Ironic Motivational Quotes

Whenever you are going through life’s challenges, remember that for iron to be cast into its desired form, it must first go through intense heat.

The most dangerous irony is, people are angry with others because of their own incompetence.

Fear is leaden. Courage is golden. Let go of the weight of the world, and you will fly.

Beware trying to iron out all your quirks, perceived flaws and doubts. It's often these things that help you find strength, compassion, empathy for others and heart.

I don't understand this irony - valuable things like cars, gold, diamond are made up of hard materials but most valuable things like money, contracts and books are made up of soft paper.

Sometimes all the players get a bad hand. You just have to be determined enough to see the game through.

...[I]ron discipline does not preclude but presupposes criticism and contest of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it mean that discipline must be 'blind'. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes conscious and voluntary submission, for only conscious discipline can be truly iron discipline.

Ironically, when we own the shadow aspects of our self and put down our masks - this is when we become truly lovable.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

Being enlightened ironically means realizing that there is no separate entity that can be enlightened or unenlightened.

Irony, we want our handwriting to look like typed fonts, and our computer fonts to look like handwritten text.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

Bedtime makes you realize how completely incapable you are of being in charge of another human being. My children act like they’ve never been to sleep before. “Bed? What’s that? No, I’m not doing that.” They never want to go to bed. This is another thing that I will never have in common with my children. Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is, “When can I come back here?” It’s the carrot that keeps me motivated. Sometimes going to bed feels like the highlight of my day. Ironically, to my children, bedtime is a punishment that violates their basic rights as human beings. Once the lights are out, you can expect at least an hour of inmates clanging their tin cups on the cell bars.

Only those who have tasted the bitterest of the bitter can become people who stand out among others. -Guanchang Xianxing Ji

Fathers are ironic, they want democracy in their country but dictatorship in their home.

Never sit back and wait for a opportunity to find you, get up and search for one, it exists find it!

You are iron plated gold, running here and there to save yourself from rust. Stop identifying with the thin layer of iron; you are the gold underneath.

Listen up: just because you have the capacity to do something for someone, it doesn't mean you have the obligation to especially when they won't even appreciate you for doing it

What, then, are religions if not the restraint wherewith the tyranny of the mightier sought to enslave the weaker? Motivated by that design, he dared say to him whom he claimed the right to dominate, that a God had forged the irons with which cruelty manacled him; and the latter, bestialized by his misery, indistinctly believed everything the former wished. Can religions, born of these rogueries, merit respect?

It is ironic how those so hungry for an honest opinion are so quickly offended by that honesty. If you are not ready to hear the bad with the good, do not ask.

I don’t understand why people keep pushing that “Don’t be some random person. BE UNIQUE” message. You’re already incredibly unique. Everyone is incredibly unique. That’s why the police use fingerprints to identify people. So you’re incredibly unique … but in the exact same way that everyone else is. (Which, admittedly, doesn’t really sing and is never going to make it on a motivational T-shirt.) So none of us are unique in being unique because being unique is pretty much the least unique thing you can be, because it comes naturally to everyone. So perhaps instead of “BE UNIQUE” we should be saying, “Be as visibly fucked up as you want to be because being unique is already taken.” By everyone, ironically enough. Or maybe we should change the message to “Don’t just be some random person. Be the MOST random person.

We are not born with hard hearts. We are born with soft and tender hearts that, more often than not, are mishandled and consequently broken. The pain is always harsher than expected when each fragment turns to stone. So we pile them high to form a wall of protection around ourselves, determined never to experience such terrible pain again. That is how hearts come to be hardened. Ironically, our refusal to dismantle the wall is how and why we continue to suffer.

Escalation of commitment is a major factor in preventable failures. Ironically, it can be fueled by one of the most celebrated engines of success: grit. Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance, and research shows that it can play an important role in motivating us to accomplish long-term goals. When it comes to rethinking, though, grit may have a dark side. Experiments show that gritty people are more likely to overplay their hands in roulette and more willing to stay the course in tasks at which they’re failing and success is impossible.

Then we could collate all the possibles and go to work with the holy trinity of detectives everywhere: means, motive, opportunity. Means and opportunity wouldn’t signify much. By definition nobody would be on the possibles list unless they had been proved to have opportunity. And everybody in the army was physically capable of swinging a tire iron or a crowbar against the back of an unsuspecting victim’s head. It was probably a rough equivalent of the most basic entry requirement.

Failing is easy, but climbing up the mountain requires strategy, commitment, endurance, and the iron will to keep trying till you reach the summit.

It is ironic that we are particular about flushing out all the dirt through the Drain,but we continue to retain a lot of it in our Brain.-RVM

Poets are always sad. And ironically poets write to make others happy.

Anger motivates as well as any other emotion in the short term. It's in longer doses that it's more poisonous than the others and will slowly eat away at you from the inside out. - The Malwatch

I can create a new business within three months: raise the money, assemble a team, and launch it. It’s fun for me. It’s really cool to see what can I put together. It makes money almost as a side effect. Creating businesses is the game I became good at. It’s just my motivation has shifted from being goal-oriented to being artistic. Ironically, I think I’m much better at it now. [74] Even when I invest, it’s because I like the people involved, I like hanging out with them, I learn from them, I think the product is really cool. These days, I will pass on great investments because I don’t find the products interesting.

