffants and glamorous, shoulder-length falls; wigs encased in rollers and wigs that were fully styled, needing nothing more than a final shpritz of hair spray. They were set upon Styrofoam heads complete with turned-up noses, high cheekbones, and luscious lips that looked like they could come alive at any moment. I longed to get my hands on a brush and a pair of scissors so that I could create my own visions of tonsorial loveliness. I did this from time to time to my dolls, to my mother’s great irritation, and here was a whole wall of victims. When Miri’s name was called, she plunked herself into the salon chair and pulled the silk scarf off her ponytail. I stood as close as I could without getting in the way. From conversations that I’d overheard between my mother and her sisters, I knew that Mrs. Ratfolvi was considered “the best,” and I was eager to watch her at work. The “rat” in her name had led me to expect someone old and unattractive, but she was actually a nicely put-together middle-aged woman. The receptionist brought over a plastic case about the size of a chubby toddler. In one expert motion, Mrs. Ratfolvi clicked it open, withdrew the fully styled wig on its Styrofoam head
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Chaya Deitsch (Here and There: Leaving Hasidism, Keeping My Family)
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Retailers are driving sales to new heights by moderating choice angst, offering a more limited selection of items. But there is a related angst issue in most stores: “Where is the …?” We refer to this as navigational angst. And there is no question that navigation can create significant frustration, whether it is navigating the shelf visually or finding one’s way around the store. There are at least five ways to reduce navigational angst, as follows: • Design the store and lay out the merchandise in a logical and intuitive way. • Provide signage or other navigational aids to assist the shopper. • Reduce the size of the store to reduce the need for navigation. • Remove visual barriers so shoppers can see the whole store.
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Herb Sorensen (Inside the Mind of the Shopper: The Science of Retailing)
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I saw the massive stone altar first begin to glow like a ruby; then it was a heart of liquid gold like a solid single-crystal chrysoprase: the gold intensified into ice-cold emerald and passed into the dark sapphire of an arctic sky; this again withdrew into a violet so deep that the visual purple of the eye itself seemed absorbed in that depth, that abyss of color in which sight was being drowned. And as this intensification of vibrancy seemed to sweep across the visible spectrum up to those ranges where energy absorbs all mass and that which can pierce the most solid is itself fine beyond all substance, so it seemed with hearing. That abyss of sound which I had been thinking of as only depth, it, too, seemed to rise or, rather, I suppose I was carried up on some rising wave which explored the deep of the height.
As the light drew toward the invisible, I experienced a sound so acute that I can only remember feeling to myself that this was the note emitted when the visible universe returns to the unmanifest—this was the consummatum est of creation. I knew that an aperture was opening in the solid manifold. The things of sense were passing with the music of their own transmutation, out of sight. Veil after veil was evaporating under the blaze of the final Radiance. Suddenly I knew terror as never before. The only words which will go near to recreating in me some hint of that actual mode are those which feebly point toward the periphery of panic by saying that all things men dread are made actually friendly by this ultimate awfulness. Every human horror, every evil that the physical body may suffer, seemed, beside this that loomed before me, friendly, homely, safe. The rage of a leaping tiger would have been a warm embrace. The hell of a forest wrapped in a hurricane of fire, the subzero desolation of the antarctic blizzard, would have been only the familiar motions of a simple well-known world. Yes, even the worst, most cunning and cruel evil would only be the normal reassuring behavior of a well-understood, much-sympathized-with child. Against This, the ultimate Absolute, how friendly became anything less, anything relative.
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Gerald Heard (Dromenon: The Best Weird Stories of Gerald Heard)
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To illustrate this relation, think of a game of table tennis. As the ball hits the table, it will bounce up and down. When we restrain the upward bounce by holding the paddle parallel to the table at a small height, the ball will bounce up and down at a faster rate between paddle and table. If the paddle, the table, and the ball were perfectly elastic, the ball would not lose any energy in the process. The closer to the table we hold the paddle, the more precisely we fix the location of the ball-but at the expense of having it move faster and faster. If we removed both paddle and table in one instant, we would not be able to predict the direction in which the ball moves-up or down. We simply don't know in which direction the very rapidly bouncing ball was moving at the very instant of removal. Consequently, we might say that this process just prior to the removal of table and paddle fixes the location while failing to give us any good information on the velocity; it makes the velocity uncertain. What distinguishes this macroscopic process from the quantum mechanical uncertainty relation is that in principle we can calculate the velocity of the ball at every instant from the initial conditions (how the bounce started) and the boundary conditions (the relative positions of table and paddle). In principle, macroscopic motion is free of uncertainties.
