“
With the support of a flesh-and-blood weapon named Major, a wondrous Belgian Mal named Keto, and a retired Judge named Shandy, Pack ripped apart the scandalous enterprise. That episode had culminated in the modern equivalent of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
”
”
John M. Vermillion (Pack's Posse (Simon Pack, #8))
“
But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
”
”
George Carlin
“
But it so happens that everything on this planet is, ultimately, irrational; there is not, and cannot be, any reason for the causal connexion of things, if only because our use of the word "reason" already implies the idea of causal connexion. But, even if we avoid this fundamental difficulty, Hume said that causal connexion was not merely unprovable, but unthinkable; and, in shallower waters still, one cannot assign a true reason why water should flow down hill, or sugar taste sweet in the mouth. Attempts to explain these simple matters always progress into a learned lucidity, and on further analysis retire to a remote stronghold where every thing is irrational and unthinkable.
If you cut off a man's head, he dies. Why? Because it kills him. That is really the whole answer. Learned excursions into anatomy and physiology only beg the question; it does not explain why the heart is necessary to life to say that it is a vital organ. Yet that is exactly what is done, the trick that is played on every inquiring mind. Why cannot I see in the dark? Because light is necessary to sight. No confusion of that issue by talk of rods and cones, and optical centres, and foci, and lenses, and vibrations is very different to Edwin Arthwait's treatment of the long-suffering English language.
Knowledge is really confined to experience. The laws of Nature are, as Kant said, the laws of our minds, and, as Huxley said, the generalization of observed facts.
It is, therefore, no argument against ceremonial magic to say that it is "absurd" to try to raise a thunderstorm by beating a drum; it is not even fair to say that you have tried the experiment, found it would not work, and so perceived it to be "impossible." You might as well claim that, as you had taken paint and canvas, and not produced a Rembrandt, it was evident that the pictures attributed to his painting were really produced in quite a different way.
You do not see why the skull of a parricide should help you to raise a dead man, as you do not see why the mercury in a thermometer should rise and fall, though you elaborately pretend that you do; and you could not raise a dead man by the aid of the skull of a parricide, just as you could not play the violin like Kreisler; though in the latter case you might modestly add that you thought you could learn.
This is not the special pleading of a professed magician; it boils down to the advice not to judge subjects of which you are perfectly ignorant, and is to be found, stated in clearer and lovelier language, in the Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley.
”
”
Aleister Crowley
“
We all create an outward self with which to face the world, and some people come to believe that is what they truly are. So they people the world with doctors who are nothing outside of the consulting-room, and judges who are nothing when they are not in court, and business men who wither with boredom when they have to retire from business, and teachers who are forever teaching. That is why they are such poor specimens when they are caught without their masks on. They have lived chiefly through the Persona.
”
”
Robertson Davies (The Manticore (The Deptford Trilogy, #2))
“
When will the Home Office realize that when judges retire, not only are they sent home for the rest of their lives, but the only people they have left to judge are their innocent wives.'
'So what are you recommending?'asked Alex as they walked into the drawing room.
'That judges should be shot on their seventieth birthday, and their wives granted a royal pardon and given their pensions by a grateful nation.'
'I may have come up with a more acceptable solution,' suggested Alex.
'Like what? Making it legal to assist judges' wives to commit suicide?'
'Something a little less drastic,' said Alex.
”
”
Jeffrey Archer (A Prisoner of Birth)
“
There's a reason that education sucks.
And it's the same reason
that it will never ever, ever be fixed.
It's never going to get any better,
don't look for it,
be happy with what you got.
Because the owners of this country don't want that.
I'm talking about the real owners now.
The real owners.
The big, wealthy business interests that control things
and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians.
The politicians are put there
to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice.
You don't.
You have no choice.
You have owners.
They own you.
They own everything.
They own all the important land.
They own and control the corporations.
They've long since bought and paid for the Senate,
the Congress, the state houses, and city halls.
They got the judges in their back pocket.
And they own all the big media companies
so they control just about
all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying,
lobbying to get what they want.
Well, we know what they want.
They want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want.
They don't want a population
of citizens capable of critical thinking.
They don't want well-informed, well-educated people,
capable of critical thinking.
They're not interested in that.
That doesn't help them.
That's against their interest.
That's right.
They don't want people who are smart enough
to figure out how badly they're getting fucked
by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
They don't want that.
You know what they want?
They want obedient workers.
Obedient workers.
People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork
and just dumb enough, to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs,
with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits,
the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension
that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And now, they're coming for your Social Security money.
They want your fucking retirement money.
They want it back,
so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.
And you know something, they'll get it.
They'll get it all from you, sooner or later,
because they own this fucking place.
It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the big club.
”
”
George Carlin (Life Is Worth Losing)
“
The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more
than $193 billion on homeowner subsidies, a figure that far exceeded the amount spent on direct housing assistance for low income families ($53 billion). Most families who enjoy those
subsidies have six-figure incomes and are white. Poor families lucky enough to live in government-owned apartments of often have to deal with mold and even lead paint, while rich families are claiming the mortgage interest deduction on first and second homes. The lifetime limit for cash welfare to poor parents is five years, but families claiming the mortgage interest deduction may do so for the length of the mortgage, typically thirty years. A fifteen-story public housing tower and a mortgaged suburban home are both government subsidized, but only one looks (and feels) that way.
