“
October 6, 1774
I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them
1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.
”
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John Wesley (The journal of John Wesley)
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6 feet under stars is a place that doesn't exist. It's a place in your mind where everything and anything is possible. It's a place with no rules or limitations. It's a place where only 2 people can be at a time where no one can judge them and no one can try to break them apart
”
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Alex Gaskarth
“
Have faith in who you are. Believe that you will recover, and it will truly happen. And don't judge yourself too harshly. Some things are meant to be, and you had to fall so that later you may rise and become what you are truly meant to be.
”
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Joseph Delaney (Clash of the Demons (The Last Apprentice / Wardstone Chronicles, #6))
“
Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.
On my shoulders I support the sky.
Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the color of a heart's blood flowing.
Trust is the color of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the color of death.
Give me your trust said the queen on her throne,
for I must bear the burden alone.
Trust me to lead and to judge and to rule, and no man will think you a fool.
But trust is the sound of the grave-dog's bark.
Trust is the sound of betrayal in the dark.
Trust is the sound of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the sound of death.
”
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Robert Jordan (Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, #6))
“
I've always been a very good judge of people. That's why I like so very few of them.
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Donna VanLiere (The Christmas Note (Christmas Hope, #6))
“
There are 6 reasons that a person does anything: Love, faith, greed, boredom, fear... revenge.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
“
I’m wondering if every person I pass has similar depths, and if there’s any way to avoid the mistake of judging them so shallowly that I’m rocked when they show their true complexity.
”
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Brandon Sanderson (The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn, #6))
“
But I didn't care. Let people judge you. It never changes the truth.
”
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Ally Carter (A Gallagher Wedding (Gallagher Girls, #6.5))
“
My name is unpronounceable in your tongue, woman,” it said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” warned Granny, and added, “Don’t call me woman.”
“Very well. My name is WxrtHltl-jwlpklz,” said the demon smugly.
”
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Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches, #2))
“
You don’t judge me, you don’t try and make it better. You just let me feel bad while making me feel really good . . . I want to do that for you, too.
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Jay Crownover (Asa (Marked Men, #6))
“
But who am I to judge? We’re all fighting our own battles, the best way we can.
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Richelle Mead (The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines, #6))
“
Valkyrie made a face. "Bloody vampires."
Ryan sat forward. "That was a vampire? That guy who looked like an accountant?"
"We don't talk about vampires," Skulduggery warned.
"But it was daytime. How could he have been out during the-"
"We don't talk about vampires!" Valkyrie said sharply.
Ryan shrunk back. "Sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," Skulduggery told him. "Valkyrie used to date a vampire that's all."
"We didn't date ," Valkyrie said immediately.
Skulduggery held a hand up. "I'm not judging."
Valkyrie scowled.
”
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Derek Landy (The End of the World (Skulduggery Pleasant, #6.5))
“
1. Live now. Be concerned with the present rather than with past or future.
2. Live here. Deal with what is present rather than with what is absent.
3. Stop imagining. Experience the real.
4. Stop unnecessary thinking. Rather, taste and see.
5. Express rather than manipulate, explain, justify, or judge.
6. Give in to unpleasantness and pain just as to pleasure. Do not restrict your awareness.
7. Accept no should or ought other than your own. Adore no graven image.
8. Take full responsibility for your actions, feelings, and thoughts.
9. Surrender to being as you are.
”
”
Claudio Naranjo (Terapia Gestalt: La vía del vacío fértil)
“
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If, for the sake of argument, 1 million are violent, that's a mere .000625 percent of them. I wonder who among you wants to be judged on such a tiny minority. Further, at 1.6 billion, if all Muslims - or even most Muslims - were violent, the world would already be in flames. Most people simply want to live their lives in peace, with some degree of material comfort. I find it bizarre - and disturbing - that so many Americans imagine that being a Muslim somehow trumps human nature and makes ordinary simple people want to rise up and kill everyone. That takes a special kind of stupid.
”
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Dave Champion
“
When someone judges you for something you can’t help, try to forgive them. They don’t understand. And if they keep doing it, knock their fucking teeth in.
”
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Seanan McGuire (Magic for Nothing (InCryptid, #6))
“
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to judge, but I’ve read the gospels quite a few times, and it seems pretty clear that ‘Christian values’ are: 1-humility, 2-non-judgementalism, 3-caring for the poor, 4-compassion, 5-love, and 6-serving God.
”
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Moby
“
People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day -- gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I've got a little girl's mother to save, and, yes, she's a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?
”
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Faith Hunter (Blood Trade (Jane Yellowrock, #6))
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Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.
”
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John Locke (The John Locke Collection: 6 Classic Works)
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I don’t judge the men and women who chat with me and reveal their secrets and perversions. How can I? My secret, my obsession, is worse than any of theirs.
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Alessandra Torre (The Girl in 6E (Deanna Madden, #1))
“
I've been ridiculed by silk-suited lawyers, jailed by ornery judges, and occasionally paid for services rendered. I never intended to be a hero, and I succeeded.
”
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Paul Levine (Fool Me Twice (Jake Lassiter, #6))
“
You can’t live your life for someone else, and you can’t let someone else tell you how to live your life. People spend so much time judging the shit out of each other—it’s a waste of energy.
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Dannika Dark (Two Minutes (Seven, #6; Mageriverse #12))
“
People who have an official, professional relation to other men's sufferings - for instance, judges, police officers, doctors - in course of time, through habit, grow so callous that they cannot, even if they wish it, take any but a formal attitude to their clients; in this respect they are not different from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves in the back-yard, and does not notice the blood.
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Anton Chekhov (Ward No. 6 and Other Stories)
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Practicing law is not about winning. It's about justice. Simple, naked justice. It's about finding the truth. - Judge Sarah L. Hart
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William Bernhardt (Naked Justice (Ben Kincaid, #6))
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Rule number one,” I said, sitting in the middle of my bed, rummaging through a mountain of clothes and shoes. “You never judge the size of a girl’s wardrobe.
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Chloe Walsh (Saving 6 (Boys of Tommen, #3))
“
Speak openly. There is no one I trust more than Lutian. (Adara)
He’s a half-wit, my queen. (Xerus)
Half-wit, whole-wit, I have enough of them to know to keep silent. So speak, good counselor, and let the queen judge which of the two of us is the greater fool present. (Lutian)
”
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Kinley MacGregor (Return of the Warrior (Brotherhood of the Sword, #6))
“
Do the Sanguinati have trouble with mosquitoes?”
“You mean, do the big bloodsuckers get pestered by the little bloodsuckers?”
Judging by my attorney’s laughter, if I failed to turn The Jumble into a viable business, I could always get a job as a stand-up comedian in a vampire bar.
”
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Anne Bishop (Lake Silence (The World of the Others, #1; The Others, #6))
“
I, Henricus Kramer Institoris, Judge named on behalf of the faith, declare and pronounce sentence that you standing here are impenitent heretics, and as such are to be delivered to justice,
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Jeaniene Frost (One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress, #6))
“
Hannah Arendt, who studied totalitarian regimes, said as much in an interview in 1974: “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”6 But a population that no longer believes anything is robbed of its ability to think and to judge, and ultimately of its capacity to act. As Arendt says, “with such a people, you can then do what you please.” These are the ideal subjects—or the ideal opponents.
”
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Kai Strittmatter (We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State)
“
He was tall—6’ 3” or so—with haunting green eyes that seemed to smolder despite his lazy smile. His eyes were a great contrast to his thick, shiny, dark hair. And not that I’d ever seen it personally but judging from the way his t-shirt clung to his torso, he had a body that completed the entire handsome package. He was every inch a rock star. He was charming, playful and confident. He was practically irresistible. His only flaw was that he knew it.