I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it. In spite of myself, I was conscious of a feeling of envy for those who did not suffer from such troubles, for the wealthy and the privileged; and this envy, I observed, was accompanied—still against my will—by a feeling of bitterness towards them, which, in turn, did not limit its aim to particular persons or situations, but, as if by an uncontrollable bias, tended to assume the general, abstract character of a whole conception of life. In fact, during those difficult days, I came very gradually to feel that my irritation and my intolerance of poverty were turning into a revolt against injustice, and not only against the injustice which struck at me personally but the injustice from which so many others like me suffered. I was quite aware of this almost imperceptible transformation of my subjective resentments into objective reflections and states of mind, owing to the bent of my thoughts which led always and irresistibly in the same direction: owing also to my conversation, which, without my intending it, alway harped upon the same subject. I also noticed in myself a growing sympathy for those political parties which proclaimed their struggle against the evils and infamies of the society to which, in the end I had attributed the troubles that beset me—a society which, as I thought, in reference to myself, allowed its best sons to languish and protected its worst ones. Usually, and in the simpler, less cultivated people, this process occurs without their knowing it, in the dark depths of consciousness where, by a kind of mysterious alchemy, egoism is transmuted into altruism, hatred into love, fear into courage; but to me, accustomed as I was to observing and studying myself, the whole thing was clear and visible, as though I were watching it happen in someone else; and yet I was aware the whole time that I was being swayed by material subjective factors, that I was transforming purely personal motives into universal reasons.

If renunciation is not embraced By the pure motivation of bodhicitta, It will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of unsurpassed awakening, So the wise should generate supreme bodhicitta. Beings are swept along by the powerful current of the four rivers, Tightly bound by the chains of their karma, so difficult to undo, Ensnared within the iron trap of their self-grasping, And enshrouded in the thick darkness of ignorance. Again and yet again, they are reborn in limitless saṃsāra, And constantly tormented by the three forms of suffering. This is the current condition of all your mothers from previous lives— Contemplate their plight and generate supreme bodhichitta.

Your world needs you. So, use your education to become endowed with muscles of iron and nerves of steel. Do not exploit the means of education to become a man or a woman. Use it to become a human being, in the pursuit of excellence.

The Mafia’s involvement with gay bars is ironic on so many levels. Macho guys ruled gangland but supported a subculture for nelly queens. Most mobsters were evil sociopaths motivated only by financial self-interest but nevertheless were doing a good thing in providing social spaces for the gay community. The mob was on the wrong side of the liquor laws by serving gay folk but on the right side of the 14th Amendment in arguing for equal protection. The Mafia exploited an oppressed community but advanced the gay cause.

Whether or not you employ humor in dealing with difficult subjects, the tone of the writing is of the utmost importance. Personally, I can read about almost any subject if I feel a basic trust in, and respect for, the writer. The voice must have authority. But more than that, I must know that the writer is all right. If she describes a suicide attempt or a babysitter's cruelty to her, or a time of acute loneliness, I need to feel that the writer, not the character who survived the experience, is in control of telling the story....The tone of such pieces may be serious, ironic, angry, sad, or almost anything except whiny. There must be no hidden plea for help - no subtle seeking of sympathy. The writer must have done her work, made her peace with the facts, and be telling the story for the story's sake. Although the writing may incidentally turn out to be another step in her recovery, that must not be her visible motivation: literary writing is not therapy. Her first allegiance must be to the telling of the story and I, as the reader, must feel that I'm in the hands of a competent writer who needs nothing from me except my attention.

Better Associations: If you associate yourself with a change maker, Your life will by all means become better. You will wink at challenges and begin to think. In times of frustrations, you will not sink. If you miss the way to a great destination, Just look for those going to that direction. Mount the shoulders of a giant believer And you will become a great achiever. People around you determine your speed. They will influence the growth of your seed. People you are around will decide your strength And also the figure of your success’ length I trust you want to become a better you. It matters, what your associates plan to do. It depends, where your companions want to go. It relies on what your friends believe and know. Quit friendships that build you nothing Choose friends who bring out of you something One iron sharpens another iron Go along with great people and ride on.

Irony thrives in liberal and decadent societies because it permits the evasion of responsibility. One never need commit too much. The ironic utterance of a phrase or performance of an action allows one to conceal his true motives. He may mean what he says, or he may mean the opposite; in any case, no one can ever hold him to account.

Markets are not just about the steam engine, iron foundries, or today’s silicon-chip factories. Markets also supported Shakespeare, Haydn, and the modern book superstore. The rise of oil painting, classical music, and print culture were all part of the same broad social and economic developments, namely the rise of capitalism, modern technology, rule of law, and consumer society.

This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an overruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle. When such begins to be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more readily, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take the second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly strait path. They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious; and never once seem to suspect—so cunning has the Devil been with them—that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which godlike benevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism.

Bodybuilding is also a great form of stress relief. Lifting weights and drifting off into your own world of intensity and letting out aggression or frustration on iron is much better than letting out frustration toward people, animals, or objects around the house. Let the gym be a sanctuary for you to be at peace. Let it calm you and ground you and allow you to appreciate everything around you. Let it also be a place for you to unload and explode with intensity through your training.

I know you are tired. I know you are hurting. I know that even among the crowds and or with your closest loved ones, you feel terribly alone in the world. I know that in the quietness, a thousand hell hounds are barking and snarling at your heels. They tell you, "Everything is wrong with you. You are a failure. You will never live to see your dreams and visions come to pass. You know you should just throw in the towel. No one would even miss you if you were gone. Exit from this cruel insane assylum you call home. We will even tell you how to end 'it'." But don't you dare entertain those hounds of hell, no, not even for one moment. See, you not only have the elixir of Life inside of your organs and your veins; you are the Elixir of Life of a Celestial domain. For every hell hound nipping at your ears, there are eight hundred angels rushing to you with every holy breath....you take. Every step you make fuels the fire of Love in your behalf. See, nothing is wrong with you. Every thing is right with you. You are cut from iron. You have long exchanged your velveteen fabric and cotton stuffing for blazen guts and a heart of gold. You are the head and not the tail. You are the water in the desert, the ripple in the steam, the sword AND the stone and you, glorious being, are not alone! We are one and we are many. We've known lack, but we are plenty. We are not on the cusp of a break through. We are the cusp and we are the break --- through. We are the old and we are the new. Who knew? You did. You do. And don't you ever forget that.