If you count all public benefits offered by the federal government, America's welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France's. But that's true only if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line. If you put aside these tax breaks and judge the United States solely by the share of its GDP allocated to programs directed at low-income citizens, then our investment in poverty reduction is much
smaller than that of other rich nations. The American welfare state is lopsided.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
If you count all benefits, America’s welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France’s. But that’s true only if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line. If you put aside these tax breaks and judge the United States solely by the share of its GDP allocated to programs directed at low-income citizens, then our investment in poverty reduction is much smaller than that of other rich nations. The American welfare state is lopsided.[22]
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful creature, daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial while we are at Marseille. I never was in a law-court; I am told it is so very amusing!" "Amusing, certainly," replied the young man, "inasmuch as, instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre, you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine distress - a drama of life.
The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed, instead of - as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy - going home to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow, - is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the executioner. I leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a scene. Of this, however, be assured, that should any favorable opportunity present itself, I will not fail to offer you the choice of being present.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
DYNAMITE (13 Sticks for Immediate Use—Handle with Care) PLAN tomorrow’s work today. Review the events of the day, very briefly before retiring. Keep your voice down. No screamers wanted. Train yourself to write very legibly. Keep your good humor even if you lose your shirt. Defend those who are absent. Hear the other side before you judge. Don’t cry over spilt milk. Learn to do one thing as well as anyone on earth can do it. Use your company manners on the family. If you must be rude, let strangers have it. Keep all your goods and possessions neat and orderly. Get rid of things that you do not use. Every day do something to help someone else. Read the Bible every day. These points may seem to be trite and obvious, but each one has hidden behind it, an invincible law of psychology and metaphysics. Try them.
”
”
Emmet Fox (Make Your Life Worthwhile)
“
we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I—I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew."
...
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
Is the sky painted?” Isidore asked. “Are there really brush strokes that show up under magnification?”
“Yes,” Mercer said.
“I can’t see them.”
“You’re too close,” Mercer said. “You have to be a long way off, the way the androids are. They have better perspective.”
“Is that why they claim you’re a fraud?”
“I am a fraud,” Mercer said. “They’re sincere; their research is genuine. From their standpoint I am an elderly retired bit player named Al Jarry. All of it, their disclosure, is true. They interviewed me at my home, as they claim; I told them whatever they wanted to know, which was everything.”
“Including about the whisky?”
Mercer smiled. “It was true. They did a good job and from their standpoint Buster Friendly’s disclosure was convincing. They will have trouble understanding why nothing has changed. Because you’re still here and I’m still here.” Mercer indicated with a sweep of his hand the barren, rising hillside, the familiar place. “I lifted you from the tomb world just now and I will continue to lift you until you lose interest and want to quit. But you will have to stop searching for me because I will never stop searching for you.”
“I didn’t like that about the whisky,” Isidore said. “That’s lowering.”
“That’s because you’re a highly moral person. I’m not. I don’t judge, not even myself.” Mercer held out a closed hand, palm up. “Before I forget it, I have something of yours here.” He opened his fingers. On his hand rested the mutilated spider, but with its snipped-off legs restored.
“Thanks.” Isidore accepted the spider.
”
”
Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
“
We will be judged according to our ability. The retired couple who count the offering every Sunday, never divulging the amount anyone in the congregation contributes, will not be tested in the same way as the millionaire who wants an inscription on the stained glass window, so everyone will know who donated it. Some of the most severe tests will be given to the [preachers] for the way in which they handled the Word of God. There will be no reward for leading others astray in lifestyle or in doctrine through false teaching.
”
”
Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
“
Unfortunately Mythili, sexual harassment is such a crime…in fact, it is viewed as a sin rather than a crime. You keep quiet and they say that it confirms your guilt. You defend yourself; you become a misogynist. I’ve seen retired judges, high ranking income tax officers, celluloid celebrities and many others falling prey to sexual harassment charges. In many cases, the alleged victims do not even cooperate with the police to prove their charge. They throw the charge and vanish. But the public opinion is permanently aligned against the alleged perpetrators.
