Incredible Strength Quotes

The path of peace is not a passive journey. It takes incredible strength not to open a can of 'whoop-ass', justifiably, when ones button is pushed.

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.

To be rendered powerless does not destroy your humanity. Your resilience is your humanity. The only people who lose their humanity are those who believe they have the right to render another human being powerless. They are the weak. To yield and not break, that is incredible strength.

There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again.

What a beautiful woman. She moved with grace, she was entirely feminine, and yet, she possessed incredible inner strength. She’s a survivor.

I’ve never loved you more than in this moment. Watching you choose yourself when I didn’t will always prove as a reminder to me of your incredible strength and what a privilege it is to call you mine.

It takes incredible strength to be kind in this world. To endure suffering instead of further it.

Clinging to him desperately, Sara kept her mouth at his ear. "Listen to me." All she could do was play her last card. Her voice trembled with emotion. "You can't change the truth. You can act as though you're deaf and blind, you can walk away from me forever, but the truth will still be there, and you can't make it go away. I love you." She felt an involuntary tremor run through him. "I love you," she repeated. "Don't lie to either of us by pretending you're leaving for my good. All you'll do is deny us both a chance at happiness. I'll long for you every day and night, but at least my conscience will be clear. I haven't held anything back from you, out of fear or pride or stubbornness." She felt the incredible tautness of his muscles, as if he were carved from marble. "For once have the strength not to walk away,"she whispered. "Stay with me. Let me love you, Derek.

But it's also a reminder that being quiet doesn't always signify weakness. Sometimes it takes great strength to find that silence. Sometimes it takes incredible strength to survive.

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: “Who has earned the right to hear my story?” If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky.

I mean, I'm just tired of being wrong all the time just because I'm a guy. I mean how many times can everybody tell you that you're the oppressive, prejudiced enemy before you give up and become the enemy. I mean a male, chauvinist pig isn't born, hes made, and more and more of them are being made by women. After long enough you just roll over and accept the fact that you're a sexist, bigoted, insensitive, crude, cretinist cretin. Women are right. You're wrong. You get used to the idea. You live down to expectations. Even if the shoe doesn't fit, you'll shrink to fill it. I mean, in a world without god aren't mothers the new god? The last sacred unassailable position. Isn't motherhood the last perfect magical miracle? But a miracle that isn't possible for men, and maybe men say they're glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that's just so much sour grapes. For sure, men can't do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses - any advantage men appear to have are pretty token. You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus. Women are already born so far ahead ability - wise. The day a men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.

Never make the mistake of thinking that alcoholics are weak, because it took an incredible amount of internal strength and conviction in order for me to keep drinking despite the growing mountain of evidence against it.

I haven't had a lot of good, soft things in my life," he said against my forehead. "Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it's that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn't taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation—" "Stop describing me please." "You're the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I've ever met," he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. "So, when I seem possessive or I'm raving like a lunatic, it's just that part of me is still very afraid that I'll lose that—that I'll lose you. I love you.

Finding pleasure at home-whether in a family dinner or a book club or a backyard barbecue-can give us the strength to go out into the world and do incredible things.

It takes incredible strength to be kind in this world. To endure suffering instead of further it.

No one sees your strength, do they? No one sees the silent battle you fight against your overprotective mind that’s trying to keep you safe from harm by keeping you safe from risk, safe from connection, safe from honesty. Maybe others don’t see, but you see it sometimes, don’t you? In the mirror, in those eyes, begging for someone to notice. You have noticed. It is real. You are strong. You are fighting for something incredible. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise—especially not your thoughts.

We may seem the weakest and most insignificant of all the Realms, but our strength comes in other ways. We have what no other race has: imagination. Any one of us, even the lowliest, can create worlds within ourselves; we can people them with the most extraordinary creatures, the most amazing inventions, the most incredible things. We can live in those worlds ourselves, if we choose; and in our own worlds, we can be as we want to be. Imagination is as close as we will ever be to godhead, Poison, for in imagination, we can create wonders.

The inanity of her remark infuriated him. 'Good grief don't you understand Janet? At this point I'm thoroughly delusional. I'm as mentally ill as it's possible to be. It's incredible that I can communicate with you at all. It's a credit to my ego-strength that I'm not at this point totally autistic.

While we may continue to use the words smart and stupid, and while IQ tests may persist for certain purposes, the monopoly of those who believe in a single general intelligence has come to an end. Brain scientists and geneticists are documenting the incredible differentiation of human capacities, computer programmers are creating systems that are intelligent in different ways, and educators are freshly acknowledging that their students have distinctive strengths and weaknesses.

But I vow to always hear you over the sound of my ambition. I will always be curious about you. You've shown me the value of always learning, growing, and caring and I've never loved you more than this moment. Watching you choose yourself when I didn't always proves as a reminder to me of your incredible strength, and what a privilege it is to call you mine. I want to spend the rest of my nights with you. I want to spend the next decade working to be the man you always deserved. I want my GREED to be for your love, your laughter, and our love together. I can't bear to be parted from you. Please, Ale, will you be my wife?

There is an incredible feeling of strength that comes with walking through the fires of Hell and coming out with the prize. The prize, that part of oneself that is rescued, is the confidence that comes with facing down seemingly insurmountable odds and coming out better than when you went in.

Practice of gratitude lends incredible emotional strength. If you are emotionally strong, you can succeed at anything, anything at all. Gratitude makes you emotionally pure and such purity in turn allows you to love unconditionally.

Then what do you want?" she asked softly. He shook his head without answering. But Sara knew. He wanted to be safe. If he were rich and powerful enough, he would never be hurt, lonely, or abandoned. He would never have to trust anyone. She continued to stroke his hair, playing lightly with the thick raven locks. 'Take a chance on me," she urged. "Do you really have so much to lose?" He gave a harsh laugh and loosened his arms to release her. "More than you know." Clinging to him desperately, Sara kept her mouth at his ear. "Listen to me." All she could do was play her last card. Her voice trembled with emotion. "You can't change the truth. You can act as though you're deaf and blind, you can walk away from me forever, but the truth will still be there, and you can't make it go away. I love you." She felt an involuntary tremor run through him. "I love you," she repeated. "Don't lie to either of us by pretending you're leaving for my good. All you'll do is deny us both a chance at happiness. I'll long for you every day and night, but at least my conscience will be clear. I haven't held anything back from you, out of fear or pride or stubbornness." She felt the incredible tautness of his muscles, as if he were carved from marble. "For once have the strength not to walk away," she whispered. "Stay with me. Let me love you, Derek." He stood there frozen in defeat, with all the warmth and promise of her in his arms ... and he couldn't allow himself to take what she offered. He'd never felt so worthless, so much a fraud. Perhaps for a day, a week, he could be what she wanted. But no longer than that. He had sold his honor, his conscience, his body, anything he could use to escape the lot he'd been given in life. And now, with all his great fortune, he couldn't buy back what he'd sacrificed. Were he capable of tears, he would have shed them. Instead he felt numbing coldness spread through his body, filling up the region where his heart should have been. It wasn't difficult to walk away from her. It was appallingly easy. Sara made an inarticulate sound as he extricated himself from her embrace. He left her as he had left the others, without looking back.