Whatever small power of guilt Elaine once held over Lancelot, she’d used up long ago. Oh, self-reproach certainly stung him, but it is one of the most ironic paradoxes of the male temperament that the more shame a man feels, the less likely he is to be persuaded to repent by the person whom he has wronged, especially when she uses guilt as a motive. Like most men, Lancelot lashed out in anger when his shame was too much to bear, thus amplifying his guilt, rather than ameliorating it. It is an all too common downward spiral with men who cherish their honor but act dishonorably.

[Some people] think that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one's mind, choice, or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you–just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment -- just try to think of performing it as an act of selfless charity! – an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience–or to fake– a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer, because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. He does not seek to gain his value, but to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body . . .

It is in light of such overwhelming (and interesting) research that Anne Campbell questions the myth of the “coy female” and the myth of the “nonaggressive woman.” Campbell writes: It is ironic that some of these myths have been supported by the feminist movement, which has tried to insist that women’s aggression is exclusively a response to male violence. The idea that females could have survived without the motivation and ability to compete for scarce resources is, from an evolutionary viewpoint, untenable. Nonetheless, it is a viewpoint that is congenial to the continuance of male protection and control over women.

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

Two paths with very worthy objectives, but only one results in pleasing God; ironically, it is not the Pleasing God path! When we choose the path of Pleasing God, we end up neither pleasing Him nor learning to live by faith. Our spiritual lives are dependent upon our ability to follow. But when we choose the Trusting God path, continually admitting our brokenness and humbly embracing the sufficiency of Christ, we experience both trusting God and pleasing God. Our spiritual lives are not motivated by guilt, fear, and shame but by love, desire, and gratitude. Two paths … very different results. In the powerful words of Robert Frost, “I chose the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.” This choice truly does make all the difference in our lives.

We were members of a research group with a great interest in nuclear physics and totally devoted to this branch of science--and ironically we ourselves had become victims of th atom bomb which was the very core of the theory we were studying. Here we lay, helpless in a dugout! And yet it was a precious experience for us. Placed on the experimentation table, we could watch the whole process in a most intimate way. We could observe the changes that where taking place and that would take place in the future. Crushed with grief because of the defeat of Japan, filled with anger and resentment, we nevertheless felt rising within us a new drive and a new motivation in our search for truth. In this devastated atomic desert, fresh and vigorous scientific life began to flourish.

There was something else in Hollingsworth, besides flesh and blood, and sympathies and affections, and celestial spirit. This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an over-ruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle....They have an idol, to which they consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious, and never seem to suspect-so cunning has the Devil been with them-that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process, by which godlike benevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism.

Looking back on all my interviews for this book, how many times in how many different contexts did I hear about the vital importance of having a caring adult or mentor in every young person’s life? How many times did I hear about the value of having a coach—whether you are applying for a job for the first time at Walmart or running Walmart? How many times did I hear people stressing the importance of self-motivation and practice and taking ownership of your own career or education as the real differentiators for success? How interesting was it to learn that the highest-paying jobs in the future will be stempathy jobs—jobs that combine strong science and technology skills with the ability to empathize with another human being? How ironic was it to learn that something as simple as a chicken coop or the basic planting of trees and gardens could be the most important thing we do to stabilize parts of the World of Disorder? Who ever would have thought it would become a national security and personal security imperative for all of us to scale the Golden Rule further and wider than ever? And who can deny that when individuals get so super-empowered and interdependent at the same time, it becomes more vital than ever to be able to look into the face of your neighbor or the stranger or the refugee or the migrant and see in that person a brother or sister? Who can ignore the fact that the key to Tunisia’s success in the Arab Spring was that it had a little bit more “civil society” than any other Arab country—not cell phones or Facebook friends? How many times and in how many different contexts did people mention to me the word “trust” between two human beings as the true enabler of all good things? And whoever thought that the key to building a healthy community would be a dining room table? That’s why I wasn’t surprised that when I asked Surgeon General Murthy what was the biggest disease in America today, without hesitation he answered: “It’s not cancer. It’s not heart disease. It’s isolation. It is the pronounced isolation that so many people are experiencing that is the great pathology of our lives today.” How ironic. We are the most technologically connected generation in human history—and yet more people feel more isolated than ever. This only reinforces Murthy’s earlier point—that the connections that matter most, and are in most short supply today, are the human-to-human ones.

Rock and Roll adolescent hoodlums storm the streets of all nations. They rush into the Louvre and throw acid in the Mona Lisa's face. They open zoos, insane asylums, prisons, burst water mains with air hammers, chop the floor out of passenger plane lavatories, shoot out lighthouses, file elevator cables to one thin wire, turn sewers into the water supply, throw sharks and sting rays, electric eels and candiru into swimming pools (the candiru is a small eel-like fish or worm about one-quarter inch through and two inches long patronizing certain rivers of ill repute in the Greater Amazon Basin, will dart up your prick or your asshole or a woman's cunt faute de mieux, and hold himself there by sharp spines with precisely what motives is not known since no one has stepped forward to observe the candiru's life-cycle in situ), in nautical costumes ram the Queen Mary full speed into New York Harbor, play chicken with passenger planes and buses, rush into hospitals in white coats carrying saws and axes and scalpels three feet long, throw paralytics out of iron lungs (mimic their suffocations flopping about on the floor and rolling their eyes up), administer injections with bicycle pumps, disconnect artificial kidneys, saw a woman in half with a two-man surgical saw, they drive herds of squealing pigs into the Ka'bah, they shit on the floor of the United Nations and wipe their ass with treaties, pacts, alliances.