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Henning Genz (Nothingness: The Science Of Empty Space)
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Chingachgook related to his son, in the language of the Delawares, and with the pride of a conqueror, the brief history of the skirmish which had been fought, in his youth, in that secluded spot. A strain of melancholy, however, blended with his triumph, rendering his voice, as usual, soft and musical.
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Book House (100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [newly updated] [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; The Count of ... (The Greatest Writers of All Time))
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Describe the assailant, including, but not limited to: sex, race, age, height, weight, build, and clothing worn (any unusual bulges). Also include any factors or observations that indicate the subject was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. An evaluation of strength, physical condition, and possible combative skills of the assailant should be articulated. If you’ve had prior contact with the adversary, this information will be relevant to your state of mind. Also, who else was with the combatant (e.g., friends, relatives) and did their presence pose an additional potential threat to the safety of you or a third party? Checklist: Documenting Use of Force Consider all of the factors below: Describe the nature of the incident concisely and clearly. Location (remote, obscure, isolated, or high-crime area; lighting, or lack thereof) Time of incident (late night/early morning) Document the objective signs that were apparent to you regarding the attacker’s emotional, mental, and physical state. Clearly describe why you perceived the subject to be dangerous and how this perception influenced your own mental state (e.g., concerned, fearful, etc.). Detail any and every aggressive action by the subject directed toward you or third parties. Include verbal threats, gestures, aggressive stance, demeanor, any weapons displayed, and applications of force toward you. Describe any action by the assailant, such as abrupt movements, attempting to conceal an object, or evasive conduct/responses. Describe any conversation or orders, if any were made, that you directed to the assailant before the actual physical confrontation. Be sure to describe the assailant’s verbal and physical conduct and the reactions (e.g., clenched fists, took a fighting stance, etc.). Describe the force used to overcome the subject’s resistance: • To the extent possible, identify any techniques and strikes you used and the intended target areas and areas actually struck. • Describe the force referencing the circumstances that occurred, including any verbalization or directions given to the assailant. Articulate any escalation or de-escalation of force and the attenuating reasons, such as the lack of the combatant’s response to the force you used. Describe the combatant’s reactions to the force applied in specific detail. This is of critical importance if the force you use is ineffective in stopping the assailant. This will clearly justify why, out of necessity, you had to escalate the level of force used. • Describe obstacles and difficulties encountered, including fatigue and/or the inability to overcome injuries received from the assailant. • Describe how the conflict ultimately concluded. Indicate the actions that were necessary for you to overcome the attacker’s actions, his resistance, how you eliminated the danger posed by the assailant, and what you did to resolve the dangerous circumstances and restore your safety.
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Darren Levine (Krav Maga for Women: Your Ultimate Program for Self Defense)
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The surround sound of summer was in full height - crickets chirruping, currawongs warbling, toads croaking, kookaburras chuckling, cicadas singing their beautiful song of emergence after being dormant underground for half their lives. I could relate to the cicadas - my true yearnings had been dormant since my family died in the fire.
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Bianca Bowers, TILL MARRIAGE DO US PART
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But if you inflated the balloons quickly, possibly by connecting many canisters to it at once, you’d be able to slow your fall. Just don’t use too much helium, or you’ll end up floating at 16,000 feet like Larry Walters. While researching this answer, I managed to lock up my copy of Mathematica several times on balloon-related differential equations, and subsequently got my IP address banned from Wolfram|Alpha for making too many requests. The ban-appeal form asked me to explain what task I was performing that necessitated so many queries. I wrote, “Calculating how many rental helium tanks you’d have to carry with you in order to inflate a balloon large enough to act as a parachute and slow your fall from a jet aircraft.” Sorry, Wolfram. 1 While researching impact speeds for this answer, I came across a discussion on the Straight Dope Message Board about survivable fall heights. One poster
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Randall Munroe (What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions)
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Their height exaggerated movement; even in relatively calm water, they tossed the men about like toy figures.
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Laurence Bergreen (Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe)
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The principal action of the soul, however, its paramount importance, lies not in its abstractness, its remoteness from the physical world, but precisely in the world of living creatures, in its contact with matter. Because within the extremely complex system of relations between the soul and the world of material substance as a whole – especially relations with its own body – the soul is able to reach far higher levels than it can in its abstract state of separate essence, in what is known as the paradisiacal state outside the body. The process of the soul’s connection with the body – called the “descent of the soul into matter” – is, from a certain perspective, the soul’s profound tragedy. But the soul undertakes this terrible risk as a part of the need to descend in order to make the desired ascent to hitherto unknown heights. It is a risk and a danger, because the soul’s connection with the body and its contact with the material world where it is the only factor that is free – unbounded by the determinism of physical law and able to choose and move freely – make it possible for the soul to fall and, in falling, to destroy the world. Indeed, Creation itself, and the creation of man, is precisely such a risk, a descent for the sake of ascension.