WRENS ARE TRULY MAGNIFICENT LITTLE creatures. They signify rebirth and protection, immortality, and strength. Because of the wren’s small stature, most larger birds and predators underestimate its incredible ingenuity and intelligence. But while technically fragile, the wren outwits its underprepared predator to come out on top when threatened.

And maybe men say they're glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that's just so much sour grapes. For sure, men can't do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses—any advantages men appear to have are pretty token. You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus.

He was tall, one of the tallest men she had ever seen. Dressed in jeans, boots and a cotton shirt. Thick black hair grew rakishly long, falling over the collar of his shirt. Intense brown eyes, almost the color of amber, surveyed the diner slowly before coming back to her. Electricity sizzled in the air then, as though invisible currents connected them, forcing her to recognize him on a primitive level. Not that she wouldn’t take notice anyway. He was power, strength, and so incredibly male that her breath caught at the sight of him.

The absolute conviction that what you are doing is right and just and saving mankind provides enormous strength to persist and overcome incredible odds. It’s almost a superpower.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Abby: "You were great. I don't know what I'd have done without you." Dylan: "You'd have done fine. That's one of the most intimidating things about you." Abby: "Intimidating? Me?" Dylan: "It isn't easy for a man to get involved with a woman who's totally capable of handling anything that comes along... It isn't easy for a man to believe that there are woman who can not only do those things but enjoy them... [But] it's all natural for you isn't it? It's incredible.

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: “Who has earned the right to hear my story?” If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or a small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredible lucky.

The capacity to control your dissociative capabilities is very powerful. It allows people to be good at reflective cognition. It allows people to have intense focus on a specific task. Hypnosis, flow, being “in the zone”-all of these are examples of the trance state that dissociation allows. People who learn to control when and how they go into a trance state have a gift…be careful about labeling dissociation as a pathology…It can be an incredible strength.

Narcissistic fathers leave their daughters with deep doubts about whether a man can love them, since the first important man in their life was so in love with himself that he had no love left for them. If you are a daughter of a narcissistic father you may have withdrawn from men and bound yourself to mother, either overtly or emotionally. Or you may be engaged in a self-destructive attempt to be his kind of girl, whatever that is, as you try desperately to extract his love. Perhaps you have transferred this into a masochistic position with other men, finding a narcissistic man incredibly attractive as you try to master the mystery of winning his love. And narcissistic men appeal to you because you wish you could be that way yourself - assertive, not giving a damn, self-important - but you lack the confidence to do it yourself so you identify with the man who has their quality, even if it's at your expense. (I have often seen this revealed in those instances where a woman has suffered through a degradingly submissive and abusing relationship with a man, or a series of men, and then, gaining the strength to break that kind of bondage, violently overturns the tables and abuses that man, or the next man in her life, as degradingly as she was misused. It's not just revenge, but the release of hidden desire to be powerful and to be able to control father and make him beg for her love.)

Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless).

Remember again the principle: We will never be over those things that God has set under us until we learn to be under those things that God has placed over us. There is strength through surrender. Are you under the Word of God? Is the Bible your mandate for life? Are you loving it, reading it, obeying it, and living it? Are you consciously filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you yielded every part of the temple of your body to him? Are you grieving him in any way? Are you graciously submitting to those human authorities that God has set over you: in the home, in the church, in civil government, and in the workplace? Have you made Jesus Christ the absolute Lord over everything in your life?

During difficult times I often turn to a gospel song called “Stand.” In it, songwriter Donnie McClurkin sings, “What do you do when you’ve done all you can, and it seems like it’s never enough? What do you give when you’ve given your all, and it seems like you can’t make it through?” The answer lies in McClurkin’s simple refrain: “You just stand.” That’s where strength comes from—our ability to face resistance and walk through it. It’s not that people who persevere don’t ever feel doubt, fear, and exhaustion. They do. But in the toughest moments, we can have faith that if we take just one step more than we feel we’re capable of, if we draw on the incredible resolve every human being possesses, we’ll learn some of the most profound lessons life has to offer. What I know for sure is that there is no strength without challenge, adversity, resistance, and often pain. The problems that make you want to throw up your hands and holler “Mercy!” will build your tenacity, courage, discipline, and determination.

So,” Riley asked, “what have you got for me?” Taking his hand, she placed it palm-down over her heart. It would hurt like a bitch, she thought, but he was hers to protect as much as she was his. “Me.” And she opened up her soul, laid herself bare. The mating bond shoved through her body like white lightning, hot and wild and right. Incredibly, wonderfully right. His energy was different from hers—wolf, not leopard—but it laced itself with her own until their combined strength was far greater than either would’ve ever been alone. “Wow.” He blinked, swaying on his feet. “Damn.

So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth. But when he was held, rootless, in mid-air, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn't something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane. Well, there we have the first thing I said we needed. Quality, texture of information.

I can do anything I believe I can do! I’ve got it, and every day I get more of it. I have talent, skills, and ability. I set goals and I reach them. I know what I want out of life. I go after it and I get it. People like me, and I feel good about myself. I have a sense of pride in who I am, and I believe in myself. Nothing seems to stop me. I have a lot of determination. I turn problems into advantages. I find possibilities in things that other people never give a chance. I have a lot of energy—I am very alive! I enjoy life and I can tell it and so can others. I keep myself up, looking ahead, and liking it. I know that I can accomplish anything I choose, and I refuse to let anything negative hold me back or stand in my way. I am not afraid of anything or anyone. I have strength, power, conviction, and confidence! I like challenges and I meet them head on, face to face—today especially! I am on top of the world and I’m going for it. I have a clear picture in my mind of what I want. I can see it in front of me. I know what I want and I know how to get it. I know that it’s all up to me and I know I can do it. Roadblocks don’t bother me. They just mean that I am alive and running, and I’m not going to stand still for anything. I trust myself I’ve got what it takes—plenty of it—and I know how to use it. Today, more than ever. Today I am unstoppable! I’ve got myself together and I’m getting more together every day. And today—look out world, here I come! Limitations? I don’t even recognize them as limitations. There is no challenge I can’t conquer; there is no wall I can’t climb over. There is no problem I can’t defeat, or turn around and make it work for me. I stand tall! I am honest and sincere. I like to deal with people and they like me. I think well; I think clearly. I am organized; I am in control of myself, and everything about me. I call my shots, and no one has to call them for me. I never blame anyone else for the circumstances of my life. I accept my failings and move past them as easily as I accept the rewards for my victories. I never demand perfection of myself, but I expect the very best of what I have to give—and that’s what I get! I never give myself excuses. I get things done on time and in the right way. Today I have the inner strength to do more than ever. I am an exceptional human being. My goals and my incredible belief in myself turn my goals into reality. I have the power to live my dreams. I believe in them like I believe in myself. And that belief is so strong that there is nothing that diminishes my undefeatable spirit.