Ce se întîmplă cu tine, băiete? mă întrebă. Vorbea destul de aspru pentru felul lui de a fi. Cîte materii ai urmat în trimestrul ăsta? ― Cinci, domnule profesor. ― Cinci? Şi la cîte ai căzut? ― La patru. Îmi amorţise fundul stînd pe pat. În viaţa mea nu stătusem pe un pat atît de tare. ― La engleză am trecut, i-am spus, fiindcă poveştile cu Beowulf şi cu Lord Randal, fiul meu le-am învăţat încă de pe vremea cînd eram la Whooton. Şi, de fapt, la engleză nu trebuia să fac mai nimic, decît să scriu din cînd în cînd cîte o compunere. Bătrînul nici nu mă asculta. N-asculta niciodată cînd îi vorbeai. ― Eu unul te-am trîntit la istorie fiindcă n-ai ştiut absolut nimic. ― Ştiu, domnule profesor, vă înţeleg. Ce era să faceţi? ― Absolut nimic, repetă el. Tare mă înfurie cînd oamenii repetă de două ori un lucru pe care tu l-ai recunoscut de prima dată. Şi pe urmă a mai spus-o şi a treia oară. ― Dar absolut nimic. Ai deschis cartea măcar o dată, în trimestrul ăsta? Eu mă îndoiesc. Spune drept! ― Păi, ştiţi, am răsfoit-o... de vreo două ori, am spus. Nu voiam să-l jignesc. Îi plăcea istoria la nebunie! ― A, ai răsfoit-o! spuse el foarte ironic. Uite, hm, teza ta e acolo sus pe raft, deasupra teancului de caiete. Ad-o, te rog, încoace. Era o figură urîtă din partea lui. Dar n-am avut încotro, m-am dus şi i-am adus-o. Pe urmă, m-am aşezat din nou pe patul lui de ciment. Mamă, nici nu ştiţi ce rău începuse să-mi pară că venisem să-mi iau rămas bun. Ţinea lucrarea mea de parc-ar fi fost o bucată de rahat sau mai ştiu eu ce. ― Am studiat cu voi egiptenii de la 4 noiembrie la 2 de¬cembrie, îmi zise. Singur ai ales să scrii despre ei la lucrarea facultativă de control. Vrei să auzi ce-ai scris? ― Nu, domnule profesor, nu face, i-am răspuns. Cu toate astea, începu să citească. Nu poţi opri niciodată un profesor să facă un anumit lucru, dacă s-a hotărît să-l facă. Oricum, face tot ce vrea el! Egiptenii sînt o rasă veche de caucazieni care locuiesc într-una din regiunile din nordul Africii. Africa, după cum ştim cu toţii, e cel mai mare continent în emisfera răsăriteană. Şi eu eram obligat să stau şi s-ascult toate tîmpeniile astea! Zău că era urît din partea lui. Pe noi, astăzi, egiptenii ne interesează din mai multe motive. Ştiinţa modernă n-a descoperit nici pînă azi ce substanţe misterioase întrebuinţau cînd îmbălsămau morţii, pentru ca feţele lor să nu putrezească secole la rînd. Această enigmă interesantă continuă să constituie o sfidare pentru ştiinţa modernă a secolului XX. Se opri şi puse jos lucrarea. Începusem să-l urăsc! ― Eseul tău, ca să-i zicem aşa, se opreşte aici, spuse cît se poate de ironic. N-ai crede că un tip atît de bătrîn poate fi atît de ironic şi aşa mai departe. Apoi adăugă: Şi în josul paginii mi-ai scris şi mie cîteva cuvinte. ― Ştiu, ştiu, i-am răspuns precipitat, ca să-l opresc înainte de a-ncepe să citească. Dar parcă mai putea cineva să-l oprească?! Ardea ca un fitil de dinamită. Dragă domnule Spencer (citi el cu glas tare), asta e tot ce ştiu eu despre egipteni. Nu reuşesc să mă intereseze, cu toate că dumneavoastră predaţi foarte frumos. Să ştiţi totuşi că nu mă supăr dacă mă trîntiţi ― că în afară de engleză tot am picat la toate materiile. Cu stimă, al dumnea¬voastră, Holden Caulfield. În sfîrşit, a pus jos lucrarea mea nenorocită şi mi-a arun¬cat o privire de parcă m-ar fi bătut măr la ping-pong sau mai ştiu eu ce. Cît oi trăi nu cred c-am să-l iert c-a citit cu glas tare toate rahaturile alea. Dacă le-ar fi scris el, eu unul nu i le-aş fi citit niciodată. Zău că nu. Şi, de fapt, nu-i scrisesem notiţa aia nenorocită decît ca să nu-i pară prea rău că mă trînteşte. ― Mă condamni că te-am trîntit, băiete? m-a întrebat el. ― Nu, domnule profesor, zău că nu! i-am răspuns eu. Numai de-ar fi încetat naibii să-mi mai zică "băiete"!