”
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Kelly Oram (V is for Virgin (V is for Virgin, #1))
“
To live in the way of the Gestalt:
1. Live now. Concern yourself with the present before the past or the future.
2. Live here. Deal with what is present rather than with what is absent.
3. Stop imagining. Experience the real.
4. Stop unnecessary thinking. Rather, taste and see.
5. Express rather than manipulate, explain, justify, or judge.
6. Give in to unpleasantness and pain just as to pleasure. Do not restrict your awareness.
7. Accept no "should" or "must" other than your own. Adore no idol.
8. Take full responsibility for your actions, feelings, and thoughts.
9. Accept being as you are.
”
”
Claudio Naranjo
“
Jephthah called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, 'Let me cross over,' the men of Gilead asked him, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he replied, 'No,' they said, 'All right, say Shibboleth.' If he said, 'Sibboleth,' because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Fourty-thousand were killed at the time.
- Judges 12:4-6
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Edwidge Danticat (The Farming of Bones)
“
You have the chance right now to accept your son. I’m not talking about ‘tolerating’ him. Tolerance is a slap in the face. You tolerate your noisy neighbors. You love your son. You love him, you accept him, you cheer him on, and you don’t judge him for one second.
”
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Tiffany Reisz (Michael's Wings (The Original Sinners, #6.3))
“
For the fortunate amongst us, the fourth danger is comfort; the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge himself - on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort."
Robert F. Kennedy Speeches
Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy
“
IN PHILADELPHIA, the same day as the British landing on Staten Island, July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress, in a momentous decision, voted to “dissolve the connection” with Great Britain. The news reached New York four days later, on July 6, and at once spontaneous celebrations broke out. “The whole choir of our officers . . . went to a public house to testify our joy at the happy news of Independence. We spent the afternoon merrily,” recorded Isaac Bangs. A letter from John Hancock to Washington, as well as the complete text of the Declaration, followed two days later: That our affairs may take a more favorable turn [Hancock wrote], the Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve the connection between Great Britain and the American colonies, and to declare them free and independent states; as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed to transmit to you, and to request you will have it proclaimed at the head of the army in the way you shall think most proper.
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David McCullough (1776)
“
3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. 4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy. 5. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun. 6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously. 7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships. 8. Adult children of alcoholics over-react to changes over which they have no control.
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Janet Geringer Woititz (Adult Children of Alcoholics: Expanded Edition)
“
It is . . . important that we be loving and kind to members of our own faith, regardless of their level of commitment or activity. The Savior has made it clear that we are not to judge each other (see Luke 6:37). This is especially true of members of our own families. Our obligation is to love and teach and never give up. The Lord has made salvation ‘free for all men’ but has ‘commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance’ (2 Nephi 26:27).
”
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Julie B. Beck
“
What shall I say to a faithless brother. The king of the damned is a poor judge of being. It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world, a handyman's dream if ever there was one, is to fix yourself (as we discussed in rule 6). Anything else is presumptuous. Anything else risks harm stemming from your ignorance and lack of skill.
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Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
“
You’ll have her in half an hour.” He did. And if he thought about the boy in the next room as he slammed into the woman, he was the only witness and judge.
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Alessandra Hazard (Just a Bit Ruthless (Straight Guys, #6))
“
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37
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Sheila Walsh (5 Minutes with Jesus: Making Today Matter)
“
Now, sustaining attention is trickier than directing attention. Why? It’s possible to voluntarily direct attention. However, the part of the mind that sustains attention for more than a few moments works entirely unconsciously. We can’t use our will to control how long we remain focused on one thing. Instead, an unconscious process weighs the importance of what we’re focusing on against other possible objects of attention. If an object is important or interesting enough, attention remains stable. If something else is judged more important or interesting, then the balance tips, and attention moves elsewhere.6 Even though this weighing process isn’t under our conscious control, we can still influence it through consciously held intentions. Just
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John Yates (The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness)
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It is solely the form of Christ that matters, not any form besides Christ’s own. The church is the human being who has become human, has been judged, and has been awakened to new life in Christ.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ethics (Works, Vol 6))
“
Sirach calls the people who dwelt at Shechem a foolish people (Ecclus. 50:26), just as the Germans are accustomed to judge concerning the Swabians and the Bavarians. They were a proud people given to luxury.
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Martin Luther (Luther's Works, Vol. 6: Genesis Chapters 31-37 (Luther's Works (Concordia)))
“
VRISKA: I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don't need a magic ring to do that.
VRISKA: You don't have to 8e alive to make yourself relevant.
VRISKA: And you don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.
VRISKA: You just have to know who you are and stay true to that.
VRISKA: So I'm going to keep fighting for people the only way I ever knew how.
VRISKA: 8y 8eing me.
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Andrew Hussie (Homestuck)
“
During their brief encounter in the music room, Cassandra had been too flustered to notice much about him. He'd been so very odd, jumping out like that and offering to marry a complete stranger. Also, she'd been absolutely mortified for him to have overheard her tearful disclosure two West, especially the part about having her dress altered.
But now it was impossible not to notice how very good-looking he was, tall and elegantly lean, with dark hair, a clear, fair complexion, and thick brows sett at a diabolical slant. If she were to judge his features individually- the long nose, the wide mouth, the narrow eyes, the sharply angled cheeks and jaw- she wouldn't have expected him to be this attractive. But somehow when it was all put together, his looks were striking and interesting in a way she'd remember far longer than conventional handsomeness.
”
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Lisa Kleypas (Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels, #6))
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Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love…. God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be—in our sin, suffering, and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us.6 “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas)
“
Here she dated the biggest manwhore in all of Hell, and she couldn’t get any action. Meanwhile, she was out of fresh and firm cucumbers. Don’t judge. Organic was all the craze these days, plus she was allergic to most rubbers and latex.
”
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Eve Langlais (Hell's Bells (Welcome to Hell, #6))
“
The bishop was aghast. "You would threaten me?"
Christian didn't hesitate with his answer."For her life, aye."
"You would jeopardize your soul for her? She is a heretic and a witch."
"She is a woman. My woman."
His words only succeeded in angering the bishop more. "I will have you excommunicated for this."
Christian pulled the black monk's robe from over his head and balled it up. "Then excommunicate me. If I am in the wrong for protecting an innocent woman, then God can judge me as He will.
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Kinley MacGregor (Return of the Warrior (Brotherhood of the Sword, #6))
“
As we already pointed out, 'special' means 'restricted to Inertial Frames of Reference', i.e. this theory cannot describe the Universe from an arbitrary reference frame. This restricted scope is not to be ignored, though not overemphasized either. ...
Ironically, and precisely because of the great success of this simple version of Relativity Theory, most of its detractors have chosen to ignore (out of ignorance or malice -- you judge case by case) its philosophical foundation and restriction to Inertial Frames, so as to declare it invalid.
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Felix Alba-Juez (Galloping with Light - The Special Theory of Relativity (Relativity free of Folklore #6))
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Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security: but as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or injury, on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion: as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.
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John Locke (The John Locke Collection: 6 Classic Works)
“
all thinking about human beings without Christ is unfruitful abstraction. The counterimage to the human being taken up into the form of Christ is the human being as self-creator, self-judge, and self-renewer; these people bypass their true humanity and therefore, sooner or later, destroy themselves.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ethics (Works, Vol 6))
“
Yet what moved Our Blessed Lord to invective was not badness but just such self-righteousness as this…He said that the harlots and the Quislings would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the self-righteous and the smug. Concerning all those who endowed hospitals and libraries and public works, in order to have their names graven in stone before their fellow men, He said, “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matt. 6:2). They wanted no more than human glory, and they got it. Never once is Our Blessed Lord indignant against those who are already, in the eyes of society, below the level of law and respectability. He attacked only the sham indignation of those who dwelt more on the sin than the sinner and who felt pleasantly virtuous, because they had found someone more vicious than they. He would not condemn those whom society condemned; his severe words were for those who had sinned and had not been found out…He would not add His burden of accusation to those that had already been hurled against the winebibbers and the thieves, the cheap revolutionists, the streetwalkers, and the traitors. They were everybody’s target, and everybody knew that they were wrong…And the people who chose to make war against Our Lord were never those whom society had labeled as sinners. Of those who sentenced Him to death, none had ever had a record in the police court, had ever been arrested, was ever commonly known to be fallen or weak. But among his friends, who sorrowed at His death, were coverts drawn from thieves and from prostitutes. Those who were aligned against Him were the nice people who stood high in the community—the worldly, prosperous people, the men of big business, the judges of law courts who governed by expediency, the “civic-minded” individuals whose true selfishness was veneered over with public generosity. Such men as these opposed him and sent Him to His death.