An indescribable amount of love for my mother resides deep within my inner being. However, it is the awareness of the unconditional love she also has for me — and how she believes in me — that gave me incredible strength and confidence during many crossroads of life when nights were the darkest. Knowing that not many are fortunate to be able to say the same while truly meaning it, it makes me feel eternally grateful for our mutually trusting relationship. Not just as a mother and son; but also as friends, as humans souls sharing this fleeting life on Planet Earth. May Love, Health, and Happiness be your everyday companions. Forever and Ever.

How could she have reacted like that? She didn’t understand what had come over her. She’d felt his passion and her own. It made her anxious. On edge. For something. Something that made her skin prickle whenever he was in the room with her. Indeed, she found it difficult to concentrate when he was around. He was big and strong and smelled incredible. She wanted to curl up against his chest and never leave. She’d never had such strong urges. But then again, she’d never met a man who made her feel so protected simply by his solid presence and his confident command of everything around him. His strength was strangely soothing. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d felt so…content.

The body is an outstanding source of strength; the mind an incredible source of intelligence; the heart an uncommon source of might; and the soul a remarkable source of power.

We humans are capable of incredible things. Our emotions can either be our biggest strength or our biggest weakness.

Truth…may for a time be crushed to the earth,” she said emphatically, “[but] it shall rise again with renovated strength.

The errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected, because our temperament is perfectly independent of our strength: it is not the case with our character. Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved. I

Remember again the principle: We will never be over those things that God has set under us until we learn to be under those things that God has placed over us. There is strength through surrender. Are

Watching you choose yourself when I didn’t will always prove as a reminder to me of your incredible strength and what a privilege it is to call you mine. I want to spend the rest of my nights with you. I want to spend the next decade working to be the man you always deserved. I want my greed to be for your love, your laughter, and our life together. I can’t bear to be parted from you. Please, Ale, will you be my wife?

It is a great universal and immutable law of life to never underestimate a woman. Because in any situation there is usually a woman whose power is greater than yours, capable of doing incredible acts of epic magnitude.

Finally, note that strong partnerships are often based on contrasting rather than coinciding strengths, so you’ll want to avoid the comfortable trap of seeking someone too similar to yourself. In Plato’s Republic, guards were taught by poets. Views contrary to your own are always helpful, as sometimes you will see truth in them and effect change, and, if not, you will be stress-testing and ultimately strengthening your own convictions.

You know," she said, pulling back from his neck. "I've always been wrong about something." "And that is?" "I thought there was nothing in the world more seductive than a troubadour singing his observations about his lady love. But I was wrong." She trailed her fingernail down his arm, raising chills in its wake. "The most incredible seduction is when a knight who is renowned for his strength speaks from his heart. Not as a knave out to woo a woman because he can, but as a man who wants only to give of himself." Her gaze seared him as she stared into his eyes and he saw her innermost sincerity. "I love you, Stryder. I always will." -Stryder and Rowena

She is not meant to be defined by the world. She is not meant to be described by the world. She is ineffable. She is inimitable. She is indomitable. And she is happy being her own self. She is immensely powerful. She is incredibly herself!

That’s where strength comes from—our ability to face resistance and walk through it. It’s not that people who persevere don’t ever feel doubt, fear, and exhaustion. They do. But in the toughest moments, we can have faith that if we take just one step more than we feel we’re capable of, if we draw on the incredible resolve every human being possesses, we’ll learn some of the most profound lessons life has to offer. What I know for sure is that there is no strength without challenge, adversity, resistance, and often pain.

Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly. The lovely, colored world is glassed over. Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand. And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell. A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again. Here a crab tears a leg from his brother. The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or little tide-pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down. Then the creeping murderer, the octopus, steals out, slowly, softly, moving like a gray mist, pretending now to be a bit of weed, now a rock, now a lump of decaying meat while its evil goat eyes watch coldly. It oozes and flows toward a feeding crab, and as it comes close its yellow eyes burn and its body turns rosy with the pulsing color of anticipation and rage. Then suddenly it runs lightly on the tips of its arms, as ferociously as a charging cat. It leaps savagely on the crab, there is a puff of black fluid, and the struggling mass is obscured in the sepia cloud while the octopus murders the crab. On the exposed rocks out of water, the barnacles bubble behind their closed doors and the limpets dry out. And down to the rocks come the black flies to eat anything they can find. The sharp smell of iodine from the algae, and the lime smell of calcareous bodies and the smell of powerful protean, smell of sperm and ova fill the air. On the exposed rocks the starfish emit semen and eggs from between their rays. The smells of life and richness, of death and digestion, of decay and birth, burden the air. And salt spray blows in from the barrier where the ocean waits for its rising-tide strength to permit it back into the Great Tide Pool again. And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

It’s incredible to me that you can be alone with your thoughts in a car for so long, when you’ve gone through what you’ve gone through,” he says. “People have been experimenting on you for years and years, and you have the balls to experiment on yourself—to push yourself to grow. Now, that is strength.

For me, vulnerability is essential to spiritual and creative growth, whereas being invulnerable means being shut down, rigid, small. My experience of creating music and writing songs is finding enormous strength through vulnerability. You’re being open to whatever happens, including failure and shame. There’s certainly a vulnerability to that, and an incredible freedom. […] I think to be truly vulnerable is to exist adjacent to collapse or obliteration. In that place we can feel extraordinarily alive and receptive to all sorts of things, creatively and spiritually. It can be perversely a point of advantage, not disadvantage as one might think. It is a nuanced place that feels both dangerous and teeming with potential. It is the place where the big shifts can happen. The more time you spend there, the less worried you become of how you will be perceived or judged, and that is ultimately where the freedom is.

Don’t give up on yourself. It’s incredibly cliche, but it’s true. The worst is yet to come if you give up on yourself. Hold yourself in high regard, and know that, though the ride may be bumpy and uncomfortable, there is a silver lining. You have to be able to see the good things in all that happens to you.

...imperfections were God's way of demonstrating His perfection and strength in our lives and ... incredible blessings could come through periods of absolute brokenness... It was undeniable to us now that the fruit of such intense toil and heartache was even sweeter when you had to work so hard to harvest it.

Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth? But when he was held, rootless, in midair, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn’t something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane.

Our son is a brilliant teenager who needs to learn independence. You baby—” “He’s a remarkable person who should be full of insecurity but isn’t—partly because I work hard to bolster him, to praise him, to show him what an incredible person he is, to reinforce that his challenges give him strength, not weakness. I never stop, Felix.” “I

Wither knew that everything was lost. It is incredible how little this knowledge moved him. What had been in his far-off youth a merely aesthetic repugnance to realities that were crude or vulgar, had deepened and darkened, year after year, into a fixed refusal of everything that was in any degree other than himself. He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through logical Positivism, and out at last into the complete void. The indicative mood now corresponded to no thought that his mind could entertain. He had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him.

If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or a small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredible lucky.