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Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (The Thirteen Petalled Rose)
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some forms of anxiety disorders show up as specific phobias, where the anxiety is related to an object or irrational fear of something. Common phobias include fear of flying, fear of bugs, fear of enclosed places such as elevators, fear of bridges, and fear of heights. Phobias are so intense that people go out of their way to avoid the source of the fear and as a result curtail what they do on a daily basis.
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Wendy Suzuki (Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion)
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Throat Let your fingers touch each other as you cup your hands on the bottom of the throat. Be gentle, and hold on to your hands, but do not touch your throat. Helping the thyroid and parathyroid gland, vocal cords, larynx, and lymph nodes, this hand position handles the throat (fifth) chakra that regulates neck and chest. This is the seat of communication and expression. Using therapy to help the patient speak, speak their minds, talk for themselves, and tell their reality. It's also perfect for writer’s block! Collarbone Place your hands with your fingers pointing to the middle of your chest on the sides of your arms. This position gives Reiki to the area of the thymus between the chakras of the throat and the neck. For immune function, the thymus gland is essential. Place yourself behind or on the recipient's side for this next position (it all depends on your height logistics, their height, and how far you can stretch!). Back of the neck and front of the heart Put your left hand under the neck area and your right hand over the top of the heart area of the middle. This role incorporates heart and back care of the heart. They address two regions simultaneously: the chakra of the throat and the chakra of the heart, which helps to express one's heart or to say one's reality. This is a good position to handle high blood pressure; any position on the neck actually helps reduce high blood pressure. Heart Place the hands in a T, a hand positioned horizontally above the breasts, and a hand placed vertically between the breasts. Treating the heart (fourth) chakra governs everything related to the circulatory system, including the pulse, veins, and arteries; the lungs (related to the chakras of the heart and throat); the breasts; and the thymus. Opening Reiki's heart chakra increases the supply of affection, air, and nourishment that can be received and offered. The recipient feels acceptance and a sense of love and compassion when the heart chakra is free and moving.
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Adrian Satyam (Energy Healing: 6 in 1: Medicine for Body, Mind and Spirit. An extraordinary guide to Chakra and Quantum Healing, Kundalini and Third Eye Awakening, Reiki and Meditation and Mindfulness.)
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FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printing is a type of additive manufacturing technology that works by extruding thermoplastic filament material layer by layer to build up a three-dimensional object. Here are some details defining FDM 3D printing:
Process: FDM 3D printing involves melting a thermoplastic filament, usually ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) or PLA (Polylactic Acid), and extruding it through a heated nozzle. The nozzle moves along a predetermined path, depositing the material layer by layer to create the desired object.
Materials: FDM printers primarily use thermoplastic materials, which are available in various colors and types, each with its own properties such as strength, flexibility, and heat resistance. Common materials include ABS, PLA, PETG, TPU, and more.
Layer Resolution: FDM printers have a layer resolution, which refers to the thickness of each layer of material deposited during printing. The layer resolution determines the level of detail and surface finish achievable in the printed object. Lower layer heights result in finer details but increase printing time.
Build Volume: This refers to the maximum size of the object that can be printed in terms of length, width, and height. FDM printers come in various sizes, offering different build volumes to accommodate different project requirements.
Support Structures: FDM printers often require support structures for overhanging or complex geometries. These supports are printed alongside the object and later removed manually or with tools after printing is complete.
Heated Build Plate: Many FDM printers feature a heated build plate, which helps prevent warping and improves adhesion between the first layer of the print and the build surface. A heated build plate is particularly useful when printing materials like ABS.
Dual Extrusion: Some FDM printers support dual extrusion, allowing for the simultaneous use of two different materials or colors during printing. This capability enables more complex prints with multiple colors or materials.
Post-Processing: After printing, FDM-printed objects may require post-processing to improve surface finish or functionality. This can include sanding, painting, smoothing with acetone (for ABS), or other finishing techniques.
FDM 3D printing is widely used in various industries, including prototyping, manufacturing, education, and hobbyist applications, due to its relatively low cost, ease of use, and versatility.
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Locanam 3D Printing
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In the grass, she sees a piece of trash and relates to it. Tiffany is not designed for a big life—she does not meet the height requirement. She is seventeen; she feels seventy. She is seventeen; she feels seven.