Here he was in the old dilemma. How often before now had he halted on the threshold of Catholicism, sounding himself thoroughly and finding always that he had no faith. Decidedly there had been no effort on the part of God to reclaim him, and he himself had never possessed the kind of will that permits one to let oneself go, trustingly, without reserve, into the sheltering shadows of immutable dogma. Momentarily at times when, after reading certain books, his disgust for everyday life was accentuated, he longed for lenitive hours in a cloister, where the monotonous chant of prayers in an incense-laden atmosphere would bring on a somnolence, a dreamy rapture of mystical ideas. But only a simple soul, on which life's wear and tear had left no mark, was capable of savouring the delights of such a self-abandon, and his own soul was battered and torn with earthly conflict. He must admit that the momentary desire to believe, to take refuge in the timeless, proceeded from a multitude of ignoble motives: from lassitude with the petty and repeated annoyances of existence, quarrels with the laundress, with the waiter, with the landlord; the sordid scramble for money; in a word, from the general spiritual failure of a man approaching forty. He thought of escaping into a monastery somewhat as street girls think of going into a house where they will be free from the dangers of the chase, from worry about food and lodging, and where they will not have to do their own washing and ironing. Unmarried, without settled income, the voice of carnality now practically stilled in him, he sometimes cursed the existence he had shaped for himself. At times, weary of attempting to coerce words to do his bidding, he threw down his pen and looked into the future. He could see nothing ahead of him but bitterness and cause for alarm, and, seeking consolation, he was forced to admit that only religion could heal, but religion demanded in return so arrant a desertion of common sense, so pusillanimous a willingness to be astonished at nothing, that he threw up his hands and begged off.

The universal survey of life as a whole, an advantage which man has over the animal through his faculty of reason, is also comparable to a geometrical, colourless, abstract, reduced plan of his way of life. He is therefore related to the animal as the navigator, who by means of chart, compass, and quadrant knows accurately at any moment his course and position on the sea, is related to the uneducated crew who see only the waves and skies. It is therefore worth noting, and indeed wonderful to see, how man, besides his life in the concrete, always lives a second life in the abstract. In the former he is abandoned to all the storms of reality and to the influence of the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the animal. But his life in the abstract, as it stands before his rational consciousness, is the calm reflection of his life in the concrete, and of the world in which he lives; it is precisely that reduced chart or plan previously mentioned. Here in the sphere of calm deliberation, what previously possessed him completely and moved him intensely appears to him cold, colourless, and, for the moment, foreign and strange; he is a mere spectator and observer. In respect of this withdrawal into reflection, he is like an actor who has played his part in one scene, and takes his place in the audience until he must appear again. In the audience he quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation of his own death (in the play); but then he again goes on the stage, and acts and suffers as he must. From this double life proceeds that composure in man, so very different from the thoughtlessness of the animal. According to previous reflection, to a mind made up, or to a recognized necessity, a man with such composure suffers or carries out in cold blood what is of the greatest, and often most terrible, importance to him, such as suicide, execution, duels, hazardous enterprises of every kind fraught with danger to life, and generally things against which his whole animal nature rebels. We then see to what extent reason is master of the animal nature, and we exclaim to the strong: ferreum certe tibi cor! (Truly hast thou a heart of iron!) [Iliad, xxiv, 521.] Here it can really be said that the faculty of reason manifests itself practically, and thus practical reason shows itself, wherever action is guided by reason, where motives are abstract concepts, wherever the determining factors are not individual representations of perception, or the impression of the moment which guides the animal.

According to folk belief that is reflected in the stories and poems, a being who is petrified man and he can revive. In fairy tales, the blind destructiveness of demonic beings can, through humanization psychological demons, transformed into affection and love of the water and freeing petrified beings. In the fairy tale " The Three Sisters " Mezei de-stone petrified people when the hero , which she liked it , obtain them free . In the second story , the hero finding fairy , be petrified to the knee , but since Fairy wish to marry him , she kissed him and freed . When entering a demonic time and space hero can be saved if it behaves in a manner that protects it from the effects of demonic forces . And the tales of fortune Council hero to not turn around and near the terrifying challenges that will find him in the demon area . These recommendations can be tracked ancient prohibited acts in magical behavior . In one short story Penina ( evil mother in law ) , an old man , with demonic qualities , sheds , first of two brothers and their sister who then asks them , iron Balot the place where it should be zero as chorus, which sings wood and green water . When the ball hits the ground resulting clamor and tumult of a thousand voices, but no one sees - the brothers turned , despite warnings that it should not , and was petrified . The old man has contradictory properties assistants and demons . Warning of an old man in a related one variant is more developed - the old man tells the hero to be the place where the ball falls to the reputation of stones and hear thousands of voices around him to cry Get him, go kill him, swang with his sword , stick go ! . The young man did not listen to warnings that reveals the danger : the body does not stones , during the site heroes - like you, and was petrified . The initiation rite in which the suffering of a binding part of the ritual of testing allows the understanding of the magical essence of the prohibition looking back . MAGICAL logic respectful direction of movement is particularly strong in relation to the conduct of the world of demons and the dead . From hero - boys are required to be deaf to the daunting threats of death and temporarily overcome evil by not allowing him to touch his terrible content . The temptation in the case of the two brothers shows failed , while the third attempt brothers usually releases the youngest brother or sister . In fairy tales elements of a rite of passage blended with elements of Remembrance lapot . Silence is one way of preventing the evil demon in a series of ritual acts , thoughts Penina Mezei . Violation of the prohibition of speech allows the communication of man with a demon , and abolishes protection from him . In fairy tales , this ritual obligations lost connection with specific rituals and turned into a motive of testing . The duration of the ban is extended in the spirit of poetic genre in years . Dvanadestorica brothers , to twelve for saving haunted girls , silent for almost seven years, but eleven does not take an oath and petrified ; twelfth brother died three times , defeat the dragon , throw an egg at a crystal mountain , and save the brothers ( Penina Mezei : 115 ) . Petrify in fairy tales is not necessarily caused by fear , or impatience uneducated hero . Self-sacrificing hero resolves accident of his friend's seemingly irrational moves, but he knows that he will be petrified if it is to warn them in advance , he avoids talking . As his friend persuaded him to explain his actions , he is petrified ( Penina Mezei : 129 ) . Petrified friends can save only the blood of a child , and his " borrower " Strikes sacrifice their own child and revives his rescuers . A child is a sacrificial object that provides its innocence and purity of the sacrificial gift of power that allows the return of the forces of life.