I knew that the town had been evacuated forever,” wrote Legasov in his memoirs, two years later, “but I couldn’t find the moral strength to tell it to the people. Besides, if we told them that they were leaving forever, it would take them quite a while to pack their bags. The radiation levels were already very dangerous, so we told them it was a temporary move.”172

Benji barely leaves any footprints in the snow as he moves between the trees. That always used to surprise people who encountered him on the ice, the combination of agility and strength. Adri always says it's incredible that someone so agile can be so bad at dancing, and he always replies that it's incredible that someone can be so bad at cooking as she is yet still be so fat.

The more my own eyes began to open, the more overwhelming grief and anger I felt. With time, education, and support, this awakening turned into a growing strength and hope inside me. This will happen for you, too. Reading this book is going to be incredibly helpful for you as you begin to awaken to the truth of what you have been through. If you have lived with a covert narcissist, you have been held down for a long time. You have experienced the illusion of love, not the real thing. You have been lied to, manipulated, and controlled. You have not been heard or respected. You were devalued and brutally discarded by someone who said they cared about you, but in fact only cared about themselves. You have experienced an insanity-inducing relationship that is difficult to describe.

God knew that our calling would be so huge and our weakness so deep that the only thing that would help us was himself. So in an act of incredible grace, he has unbuttoned us and gotten inside of us. Now think about this as a parent. This God who has the ability to do things that are way beyond your ability to conceive, who has perfect wisdom and unlimited strength, right now lives inside of you.

The ocean is like a warm bath. I mount his back and ride him. My thighs squeeze him and pulse with a tingling light. We are lovers. We are married. He swims with incredible strength and we travel quickly. He keeps me safe and I am drunk on his dignity. The smaller bears shrink, only to be eaten by engorged shrimp. The ocean grows hot with life after the offering of food. My skin melts where there is contact with my lover. The ocean and our love fuse the polar bear and me. He is I, his skin is my skin. Our flesh grows together. His face is my pussy and she is hungry. My legs sprout white fur that spreads all over me. I can feel every hair form inside of me and poke through tough bearskin. My whole body absorbs him and we become a new being. I am invincible. Bear mother, rabbit daughter, seal eater. Bear lover, human lover, ice pleaser. I will live another year.

That mental strength under pressure is absolutely critical for the long, deep dives that Rick and John tackle. When you are hundreds of yards into a sump, you are so isolated from the basic needs of survival that you may as well be on the surface of the moon. It’s no wonder, then, that sump divers seem to possess the same qualities as astronauts: the ability to prepare thoroughly, solve problems quickly, and keep cool in an emergency.

So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth? But when he was held, rootless, in midair, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn’t something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane. Well, there we have the first thing I said we needed. Quality, texture of information.

In the distant past the British Isles were ruled by tribes of giants. In the north, in the highlands of Scotland, in what is now Ross-shire, lived such a tribe of giant beings. This primeval tribe was renowned for their strength, and was famous for its incredible kinsfolk, such as Gog-Magog and the Cailleach-Mhore (Great Cailleach). This Cailleach was famed for her strength, even amongst this mightily-hewed tribe. One day, Cailleach Mhore was walking over the hills with a pannier of earth and rocks on her back. Pausing for breath, she stopped and stood on the site of Ben-Vaichard. As she stood gazing around her, the pannier gave way and all its contents came pouring out. Amidst the noise and chaos the Cailleach-Mhore cursed as her load was scattered. When the dust had cleared her gaze passed over a completely new landscape, with new hills formed by the earth and rocks she had been carrying.

I will not forgive. I will inflict and invite suffering-all our lives. As Bunni grows up she'll hear from her mother that her father is cruel,capricious, tyrannical person. Bunni won't love me. Everyone will take her side, because she is a woman, I won't be able to say a thing, ever. I will have to keep my mouth shut my entire life. I must maintain my wife's honour. And we call women the weaker sex! How deadly is the strength of frailty, and men-if they're gentlemen- how incredibly helpless!

...the incredible contrasts of the best and worst...both exist here in such terrific intensity because New York’s never been committed to any preservation of its static patterns. It’s always ready to change. Whether you are or not. That is what creates its horror and that is what creates its power. Its strength is its looseness. It’s the freedom to be so awful that gives it the freedom to be so good. And so things keep happening here all the time that have this Dynamic sparkle that saves it all. In the midst of everything that’s wrong, it sparkles.

The Forest. One day, when you wake up, you will find you’ve become a forest. You’ve grown roots and found strength in them that no one thought you had. You have become stronger and full of life giving qualities. You have learned to take all the negativity around you and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing. A host of wild creatures live inside you and you call them stories. A variety of beautiful birds nest inside your mind and you call them memories. You have become an incredible self- sustaining thing of epic proportions. And you should be so proud of yourself, of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.

I mean, in a world without God, aren’t mothers the new god? The last sacred unassailable position. Isn’t motherhood the last perfect magical miracle? But a miracle that’s impossible for men. And maybe men say they’re glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that’s just so much sour grapes. For sure, men can’t do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses—any advantages men appear to have are pretty token. You can’t even hammer a nail with a phallus. Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise. The day men can give birth, that’s when we can start talking about equal rights.

This magic, for it is magic, has rules, like the rest of the world. If you break the rules, the penalty is death. Without exception. Your deeds are limited by your strength, the words you know, and your imagination. "What do you mean by words?" asked Eragon. "More questions!" cried Brom. "For a moment, I had hoped you were empty of them. But you are quite right in asking. When you shot the Urgals, didn't you say something?" "Yes. Brisingr!" The fire flared and a shiver ran through Eragon. Something about the word made him feel incredibly alive. "I thought so. Brisingr is from an ancient language that all living things used to speak. However, it was forgotten over time and went unspoken for eons in Alagaesia until the Elves brought it back over the sea. They taught it to the other races, who used it for making and doing powerful things. The language has a name for everything...if you can find it." "But what does that have to do with magic?" interrupted Eragon. "Everything. It is the basis for all power." "The language describes the true nature of things, not the superficial aspect that everyone sees. For example, fire is called brisingr. Not only is that a name for fire, it is the name for fire. If you are strong enough, you can use brisingr to direct fire to do whatever you will.

I can't see a thousand years into the future, I told Her, so I can't see the nasty, evil outcome. What I can see is Master Prosper's horse, which is going to be amazingly beautiful. And thousands and millions of people who haven't even been born yet will look at that horse and hear about how it was made, even though it was impossible, and maybe it'll give them that little extra bit of strength and hope they need to persevere with scrambling up this shit heap we call life. And—I don't know. I really can't imagine what you've got up your sleeve that's so incredibly bad and horrible that Prosper's horse wouldn't have been worth it. From our perspective, I mean.

...It balances out my flaw of being too modest about my incredible dance moves.” “Um, nice try.” “Besides, I gotta believe we’re a good team because we make each other’s fatal flaws into slightly less fatal flaws. Like, maybe even fatal strengths.” She squeezed my hand. “That doesn’t even make sense, Seaweed Brain. But I appreciate the thought. So you’re saying I shouldn’t feel guilty?” “None of us should. Grover’s fatal flaw is apparently strawberry milkshakes, right? But sometimes life gives you strawberry milkshakes. Then you gotta count on your friends to look out for you. We’re a team. How many times have you propped me up?” “I’ve lost count.” “Exactly.