”
”
Hariharan Iyer (Surpanakha)
“
such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I— I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew.” As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled grief that touched me to the heart. But he was silent and presently retired to his cabin. Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
Some judicial officials began to notice the unusual frequency of deaths among the inmates of institutions and some prosecutors even considered asking the Gestapo to investigate the killings. However, none went so far as Lothar Kreyssig, a judge in Brandenburg who specialized in matters of wardship and adoption. A war veteran and a member of the Confessing Church, Kreyssig became suspicious when psychiatric patients who were wards of the court and therefore fell within his area of responsibility began to be transferred from their institutions and were shortly afterwards reported to have died suddenly. Kreyssig wrote Justice Minister Gortner to protest against what he described as an illegal and immoral programme of mass murder. The Justice Minister's response to this and other, similar, queries from local law officers was to try once more to draft a law giving effective immunity to the murderers, only to have it vetoed by Hitler on the grounds that the publicity would give dangerous ammunition to Allied propaganda. Late in April 1941 the Justice Ministry organized a briefing of senior judges and prosecutors by Brack and Heyde, to try to set their minds at rest. In the meantime, Kreyssig was summoned to an interview with the Ministry's top official, State Secretary Roland Freisler, who informed him that the killings were being carried out on Hitler's orders. Refusing to accept this explanation, Kreyssig wrote to the directors of psychiatric hospitals in his district informing them that transfers to killing centres were illegal, and threatening legal action should they transport any of their patients who came within his jurisdiction. It was his legal duty, he proclaimed, to protect the interests and indeed the lives of his charges. A further interview with Gortner failed to persuade him that he was wrong to do this, and he was compulsorily retired in December 1941.
”
”
Richard J. Evans (The Third Reich at War (The History of the Third Reich, #3))
“
[...] the Stoics, in sternerlanguage, bid us leave the stage as an actor who hasperformed his part. "Hark ye, friend; you have been a burgher of this great city. What matter whether you have lived in it but five years or three? If you have observed the laws of the corporation, the length or shortness of the time makes no difference. Where is the hardship, then, if Nature, that planted you here, orders your removal? You cannot say you are sent off by a tyrant or an unjust judge. No; you quit the stage as fairly as a player does that has his discharge from the master of the revels. But I have only gone through three acts, and not held out till the end of the fifth, you say. Well, but in life three acts make the play entire. He that ordered the first scene now gives the sign for shutting up the last. You are neither accountable for one nor the other. Therefore, retire well-satisfied, for he by whom you are dismissed is satisfied also” (xii. 36).
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
Anti-voting lawmakers perhaps weren’t intending to make it harder for married white women to vote, but that’s exactly what they did by requiring an exact name match across all forms of identification in many states in recent years. Birth certificates list people’s original surnames, but if they change their names upon marriage, their more recent forms of ID usually show their married names. Sandra Watts is a married white judge in the state of Texas who was forced to use a provisional ballot in 2013 under the state’s voter ID law. She was outraged at the imposition: “Why would I want to vote provisional ballot when I’ve been voting regular ballot for the last forty-nine years?” Like many women, she included her maiden name as her middle name when she took her husband’s last name—and that’s what her driver’s license showed. But on the voter rolls, her middle name was the one her parents gave her at birth, which she no longer used. And like that, she lost her vote—all because of a law intended to suppress people like Judge Watts’s fellow Texan Anthony Settles, a Black septuagenarian and retired engineer. Anthony Settles was in possession of his Social Security card, an expired Texas identification card, and his old University of Houston student ID, but he couldn’t get a new photo ID to vote in 2016 because his mother had changed his name when she remarried in 1964. Several lawyers tried to help him track down the name-change certificate in courthouses, to no avail; his only recourse was to go to court for a new one, at a cost of $250. Elderly, rural, and low-income voters are more likely not to have birth certificates or to have documents containing clerical errors. Hargie Randell, a legally blind Black Texan who couldn’t drive but who had a current voter registration card used before the new Texas law, had to arrange for people to drive him to the Department of Public Safety office three times, and once to the county clerk’s office an hour away, only to end up with a birth certificate that spelled his name wrong by one letter.
”
”
Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together)
“
He made a costly error in judgement and sent an entire regiment into a virtual slaughterhouse. It happens frequently. Officers risk their troops' lives for the sake of a promotion. Not my father. He valued the life of every man under his command, from his officers to the humblest fresh recruit. When he realized what had happened, he was devastated. He couldn't ever forget that his error had cost the lives of so many men, created so many widows and orphans..."
"But, Lyon, measured against his valor, one mistake is forgivable."
"To us, yes. Not to him. He was sickened that the battle was hailed as one of the turning points of the war. He was decorated for it. It was considered a great victory, but it defeated him as a soldier, as a man. When he came home and was hailed a hero, he couldn't stand the conflict within himself. He didn't feel like a hero. He felt like a traitor."
"That can't be!"
"Not a traitor to his country, but to the men who had trusted his judgement and leadership. It was a conflict he never could reconcile, so he retired from the Army and came here and shut out the world and all reminders of the lie he was living."
They were quiet for a moment before she said,"No one would have thrown stones at him, Lyon. he was a respected man, a hero, a leader at a time in history when America needed heroes and leaders. It was a battleground that spread out for miles. Admist all the chaos he may have thought he made a mistake when he actually didn't."
"I know that, Andy, and you know that, but since the time I was old enough to understand his reclusiveness, I was never able to convince him of it. He died still regretting that one day in his life as though he had live no other. It didn't matter what the public would have thought if they had known. He judged himself more severely than anyone else could have."
"How tragic for him. He was such a lovely man, Lyon. Such a lovely man.