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Fulton J. Sheen (Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop)
“
Winston Churchill once said that you can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners. You know, there was all this stuff about Abu Ghraib and what we're doing to Muslims in Iraq and Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and wherever else we've decided to lock up those whom we perceive to be a threat. People seem surprised by it, but all they had to do was look around them. We do it to our own people. We try children as adults. We lock up, even execute, the mentally ill. And we tie people naked to chairs in ice-cold rooms because their medication isn't working. If we can do that here, then how the hell can anybody be surprised when we don't treat our enemies any better? ~Aimee Price
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John Connolly (The Unquiet (Charlie Parker, #6))
“
Let’s revise the old adage for our times. All that it requires for evil to succeed is that enough lazy, stupid bastards believe everything they’re told.
”
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Karen Traviss (Judge (Wess'Har, Book 6))
“
Then, that memorably powerful look into my eyes told me something more: compared to dogs, wolves are grown-ups. He was not asking for help, head down, forehead wrinkled, as a dog might: “Is this right? What do you want?”
Instead, head high, gaze level, he was assessing me, like a poker player: “Are you in or out?” Judging that I was in, he made his move; and we both won. (p.6)
”
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Karen Pryor (Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals)
“
The gap between white and black education, income, and mortality rates is as wide today as it was forty years ago.6 If you look into a hospital nursery and see a black infant and a white infant, you can predict which baby will die first, which one will make a higher income and have better education, just by the color of the baby’s skin. There is no area in American society (education, incarceration, income, preaching, and so on) where racial disparity isn’t operating.7 Martin Luther King Jr. could not have known how we would abuse his hope that we will not be judged by skin color but by character.8 King said nothing about blindness being a virtue. Jesus never praised blindness; on a notable occasions he healed it. When whites claim, “I am color-blind in my dealings with others,” it’s usually an indication of our ignorance of how we have been thoroughly indoctrinated into race. It’s like saying, “I am sinless,” meaning, “My sin is so dominant in this society that it just seems normal.” A first step is to name our whiteness. As James Baldwin said in The Fire Next Time, “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.”9
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William H. Willimon (Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Preaching to Confront Racism)
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Notice, again, it is not what one does that saves him—when it is judged, the tree is already a good tree—that’s why it bears good fruit (its fruit-bearing doesn’t make it a good tree). One’s works identify him as a good tree, wheat, a sheep, a Christian. Conversely, the bad tree, goat, tare and the unsaved man (like a child) is also “known by his doings” (Prov. 20:11). See Romans 2:6-8 in the light of this principle.
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Jay E. Adams (A Theology of Christian Counseling: More Than Redemption (Jay Adams Library))
“
Get serious. It just ain't all that easy to off someone and get away with it." "We're talking Mexico here, for crying out loud. You know, the country where over sixty thousand people have been murdered by the cartels, and not one person prosecuted? Jeez, it's worse than Chicago." "That's because the prosecutors and judges prefer to live? But we don't have buckets of money like the druggers do. We only have our brains." "Damn.
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Jinx Schwartz (Just Needs Killin' (Hetta Coffey Mystery, #6))
“
At times we have to step into God’s silence and patiently wait. We have to put out the fleece as Gideon did (Judges 6:37-40), and wait for the descent of the divine dew, or some kind of confirmation from God that we are on the right course. That is a good way to keep our own ego drive out of the way.
Yet there are other times when we need to go ahead and act on our own best intuitions and presume that God is guiding us and will guide us. But even then we must finally wait for the divine backup. Sometimes that is even the greater act of faith and courage, and takes even more patience. What if the divine dew does not fall? What do we do then?
When either waiting or moving forward is done out of a spirit of union and surrender, we can trust that God will make good out of it—even if we are mistaken! It is not about being correct, it is about being connected.
”
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Richard Rohr (Yes, and...: Daily Meditations)
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Things I learned from a man called “The Nazarene”
1- Being poor does not equal being miserable.
2- People will judge you, but their judgment should not define who you are.
3- Going against what others hold as true is not necessarily a bad thing.
4- Everyone is sacred.
5- Life is sometimes a lonely and dry place, like desert, but those times are there to help us meditate on what is truly important in our lives.
6- Complaining or getting angry because there is a storm in our lives solves nothing; embrace the storm and keep calm.
7- Treasure and protect the children of the world, they hold the key of what is pure and innocent; they are the way to freedom.
8- We are free to be who we want to be, it is our choice to be slaves or kings.
9- Fear nothing.
10- The person you don’t like is also your neighbor.
11- The words following “I AM” define who we are, we must choose wisely.
”
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Martin Suarez
“
In trying to comprehend and judge moral dilemmas of this scale, people often resort to one of four methods. The first is to downsize the issue. To understand the Syrian civil war as though it were occurring between two foragers, for example, one imagines the Assad regime as a lone person and the rebels as another person; one of them is bad and one of them is good. The historical complexity of the conflict is replaced by a simple, clear plot.4 The second method is to focus on a touching human story that ostensibly stands for the whole conflict. When you try to explain to people the true complexity of the conflict by means of statistics and precise data, you lose them, but a personal story about the fate of one child activates the tear ducts, makes the blood boil, and generates false moral certainty.5 This is something that many charities have understood for a long time. In one noteworthy experiment, people were asked to donate money to help a poor seven-year-old girl from Mali named Rokia. Many were moved by her story and opened their hearts and purses. However, when in addition to Rokia’s personal story the researchers also presented people with statistics about the broader problem of poverty in Africa, respondents suddenly became less willing to help. In another study, scholars solicited donations to help either one sick child or eight sick children. People gave more money to the single child than to the group of eight.6
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Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
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4:14) Holy One in your midst (Hos. 11:9) righteous Judge (2 Tim. 4:8) King of kings (1 Tim. 6:15) our life (Col. 3:4) light of life (John 8:12) Lord of lords (1 Tim. 6:15) Lord of the harvest (Matt. 9:38) mediator (1 Tim. 2:5) our peace (Eph. 2:14) Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6) my Redeemer (Ps. 19:14) refuge and strength (Ps. 46:1) my salvation (Exod. 15:2) my help (Ps. 42:5) the Good Shepherd (John 10:11) Lord (Luke 2:29) my stronghold (Ps. 18:2) my support (2 Sam. 22:19) Good Teacher (Mark 10:17)
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Henry T. Blackaby (Experiencing God)
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God GOD, noun [Saxon god; German gott; Dutch god; Swedish and Danish gud; Gothic goth or guth; Pers. goda or choda; Hindoo, khoda, codam. As this word and good are written exactly alike in Saxon, it has been inferred that God was named from his goodness. But the corresponding words in most of the other languages, are not the same, and I believe no instance can be found of a name given to the Supreme Being from the attribute of goodness. It is probably an idea too remote from the rude conceptions of men in early ages. Except the word Jehovah, I have found the name of the Supreme Being to be usually taken from his supremacy or power, and to be equivalent to lord or ruler, from some root signifying to press or exert force. Now in the present case, we have evidence that this is the sense of this word, for in Persic goda is rendered dominus, possessor, princeps, as is a derivative of the same word. See Cast. Lex. Col. 231.] 1. The Supreme Being; Jehovah; the eternal and infinite spirit, the creator, and the sovereign of the universe. God is a spirit; and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4. 2. A false god; a heathen deity; an idol. Fear not the gods of the Amorites. Judges 6. 3. A prince; a ruler; a magistrate or judge; an angel. Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people. Exodus 22. Psalm 97. [Gods here is a bad translation.] 4. Any person or thing exalted too much in estimation, or deified and honored as the chief good. Whose god is their belly. Philippians 3.