Jax swung his leg over the seat and stood over her. Sarah looked at him now, really saw the whole man. Was it her imagination, or did he look even bigger in the moonlight? More muscled, more domineering? Stronger, sexier, hotter? She shivered. “You cold?” he asked her. “No.” “Come over here for a sec, doll.” She stood stock-still, suddenly afraid. “It’s OK.” He gave her that grin that made her stomach flip. “Before we talk, there’s one thing we need to get out of the way.” “What’s that?” “Come over here and I’ll tell you.” Slowly, she covered the distance between them and stood in front of him. “Tell me what?” “This.” Jax gently took her face in both of his hands, avoiding her bruised cheek, and leaned down. She gasped, then his mouth was on hers, and all thought stopped. The kiss was unlike anything Sarah had ever experienced in her life. His lips were surprisingly soft, and when she balanced herself on his chest, she felt his incredible muscle under her fingertips. The contradiction of hard and soft, of pure animal strength tempered by a tender touch, shocked her, moved her. Sarah felt her legs weaken with lust, and she swayed forward. He moved his hands off her face then, and Jax wrapped his arms around her shaking body. He held her close, held her up. Jax cradled her, and Sarah felt protected and secure for the first time in a long time. Maybe the first time ever. Jax couldn’t believe how it felt to finally touch her the way that he wanted to. She was warm and sweet, and her response was incredible. Total surrender; aching want; hot need. He’d never have guessed that Sarah would give over so completely, and he kissed her over and over again, loving how she tasted. He finally pulled back, fighting with himself to do so. He opened his eyes and saw that hers were still closed. Her mouth was swollen and she trembled against him a bit. He ran his fingers through her curls, brushed her hair back from her gorgeous face. “Open your eyes, baby,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “Look at me.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I would like to take a moment to honour and appreciate all the incredible women who have touched our lives in so many ways. To all the mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, and friends who have shown us kindness, wisdom, and grace. Your strength, resilience, and perseverance continue to inspire us every day. You have been a constant source of support, and your guidance has helped us navigate through the toughest of times. No amount of gratitude is enough to thank you for everything that you have done for us. May you continue to shine your light and inspire others to do the same. May you be blessed with love, happiness, and success in all that you do. Happy International Women’s Day to all the incredible women out there!

Nor did the Antarctic represent to Shackleton merely the grubby means to a financial end. In a very real sense he needed it—something so enormous, so demanding, that it provided a touchstone for his monstrous ego and implacable drive. In ordinary situations, Shackleton's tremendous capacity for boldness and daring found almost nothing worthy of its pulling power; he was a Percheron draft horse harnessed to a child's wagon cart. But in the Antarctic—here was a burden which challenged every atom of his strength. Thus, while Shackleton was undeniably out of place, even inept, in a great many everyday situations, he had a talent—a genius, even—that he shared with only a handful of men throughout history—genuine leadership. He was, as one of his men put it, "the greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none.

After a long and arduous search, the scientists found fuel in December, with the help of remote cameras poking through a long hole drilled into a wall. It was still emitting 10,000 roentgens-per-hour. “It made us treat it with the utmost respect,” remembers Yuri Buzulukov, another expedition scientist. “To approach it meant certain death.”245 The two-meter-wide mass, which was discovered deep in the basement and quite a lateral distance from the reactor, had poured through a hole in the ceiling and cooled into a dark, glassy substance. They named it ‘The Elephant’s Foot’ due to its wrinkled, circular appearance. The fuel alone couldn’t have done this; the glassy effect was a major breakthrough. Samples were required for study, but the miniature robots sent to chip off pieces didn’t have sufficient strength to damage the Elephant’s Foot.

Living with audacity isn’t just about strength. I’ve learned that there’s bravery in being vulnerable, too. In the past, I’ve run from challenges, withdrawn from loved ones and cheated on partners, all because I didn’t have the courage I needed to face tough situations properly. Accepting who I used to be, admitting I was wrong and apologising for the mistakes I’ve made hasn’t been easy, but you’ve got to forgive yourself and fix up if you want to move forward. I love the wild child who still exists in my stand-up and is woven through my writing. I tried to kill her a hundred thousand times before accepting that the angry-baby-musical-theatre-kid-weirdo is not only an inescapable part of who I am, but that it’s maybe the best part. She’s certainly got the most unique tools and is probably the entire reason I’ve been able to pursue this incredible life authentically. Having

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Nothing is isolated. Do one thing, however small, and it will affect something else on the other side of the world" "But the surest way to slow your own progress is to rush yourself into situations you’re not yet ready for.”" "When you’re pushed to extreme fear or anger, your body magnifies your energy tenfold, sometimes a hundredfold. It isn’t like this for everyone" “I was wrong. Passion is bright and warm . . . but passion has a dark side too. It links with fear. Our hearts fill with terror at the thought of harm coming to our loved ones, don’t they? You cannot have love without fear. The two coexist. In you, your alignment with passion instead fed your fear and fury. It made you darker. The more you love someone, the more unsteady your powers become. Your growing passion for Enzo made you volatile. It led to you losing control over your powers, powers that had grown to dangerous strengths. That, coupled with your anger and bitterness, has made you incredibly unpredictable.

The Sarcophagus needed the strength to withstand Ukrainian weather for an estimated 20 years - time to develop a more permanent solution - and contain the astronomical levels of radiation within. Erecting the enclosure involved a quarter of a million workers, all of whom reached their lifetime maximum dose. In order for the Sarcophagus to be built, the radioactive graphite and reactor fuel first had to be cleared up and buried, so remote control bulldozers were brought in from West Germany, Japan and Russia to dig up the earth. Workers had originally piled up rubble at the base of Unit 4 and poured concrete straight onto it, intending to seal in the radiation, but that didn’t last long. “Geysers are starting to shoot up from the wet concrete. When the liquid falls on the fuel in the pile, there is an atomic excursion or simply a disruption of heat exchange and a rise in temperature. The radiation situation deteriorates sharply”, reported Vasiliy Kizima, chief of the construction project at the time.229

Psychologically, the United States is a bizarre mixture of overconfidence and insecurity. Interestingly, this is the precise description of the adolescent mind, and that is exactly the American condition in the twenty-first century. The world’s leading power is having an extended adolescent identity crisis, complete with incredible new strength and irrational mood swings. Historically, the United States is an extraordinarily young and therefore immature society. So at this time we should expect nothing less from America than bravado and despair. How else should an adolescent feel about itself and its place in the world? But if we think of the United States as an adolescent, early in its overall history, then we also know that, regardless of its self-image, adulthood lies ahead. Adults tend to be more stable and more powerful than adolescents. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that America is in the earliest phase of its power. It is not fully civilized. America, like Europe in the sixteenth century, is still barbaric (a description, not a moral judgment). Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions. Cultures live in one of three states. The first state is barbarism. Barbarians believe that the customs of their village are the laws of nature and that anyone who doesn’t live the way they live is beneath contempt and requiring redemption or destruction. The third state is decadence. Decadents cynically believe that nothing is better than anything else. If they hold anyone in contempt, it is those who believe in anything. Nothing is worth fighting for. Civilization is the second and most rare state. Civilized people are able to balance two contradictory thoughts in their minds. They believe that there are truths and that their cultures approximate those truths. At the same time, they hold open in their mind the possibility that they are in error. The combination of belief and skepticism is inherently unstable. Cultures pass through barbarism to civilization and then to decadence, as skepticism undermines self-certainty Civilized people fight selectively but effectively. Obviously all cultures contain people who are barbaric, civilized, or decadent, but each culture is dominated at different times by one principle.