”
”
Sandra Brown (Prime Time)
“
Everywhere you look with this young lady, there’s a purity of motivation,” Shultz told him. “I mean she really is trying to make the world better, and this is her way of doing it.” Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed. Parloff didn’t end up using those quotes in his article, but the ringing endorsements he heard in interview after interview from the luminaries on Theranos’s board gave him confidence that Elizabeth was the real deal. He also liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character. After all, he’d dealt with his share of dishonest people over the years, having worked in a prison during law school and later writing at length about such fraudsters as the carpet-cleaning entrepreneur Barry Minkow and the lawyer Marc Dreier, both of whom went to prison for masterminding Ponzi schemes. Sure, Elizabeth had a secretive streak when it came to discussing certain specifics about her company, but he found her for the most part to be genuine and sincere. Since his angle was no longer the patent case, he didn’t bother to reach out to the Fuiszes. — WHEN PARLOFF’S COVER STORY was published in the June 12, 2014, issue of Fortune, it vaulted Elizabeth to instant stardom. Her Journal interview had gotten some notice and there had also been a piece in Wired, but there was nothing like a magazine cover to grab people’s attention. Especially when that cover featured an attractive young woman wearing a black turtleneck, dark mascara around her piercing blue eyes, and bright red lipstick next to the catchy headline “THIS CEO IS OUT FOR BLOOD.” The story disclosed Theranos’s valuation for the first time as well as the fact that Elizabeth owned more than half of the company. There was also the now-familiar comparison to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. This time it came not from George Shultz but from her old Stanford professor Channing Robertson. (Had Parloff read Robertson’s testimony in the Fuisz trial, he would have learned that Theranos was paying him $500,000 a year, ostensibly as a consultant.) Parloff also included a passage about Elizabeth’s phobia of needles—a detail that would be repeated over and over in the ensuing flurry of coverage his story unleashed and become central to her myth. When the editors at Forbes saw the Fortune article, they immediately assigned reporters to confirm the company’s valuation and the size of Elizabeth’s ownership stake and ran a story about her in their next issue. Under the headline “Bloody Amazing,” the article pronounced her “the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire.” Two months later, she graced one of the covers of the magazine’s annual Forbes 400 issue on the richest people in America. More fawning stories followed in USA Today, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour, along with segments on NPR, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS News. With the explosion of media coverage came invitations to numerous conferences and a cascade of accolades. Elizabeth became the youngest person to win the Horatio Alger Award. Time magazine named her one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. President Obama appointed her a U.S. ambassador for global entrepreneurship, and Harvard Medical School invited her to join its prestigious board of fellows.
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
As with most small town southerners, respectability was as much a part of my DNA as was my hair and eye color. It was the goal everyone strived for, the standard by which every citizen of Morganville was judged. And while my family, the Frenchs, weren’t the richest- that honor going to Ian and Helena Morgan- we were one of the most respected. Thanks mostly to the Judge, my grandfather.
His name was Carl, but no one, including his daughters, had ever called him anything but Judge. He retired from the bench when I was five, and since my own father pulled a vanishing act shortly before my birth, the Judge stepped forward to fill that role for me. I thought the man walked on water and took every word from his lips as gospel.
“Alix,” he told me. “Stay away from the railroad tracks. A wowzer cat lives under the trestle, and you don’t want to get tangled up with one of those.”
“What’s a wowzer cat?” I asked, enthralled.
“It’s a fifty pound cat with eight legs and nine bung holes, and it’s meaner than a gar.”
The Judge had an odd sense of humor.
”
”
Katherine Allred (The Sweet Gum Tree)
“
uninvited help he might offer would be rejected. He was surprised and delighted when she placed a hand on his shoulder as she climbed the wagon steps. He left her to take off her torn, soiled clothing while he supervised the heating of the water cauldron and the preparation of the copper hip-bath. Zama and the other servants removed the afterchest from her wagon and set up the bath in its place. Then they filled it with steaming water. When all was ready, Jim retired and listened through the canvas tent to her splashes, and winced in sympathy at her small cries and exclamations of pain as the water stung her abrasions and thorn pricks. When at last he judged that she had finished he asked permission to enter her wagon tent. ‘Yes, you may come in, for I am as chastely attired as a nun.’ She was wearing the dressing-robe Sarah Courtney had given her. It reached from her chin to her ankles, and down to her wrists. ‘Is there aught I can do to ease your discomfort?’ he asked. ‘I have rubbed your aunt Yasmini’s sovereign balm and ointment upon my ankle and on most of my other afflictions.’ She lifted the hem of the robe a few inches to show her ankle tightly wrapped in bandages. Dorian
”
”
Wilbur Smith (Blue Horizon: A Courtney Novel 11 (The Courtney Series))
“
appeared. The first attempt to win legislative backing for the scheme, under the previous, Congress-led government, failed spectacularly. In 2011, the parliament’s standing committee on finance—led by a member of the BJP, which was then in the opposition—found Aadhaar to be “riddled with serious lacunae and concern areas,” and declared that it had “been conceptualized with no clarity of purpose … and is being implemented in a directionless way with a lot of confusion.” A retired judge who filed the first legal challenge to Aadhaar, in 2012,
”
”
The Caravan Magazine (The New Oil- Aadhaar’s mixing of public risk and private profit by ARIA THAKER)
“
All that now separated retirement from rest was a single box. The previous owner had been eager to protect its contents, using a lock carved from garlic. He picked it with a sprig of parsley and groped inside, pulling out an exact likeness of himself, a puppet double. Even his cork leg sealed the same dry white panic, judging from the way it jerked.