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Noah Webster (American Dictionary of the English Language (1828 Edition))
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Another report came out about how a major city cooks the books on crime. This time Los Angeles: “LAPD MISCLASSIFIED NEARLY 1,200 VIOLENT CRIMES AS MINOR OFFENSES,” says the headline. All during a one year period ending September 2013. “Including hundreds of stabbings, beatings and robberies, a Times investigation found.” “The incidents were recorded as minor offenses and as a result did not appear in the LAPD's published statistics on serious crime that officials and the public use to judge the department's performance.”[407] Black people make up 9.6 percent of the city’s population, but 30 percent of the general jail population.[408] Hispanics make up 45 percent of the city. The Times does not get into whether black people benefit from this under reporting. People at cop web sites chimed in this happens a lot: “Cleveland does the same thing, to cover up their short comings, because they wanted to snare the Republican Convention, they did, Watch Out Republicans, there is a lot of crime downtown by the casino.”[409]
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Colin Flaherty ('Don't Make the Black Kids Angry': The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it.)
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The resolution reflected a political party that had lost its principles and, frankly, seemed to be led by morons. This was my reply: The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy. I’m a Constitutional conservative, and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. RNC
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Liz Cheney (Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning)
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And then, sir,' he added, 'you would oblige me infinitely by marrying us, if you have the leisure.'
Captain Broke paused for a moment: was this a strangely-timed pleasantry? Judging from the Doctor's demeanour and his pale, determined face, it was not. Should he wish him joy of the occasion? Perhaps, in view of Jack's silence and Maturin's cool, matter-of-fact, unfestive manner, that might be inappropriate. He remembered his own wedding-day and the desperate feeling of being caught on a leeshore in a gale of wind, unable to claw off, tide setting hard against him, anchors coming home. He said, 'I should be very happy, sir. But I have never performed the manoeuvre -that is, the ceremony - and I am not sure of the forms nor of the extent of my powers. You will allow me to consult the Printed Instructions, and let you know how far I may be of service to you and the lady.' Stephen bowed and walked off.
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Patrick O'Brian (The Fortune of War (Aubrey & Maturin, #6))
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A disturbing demonstration of depletion effects in judgment was recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The unwitting participants in the study were eight parole judges in Israel. They spend entire days reviewing applications for parole. The cases are presented in random order, and the judges spend little time on each one, an average of 6 minutes. (The default decision is denial of parole; only 35% of requests are approved. The exact time of each decision is recorded, and the times of the judges’ three food breaks—morning break, lunch, and afternoon break—during the day are recorded as well.) The authors of the study plotted the proportion of approved requests against the time since the last food break. The proportion spikes after each meal, when about 65% of requests are granted. During the two hours or so until the judges’ next feeding, the approval rate drops steadily, to about zero just before the meal. As you might expect, this is an unwelcome result and the authors carefully checked many alternative explanations. The best possible account of the data provides bad news: tired and hungry judges tend to fall back on the easier default position of denying requests for parole. Both
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Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
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Chomsky was born and raised in Philadelphia, but his parents were among tens of thousands of Ashkenazic Jews who fled Russia following the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881.110 Jewish anarchists were singled out (falsely) as the assassins, setting off waves of the bloodiest pogroms in history. On top of that, thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from their homes in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and adjoining regions and led off, some in chains, to the so-called Pale of Settlement, a geographical ghetto along Russia’s western frontier. They risked severe punishment if they ventured beyond the Pale…pale, as in the pales of a fence. Even inside the Pale they were restricted from entering cities such as Kiev and Nikolaev, from owning or even leasing property, receiving a college education, or engaging in certain professions. By 1910, 90 percent of Russia’s Jews—5.6 million in all—were confined to the Pale.111 Anarchism had been a logical enough reaction. The word “anarchy” literally means “without rulers.” The Jewish refugees from Russian racial hatred translated that as not merely no more czars…but no more authorities of any sort…no public officials, no police, no army, no courts of law, no judges, no jailers, no banks—no money—no financial
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Tom Wolfe (The Kingdom of Speech)
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Seven titles for the Word of God from Psalm 1 (NKJV): ‘law’ = ‘teaching’, the word to instruct (v. 1); ‘testimonies’, what God ‘testifies to’ as his truth and the truth about himself, the word to reveal (v. 2); ‘ways’, the word as the guide to characteristic life-style (v. 3); ‘precepts’, the word as instruction for the details of daily life (v. 4); ‘statutes’, from the verb ‘to engrave’, the word in its permanency, engraven in the rock (v. 5); ‘commandments’, the word given by God for our obedience (v. 6); ‘judgments’—as of the authoritative pronouncements of a judge; the word expressing what the Lord himself has ‘decided upon’ as truth to hold and life to live (v. 7).
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J. Alec Motyer (A Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament)
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A little way down the road I turned, and saw how his wife and daughter took him up. And I thought to myself: no, ’tis not all roses when one goes a-wandering. At the next place I came to I learned that he had been with the army, as quartermaster-sergeant; then he went mad over a lawsuit he lost, and was shut up in an asylum for some time. Now in the spring his trouble broke out again; perhaps it was my coming that had given the final touch. But the lightning insight in his eyes at the moment when the madness came upon him! I think of him now and again; he was a lesson to me. ’Tis none so easy to judge of men, who are wise or mad. And God preserve us all from being known for what we are!
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Knut Hamsun (The Works of Knut Hamsun: Pan, The Growth of the Soil, Hunger, Shallow Soil, Under the Autumn Star and More (6 Books With Active Table of Contents))
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Assess The Environment Ask yourself these questions: How would you rate your own trustworthiness? How would you rate the trustworthiness of your co-workers? How would you rate your immediate supervisor? What about your company’s top management? My colleagues and I asked these questions in a survey where: on a scale of 1-10, where ten equals “can always be trusted in all situations” and one equals “can rarely or never be trusted. Respondents rated: Their own trustworthiness at an average 8.72; All of the other people they work with as a group averaging 7.59; Their immediate supervisors a bit higher, at an average 8.33; Their company’s top management the lowest, at an average 6.43. The results indicate that we generally judge others to be less trustworthy than ourselves. If most of the people you work with are also like our survey respondents, they are making the same judgments. That means it is very likely some of the people you work with judge you to be less trustworthy than you consider yourself to be. Your first thought may be that they are mistaken. Certainly you don’t intend to act in ways others view as untrustworthy, so they must be misinterpreting your intentions. But the fact is people act on their assessments of your trustworthiness, not yours. Your best intentions can’t change their opinion. Only by changing what you say and how you act can affect how others assess your trustworthiness.
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Charles Feltman (The Thin Book of Trust; An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work)
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Eleven reasons you want to become a robot:
1. Robots are logical and know their purpose.
2. Robots have programming they understand.
3. Robots are not held to unattainable standards and then criticized when they fail.
4. Robots are not crippled by emotions they don't know how to process.
5. Robots are not judged based on what sex organs they were born with.
6. Robots have mechanical bodies that are strong and durable. They are not required to have sex.
7. Robots do not feel guilt (about existing, about failing, about being something other than expected).
8. Robots can multitask.
9. Robots do not feel unsafe all the time.
10. Robots are perfect machines that are capable and functional and can be fixed if something breaks.
11. Robots are happy.
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A. Merc Rustad (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015)
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PROVERBS 31 The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him: 2 What are you doing, my son? [1] What are you doing, f son of my womb? What are you doing, g son of my vows? 3 Do h not give your strength to women, your ways to those i who destroy kings. 4 j It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings k to drink wine, or for rulers to take l strong drink, 5 lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and m pervert the rights of all the afflicted. 6 Give strong drink to the one who n is perishing, and wine to o those in bitter distress; [2] 7 p let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. 8 q Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. [3] 9 Open your mouth, r judge righteously,
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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Anger 21 y “You have heard that it was said to those of old, z ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable a to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that b everyone who is angry with his brother [3] will be liable a to judgment; whoever insults [4] his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to c the hell [5] of fire. 23 d So if e you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 f Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26Truly, I say to you, g you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. [6]
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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And yes, many of us became fathers to fully understand what it means to be a father.