I had to admit, while writing this book, I experienced highs and lows myself. At first, I was filled with excitement and thrilled at the idea of providing people with a guide to help them understand their emotions. I imagined how readers’ lives would improve as they learned to control their emotions. My motivation was high and I couldn’t help but imagine how great the book would be. Or so I thought. After the initial excitement, the time came to sit down to write the actual book, and that’s when the excitement wore off pretty quickly. Suddenly ideas that looked great in my mind felt dull. My writing seemed boring, and I felt as though I had nothing substantive or valuable to contribute. Sitting at my desk and writing became more challenging each day. I started losing confidence. Who was I to write a book about emotions if I couldn’t even master my own emotions? How ironic! I considered giving up. There are already plenty of books on the topic, so why add one more? At the same time, I realized this book was a perfect opportunity to work on my emotional issues. And who doesn’t suffer from negative emotions from time to time? We all have highs and lows, don’t we? The key is what we do with our lows. Are we using our emotions to grow and learn or are we beating ourselves up over them?

The modern sitcom, in particular, is almost wholly dependent for laughs and tone on the M*A*S*H0inspired savaging of some buffoonish spokesman for hypocritical, pre-hip values at the hands of bitingly witty insurgents. [. . .] Its promulgation of cynicism about authority works to the general advantage of television on a number of levels. First, to the extent that TV can ridicule old-fashioned conventions right off the map, it can create an authority vacuum. And then guess what fills it. The real authority on a world we now view as constructed and not depicted becomes the medium that constructs our world-view. Second, to the extent that TV can refer exclusively to itself and debunk conventional standards as hollow, it is invulnerable to critics' changes that what's on is shallow or crass or bad, since and such judgments appeal to conventional, extra-televisual standards about depth, taste, quality. Too, the ironic tone of TV's self-reference means that no one can accuse TV of trying to put anything over on anybody. As essayist Lewis Hyde points out, self-mocking irony is always 'Sincerity, with a motive.' [. . .] If television can invite Joe Briefcase into itself via in-gags and irony, it can ease that painful tension between Joe's need to transcend the crowd and his inescapable status as Audience-member. For to the extent that TV can flatter Joe about 'seeing through' the pretentiousness and hypocrisy of outdated values, it can induce in him precisely the feeling of canny superiority it's taught him to crave, and can keep him dependent on the cynical TV-watching that alone affords this feeling. [. . .] Television can reinforce its on queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others' ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability.

Becoming the best isn't in making ourselves the best, but in making those around us even better.

Here’s a little secret: ironically, people with dominant Seductor Imposters might seem to crave intimacy—they certainly draw people into their orbit with the promise of it—but what actually animates them behind the scenes is fear of it.

The scribes and Pharisees “began to reason” (dialogizesthai); we might also construe this as “rationalize,” and it would make sense of their discourse as to purpose. They see the evidence that, for Jesus, forgiveness is somehow integral to the man’s healing and see the healing itself therefore as blasphemy, since they believe that none but God can forgive sins (5:21). As a species of legal reasoning, given the eyewitness evidence they have chosen to exclude (a miracle has taken place and must owe to some power greater than human reason), their logic is, ironically, “reasonable.” This is one of those instances of which one may, however, say with Lord Peter Wimsey (in Dorothy Sayers’s novel Whose Body?), “There is nothing you can’t prove, if only your outlook is sufficiently limited.” Jesus knows their mind and motive and reveals them to themselves with one devastating question, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts?” (5:22)—a phrase indicating that he knows well enough that their motive has malice—followed by another: “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?” (5:23).

... focusing all of her attention to her own heart, and her heart's insistence that she not ignore her fear but act because of her fear. That her fear alone was motivation enough.

The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think—for the same reason—that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one’s mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you—just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity?-an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value.

But there are moments. Moments where all the fighting seems worth it. Moments where you don't think twice about bleeding for someone else. Moments where one person's tears, one person's smile, are enough to convince you to get back on your feet, to keep breathing, to keep living.