”
”
Rhys Hughes (The Smell of Telescopes)
“
My grandfather seemed to me stricken and afflicted, and indeed he was, like a man everlastingly struck by lightening, so that there was an ashiness about his clothes and his hair never settled and his eye had a look of tragic alarm when he wasn't actually sleeping. He was the most unreposeful human being I ever knew, except for certain of his friends. All of them could sit on their heels into their old age, and they'd do it by preference, as if they had a grudge against furniture. They had no flesh on them at all. They were like the Hebrew prophets in some unwilling retirement, or like the primitive church still waiting to judge the angels...It was the most natural thing in the world that my grandfather's grave would look like a place where someone had tried to smother a fire.
”
”
Marilynne Robinson (Gilead (Gilead, #1))
“
When the first day of the festival had concluded, I retired early, my feet aching and my body exhausted. Narian had left us after our tour of the grounds, and I had not seen him since, although I hoped he would come to me now. He did, but even as he dropped through my window, he seemed distracted, far away inside his own head. I tried to engage him in conversation, but found it to be mostly one-sided, for I could not hold his interest. Though there was no smooth way to launch into the necessary topic, I did so anyway, doubtful that he was even listening.
“Are you upset that your family was with us today?” I asked.
“You invited them?” Judging by the tone of his voice, I had landed upon the correct issue.
“Yes. It made sense to do so.”
“I suppose,” he replied, but I knew the answer did not reflect his actual thoughts.
“They’re old friends of my family, Narian. And I thought perhaps you would…enjoy seeing them again.”
“Alera, they don’t want my company.”
“Your mother does.”
His eyes at last met mine.
“I spoke to her about you. She would give up her husband to regain her son.”
“I doubt that’s true,” he said with a short laugh.
“It is,” I insisted, reaching out to run a hand through his hair. I might have changed her words a little, but I understood her intent. “She told me so herself. Believe it.”
Narian stared at me, a flicker of hope on his face that quickly faded into his stoic façade.
“Even if what you say is true,” he said at last, “in order to have a relationship with her, with my siblings, I need to have one with Koranis.”
“You’re right,” I admitted, for my dinner at the Baron’s home had proven that to be the case.
He sat on the bed beside me and drew one knee close to his chest. “Koranis doesn’t want to be anywhere near me, and to be honest, I have no interest in a relationship with him. I have no respect for him.” Narian read the sympathy in my eyes. “It’s all right, Alera. I don’t need a family.”
“Maybe you don’t need one,” I said with a shrug, playing with the fabric of the quilt that lay between us. “But you deserve one.”
I thought for a moment I had hit a nerve, but instead he made a joke out of it.
“Just think--if I’d had Koranis as my father, I might have turned into him by now. I’d be brutish and pretentious, but at least my boastful garb would distract you from those flaws. Oh, and this hair you love? It would be gone.”
I laughed at the ounce of truth in his statement, then fell silent, for some reason feeling sadder about his situation than he was.
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Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
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The Illuminati use several umbrella organizations whose leaders usually don’t know that they are being manipulated and controlled. One of the Illuminati organizations working from behind the scenes of visible world politics is the Association of the Round Table. Just like the Order of the Illuminati this society is devoted to the destruction of national states, and they strive for a sort of international super-state: the prototype of the so-called New World Order! The Round Table was founded in 1891 by the politician Cecil Rhodes and is built in the same way as the Order of the Illuminati. In 1902 the Association of Helpers (a group of supporters from the outside from seven different countries) was created. This group created the Round Table Societies in different countries. The North American branch of the Round Table Group was initially called National Civic Federation, a name that was changed in 1921 by Colonel Mandell House into Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).[46] Today the organization claims approximately 2000 members. It is striking that almost all members of the CFR hold important positions in the government of the United States, the CIA and the American financial world. Aside from the enormous influence of the organization over the majority of American public life, it also exercises considerable pressure on the Congress and the government of the United States. At the moment the CFR is the most important component of the “World Government” operating behind the scenes.[47] The grandson of Franklin Roosevelt declared that the President completely depended on the CFR; every step he took was dictated by this institution. In 1975 retired Navy Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy and former CFR member, wrote in a critique that the goal of the CFR is the submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all powerful One World government. In one of the first issues of Foreign Affairs (1922), the Council on Foreign Relations magazine, World Government is already endorsed:
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Robin de Ruiter (Worldwide Evil and Misery - The Legacy of the 13 Satanic Bloodlines)
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Most people just aren’t very talkative during the delicate tango that precedes sex, and the re-education required to make them more forthcoming would be a very big project. Nor are people unerringly good at decoding sexual signals. If they were, we wouldn’t have romantic comedies. “If there’s no social consensus about what the lines are,” says Nancy Gertner, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and a retired judge, then affirmative consent “has no business being in the criminal law.