Albert Einstein once said: "Every man is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend the rest of its life believing that its stupid."
To the men who never let other people’s metrics of success become the yardstick with which they measure theirs. It is no coincidence that we are diagrammatically represented by a circle with an arrow on the edge that points out.
To all of us who may not always be "there" so that we can always "be there",
To every hunter, every fighter, every missionary,
To every planter and tiller of a garden of eden,
To every warrior, conqueror of territories, every man always going out so he can bring something home.
To every provider and protector of his family.
Every defender of his domain and representative of God in the lives of his dependants.
To every man that choose character over caliber,
Every Major General, Lord of the Rings,
Lion of the Tribe of his house.
To every correcter with a shout,
Every tough and tender 9-ribbed carrier of his cross.
For every skill, strength, qualification and effort that we put into building meaningful relationships with our women, bonds with our children, and shield through tough times.
For every ‘crave’ for success without substituting values.
For the unconditional love, unflinching sacrifice, and diehard determination to go places our parents never imagined for themselves.
To those who happily lead, as though money, fame and power didn’t exist.
To those who stand tall and sit straight,
Who understand that it doesn't take a 6-figure to be a Father figure.
Happy Father's Day to every man who understands the responsibility and deserves the title.
*Happy Father's Day to You and Me.*
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Olaotan Fawehinmi (The Soldier Within)
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Whereas Prometheus, through the tyrannical claims of his soul, is hampered in every relation to the external object and has to make the cruellest sacrifices in the service of the soul, Epimetheus is armed with an effective shield against the danger that most threatens the extravert—the danger of complete surrender to the external object. This protection consists in a conscience that is backed by the traditional “right ideas,” that is, by the not-to-be-despised treasures of worldly wisdom, which are employed by public opinion in much the same way as the judge uses the penal code. This provides Epimetheus with a protective barrier that restrains him from surrendering to the object as boundlessly as Prometheus does to his soul. This is forbidden him by his conscience, which deputizes for his soul. When Prometheus turns his back on the world of men and their codified conscience, he plays into the hands of his cruel soul-mistress and her caprices, and only after endless suffering does he atone for his neglect of the world.
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C.G. Jung (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung))
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TIMOTHY 4 hI charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, iwho is to judge the living and the dead, and by jhis appearing and his kingdom: 2preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; kreprove, rebuke, and lexhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 mFor the time is coming when people will not endure nsound [1] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4and owill turn away from listening to the truth and pwander off into myths. 5As for you, qalways be sober-minded, rendure suffering, do the work of san evangelist, tfulfill your ministry. 6For uI am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my vdeparture has come. 7 wI have fought the good fight, xI have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Henceforth there is ylaid up for me zthe crown of righteousness, which the Lord, athe righteous judge, will award to me on bthat day, and not only to me but also to all cwho have loved his appearing.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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Darwin’s theory of evolution, at least in its author’s eyes, dealt solely with the natural world. Yet it was as attractive to political theorists as a candle’s flame is to moths. Karl Marx asked if he could dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, an honor the great naturalist declined.5 Darwin’s name was slapped on to Spencer’s political ideas, which would far more accurately have been called Social Spencerism. Darwin himself demolished them in a lapidary reproof. Yes, vaccination has saved millions whose weaker constitutions would otherwise have let them succumb to smallpox, Darwin wrote. And yes, the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind, which, to judge from animal breeding, “must be highly injurious to the race of man.” But the aid we feel impelled to give to the helpless is part of our social instincts, Darwin said. “Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature,” he wrote. “If we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.” 6 Had Darwin’s
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Nicholas Wade (A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History)
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In God’s providence he has given us passages that highlight different features of his kingship in Isaiah, which are all part of different rhetorical arguments. This diversity points to the greatness of God, the king, as well as to the many ways his kingship can relate to us today. As we have seen, God is the holy king (6:1–3; 57:15), a warrior king (59:15b–20; 63:1–6), a shepherd king (40:11), the unseeable king (6:2), the king we will see (33:17; 40:5; 52:10), the royal judge (33:22), the saviour and redeemer king (33:22; 44:6; 52:7; 59:20), the king of glory (6:3; 24:23; 40:5; 60:1–2), the king of Israel (44:6) and Jacob (41:21), the king of the nations (2:2–4; 25:6–8; 60:1–3; 66:18–24), the king of heavenly forces (24:21–23), the wise king (2:2–4), the king who inhabits the cosmos (57:15; 66:1), the king of the downtrodden (57:15; 66:1–2), the king in history (6; 36 – 37), the king at the eschaton (24:21–24; 52:7; 60), and more. The book of Isaiah does not want us to condense God, the king, into one simple idea; instead, the book invites us to allow its collage of portraits of God as king to elicit a range of responses.
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Andrew Abernethy (The Book of Isaiah and God's Kingdom: A Thematic-Theological Approach (New Studies in Biblical Theology 40))
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The . . . the one about Colin Eversea! I learned a new verse from a young lady at school. It’s very funny and . . . and . . . bawdy.” That last word was a reckless inspiration. She presented it almost defiantly. Lisbeth blinked as though she’d flicked water into her eyes. Lisbeth and Waterburn eyed her for a silent nonplussed instant. A finch peeped somewhere in the hedgerows. Apparently it wasn’t a word anyone associated with her, or particularly wanted to associate with her, judging from the carefully bland expression on Waterburn’s face. Next I’ll try the word whore in a sentence, she thought wildly.
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Julie Anne Long (How the Marquess Was Won (Pennyroyal Green, #6))
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Caroline rose. She studied him for a moment before sitting on his knee.
He wasn't quite sure exactly how it happened. If pressed, he would have asked for three or four hundred pages to write a description of the series of impossibly graceful bendings and movements that ended with her perched there with one hand on his shoulder. He didn't understand - and he was sure that it defied physics - how Caroline could be so light on that tiny patch of his legs, and yet so weighty in the way her presence affected him. Her gaze, for instance, probably clocked in at about fifty or sixty tons, to judge from the effect it was having on him.
He never wanted to move. Never, ever, ever. Let the heat death of the universe come along and he'd be quite happy to still have Caroline Hepworth sitting just like that, on his knee, looking at him without speaking. The tiny light of the shaded lantern was irrelevant. He saw everything, as if it were the brightest of middays.
It was so perfect, so hoped for, that Aubrey knew it couldn't last. He glanced around.
'What are you doing?' Caroline asked very, very softly.
'Looking for whoever is going to interrupt us.'
'That's a pessimistic outlook.'
'Wars, especially, have a habit of ignoring the lives of people.'
'If you follow that through, it suggests living for the moment is best.'
'Live without planning? Without dreams? That sounds rather limited.'
'And that sounds rather like Aubrey.
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Michael Pryor (Hour of Need (The Laws of Magic, #6))
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Tenets of a viable 21st century conservatism
1. The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid.
2. Peaceful social being is preferable to isolation and to war. In consequence, it justly and rightly demands some sacrifice of individual impulse and idiosyncrasy.
3. Hierarchies of competence are desirable and should be promoted.
4. Borders are reasonable. Likewise, limits on immigration are reasonable. Furthermore, it should not be assumed that citizens of societies that have not evolved functional individual-rights predicated polities will hold values in keeping with such polities.