It is ironic how universities make their students slog for years for a degree, but often award honorary doctorates to those who succeed by doing the exact opposite of what the education system teaches

Life is ironic. Barring certain medical treatments, the things that we need the most in life cost the least, the ones that we need the least are the most expensive

One can escape a rational requirement if one fails to meet its conditions in some way. One is then allowed to beg off, and the permissible grounds depend on the general principle from which the particular application of the requirement follows. That principle may in turn apply in virtue of a still more general principle plus further conditions, and if those conditions are not met, escape is again possible. But at some point the retreat must come to an end: one must reach a requirement (it need not be conditional, for it may have been the original one) from which it is not possible to escape by begging off. It is natural to suppose that principles of this sort must underlie ethics, if it exists. It is also natural to assume that the enterprise of justification should focus on these basic requirments, thus yielding an ethical system with cast iron motivational backing. But such a programme appears doomed from the start. For if we justify a requirement, it is in terms of a principle from which that requirement follows, perhaps with the aid of further conditions. But that principle must itself represent a requirement, or else what it is adduced to justify will not be one. Therefore any requirement which we set out to justify will not be ultimate. Something beyond justification is required. 3. I assume that a normative requirement on action must have correspondingly strict motivational backing. If ethics is to contain

It is also natural to assume that the enterprise of justification should focus on these basic requirments, thus yielding an ethical system with cast iron motivational backing. But such a programme appears doomed from the start. For if we justify a requirement, it is in terms of a principle from which that requirement follows, perhaps with the aid of further conditions. But that principle must itself represent a requirement, or else what it is adduced to justify will not be one. Therefore any requirement which we set out to justify will not be ultimate. Something beyond justification is required.

Your nation needs you. Your world needs you. So, use your education to become endowed with muscles of iron and nerves of steel.

There is a very old saying that says, "Strike the iron when its hot". So start working on the idea when its young. The more you delay the execution of your idea, more will be your drop in enthusiasm and lesser will be your chances for its success.

As Lynley watched her, he thought how ironic it was that he had come to depend upon having Havers as his partner. Initially he had believed that no one could possibly be less likely to suit him. She was prickly, argumentative, easily given to anger, and bitterly aware of the enormous gap that existed between them, an impassable chasm created by birth, by class, by money, by experience. They could not have been more antithetical, Havers struggling with a fierce determination to rise out of a working-class neighbourhood in a grimy suburb of London while he moved effortlessly from his home in Cornwall to his town house in Belgravia to his office in New Scotland Yard. But their differences went far beyond mere background. Their perceptions of life and humanity occupied two opposite ends of the spectrum as well. Hers was ruthless, without sympathy, suspicious of motives, and based on distrust of a world that had given her nothing. His was laced with compassion, rich with understanding, and based almost entirely upon a guilt that insisted he reach out, learn, expiate, rescue, make amends. He smiled at the thought that Superintendent Webberly had been absolutely right to put them together, to insist they remain in partnership even at moments when Lynley believed it was an impossible situation that could only grow worse.

Having an iron will is what separates successful people from others. Of course right skill sets, knowledge, and other essential ingredients are important but a lack in will, even if everything else is present, is going to result in a failure.

Upon the time of death, when you leave your body and look back at your memories, it might come as a big surprise to you to see that you have spent an entire lifetime behaving according to what others expected from you, that is, doing what they expected you to do according to your exterior appearance to them, and based on which they formed their entire conclusions regarding who you are. When that moment comes, you will regret wasting an entire lifetime living in total darkness about your true self. That is when you will wish to be reborn again. And then you will forget your regrets and repeat your previous steps. And you will reborn again, and again, and again, until the world you live in, is uplifted enough to help you go through life in a good way. But, ironically, that cannot be achieved until such world becomes what you wish it to be, until others are better than you. And so, it is paradoxically comic to realize that you will never become better than those that surround you, and it is up to you to help them help you.

There is no mystery, no formula, or no secret to success: be yourself, trust your ability, be persistent, have an iron-will, be committed, work hard (and harder), and never give up no matter how many times you fail. Failures and drawing valuable lessons from them make success inevitable, and that much more precious.

Success may be within reach or beyond reach, it is a matter of how you want to look at it. If you are committed with an iron will, than success will be within reach for you no matter what.

Ironically, harsh self-criticism seems to create an inner rebelliousness that makes us want to give up on our healthy goals. Self-compassion acknowledges the reality that it’s an unhealthy moment, not an unhealthy life, and you have a choice what the next moment is going to be. And it motivates you to make a healthy, compassionate choice.

To allot God a secondary place in life was, to me, inconceivable. Though He is the sole owner of the cosmos, silently showering us with gifts from life to life, one thing yet remains which He does not own, and which each human heart is empowered to withhold or bestow—man’s love. The Creator, in taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in every atom of creation, could have had but one motive—a sensitive desire that men seek Him only through free will. With what velvet glove of every humility has He not covered the iron hand of omnipotence!

ASK YOURSELF: • Have you pondered a question and someone ironically shows up with the answers? • Have you ever been thinking of a friend and within moments they mysteriously call or come by? • How many times have you seen a meaningful relationship start because the right people were in the right place at the right time for the right opportunity?

From a leadership lean, are you the BOSS that creates fear and rules with an “iron fist” or are you a LEADER who listens and connects with your team members to create a culture where collaboration and creativity can thrive?

History is not made every day because it takes extraordinary people to create history, who have an iron will and not afraid of taking risks.

Ambition, iron-will, compassion, and commitment are the prerequisites for success; without them, you start, finish, or win nothing.

Achieving success is not easy nor it is final, but sustaining one prolonged is a lot harder. Remember the road to success is often an uphill battle with many obstacles, along the way, you may fail more than once in this horrendous journey before reaching the summit. Keep in mind, none of the failures is fatal as long as you have the courage to get up after each fall, shake the dust off, and try even harder in your next attempt. After all, the process and the iron-will to continue counts more than the actual achievement of success.

To succeed in the world, you do not need luck or favoritism; what you need is you already have, try, try again, and try harder. Other essential ingredients are commitment, dedication, consistency, and the iron-will.

One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.

A great mentor works on your character to be as strong as iron.