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Anonymous
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Mr. Nobley was walking briskly from one room to the next, his eyes up as though trying to avoid eye contact. He looked scrumptious in his black jacket and white tie. Even better when he saw her and stopped. Really looked. Zing. Hello, Nobley.
“Mr. Nobley!” A stranger woman of retirement age waved a handkerchief gleefully and bustle-jogged toward him. Mr. Nobley fled.
And then, Martin was there, in tails, cravat, and all, and scanning the crowd.
For my face, she thought.
It was Martin’s turn to look up, to see her. His expression was--whoa, she knew now that she was looking pretty good. Others noticed his expression and turned as well. The murmuring hushed and music swirled from the other room. She was Cinderella entering alone. What, no trumpets?
Martin rushed up several steps to escort her down.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
He took her arm anyway. “That’s a crackin’ dress, Jane. I mean…Miss Erstwhile. Might I have the pleasure of obtaining your hand for the next two dances?”
Ah, his smell! She was in his room again, static on the TV, a can of root beer so cold it was sweating, his hands touching her face. She wanted him close. She wanted to feel as real as she had those nights. Her sleeves pinched her shoulders, her dress felt heavy in the skirts.
“I can’t, Martin,” she said. “I already promised--”
“Miss Erstwhile,” Mr. Nobley was standing at her elbow. He bowed civilly. “The first dance is beginning, if you care to accompany me.”
Was there a look that passed between the two men? Some heated past? Or would they (wahoo!) have a jealous tussle over Jane’s attentions?
Nope. Mr. Nobley led her away. Martin stayed put, watching her go, something of a puppy dog in his eyes. She tried to say with her own, “I’m sorry I ignored you the night of the theatrical and I understand why you judged me for being the kind of woman to fall in love with this fantasy and I’ll be back and maybe we can talk then or just make out,” though she didn’t know how much of that she actually communicated. Maybe just a part, like “I’m sorry” or “you judged me” or “make out.
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Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
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In the November 2010 issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi reported on the special courts established around the country for the express purpose of streamlining and accelerating foreclosure actions. Presided over by retired judges who were unfamiliar with the complexities involved in the mortgage fraud, these courts were not set up “to decide right and wrong, but to clear cases and blast human beings out of their homes with ultimate velocity.” The whole process was designed to transfer the property of ordinary citizens to the nation’s largest banks regardless of entitlement. As Taibbi wrote: The judges, in fact, openly admit that their primary mission is not justice but speed. One Jacksonville [Florida] judge, the Honorable A. C. Soud, even told a local newspaper that his goal is to resolve 25 cases per hour. Given the way the system is rigged, that means His Honor could well be throwing one ass on the street every 2.4 minutes. The following month, the Washington Post reported that similar courts in Virginia were “making it easier for lenders to defend themselves when accused of giving homeowners too little warning of impending foreclosures.” Indeed, “the process moves so quickly in Virginia…that homeowners can receive less than two weeks’ notice that their house is about to be sold on the courthouse steps.” The design of the courts guaranteed that even banks with no legal foreclosure entitlement had an almost insurmountable advantage. In the very short time they were accorded, homeowners seeking to stop foreclosure had to “gather evidence, file a lawsuit and potentially post a bond with the court that could total thousands of dollars.” These arduous requirements, combined with the near-impossible deadlines, meant that many borrowers simply ran out of time when trying to fight invalid foreclosure proceedings. It
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Glenn Greenwald (With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used To Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful)
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Until the day that “the Great Judge proclaims: / ‘The last addict’s died,’254 ” the poem said, “Then—not till then—may you be retired.
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Johann Hari (Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs)
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Why shouldn't two new Justices be appointed each administration? A re-elected President would then have four opportunities to appoint. At the beginning of each administration, the two oldest Justices would automatically hand in their resignations, to take effect at the President's convenience. Thus new blood would be infused into the Court at regular intervals without rancour, and the Court would normally be renewed every 16 years ... Whenever death or retirement occurred, the President would have an extra appointment.
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Harriet Boyd Hawes (Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes (Gr-gen))
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The vote only empowers you to represent abilities, whereas the beauty of work and actuality of capability qualify you as a true leader; otherwise, the majority vote is just a power game, not insight.”
Ziauddin Khawaja, known as Ziauddin Butt, in the military coup against the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, on October 12, 1999, under secret and mutual interests, assured the four corps commanders of that time of their loyalty to the army and in favor of General Musharraf. Military treachery was preferred over democratic values and the constitutional protection of the elected Prime Minister.
If General Butt was a patriot, the worst general in history, Musharraf, would never have dared to hand over our beloved country to foreign forces. Every general tries to be a patriot and a hero after retirement.
As many generals as there were in Pakistan and they broke, abrogated, or suspended the constitution from any angle, they were and are complete traitors to the Pakistani state, nation, and constitution, but also to the morale of the great forces, along with the traitorous judges of the judiciary, who participated equally.
Not repeating such factors is a nation’s survival; otherwise, there will be no uniforms and no freedom. Staying within every institution’s limits is patriotism; give exemplary proof of your patriotism, and you are all subservient to the Constitution and those elected under the Constitution. Your oath is your declaration of respect and protection of democratic values; its violation is treason against the country and nation.
On the other hand, Pakistani political parties and their leadership do not qualify in the context of politics since, if they are in power or opposition, they seek favor from the Armed Forces for their democratic dictatorship. The honest fact is that Pakistanis neither wanted nor wished to establish real democratic values and their enforcement. Lawmakers are unqualified and incapable of fulfilling the context of the Constitution, which is the essence of a pure and honest democracy with fair and transparent elections as per the will of voters, which never happened in Pakistan. Examples are visible and open to the world, even though no one feels sorry or ashamed for such an immoral, illegitimate, and unconstitutional mindset and trend of the Pakistani leadership of all political parties.
Huge and widespread corruption is a threat to the Pakistani economy and people’s prosperity. IMF support and other benefits go into the hands of corrupt officials instead of prioritizing the well-being of society or individuals. Imposing taxes without prosperity in society and for people who already live below the poverty line is economic violence, not a beneficial impact.
The fact is bare that the establishment misuses leaders and leaders misuse the establishment, which has become a national trend; consequently, state, nation, and constitution remain football for them, and they have been playing it for more than seven decades, losing the resources of land and people for their conflicts of interest. I can only suggest that you stop such a game before you defeat yourself.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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I don’t want Goel to hear the case. If you manage to delay the trial, I will get a new judge since Goel will retire soon.
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Sree Iyer (Who killed SSR?: A genius snuffed by greed, jealousy and deception (Mystery series Book 1))
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Satyendranath Tagore and the ones who came after him suffered the most appalling racial discrimination and personal humiliation in their careers. After thirty years’ ICS service, in a series of insignificant posts, Satyendranath, who was a brilliant linguist, lyricist and social reformer, could only retire as a judge in the provincial Maharashtrian town of Satara.
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Shashi Tharoor (An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India)
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Some federal judges, including conservative judges, have quit in protest of federal drug laws and sentencing guidelines. Face-to-face with those whose lives hang in the balance, they are far closer to the human tragedy occasioned by the drug war than the legislators who write the laws from afar. Judge Lawrence Irving, a Reagan appointee, noted upon his retirement: “If I remain on the bench, I have no choice but to follow the law. I just can’t, in good conscience, continue to do this.”83 Other judges, such as Judge Jack Weinstein, publicly refused to take any more drug cases, describing “a sense of depression about much of the cruelty I have been a party to in connection with the ‘war on drugs.
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Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
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What did you say?” Rivka interrupted. The two bodyguards gave her the side eye. “Labor is expensive, except on Corran, where it’s cheaper to buy and sell people than it is to hire them in the usual sense. Where the message isn’t in our favor. What about retirement? What happens when the commodity gets old and unable to work? Where do they go?” Red
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Craig Martelle (Slave Trade (Judge, Jury, & Executioner, #5))
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At the same time, back in Washington, a gray-haired retired conservative judge testified before Congress that, just eighteen months before, during the January 6, 2021, siege of the United States Capitol, “a stake was driven through the heart of American democracy…, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge. America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other—over our democracy.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
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To be an intelligent investor, you must also refuse to judge your financial success by how a bunch of total strangers are doing. You’re not one penny poorer if someone in Dubuque or Dallas or Denver beats the S & P 500 and you don’t. No one’s gravestone reads “HE BEAT THE MARKET.” I once interviewed a group of retirees in Boca Raton, one of Florida’s wealthiest retirement communities. I asked these people—mostly in their seventies—if they had beaten the market over their investing lifetimes. Some said yes, some said no; most weren’t sure. Then one man said, “Who cares? All I know is, my investments earned enough for me to end up in Boca.” Could there be a more perfect answer? After all, the whole point of investing is not to earn more money than average, but to earn enough money to meet your own needs. The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go. In the end, what matters isn’t crossing the finish line before anybody else but just making sure that you do cross it.
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Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor)
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NO one from Bill Cosby’s family was by his side in court [for the sentencing]. Not his children, not Camille. But Camille was still vocal and outraged. In fact, the week before, she had hand delivered an ethics complaint about Judge O’Neill to the state’s Judicial Conduct Board. Her complaint claimed that O’Neill had a grudge with Castor dating back to 1999 when they both ran for district attorney and O’Neill dated a woman in Castor’s office.
She also called O’Neill “arrogant,” “corrupt,” and “unethical” and revealed she’d hired a retired FBI agent to investigate the judge.
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Nicole Weisensee Egan (Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America's Dad)
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There are many stories about seagoing cats. My research indicates that cats were domesticated about 9,500 years ago. I really don’t know anyone who was around at that time to verify this, but I also don’t have any reason to doubt this little bit of trivia. It is documented that the Egyptians who kept cats around to bring the good luck, also used them to catch thicket birds that lived in the tall grass along the riverbanks. I guess that these small birds were a treat and a welcome substitute for the usual river fish that the sailors would catch with hooks fashioned from bones. In time it was the Phoenicians who inadvertently brought cats from the middle east to Europe.
It seems that sailors had cats with them on their ships from the beginning of recorded history. They successfully used the excuse that the cats would keep the rat population under control. I don’t believe that this was really true since there are stories of where the cat befriended the rats, but in most cases the cats did keep the rats from invading their living spaces. Six-toed cats were thought to be better hunters and to this day many islands in remote areas are overrun by these cats and rats that managed to get ashore from ships that foundered along the island’s shore.
Sailors are notoriously superstitious and have always believed that cats can predict the weather and bring luck. There are many accounts concerning this and there may be some truth to this but you’ll have to be the judge. Because of their sensitive inner ears cats can sense barometric pressure drops, indicating foul weather and being warned frequently crawl into their safe hidey-hole prior to a storm.
A cat named Oscar, or Oskar in German, was the mascot on the German Battle Cruiser Bismarck when she was sunk by the British. Found floating on a wooden plank, Oskar was rescued by the crew of the British ship the HMS Cossack. No sooner recued and with Oskar renamed Oscar, the HMS Cossack was sunk by the Germans. This time Oscar was rescued by the crew of the HMS Arc Royal, which was then also sunk by the German navy. Not believing their bad luck the Brit’s blamed poor Oscar and renamed the cat to the German Oskar. Thinking Oskar to be the harbinger of bad luck they contacted the German Navy and offered to return their cat. The Germans refused the offer, so the British retired Oskar to a home in Plymouth, England. This time they banned poor Oskar from ever sailing on a British Naval Vessel again and changed his name to Sam.
The British Navy banned cats from sailing on British war ships in 1975. Even though the British Navy has banned cats from their ships, other countries and merchant ships still have cats aboard.
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Hank Bracker
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Haerizadeh, Sayyed Abul-Hassan (1894–1987)—an early Mossadeq supporter who soon turned against him. He was a retired judge and veteran Majles deputy. The British embassy described him as an “extreme neutralist” who was “quarrelsome and usually at logger-heads with his colleagues.
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Ervand Abrahamian (The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations)
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The building’s signage was very good, and they ended up in a corner of the second floor, talking to the judge’s receptionist, Judy.
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Paula Lester (Wedding Whack (Sunnyside Retired Witches Mysteries Book 7))
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They learn about a volunteer encampment in the muddy fields of a sympathetic retired fisherman, not far from Solace. The bivouac swarms with more activity than coherence. Quick young people, loud in their devotion, call across the tent-dotted meadow. Their noses, ears, and eyebrows flash with hardware. Dreadlocks tangle in the fibers of their multicolored garb. They stink of soil, sweat, idealism, patchouli oil, and the sweet sinsemilla grown all through these woods. Some stay for two days. Some, judging from their microflora, have been in this base camp for more than a few seasons.
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Richard Powers (The Overstory)
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Oh.’ ‘Veneering. The retired judge. Friend, no,
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Jane Gardam (Last Friends (Old Filth Book 3))
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I know nobody’s going to take care of me. I have to make sure that I’ve got things in place. Who will speak for me when I can’t speak for myself? One sister has her own grief. The other I simply do not trust. I’ve thought about bribing my nieces and nephews, who are in my will. Let’s not kid ourselves. Making plans that assure our elder years are managed to our liking and fit within our budget is more crucial for those without children. We know we can’t count on offspring to oversee our dotage. There’s even a name for what we may someday become—elder orphans. “Aging seniors face all sorts of uncertainties,” writes Susan B. Garland in Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. “But older childless singles and couples are missing the fallback that many other seniors take for granted: adult children who can monitor an aging parent and help navigate a complex system of health care, housing, transportation, and social services.” Perhaps we can push planning aside for a while, but then our care may fall to an inattentive relative, acquaintance, or potentially nefarious do-gooder to make decisions for us when we can’t make them ourselves. If we’re really in a jam, some judge will appoint someone to manage our affairs. No one wants to face the fact, but none of us is getting out of here alive. Some steer clear of making plans, procrastinate, or remain in denial that their day will come. Even partial planning risks chaotic consequences. -—-—-—
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Kate Kaufmann (Do You Have Kids?: Life When the Answer Is No)
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But whereas Cyrus wanted his praises to be sung by all human beings, Xenophon was concerned primarily with honor from his friends.[125] Unlike Cyrus, he was not as eager for praise from incompetent judges as from competent ones. This difference helps us to understand his equanimity in the face of the most varied political fortunes: for example, the dignity and wit with which he defended himself when confronted with ingratitude and baseless hostility on the part of the very men whose lives he had saved.[126] It helps us also to understand his ability to leave political life to return to a private life. [...] Country retirement, while lacking the immediate challenges to heart and mind presented by politics at their peak, would have appealed to him as allowing more leisure for contemplation and writing—especially since that contemplation might embrace, as we know from the Anabasis that it did, his own political experiences among other things. For a man like Xenophon, the contemplative reliving of experiences was sure to be a deepening of them. It could thus have been looked forward to as promising a more profound enjoyment than the original experiences themselves, and one less mixed with pain.
[125]Cyropaedia III 2.31; Anabasis VI 1.20. 126.
[126]Anabasis VII 6.11 ff.; compare V 7.5 ff. and 8.2 ff.
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Leo Strauss (History of Political Philosophy)