5. People should be paid so that they are able and willing to perform socially useful and desirable duties.
6. Citizens have the inalienable right to benefit from the result of their own honest labor.
7. It is more noble to teach young people about responsibilities than about rights.
8. It is better to do what everyone has always done, unless you have some extraordinarily valid reason to do otherwise.
9. Radical change should be viewed with suspicion, particularly in a time of radical change.
10. The government, local and distal, should leave people to their own devices as much as possible.
11. Intact heterosexual two-parent families constitute the necessary bedrock for a stable polity.
12. We should judge our political system in comparison to other actual political systems and not to hypothetical utopias.
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Jordan B. Peterson
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Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson performed a rather bizarre experiment on ants that may supplement Paul’s illustration (Rom 6:1-14). After noticing that it took ants a few days to recognize one of their crumpled nestmates as having died, he determined that ants identified death by clues of smell, not visually. As the ant’s body began to decompose, other ants would infallibly carry it out of the nest to a refuse pile. After many tries, Wilson narrowed down the precise chemical clue to oleic acid. If the ants smelled oleic acid, they would carry out the corpse; any other smell, they ignored. Their instinct was so strong that if Wilson daubed oleic acid on bits of paper, other ants would dutifully carry the paper to the ant cemetery.
In a final twist, Wilson painted oleic acid on the bodies of living ants. Sure enough, their nestmates seized them and marched them, their legs and antennae wriggling in protest, out to the ant cemetery. Thus deposited, the indignant 'living dead' cleaned themselves off before returning to the nest. If they did not remove every trace of the oleic acid, the nestmates would promptly seize them again and return them to the cemetery. They had to be certifiably alive, judged solely by smell, before being accepted back into the nest.
I think of that image, 'dead' ants acting very much alive, when I read Paul’s first illustration in Romans 6. Sin may be dead, but it stubbornly wriggles back to life.
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Philip Yancey (What's So Amazing About Grace?)
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As he deployed his forces, Newton imposed the same empirical rigor on his new job as he had with his pendulums and prisms. The Mint could not operate any faster than his men could spin their capstans, and every other step had to be timed to match the work of his presses. So Newton watched to “judge of the workmen’s diligence.” He saw how quickly the brutal effort needed to turn the press wore out its team. He observed just how nimble the man loading blanks and pulling finished coins from the press had to be to keep his fingers. Eventually, he identified the perfect pace: if the press thumped just slightly slower than the human heart, striking fifty to fifty-five times a minute, men and machines could stamp out coins for hours at a time. By autumn, Newton had the Mint’s output up to £100,000 every working week—a century ahead of Adam Smith, and more than double again before Henry Ford showed the world just how powerful time-and-motion rigor could be. Newton continued to drive his horses and men for the next two and a half years until the nation’s entire silver money supply had been remade. In all, under his command, the Mint recoined over £6 million—£6,722,970 0s. 2d., to be exact. As that last tuppence indicates, Newton, having spent the whole of his prior life as an essentially solitary thinker, proved to be a truly extraordinary administrator, bringing the effort home with accounts accurate to the penny and stunningly free of corruption.
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Thomas Levenson (Money For Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism)
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6Yet among e the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not f a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, g who are doomed to pass away. 7But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, h which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of i the rulers of this age understood this, for j if they had, they would not have crucified k the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written, l “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has m prepared n for those who love him”— 10these things o God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even p the depths of God. 11For who knows a person’s thoughts q except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now r we have received not s the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this t in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, u interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. [4] 14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are v folly to him, and w he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The x spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 y “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But z we have the mind of Christ.
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Anonymous (ESV Classic Reference Bible)
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Stewards of God’s Grace 1 PETER 4 Since therefore z Christ suffered in the flesh, [1] a arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for b whoever has suffered in the flesh c has ceased from sin, 2 d so as to live for e the rest of the time in the flesh f no longer for human passions but g for the will of God. 3For the time that is past h suffices i for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of j debauchery, and k they malign you; 5but they will give account to him who is ready l to judge the living and the dead. 6For this is why m the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. 7 n The end of all things is at hand; therefore o be self-controlled and sober-minded p for the sake of your prayers. 8Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since q love covers a multitude of sins. 9 r Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 s As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, t as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11whoever speaks, as one who speaks u oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves v by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything w God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. x To him belong glory and y dominion forever and ever. Amen.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
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This observation, then, holds universally: But still one may be at some loss to account for it. It is not sufficient to observe, that the people, everywhere, degrade their deities into a similitude with themselves, and consider them merely as a species of human creatures, somewhat more potent and intelligent. This will not remove the difficulty. For there is no man so stupid, as that, judging by his natural reason, he would not esteem virtue and honesty the most valuable qualities, which any person could possess. Why not ascribe the same sentiment to his deity? Why not make all religion, or the chief part of it, to consist in these attainments? Nor is it satisfactory to say, that the practice of morality is more difficult than that of superstition; and is therefore rejected. For, not to mention the excessive penances of the Brachmans and Talapoins5; it is certain, that the Rhamadan6 of the Turks, during which the poor wretches, for many days, often in the hottest months of the year, and in some of the hottest climates of the world, remain without eating or drinking from the rising to the setting sun; this Rhamadan, I say, must be more severe than the practice of any moral duty, even to the most vicious and depraved of mankind. The four Lents of the Muscovites, and the austerities of some Roman Catholics, appear more disagreeable than meekness and benevolence. In short, all virtue, when men are reconciled to it by ever so little practice, is agreeable: All superstition is forever odious and burthensome.
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Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
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Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5 In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality. We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc. These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so. The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern. Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality: While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6
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Fred Leland (Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security)
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The Saints will reign in celestial splendor—Christ will come, and men will be judged—Blessed are they who keep His commandments. 1 And he shewed me a pure river of awater of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the atree of blife, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the cleaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more acurse: but the bthrone of God and of the cLamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: 4 And they shall asee his bface; and his cname shall be in their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the asun; for the Lord God giveth them blight: and they shall creign dfor ever and ever. 6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and atrue: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must bshortly be done. 7 Behold, I acome quickly: bblessed is he that keepeth the csayings of the prophecy of this book. 8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I afell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. 9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. 10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. 11 He that is aunjust, let him be bunjust still: and he which is cfilthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 12 And, behold, I acome quickly; and my breward is with me, to give every man according as his cwork shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the afirst and the last. 14 Blessed are they that ado his bcommandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and asorcerers, and bwhoremongers, and cmurderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a dlie. 16 I Jesus have sent mine aangel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the broot and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning cstar. 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, aCome. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the bwater of life freely. 18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall aadd unto these things, God shall add unto him the bplagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the abook of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. 20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I acome quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 21 The agrace of our bLord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV))
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You knowing the people who do bad things and talking about them.
That doesn’t make you a good person.
You doing good things to others and being good to others.
That does make you a good person.
You regarding yourself as a good person and others as bad people,
because you disapproved of someone actions or doing.
You don’t weigh yourself as good person ,
because you do good, and you are good to others.
You say your good , because you oust those who do bad,
not that you do better yourself.
Your righteousness comes after judging others, not that you doing right.
It does not come from your own act or doings.
You need to do better.
Being a good person, it comes by you saying something or doing something. It doesn’t come by you judging others.
Galatians 6:10 | Ephesians 4:32
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D.J. Kyos
“
The Laundry List Characteristics of an Adult Child 1) We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures. 2) We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process. 3) We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism. 4) We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs. 5) We live life from the viewpoint of victims, and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships. 6) We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc. 7) We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others. 8) We became addicted to excitement. 9) We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.” 10) We “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial). 11) We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem. 12) We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us. 13) Alcoholism is a family disease; we became para-alcoholics (codependents)† and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink. 14) Para-alcoholics (codependents) are reactors rather than actors.