Before them were soups and stews filled with various tubers, roasted venison, long hot loaves of sourdough bread, and rows of honeycakes dripped with raspberry preserve. In a bed of greens lay filleted trout garnished with parsley, and on the side, pickled eel stared forlornly at an urn of cheese, as if hoping to somehow escape back into a river. A swan sat on each table, surrounded by a flock of stuffed partridges, geese, and ducks. Mushrooms were everywhere: broiled in juicy strips, placed atop a bird’s head like a bonnet, or carved in the shape of castles amid moats of gravy. An incredible variety was on display, from puffy white mushrooms the size of Eragon’s fist, to ones he could have mistaken for gnarled bark, to delicate toadstools sliced neatly in half to showcase their blue flesh. Then the centerpiece of the feast was revealed: a gigantic roasted boar, glistening with sauce. At least Eragon thought it was a boar, for the carcass was as large as Snowfire and took six dwarves to carry. The tusks were longer than his forearms, the snout as wide as his head. And the smell, it overwhelmed all others in pungent waves that made his eyes water from their strength.

I would like to crush the incredibly infantile notion, that entails everything a woman does, is in the seeking for approval. A woman shares a selfie: she is looking for approval; a woman smiles at you: she is looking for your approval; a woman speaks her knowledge: she wants to be smart in order to gain your approval; a woman graduates at NASA: she wants to gain the approval of society (no, it cannot be that she simply dreams of landing on the Moon); a woman takes all her clothes off in her photos: she wants to gain the approval of men. Why is it that everything a woman does, says, shows and thinks; is assumed to be in the seeking of approval? The only time a woman is not seen in such a light, is when: she is silent, her body is covered up, she goes around meekly like a lamb or stands idly like a fading flower. A woman is a person who may do, say, think, feel, and show, as she wishes to, without any of that having to do with any man or any other woman around her. Yes, it is true that no person is an island, but what is also true, is that, every person is a living being capable of performing, acting, thinking, showing and feeling, entirely unto their own will and for their own purposes.

We shall never know now whether Nazism, the concentration camps or Hiroshima were intelligible or not: we are no longer part of the same mental universe. Victim and executioner are interchangeable, responsibility is diffrangible, dissoluble - such are the virtues of our marvellous interface. We no longer have the strength that forgetting gives: our amnesia is an amnesia of the image. Since everyone is guilty, who will declare an amnesty? As for autopsy, no one believes any longer in the anatomical accuracy of the facts: we have only models to work on. Even supposing the facts lay shining bright before our eyes, they would still not have the power to prove or convince. Consider how continual scrutiny of Nazism, of the gas chambers and so on, has merely rendered them less and less comprehensible, so that it has eventually become logical to ask an incredible question: 'But, in the last reckoning, did all those things really exist?' The question is perhaps an intolerable one, but the interesting thing here is what it is that makes it logically possible. And in fact what makes it possible is the media's way of replacing any event, any idea, any history, with any other, with the result that the more we scrutinize the facts, the more carefully we study details with a view to identifying causes, the greater is the tendency for them to cease to exist, and to cease to have existed.

In the logic of ableism, anyone who can handle such an (allegedly) horrible life must be strong; a lesser man would have given up in despair years ago. Indeed, Reeve's refusal to “give up” is precisely why the FBL selected Reeve for their model of strength; in the “billboard backstories” section of their website, they praise Reeve for trying to “beat paralysis and the spinal cord injuries” rather than “giv[ing] up.” Asserting that Goldberg is successful because of her hard work suggests that other people with dyslexia and learning disabilities who have not met with similar success have simply failed to engage in hard work; unlike Whoopi Goldberg, they are apparently unwilling to devote themselves to success. Similarly, by positioning Weihenmayer's ascent of Everest as a matter of vision, the FBL implies that most blind people, who have not ascended Everest or accomplished equivalently astounding feats, are lacking not only eyesight but vision. The disabled people populating these billboards epitomize the paradoxical figure of the supercrip: supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expectations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention).

Radioactive reactor fuel and graphite lay everywhere. Part of the roof had collapsed into Unit 4’s section of the turbine hall, setting turbine 7 on fire and breaking an oil pipe, which spread the fire still further and set the hall’s roof alight. Falling debris had broken the pressure valve on a feed pump, which was gushing out boiling, radioactive water.135 Men and women rushed past chunks of uranium fuel as they battled to contain the blaze, isolate electrical systems, and manually open oil-drain and cooling-water valves. Many of these brave souls later died, unaware they had been running among pieces of reactor fuel. For their part, Akimov and Toptunov stayed at the plant after the morning shift relieved them from duty at 6am, choosing to join the desperate effort to salvage the situation. The pair decided water flow to the reactor must be blocked by a closed valve somewhere, so they went together to the half-destroyed feedwater room, where they opened valves on the two feedwater lines. Next, they moved to another room, where they stood knee-deep in a highly radioactive mixture of fuel and water for hours, turning half-submerged valves by hand until the radiation drained their strength and they were evacuated to Pripyat’s hospital.136 Their noble efforts were in vain. The water lines had been destroyed along with the reactor - they were opening valves to nowhere - yet still the control room operators continued redirecting water towards the reactor even six hours after the explosion.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. ... The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Life is pretty short yet magnanimous if we know just how to live right. It isn't that easy, it takes a lot of our soul, sometimes too many broken pieces to finally come together in binding a masterpiece that smiles like a solitary star forever gazing around at the music of an eternal cosmos. The most brutal yet beautiful truth about Life is that It is marked, marked with Time where every moment takes us closer to death, it doesn't have to sound or feel bad or scary because death is the most inevitable truth in this mortal world. While the knowledge of death jolts our mind with the uncertainty of Life, clutches us in the emotion of fear to think of pain or the loss of bonds, when we acknowledge that as a part of our souls' journey and take every moment as our precious gift, a blessing to experience this Life with its beautiful garden of emotions blossoming with wonderful smiles that we can paint on others, then we make our Life magnanimous, then we make even the very face of death as that of an angel coming to take us to a different voyage, soaked in a lot of memories and experiences beautifully binding our soul. I have realised that when we live each day as if it's the last day of our life, we become more loving and gentle to everyone around and especially to our own selves. We forgive and love more openly, we grace and embrace every opportunity we get to be kind, to stay in touch with everything that truly matters. I have realised that when we rise every morning with gratitude knowing that the breath of air still passes through our body, just in the mere understanding that we have one more day to experience Life once again, we stay more compassionate towards everything and everyone around and invest more of our selves into everything and everyone that truly connect and resonate with our soul. I have realised that when we consciously try to be good and kind, no matter however bad or suffocating a situation is we always end up taking everything at its best holding on to the firm grip of goodness, accepting everything as a part of our souls' lesson or just a turn of Time or Fate and that shapes into our strength and roots our core with the truest understanding of Life, the simple act of going on and letting go. Letting go of anything and everything that chains our Soul while going on with a Heart open to Love and a Soul ready to absorb all that falls along the pathway of this adventure called Life. I have realised that when we are kind and do anything good for another person, that gives us the most special happiness, something so pure that even our hearts don't know how deep that joy permeates inside our soul. I have realised that at the end of the day we do good not because of others but because of our own selves, for if tomorrow death comes to grace me I hope to smile and say I have Lived, loved unconditionally and embraced forgiveness, kindness and goodness and all the other colours of Love with every breath I caught, I have lived a Life magnanimous. So each time someone's unkind towards you, hold back and smile, and try to give your warmth to that person. Because Kindness is not a declaration of who deserves it, it's a statement of who you are. So each time some pieces of your heart lay scattered, hold them up and embrace everyone of them with Love. Because Love is not a magic potion that is spilled from a hollow space, it's a breath of eternity that flows through the tunnel of your soul. So each time Life puts up a question of your Happiness, answer back with a Smile of Peace. Because Happiness is not what you look for in others, it's what you create in every passing moment, with the power of Life, that is pretty short when we see how counted it stands in days but actually turns out absolutely incredibly magnanimous when loved and lived in moments.