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Tess Gunty (The Rabbit Hutch)
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You need to apologize to her,” Grace said quietly, gaining his attention. “Spend time with her, regardless of how you feel. Your feelings no longer matter, in fact. To ignore her is the height of selfishness. If what she believes is true, that you avoid her because of your grief, then you must find a way to move past that grief. If you cannot, go let her live with relatives.
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Joanna Shupe (Miracle on Ladies' Mile)
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What, for example, is one to make of Walt Whitman's comment that during the Civil War "the People, of their own choice, [were] fighting, dying for their own idea"? How could Whitman know this-and what, exactly, does it mean for a people to possess, or be possessed by, an idea? Who, indeed, were the people? And how do we place Whitman's remark in relation to the high rates of desertion in that war, or to the brutal draft riots that swept through New York City at its height, when white mobs pulled black men out of their homes for lynching, then dragged their bodies through the streets by the genitals? Was this really a war of, by, and for the people? Or was it a war between industrialists and slaveowners in which people were fodder?
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Andrew Delbanco (The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization Book 11))
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I find that I never did have a really clear idea of her at any time. I had an image of her, but that is not the same thing. An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties. I had gathered, of course, a good deal from you, and later, after she went away, from others, but this only strengthened my confusion. The more we learn of a person, the less we know. It does not, for instance, help me to know anything of Chartres above the fact that it possesses a cathedral, unless I have lived in Chatres and so keep the relative heights of the cathedral and the lives of its population in proportion. Otherwise it would only confuse me to learn that Jean of that city stood his wife upright in a well; the moment I visualize this, the deed will measure as high as the building; just as children who have a little knowledge of life will draw a man and a barn on the same scale.
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Djuna Barnes (Nightwood)
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When lifted to this higher level of thought, through any form of mind stimulation, an individual occupies, relatively, the same position as one who has ascended in an airplane to a height from which he may see over and beyond the horizon line which limits his vision while on the ground. Moreover, while on this higher level of thought, the individual is not hampered or bound by any of the stimuli which circumscribe and limit his vision while wrestling with the problems of gaining the three basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. He is in a world of thought in which the ordinary, work-a-day thoughts have been as effectively removed as are the hills and valleys and other limitations of physical vision, when he rises in an airplane.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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There is no definitive acquisition from which history can rise without losing an inch of the height it has attained: the bourgeoisie which was the revolution became the ancien regime, and, when reflecting on the French Revolution, it identifies itself with the old ruling class. At the same time that there is historical progress, there is, therefore, a consolidation, a destruction, a trampling of history; and at the same time as a permanent revolution, there is a permanent decadence which overtakes the ruling class in proportion as it rules and endures, for by ruling it abdicates what had made it "progressive," loses
its rallying power, and is reduced to the protection of private interests. Throughout history, revolutions meet one another and institutions resemble one another; every revolution is the first revolution, and every institution, even a revolutionary institution,
is tempted by historical precedents. This does not mean that everything is in vain and that nothing can be done: each time the struggle is different, the minimum of demandable justice rises, and, besides, according to these very principles, conservatism is utopian. But this means that the revolution which would recreate history is infinitely distant, that there is a similarity among ruling classes insofar as they are ruling and among ruled classes insofar as they are ruled, and that, for this reason, historical advances cannot be added like steps in a staircase. The
Marxists know this very well when they say that the dictatorship of the proletariat turns the weapons of the bourgeoisie against the bourgeoisie. But then a proletarian philosophy of history holds to the miracle that the dictatorship may use the bourgeoisie's weapons without becoming something like a bourgeoisie; that a class may rule without becoming decadent when in point of fact any class which rules the whole proves to be particular by that very action; that a historical formation, the proletariat, may be established as a ruling class without taking upon itself the liabilities of the historical role; that it may accumulate and keep intact in itself all the energy of all past revolution and unfailingly give life to its institutional apparatus and progressively annul its
degeneration. It is to act as if everything that historically exists were not at the same time movement and inertia, it is to place in history, as contents, on the one hand the principle of resistance
(called the bourgeoisie) and on the other the principle of movement (called the proletariat), when these are the very structure of history as a passage to generality and to the institution of relationships among persons...To believe in proletarian revolution is to arbitrarily assert that history's sliding back on itself and the resurrection of past ghosts are bad dreams, that history carries within itself its own cure
and will surprise us with it...One does not kill for relative progress. The very nature of revolution is to believe itself absolute and to not be absolute precisely because it believes itself to be so.
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty
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If I fire a bullet from a gun, level to the ground, and drop a penny from the same height as the barrel of the gun and at the exact moment the bullet leaves the end of the barrel, they will hit the ground simultaneously as well.
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Mark Southworth (Einstein's Beetle: Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity An Explanation for Peasants by a Peasant who Understands)