It is our care about who we are that motivates us to choose a role (professor, father, friend) to attempt to settle the issue of our Being, which in turn, like a magnet dropped onto a plate of iron filings, organizes the world into interrelated groups of tools and people that have determinate functions within our projects. Care is what reveals a meaningful world to us in the first place, and everything we experience must find its place within this practically structured world, including purportedly autonomous theory.

It is ironic that we are particular about flushing out all the dirt through the Drain, but we continue to retain a lot of it in our Brain.-RVM

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. - William B. Sprague

Ironically, while we ignore our physical distress signals, we simultaneously make it a point to stay connected to the digital world so we don’t miss any electronic messages. On we go, cramming as much productivity as we can into every day, just hoping that the bucket doesn’t overflow.

It is ironic that we are particular about flushing out all the dirt through the Drain, but we continue to retain a lot of it in our Brain.

I dream of hard things yet to be done.

Here, indeed, we come upon a serious aspect of our discussion. For there is a widespread but totally erroneous impression that science is an unalterable and absolute system. It is supposed that other institutions change, but that science, after the discovery of the scientific method, remains adamant and inflexible in the purity of its basic outlook. This is an iron creed which is at least partly illusory. A very ill-defined thing known as the scientific method persists, but the motivations behind it have altered from century to century.

Ironically, we sell our time to earn comforts — comforts that we do not get time to enjoy

Ironically, and unbeknown to local Communists themselves, the Red Brigades and the Red Army Fraktion—like the similarly motivated but ineffectual Cellules communistes combattantes in Belgium, Action Directe in France and other, even smaller operations elsewhere—were financed in part with money supplied by the Soviet secret services. This cash was not part of any coherent strategy: it was paid out, rather, on general principles—the enemies of our enemies, however absurd and insignificant, are still our friends.

I am not sure I understood what was motivating my behavior. I know I didn’t recognize that an emotion was driving my compulsive research. I would not have characterized myself as particularly anxious. In fact, I would have labeled it something else entirely if asked. I was advocating for myself. I was educating myself. I was taking an active role in my care. In retrospect, I can recognize that I was also completely terrified and, not knowing how to quiet my fear, took the only option I thought available to me: to attempt to bludgeon the feeling into submission with data. The problem with responding to emotion with data is that emotion doesn’t recognize it. Ironically, I was making the same mistake with myself that physicians make with their patients. I was not naming or tending to my own emotion.

The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity. It is ironical that we senators can in debate in the Senate, directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to any American who is not a senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American--and without that non-senator American having any legal redress against us--yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order. It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection, and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate floor.

The irony was that wedding Jane had likely been the one thing he had done in his life without an ulterior motive.  He had simply wanted her.  How ironic, that he was now beset on all sides with people thinking he had some nefarious plot afoot.

It’s easier to fear a caricature of a villain than it is to confront the villainy within. The tendency toward evil, toward violence, that hides in the darkness of a human soul is the most terrifying monster in the world. Want to fight something evil? Start with yourself. Confront your darkness before you fuck with mine. [...] Ironic, I suppose, since there’s more than enough monster in humans to spare. There’s also a lot within humanity that’s beautiful, that motivates people to pursue virtue rather than vice. Vampire, witch, mambo, human, whatever . There’s a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us. The key isn’t so much about choosing one path or the other, but having the wisdom to discern the difference. After all, even the world’s worst villains believed they were heroes. Bad guys usually think they’re the good guys.

The iron lady took you on a wild ride Filled with courage, ambition, and passion Her inner compass served as her guide So being classy became a timeless fashion

I find the stories irritating, in their own right. They so often paint the image of some lone hero, some singular legend left to his solitary climb, bearing on his own the building hardships of a violent life. It’s all ludicrous. It’s not even that I never would have made it alone. I never would have even taken the first step up…” - The Stormweaver

The dramatic strategy of the show provides a simple and effective means to blend melodrama with farce (which Sondheim claims as his “two favorite forms of theatre because … they are obverse sides of the same coin”).37 Starkly put, the show develops a pattern of first scaring the hell out of its audience and then rescuing the situation through humor, each time by introducing Mrs. Lovett into a situation saturated with Sweeney Todd’s wrenching angst. This scare-rescue pattern happens twice to great effect, at the beginning and end of Act I, but its real payoff is the devastating conclusion, where there is no comic rescue. The denial of this previous pattern greatly intensifies the darkness of the supremely bleak ending, making the show’s musical profile seem operatic to Broadway audiences even though, ironically in this respect, the denouement unfolds with only intermittent singing.38 But the musical dimension of the show is also deliberately operatic, as it interweaves, Wagner-like, a host of recurring motives, mostly related to each other through a common origin in the Dies Irae, from the Catholic requiem mass. The Dies Irae (literally, “Day of Wrath”; see example 7.1) was taken up as a symbol of death and retribution in music throughout the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth (the most important early such use was by Berlioz in his 1830 Symphonie fantastique). Most scene changes bring back “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” which includes both fast and slow versions of the Dies Irae (example 7.1) and builds up to a frenetic, obsessive chorus of “Sweeney, Sweeney.

The greatest are the poet who has failed, the songwriter who has lost, the warrior whose wounds have not healed, and the explorer who still seeks but does not know

The iron lady took you on a wild ride Filled with courage, ambition, and passion Her inner compass served as her guide So being classy became a timeless fashion “The Iron Lady” is dedicated to the 50,000 Bosniak women that were raped during the Bosnian Genocide. A special thank you to Bosnian activists Nusreta Sivac and Bakira Hasečić for inspiring me to be a fierce feminist.