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Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization (Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families)
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The soul grows through: 1 Humility and self-responsibility, your desire to totally and completely feel all your emotions, and to make it no one else’s fault, neither punishing, blaming, judging or harming yourself or others. 2 Desire to receive Divine Love and Truth as the priority: human love is secondary 3 Free will choice: being educated about all the possibilities available to you 4 Being sovereign: having your own connection to God and Truth within you dependent on no one else 5 Having a heartfelt determination, commitment and discipline 6 Merging with the spirit body vehicle and caring for the physical: The Holy Trinity 7 Loving and serving others in all dimensions 8 Developing the six forms of Love 9 Living by the 64 moral codes of love: Ma’at 10 Discernment and wisdom regarding what is love and what is truth; investigating and applying this consistently with everyone in all aspects of your life without exception
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Padma Aon Prakasha (Dimensions of Love: 7 Steps to God)
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The modern educational system provides numerous other examples of reality bowing down to written records. When measuring the width of my desk, the yardstick I am using matters little. My desk remains the same width regardless of whether I say it is 200 centimetres or 78.74 inches. However, when bureaucracies measure people, the yardsticks they choose make all the difference. When schools began assessing people according to precise marks, the lives of millions of students and teachers changed dramatically. Marks are a relatively new invention. Hunter-gatherers were never marked for their achievements, and even thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution, few educational establishments used precise marks. A medieval apprentice cobbler did not receive at the end of the year a piece of paper saying he has got an A on shoelaces but a C minus on buckles. An undergraduate in Shakespeare’s day left Oxford with one of only two possible results – with a degree, or without one. Nobody thought of giving one student a final mark of 74 and another student 88.6 Credit 1.24 24. A European map of Africa from the mid-nineteenth century. The Europeans knew very little about the African interior, which did not prevent them from dividing the continent and drawing its borders. Only the mass educational systems of the industrial age began using precise marks on a regular basis. Since both factories and government ministries became accustomed to thinking in the language of numbers, schools followed suit. They started to gauge the worth of each student according to his or her average mark, whereas the worth of each teacher and principal was judged according to the school’s overall average. Once bureaucrats adopted this yardstick, reality was transformed. Originally, schools were supposed to focus on enlightening and educating students, and marks were merely a means of measuring success. But naturally enough, schools soon began focusing on getting high marks. As every child, teacher and inspector knows, the skills required to get high marks in an exam are not the same as a true understanding of literature, biology or mathematics. Every child, teacher and inspector also knows that when forced to choose between the two, most schools will go for the marks.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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1. You most want your friends and family to see you as someone who … a. Is willing to make sacrifices and help anyone in need. b. Is liked by everyone. c. Is trustworthy. d. Will protect them no matter what happens. e. Offers wise advice. 2. When you are faced with a difficult problem, you react by … a. Doing whatever will be the best thing for the greatest number of people. b. Creating a work of art that expresses your feelings about the situation. c. Debating the issue with your friends. d. Facing it head-on. What else would you do? e. Making a list of pros and cons, and then choosing the option that the evidence best supports. 3. What activity would you most likely find yourself doing on the weekend or on an unexpected day off? a. Volunteering b. Painting, dancing, or writing poetry c. Sharing opinions with your friends d. Rock-climbing or skydiving! e. Catching up on your homework or reading for pleasure 4. If you had to select one of the following options as a profession, which would you choose? a. Humanitarian b. Farmer c. Judge d. Firefighter e. Scientist 5. When choosing your outfit for the day, you select … a. Whatever will attract the least amount of attention. b. Something comfortable, but interesting to look at. c. Something that’s simple, but still expresses your personality. d. Whatever will attract the most attention. e. Something that will not distract or inhibit you from what you have to do that day. 6. If you discovered that a friend’s significant other was being unfaithful, you would … a. Tell your friend because you feel that it would be unhealthy for him or her to continue in a relationship where such selfish behavior is present. b. Sit them both down so that you can act as a mediator when they talk it over. c. Tell your friend as soon as possible. You can’t imagine keeping that knowledge a secret. d. Confront the cheater! You might also take action by slashing the cheater’s tires or egging his or her house—all in the name of protecting your friend, of course. e. Keep it to yourself. Statistics prove that your friend will find out eventually. 7. What would you say is your highest priority in life right now? a. Serving those around you b. Finding peace and happiness for yourself c. Seeking truth in all things d. Developing your strength of character e. Success in work or school
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Veronica Roth (The Divergent Series: Complete Collection)
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For millennia, sages have proclaimed how outer beauty reflects inner goodness. While we may no longer openly claim that, beauty-is-good still holds sway unconsciously; attractive people are judged to be more honest, intelligent, and competent; are more likely to be elected or hired, and with higher salaries; are less likely to be convicted of crimes, then getting shorter sentences. Jeez, can’t the brain distinguish beauty from goodness? Not especially. In three different studies, subjects in brain scanners alternated between rating the beauty of something (e.g., faces) or the goodness of some behavior. Both types of assessments activated the same region (the orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC); the more beautiful or good, the more OFC activation (and the less insula activation). It’s as if irrelevant emotions about beauty gum up cerebral contemplation of the scales of justice. Which was shown in another study—moral judgments were no longer colored by aesthetics after temporary inhibition of a part of the PFC that funnels information about emotions into the frontal cortex.[*] “Interesting,” the subject is told. “Last week, you sent that other person to prison for life. But just now, when looking at this other person who had done the same thing, you voted for them for Congress—how come?” And the answer isn’t “Murder is definitely bad, but OMG, those eyes are like deep, limpid pools.” Where did the intent behind the decision come from? The fact that the brain hasn’t had enough time yet to evolve separate circuits for evaluating morality and aesthetics.[6] Next, want to make someone more likely to choose to clean their hands? Have them describe something crummy and unethical they’ve done. Afterward, they’re more likely to wash their hands or reach for hand sanitizer than if they’d been recounting something ethically neutral they’d done. Subjects instructed to lie about something rate cleansing (but not noncleansing) products as more desirable than do those instructed to be honest. Another study showed remarkable somatic specificity, where lying orally (via voice mail) increased the desire for mouthwash, while lying by hand (via email) made hand sanitizers more desirable. One neuroimaging study showed that when lying by voice mail boosts preference for mouthwash, a different part of the sensory cortex activates than when lying by email boosts the appeal of hand sanitizers. Neurons believing, literally, that your mouth or hand, respectively, is dirty.
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Robert M. Sapolsky (Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will)
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1. Do you recall anyone drinking or taking drugs or being involved in some other behavior that you now believe could be dysfunctional? 2. Did you avoid bringing friends to your home because of drinking or some other dysfunctional behavior in the home? 3. Did one of your parents make excuses for the other parent’s drinking or other behaviors? 4. Did your parents focus on each other so much that they seemed to ignore you? 5. Did your parents or relatives argue constantly? 6. Were you drawn into arguments or disagreements and asked to choose sides with one parent or relative against another? 7. Did you try to protect your brothers or sisters against drinking or other behavior in the family? 8. As an adult, do you feel immature? Do you feel like you are a child inside? 9. As an adult, do you believe you are treated like a child when you interact with your parents? Are you continuing to live out a childhood role with the parents? 10. Do you believe that it is your responsibility to take care of your parents’ feelings or worries? Do other relatives look to you to solve their problems? 11. Do you fear authority figures and angry people? 12. Do you constantly seek approval or praise but have difficulty accepting a compliment when one comes your way? 13. Do you see most forms of criticism as a personal attack? 14. Do you over commit yourself and then feel angry when others do not appreciate what you do? 15. Do you think you are responsible for the way another person feels or behaves? 16. Do you have difficulty identifying feelings? 17. Do you focus outside yourself for love or security? 18. Do you involve yourself in the problems of others? Do you feel more alive when there is a crisis? 19. Do you equate sex with intimacy? 20. Do you confuse love and pity? 21. Have you found yourself in a relationship with a compulsive or dangerous person and wonder how you got there? 22. Do you judge yourself without mercy and guess at what is normal? 23. Do you behave one way in public and another way at home? 24. Do you think your parents had a problem with drinking or taking drugs? 25. Do you think you were affected by the drinking or other dysfunctional behavior of your parents or family? If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you may be suffering from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional family. As The Laundry List states, you can be affected even if you did not take a drink. Please read Chapter Two to learn more about these effects.