Closing her eyes, she fit the violin under her chin, and set the bow to the strings. Faith had never been as blind as this. The first thing that came to mind was the sound of her fingers breaking. Her life, as she knew it, dying. The shock and the pain of it, and the utter devastation. They’ve killed me, she thought. So she played it. Next came the memory of warm, strong hands reaching for hers in the darkness. The unknown clasping her fingers, healing her, lending her strength and reassurance. It was the only thing in the world when she had nothing. It had been her lifeline. And she played it. Then came trust, the tentative unfurling, when she believed against all evidence that the person who came to her in the darkness would help her in any way he could. The impossibly intense adventure of his arm, sliding around her shoulders. The miracle of warmth when she had known nothing but coldness. That first kiss, oh, the surprise of it! The agonizing uncertainty… was it all right to allow this? How could it feel so incredibly good? Could she possibly kiss him again? Oh, when could she kiss him again? The burning that took hold, the incandescent light that shone despite all the shadows stacked around them. The unbearable, delicious hunger that was the sweetest pain… that she would give anything, anything, if only she could feel it again… Always before, when she had played, she’d had the awareness of the violin and the bow as instruments in her craft. Her music had been self-conscious, aware. Now, as she played, she went somewhere she had never gone before. She lost awareness of the violin altogether. She became the music. She was the story, the vibration. She became the story of love, the notes written in kisses and caresses on her skin. She felt the symphony, the swelling highs in the lifts, and the terrible lows in the falls, and hope was the cruelest note of all, the devastation that came afterward, utterly intolerable. She poured it all out, all the emotion, the experience, the exquisite delight along with the terror. There was no hiding any of it from a god anyway. The only other being she had been so naked with was Morgan, and he was gone. Gone, while the love she felt for him had become the very breath of life to her. Give him back to me, she begged with her music. Give him back. When the last note speared through the air, she had nothing left to give.

I miss Diana more than I can express. The world seems a colder place without her luminous presence. To had had Diana’s friendship, to have known her personally, has been a gift beyond comparison. She brought joy and pride and a touch of glamour to my life for years. I loved and admired her without reservation. When Patrick recognized her picture on magazine covers, I thought how incredible it was that we actually knew the beautiful, famous Diana. Best of all, we knew she was even lovelier inside. I read her letters, feeling deeply touched that she continued to care for us. Seeing her in person--warm, unpretentious, and radiant--was a thrill that lasted a long, long time. It truly was, “like being brushed by angels’ wings,” as my friend at the funeral had said. Whoever would have thought when I called for a nanny so many years ago, that magic would enter my life. My family and I watched her dazzling progress from a shy teenager to a multi-faceted and charismatic woman. She fulfilled her many roles so beautifully. Yet to me, Diana was a beloved friend, not the world-famous Princess of Wales. Behind the glamour, I saw the qualities I’d always admired in her--kindness, integrity, and grace in all she did. Above all, Diana was born to be a mother. Showing affection was as natural to her as breathing. I saw her tender care for my young son. I know she was an utterly devoted mother to her own boys, giving them unconditional love and deriving her greatest joy in life from them. I’ve wished so often that her life had been a fairytale, that Diana had been spared the pain and loneliness she suffered. But without the despair, she might not have developed the strength and humanity that reached out to people everywhere. Diana instinctively looked beyond her own problems to ease the pain and distress of others. She touched so many people in her short lifetime. I never thought it would end this way--that she would die so young. I will always remember, as the last hymn faded into silence at her funeral, the solemn tread of the soldiers’ boots--so haunting, so final--as they carried her casket through the Abbey. I couldn’t bear that she was leaving forever. For months now, I’ve searched for some solace in this tragedy. I hope that Diana’s untimely death and the worldwide mourning for her have silenced forever those who belittled her values and doubted her appeal. She rests peacefully now beyond reproach--young and beautiful. Diana, you were greater than we realized. We will never, never forget you.

She had not wanted to come, and now that she was there, she was still praying for deliverance. “Aunt Berta!” she said forcefully as the front door of the great, rambling house was swung open. The butler stepped aside, and footmen hurried forward. “Aunt Berta!” she said urgently, and in desperation Elizabeth reached for the maid’s tightly clenched eyelid. She pried it open and looked straight into a frightened brown orb. “Please do not do this to me, Berta. I’m counting on you to act like an aunt, not a timid mouse. They’re almost upon us.” Berta nodded, swallowed, and straightened in her seat, then she smoothed her black bombazine skirts. “How do I look?” Elizabeth whispered urgently. “Dreadful,” said Berta, eyeing the severe, high-necked black linen gown Elizabeth had carefully chosen to wear at this, her first meeting with the prospective husband whom Alexandra had described as a lecherous old roué. To add to her nunlike appearance, Elizabeth’s hair was scraped back off her face, pinned into a bun a la Lucida, and covered with a short veil. Around her neck she wore the only piece of “jewelry” she intended to wear for as long as she was here-a large, ugly iron crucifix she’d borrowed from the family chapel. “Completely dreadful, milady,” Berta added with more strength to her voice. Ever since Robert’s disappearance, Berta had elected to address Elizabeth as her mistress instead of in the more familiar ways she’d used before. “Excellent,” Elizabeth said with an encouraging smile. “So do you.” The footman opened the door and let down the steps, and Elizabeth went first, following by her “aunt.” She let Berta step forward, then she turned and looked up at Aaron, who was atop the coach. Her uncle had permitted her to take six servants from Havenhurst, and Elizabeth had chosen them with care. “Don’t forget,” she warned Aaron needlessly. “Gossip freely about me with any servant who’ll listen to you. You know what to say.” “Aye,” he said with a devilish grin. “We’ll tell them all what a skinny ogress you are-prim ‘n proper enough to scare the devil himself into leading a holy life.” Elizabeth nodded and reluctantly turned toward the house. Fate had dealt her this hand, and she had no choice but to play it out as best she could. With head held high and knees shaking violently she walked forward until she drew even with Berta. The butler stood in the doorway, studying Elizabeth with bold interest, giving her the incredible impression that he was actually trying to locate her breasts beneath the shapeless black gown she wore.

YOU FIRST When entering into relationships, we have a tendency to bend. We bend closer to one another, because regardless of what type of relationship it might be — romantic, business, friendship — there’s a reason you’re bringing that other person into your life, and that means the load is easier to carry if you carry it together, both bending toward the center. I picture people in relationships as two trees, leaning toward one another. Over time, as the relationship solidifies, you both become more comfortable bending, and as such bend farther, eventually resting trunk to trunk. You support each other and are stronger because of the shared strength of your root system and entwined branches. Double-tree power! But there’s a flaw in this mode of operation. Once you’ve spent some time leaning on someone else, if they disappear — because of a breakup, a business upset, a death, a move, an argument — you’re all that’s left, and far weaker than when you started. You’re a tree leaning sideways; the second foundation that once supported you is…gone. This is a big part of why the ending of particularly strong relationships can be so disruptive. When your support system presupposes two trunks — two people bearing the load, and divvying up the responsibilities; coping with the strong winds and hailstorms of life — it can be shocking and uncomfortable and incredibly difficult to function as an individual again; to be just a solitary tree, alone in the world, dealing with it all on your own. A lone tree needn’t be lonely, though. It’s most ideal, in fact, to grow tall and strong, straight up, with many branches. The strength of your trunk — your character, your professional life, your health, your sense of self — will help you cope with anything the world can throw at you, while your branches — your myriad interests, relationships, and experiences — will allow you to reach out to other trees who are likewise growing up toward the sky, rather than leaning and becoming co-dependent. Relationships of this sort, between two equally strong, independent people, tend to outlast even the most intertwined co-dependencies. Why? Because neither person worries that their world will collapse if the other disappears. It’s a relationship based on the connections between two people, not co-dependence. Being a strong individual first alleviates a great deal of jealousy, suspicion, and our innate desire to capture or cage someone else for our own benefit. Rather than worrying that our lives will end if that other person disappears, we know that they’re in our lives because they want to be; their lives won’t end if we’re not there, either. Two trees growing tall and strong, their branches intertwined, is a far sturdier image than two trees bent and twisted, tying themselves into uncomfortable knots to wrap around one another, desperately trying to prevent the other from leaving. You can choose which type of tree to be, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with either model; we all have different wants, needs, and priorities. But if you’re aiming for sturdier, more resilient relationships, it’s a safe bet that you’ll have better options and less drama if you focus on yourself and your own growth, first. Then reach out and connect with others who are doing the same.

To create motivation to change, you must first recognize your false definitions of yourself, and be willing to seek something different. But this requires an incredible amount of humility to seek out, and then allow feelings of vulnerability, unpredictability, and instability as you intentionally seek emotional strength

This water is greatly valued,” Kassandra said. “Event today, we bring ewers of it to the temples for blessings.” She looked at him again, a bit anxiously, he thought, but as before the impression was swiftly gone. Bending, she cupped her palm, caught sparkling drops of water and drank. The liquid slipped down her throat, cool, clear and incredibly pure. She drank a little more and felt the tension easing from her body, little by little, almost imperceptibly at first, but gathering in strength with each passing moment. “Why don’t you try it?” she suggested and stood aside so that he could do so. As Royce bent to catch the water in his hand, Kassandra almost reached out to stop him but drew back at the last moment. He was a strong man, it would still be his voice. The water was merely…encouragement. From time immemorial, Akoran husbands and wives had enjoyed a goblet of the water taken from the buried temple on their wedding night. Years later, old couples basking in the sun would remember it fondly and share secret looks of tender passion. Of course, it was also possible that the water did nothing and all was mere legend. She wanted to believe that, for it eased her conscience, but the heat seeping through her made her uncertain. She stared at Royce as he drank, watching the ripple of the water ease down his throat. He was such a beautiful man, so perfectly formed in body and mind. The memory of him on the field at the Games, on horseback wearing only a kilt, his powerful muscles flexing as he threw the javelin, haunted her dreams. Ever since then, she had been living in a nightmare. Atreus…the danger to Akora…her own death the price to save both family and home…all seemed to close around her until she could scarcely breathe. Until the moment when she emerged from her desperate, futile quest for vision to see in Royce’s beloved face the future for which she yearned with all her heart. A future that in all likelihood was impossible. That being the case, was it so terribly wrong to steal a little happiness in the fleeting present?

There is something incredible about the phrase "I'm sorry." When it's used carelessly, the expression is impotent, and can even offend. But when you really, really mean it--even if your mother is night-gowned and bed-ready with a scrum of toothpaste still in her mouth, when the words rise up inside of you on the strength of every way in which you've changed, it can be enough.

There are two ways in which healthy survivability can develop in silent sons. On one hand, there are boys who come through incredibly troubled families and still emerge as healthy men. Although this does not happen very often, a number of researchers have found that at least 10 percent of children from severely dysfunctional families emerge as healthy people.1 The explanation for this includes getting help from outside of the family, having a positive attitude or temperament, resiliency in the face of stress, and the ability of some children in dysfunctional families to have a sense of autonomy. On the other hand, I believe that men can become healthy survivors by using their strengths and positive characteristics to overcome their pasts. This type of man knows that what he has learned from his experience is more important than where he has been. He builds on his experiences and does not allow them to tear him down. While it may seem that the term “healthy survivor” describes a man who is not affected by anything, this is not true. The healthy survivor does not deny his experiences, nor does he let them force him into negative behaviors. Rather, he has learned to maintain balance in himself and his life. If he is in pain, he deals with it. He admits when he is vulnerable, and is able to ask for help. He is not afraid to show his emotions, but he is not controlled by them either. He knows he is in control of himself. More importantly, he likes who he is and is comfortable with his life. It may have taken a long time for him to grow into a healthy survivor, or he could have been using his strength all along. Either way, the healthy survivor would not trade places with anyone today. He values what it took to get him where he is and he values himself. He is not for sale. Healthy survivors share many positive traits. How many of the following do you have? He knows how to attract and use the support of healthy people around him. He has developed a healthy sense of humor. He has developed a well-balanced sense of autonomy. He is socially at ease and others are comfortable around him. He is willing to identify and express his feelings. He can work through, not deny, his problems. He is neither controlled or controlling. He does not live in fear of his past, but with contentment and a sense of power about the present. He can love and be loved. He likes who he is, not what he is.

I gained permission to fall apart and be imperfect, and they could share their strength and incredible wisdom with me. If