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Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization (Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families)
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Romans 14 The Danger of Criticism 1 Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. 2 For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. 3 Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval. 5 In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God. 7 For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. 8 If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead. 10 So why do you condemn another believer[*]? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For the Scriptures say, “‘As surely as I live,’ says the LORD, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.[*]’” 12 Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. 13 So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall. 14 I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. 15 And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. 16 Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. 17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. 20 Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble.[*] 22 You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right. 23 But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.[*]
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Anonymous (Holy Bible Text Edition NLT: New Living Translation)
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If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely: 1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage? We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power. 2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23). 3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–14). Peter’s conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul’s conduct is irreconcilable with Peter’s alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers! 4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1–3). Love of money and love of power are twin-sisters, and either of them is "a root of all evil." It is certainly very significant that the weaknesses even more than the virtues of the natural Peter—his boldness and presumption, his dread of the cross, his love for secular glory, his carnal zeal, his use of the sword, his sleepiness in Gethsemane—are faithfully reproduced in the history of the papacy; while the addresses and epistles of the converted and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the papacy, and enjoin truly evangelical principles—the general priesthood and royalty of believers, apostolic poverty before the rich temple, obedience to God rather than man, yet with proper regard for the civil authorities, honorable marriage, condemnation of mental reservation in Ananias and Sapphira, and of simony in Simon Magus, liberal appreciation of heathen piety in Cornelius, opposition to the yoke of legal bondage, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus Christ.
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Philip Schaff (History Of The Christian Church (The Complete Eight Volumes In One))
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How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow)
1. Appreciate happiness when it is there
2. Sip, don’t gulp.
3. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more.
4. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics.
5. Beware of Tuesdays. And Octobers.
6. Kurt Vonnegut was right. “Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.”
7. Listen more than you talk.
8. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful.
9. Be aware that you are breathing.
10. Wherever you are, at any moment, try to find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.
11. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you.
12. Go for a run. Then do some yoga.
13. Shower before noon.
14. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself.
15. Be kind.
16. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim.
17. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction.
18. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like Snow Queen in Frozen.
19. Don’t’ worry about things that probably won’t happen.
20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.)
21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”.
22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls.
23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it is hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication.
24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through.
25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end.
26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people.
27. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
28. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point.
29. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful.
30. Jules Verne wrote of the “Living Infinite”. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a “sea”. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive.
31. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life.
32. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects.
33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.
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Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)
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Except then a local high school journalism class decided to investigate the story. Not having attended Columbia Journalism School, the young scribes were unaware of the prohibition on committing journalism that reflects poorly on Third World immigrants. Thanks to the teenagers’ reporting, it was discovered that Reddy had become a multimillionaire by using H-1B visas to bring in slave labor from his native India. Dozens of Indian slaves were working in his buildings and at his restaurant. Apparently, some of those “brainy” high-tech workers America so desperately needs include busboys and janitors. And concubines. The pubescent girls Reddy brought in on H-1B visas were not his nieces: They were his concubines, purchased from their parents in India when they were twelve years old. The sixty-four-year-old Reddy flew the girls to America so he could have sex with them—often several of them at once. (We can only hope this is not why Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on H-1B visas.) The third roommate—the crying girl—had escaped the carbon monoxide poisoning only because she had been at Reddy’s house having sex with him, which, judging by the looks of him, might be worse than death. As soon as a translator other than Reddy was found, she admitted that “the primary purpose for her to enter the U.S. was to continue to have sex with Reddy.” The day her roommates arrived from India, she was forced to watch as the old, balding immigrant had sex with both underage girls at once.3 She also said her dead roommate had been pregnant with Reddy’s child. That could not be confirmed by the court because Reddy had already cremated the girl, in the Hindu tradition—even though her parents were Christian. In all, Reddy had brought seven underage girls to the United States for sex—smuggled in by his brother and sister-in-law, who lied to immigration authorities by posing as the girls’ parents.4 Reddy’s “high-tech” workers were just doing the slavery Americans won’t do. No really—we’ve tried getting American slaves! We’ve advertised for slaves at all the local high schools and didn’t get a single taker. We even posted flyers at the grade schools, asking for prepubescent girls to have sex with Reddy. Nothing. Not even on Craigslist. Reddy’s slaves and concubines were considered “untouchables” in India, treated as “subhuman”—“so low that they are not even considered part of Hinduism’s caste system,” as the Los Angeles Times explained. To put it in layman’s terms, in India they’re considered lower than a Kardashian. According to the Indian American magazine India Currents: “Modern slavery is on display every day in India: children forced to beg, young girls recruited into brothels, and men in debt bondage toiling away in agricultural fields.” More than half of the estimated 20.9 million slaves worldwide live in Asia.5 Thanks to American immigration policies, slavery is making a comeback in the United States! A San Francisco couple “active in the Indian community” bought a slave from a New Delhi recruiter to clean house for them, took away her passport when she arrived, and refused to let her call her family or leave their home.6 In New York, Indian immigrants Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani were convicted in 2006 of bringing in two Indonesian illegal aliens as slaves to be domestics in their Long Island, New York, home.7 In addition to helping reintroduce slavery to America, Reddy sends millions of dollars out of the country in order to build monuments to himself in India. “The more money Reddy made in the States,” the Los Angeles Times chirped, “the more good he seemed to do in his hometown.” That’s great for India, but what is America getting out of this model immigrant? Slavery: Check. Sickening caste system: Check. Purchasing twelve-year-old girls for sex: Check. Draining millions of dollars from the American economy: Check. Smuggling half-dead sex slaves out of his slums in rolled-up carpets right under the nose of the Berkeley police: Priceless.
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Ann Coulter (¡Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole)
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The experience of the common worship of God is such a moment. It is in this connection that American Christianity has betrayed the religion of Jesus almost beyond redemption. Churches have been established for the underprivileged, for the weak, for the poor, on the theory that they prefer to be among themselves. Churches have been established for the Chinese, the Japanese, the Korean, the Mexican, the Filipino, the Italian, and the Negro, with the same theory in mind. The result is that in the one place in which normal, free contacts might be most naturally established—in which the relations of the individual to his God should take priority over conditions of class, race, power, status, wealth, or the like—this place is one of the chief instruments for guaranteeing barriers. It is in order to quote these paragraphs from a recently published book, The Protestant Church and the Negro, by Frank S. Loescher: There are approximately 8,000,000 Protestant Negroes. About 7,500,000 are in separate Negro denominations. Therefore, from the local church through the regional organizations to the national assemblies over 93 per cent of the Negroes are without association in work and worship with Christians of other races except in interdenominational organizations which involves a few of their leaders. The remaining 500,000 Negro Protestants—about 6 per cent—are in predominantly white denominations, and of these 500,000 Negroes in “white” churches, at least 99 per cent, judging by the surveys of six denominations, are in segregated congregations. They are in association with their white denominational brothers only in national assemblies, and, in some denominations, in regional, state, or more local jurisdictional meetings. There remains a handful of Negro members in local “white” churches. How many? Call it one-tenth of one per cent of all the Negro Protestant Christians in the United States—8,000 souls—the figure is probably much too large. Whatever the figure actually is, the number of white and Negro persons who ever gather together for worship under the auspices of Protestant Christianity is almost microscopic. And where interracial worship does occur, it is, for the most part, in communities where there are only a few Negro families and where, therefore, only a few Negro individuals are available to “white” churches. That is the over-all picture, a picture which hardly reveals the Protestant church as a dynamic agency in the integration of American Negroes into American life. Negro membership appears to be confined to less than one per cent of the local “white” churches, usually churches in small communities where but a few Negroes live and have already experienced a high degree of integration by other community institutions—communities one might add where it is unsound to establish a Negro church since Negroes are in such small numbers. It is an even smaller percentage of white churches in which Negroes are reported to be participating freely, or are integrated
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Howard Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited)