“
That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
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Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
“
when you meet that person. a person. one of your soulmates. let the connection. relationship. be what it is. it may be five mins. five hours. five days. five months. five years. a lifetime. five lifetimes. let it manifest itself the way it is meant to. it has an organic destiny. this way if it stays or if it leaves, you will be softer. from having been loved this authentically. souls come into. return. open. and sweep through your life for a myriad of reasons. let them be who. and what they are meant.
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Nayyirah Waheed
“
Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
In understanding the nature and the bigger picture of the game from an omniscient viewpoint, a player could manifest his own destiny infinitely more effectively than any two-dimensional-thinking dimwit on the street who repeatedly walked straight into brick walls, thinking a different outcome would magically materialize through persistence alone.
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Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
“
When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. Being poorly integrated in the universe of humanity and hardly able to adapt herself therein, she, like the child, is able to see it objectively; instead of being interested solely in her grasp on things, she looks for their significance; she catches their special outlines, their unexpected metamorphoses. She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.
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Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
“
Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Judge not by their words, but accept advice based on the evidence of actual results. Do not be surprised should you find a complete absence of anything mystical or miraculous in the manifested reality of those who are so eager to advise you. Friends and family who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment and prosperity in their own lives really have no business imposing their self-limiting beliefs on your reality experience.
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Anthon St. Maarten
“
Creativity is closely associated with bipolar disorder. This condition is unique . Many famous historical figures and artists have had this. Yet they have led a full life and contributed so much to the society and world at large. See, you have a gift. People with bipolar disorder are very very sensitive. Much more than ordinary people. They are able to experience emotions in a very deep and intense way. It gives them a very different perspective of the world. It is not that they lose touch with reality. But the feelings of extreme intensity are manifested in creative things. They pour their emotions into either writing or whatever field they have chosen" (pg 181)
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Preeti Shenoy (Life is What You Make It: A Story of Love, Hope and How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny)
“
Patience is the antidote to the restless poison of the Ego. Without it we all become ego-maniacal bulls in china shops, destroying our future happiness as we blindly rush in where angels fear to tread. In these out-of-control moments, we bulldoze through the best possible outcomes for our lives, only to return to the scene of the crime later to cry over spilt milk.
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Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
“
Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because I was afraid. She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of the rain; a racer should embrace the rain. I, alone, could manifest a change around me. By changing my mood, my energy, I allowed Eve to regard me differently. And while I cannot say that I am a master of my own destiny, I can say that I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work toward.
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
One of the fables we live by is that some day the killing will stop. If only we rid ourselves of Chinese, white men will have jobs and white women will have virtue, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Indians, we will fulfill our Manifest Destiny, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Canaanites, we will live in the Promised Land, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Jews, we can build and maintain a Thousand Year Reich, and then we can stop killing. If only we stop the Soviet Union, we can stop the killing (remember the Peace Dividend that never materialized?). If only we can take out the worldwide terrorist network of bin Laden and others like him. If only. But the killing never stops. Always a new enemy to be hated is found.
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Derrick Jensen (The Culture of Make Believe)
“
You must attach yourself spiritually to what you have placed in your imagination as a future fact, and never allow anyone, anything, any circumstance, no matter how persuasive their case, to alter what you know to be your destiny.
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Wayne W. Dyer (Wishes Fulfilled: Mastering the Art of Manifesting)
“
For this will to deceive that is in thing luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies
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Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
“
In this lifetime we are like Superman who must remain disguised as the nerdy newspaper journalist Clark Kent, or Harry Potter and his friends who are not allowed to do magic while they are on holiday, away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... but even Harry Potter and Clark Kent get to tap into their ‘special powers’ once in a while, especially when the going gets tough.
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Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
“
The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.
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Tade Thompson (Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, #1))
“
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members. Though manifestly unfair, this tendency has some justification. For the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its inferior elements.
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Eric Hoffer (The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements)
“
As you know, I have always been curious about our immortality... how it feels to live on and on through time....I need speculate no longer, I have sampled eternity in Miss Campbell's fifth period "social studies" class. Three days on the concept of "manifest destiny," Vasile. THREE DAYS. I yearned to stand up, rip her lecture notes from her pallid hands, and scream, 'Yes, America expanded westward! Is that not logical, given that Europeans settled on the Eastern shore? What else were they to do? Advance vainly into the sea?
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Beth Fantaskey (Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (Jessica, #1))
“
Our destiny is aligned with our heart's innermost longing, a longing embedded within our soul before birth. This longing is a unique pattern or configuration reminiscent of the constellations in the night sky. When we express (press out) our unique configuration, it shines through us with an otherworldly luminosity, manifesting abundance in our lives and the lives of others. Our sole task is to yoke our inner destiny, thread it through our lives and weave it into the world. All else is just shadows and dust.
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Thea Euryphaessa (Running Into Myself)
“
A psychic reading is not just about career opportunities, good fortune or meeting tall, dark strangers. It is a sacred portal to manifesting your true destiny.
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Anthon St. Maarten
“
There are all these books that say we create our own destiny and what we believe is what we manifest. You're supposed to walk around with this perpetual bubble over your head thinking happy thoughts and then everything is going to be sunshine and roses. Nope, sorry, don't think so. You can be as happy as you've ever been in your life, and shit is still going to happen. But it doesn't just happen. It knocks you sideways and crushes you into the ground, because you were stupid enough to believe in sunshine and roses. (99)
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Chevy Stevens (Still Missing)
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Money is simply a tool to give you choices.
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Hill Harper (Letters to a Young Brother: Manifest Your Destiny)
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And in "Elbow Room" the cast sings the glories of westward expansion in the United States, which involved the murder of native peoples and the violent conquest of half of Mexico. Among the lines in the song is one that intones, "There were plenty of fights / To win land right / But the West was meant to be / It was our Manifest Destiny?" Let it suffice to say that happily belting out a tune in which one merrily praises genocide is always easier for those whose ancestors weren't on the receiving end of the deal.
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Tim Wise (White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son)
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Water takes the shape of whatever container holds it, whether it be in a glass, a vase or a river bank. Likewise, your subconscious will create and manifest according to the images you habitually project upon it through your daily thinking. This is how your destiny is created. Your life is in your hands, to make of it what you choose.
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John Kehoe (Mind Power Into the 21st Century)
“
Right. Fantastic. Now I'm supposed to do something heroic, right?"
"Please. For one thing, you're not the type. Second, I am tired of women and men of destiny. The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us all lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.
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Tade Thompson (Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, #1))
“
...I do not function too well on emotional motivations. I am wary of them. And I am wary of a lot of other things, such as plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny.
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John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee, #1))
“
Americans had an apt phrase to describe a situation like ours, where your strength grows but your options become ever more limited: Manifest Destiny. “Destiny drives you forward but ties your hands. Indeed,
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P.W. Singer (Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War)
“
The path that takes us from here, to the fulfillment of our life purpose is who we are. We are the bridge to our destiny." (From the Secrets to Divine Manifestations)
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Alain Yaovi Dagba (Secrets To Divine Manifestations)
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Man's freedom comes through fulfilling his destiny, bringing into manifestation the Divine Design of his life.
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Florence Scovel Shinn (The Game of Life and How To Play It)
“
No, the whole point in me telling you this story is to remind you that we need to manifest our own destiny. I never accepted less than what I deserved ever again. Never ignored a red flag or excused bad behavior. I asked for what I wanted, and I protected those I loved, and I demanded the things I needed, and I had a beautiful life.
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Abby Jimenez (Worst Wingman Ever)
“
This whole city’s a Freudian slip of the tongue, a concrete hard-on for America’s deeds and misdeeds. Slavery? Manifest Destiny? Laverne & Shirley? Standing by idly while Germany tried to kill every Jew in Europe? Why some of my best friends are the Museum of African Art, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And furthermore, I’ll have you know, my sister’s daughter is married to an orangutan.
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Paul Beatty (The Sellout)
“
...that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignoranve, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
The circumstance of the mind is equivalent to the circumstance of your reality and a pure sign of the justification of the universe. Positive energy equals a positive well being and the manifestation of positive things thereof.
Do you have the wherewithal to be positive? Do you hold the key to your destiny or the barrier to your dismay? Insightful are those with an open ear and an open heart to these principles. Are you on the right track? Whether you say yes or no to this question, your reality is a direct reflection.
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Will Barnes (The Expansion of The Soul)
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Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has chosen only the rare exceptions, who has never once betrayed the exalted turning of his lyre, nor descended from his height to his poor, insignificant brethren, and, without touching the ground, has given the whole of himself to his elevated images so far removed from it. Twice enviable is his beautiful lot: he is among them as in his own family; and meanwhile his fame spreads loud and far. With entrancing smoke he has clouded people's eyes; he has flattered them wondrously, concealing what is mournful in life, showing them a beautiful man. Everything rushes after him, applauding, and flies off following his triumphal chariot. Great world poet they name him, soaring high above all other geniuses in the world, as the eagle soars above the other high fliers. At the mere mention of his name, young ardent hearts are filled with trembling, responsive tears shine in all eyes...No one equals him in power--he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see--all the stupendous mire of trivia in which our life in entangled, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters that swarm over our often bitter and boring earthly path, and with the firm strength of his implacable chisel dares to present them roundly and vividly before the eyes of all people! It is not for him to win people's applause, not for him to behold the grateful tears and unanimous rapture of the souls he has stirred; no sixteen-year-old girl will come flying to meet him with her head in a whirl and heroic enthusiasm; it is not for him to forget himself in the sweet enchantment of sounds he himself has evoked; it is not for him, finally, to escape contemporary judgment, hypocritically callous contemporary judgment, which will call insignificant and mean the creations he has fostered, will allot him a contemptible corner in the ranks of writers who insult mankind, will ascribe to him the quality of the heroes he has portrayed, will deny him heart, and soul, and the divine flame of talent. For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movement of inconspicuous insect; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly he will feel his solitude.
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Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls)
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You are heir to a heavenly fortune, the sole beneficiary of an infinite spiritual trust fund, a proverbial goldmine of sacred abundance beyond all common measure or human comprehension. But until you assert your rightful inheritance of this blessed gift, it will remain unclaimed and forever beyond your reach.
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Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
“
Such a simple concept, yet so true. That which we manifest is before us, we are the creators of our own destiny.
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
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God has the Power to make it happen. You have the Authority to make it happen. So stop complaining, get up, & manifest your destiny.
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Tony Warrick
“
Choose your beliefs wisely, for they will become your reality.
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Anthon St. Maarten
“
You will manifest your sacred character when you connect to the Creator.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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If you never try, you'll never know. You are what you manifest.
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Germany Kent
“
Although most Americans believed in Manifest Destiny, few could agree on exactly which lands the United States was supposed to govern.
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Charles W. Carey Jr.
“
If being a girl is a frontier all its own, what is the manifest destiny?
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Wendy McClure (The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie)
“
As Americans gained a new belief in their manifest destiny around the globe, Hawaiians lost their country, the first sovereign nation to become a casualty of America’s imperial outreach.
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Julia Flynn Siler (Lost Kingdom: The Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure)
“
Manifest Destiny anticipated nearly all the ideological and programmatic elements of Hitler's Lebensraum policy. In fact, Hitler modeled his conquest of the East on the American conquest of the West.* During the first half of this century, a majority of American states enacted sterilization laws and tens of thousands of Americans were involuntarily sterilized. The Nazis explicitly invoked this US precedent when they enacted their own sterilization laws.'' The notorious 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of the franchise and forbade miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews. Blacks in the American South suffered the same legal disabilities and were the object of much greater spontaneous and sanctioned popular violence than the Jews in prewar Germany.
To highlight unfolding crimes abroad, the US often summons memories of The Holocaust. The more revealing point, however, is when the US invokes The Holocaust. Crimes of official enemies such as the Khmer Rouge bloodbath in Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo recall The Holocaust; crimes in which the US is complicit do not.
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Norman G. Finkelstein (The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering)
“
If love is under siege, it is because it threatens the very essence of commercial civilization. Everything is designed to make us forget that love is our most vivid manifestation and the most common power of life that is in us. Shouldn't we wonder how the lights that glimmer in the eye can blow a fuse for a time, even as barriers of oppression break and jam our passions? Yet despite a life stunted and distorted by mediated Spectacle, nothing has ever managed to strip love of its primal force. Although the heart's music fails to overwhelm the cacophony of profit efficiency, bit by bit it composes our destinies, according to tones, chords, and dissonances which render us happy if only we learn to harmonize the scattered notes that string emotions together.
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Raoul Vaneigem
“
Awareness of the settler-colonialist context of US history writing is essential if one is to avoid the laziness of the default position and the trap of a mythological unconscious belief in manifest destiny. The
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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3))
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Settler violence, materially and militarily backed by the United States, laid bare a central fallacy of manifest destiny: that Native people were destined to die and white people destined to inherit their land.
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Sarah Keyes (American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail (America in the Nineteenth Century))
“
Hitler’s studies of American Indian reservations influenced his creation of concentration camps. America’s westward expansion, justified by Manifest Destiny, served as Hitler’s template for what he called Lebensraum, “living space,” his justification for invading the countries east of Germany and murdering millions of Slavs living there.
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Rebecca Clarren (The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance)
“
For when a nation founded on the belief in racial hierarchy truly rejects that belief then and only then will we have discovered a new world. That is our destiny. To make it manifest, we must challenge ourselves to live our lives in solidarity across color, origin, and class. We must demand changes to the rules in order to disrupt the very notion that those who have more money are worth more in our democracy and our economy. Since this country’s founding, we have not allowed our diversity to be our superpower and the result is that the United States is not more than the sum of its disparate parts. But it could be. And if it were, all of us would prosper. In short, we must emerge from this crisis in our republic with a new birth of freedom. Rooted in the knowledge that we are so much more, when the we in we the people is not some of us, but all of us. We are greater than and greater for the sum of us.
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Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together)
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Their disappearance from the human family would be no great loss to the world.
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Henry Clay
“
Knowledge is only potential power. For the power to be manifested, it must be applied.
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Robin Sharma (The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny)
“
I want to say that further you are not a great chief of this country. That you have no following, no power, no control." Logan continued, "You are on an Indian reservation merely at the sufferance of the government. You are fed by the government, clothed by the government, your children are educated by the government, and all you have and are today is because of the government. If it were not for the government you would be freezing and starving today in the mountains. I merely say these things to notify you that you cannot insult the people of the United States of America or its committees ...the government feeds and clothes and educates your children now, and desires to teach you to become farmers, and to civilize you, and make you as white men.
-Senator John Logan, 1883
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Dee Brown (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West)
“
Principles of Liberty
1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.
2. A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.
3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally strong people is to elect virtuous leaders.
4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.
5. All things were created by God, therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.
6. All men are created equal.
7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.
8. Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
9. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.
10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.
11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.
12. The United States of America shall be a republic.
13. A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.
14. Life and Liberty are secure only so long as the Igor of property is secure.
15. The highest level of securitiy occurs when there is a free market economy and a minimum of government regulations.
16. The government should be separated into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.
17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.
18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.
19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to the government, all others being retained by the people.
20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.
21. Strong human government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.
22. A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.
23. A free society cannot survive a republic without a broad program of general education.
24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.
25. "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.
27. The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.
28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.
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Founding Fathers
“
Satan says, offering the next temptation. “If God exists, He will surely save you. If you are in fact his Son, God will surely save you.” Why would God not make Himself manifest, to rescue His only begotten Child from hunger and isolation and the presence of great evil? But that establishes no pattern for life. It doesn’t even work as literature. The deus ex machina—the emergence of a divine force that magically rescues the hero from his predicament—is the cheapest trick in the hack writer’s playbook. It makes a mockery of independence, and courage, and destiny, and free will, and responsibility. Furthermore, God is in no wise a safety net for the blind. He’s not someone to be commanded to perform magic tricks, or forced into Self-revelation—not even by His own Son.
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Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
“
The doppelganger nature of the country’s identity is embedded in the dualistic language used to describe it, in which everything is double and never singular: Israel-Palestine, Arab and Jew, Two States, The Conflict. Based on a fantasy of symmetrical power, this suturing together of two peoples implies conjoined twins in a state of unending struggle, an irresolvable sibling rivalry between the two peoples, both descended from Abraham. For Rooney, Israel as doppelganger exists on two levels. First, it is a doppelganger of the forms of chauvinistic European nationalisms that turned Jews into pariahs on the continent since well before the Inquisition. That was Zionism’s win-win pitch to anti-Semitic European powers: you get rid of your “Jewish problem” (i.e., Jews, who will leave your countries and migrate to Palestine), and Jews get a state of their own to mimic/twin the very forms of militant nationalism that had oppressed them for centuries. (This is why Zionism was so fiercely opposed by the members of the Bund, who believed that nationalism itself was their enemy and the wellspring of race hatred.) Israel also became a doppelganger of the colonial project, specifically settler colonialism. Many of Zionism’s basic rationales were thinly veiled Judaizations of core Christian colonial conceptions: Terra Nullius, the claim that continents like Australia were effectively empty because their Indigenous inhabitants were categorized as less than fully human, became “A land without a people for a people without a land”—a phrase adopted by many Zionists and that originated with nineteenth-century Christians. Manifest Destiny became “land bequeathed to the Jews by divine right.” “Taming the wild frontier” became “making the desert bloom.
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Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
“
What is known is that in 1805 in the dead of night a group of white landowners, chafing at the limits of their own manifest destiny, set fire to the last remaining indigenous village on the teardrop-shaped peninsula that would become Charon County. Those who escaped the flames were brought down by muskets with no regard to age, gender, or infirmity. That was the first of many tragedies in the history of Charon. The cannibalism of the winter of 1853. The malaria outbreak of 1901. The United Daughters of the Confederacy picnic poisoning of 1935. The Danforth family murder-suicide of 1957. The tent revival baptismal drownings of 1968, and on and on. The soil of Charon County, like most towns and counties in the South, was sown with generations of tears. They were places where violence and mayhem were celebrated as the pillars of a pioneering spirit every Founders’ Day in the county square.
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S.A. Cosby (All the Sinners Bleed)
“
I don't ever want to lose sight of how short my time is here. And I don't ever want to forget that resistance must be its own reward, since resistance, at least within the life span of the resistors, almost always fails. I don't ever want to forget, even with whatever personal victories I achieve, even in the victories we achieve as a people or a nation, that the larger story of America and the world probably does not end well. Our story is a tragedy. I know it sounds odd, but that belief does not depress me. It focuses me. After all, I am an atheist and thus do not believe anything, even a strongly held belief, is destiny. And if tragedy is to be proven wrong, if there really is hope out there, I think it can only be made manifest by remembering the cost of it being proven right. No one - not our fathers, not our police, and not our gods - is coming to save us. The worst really is possible. My aim is to never be caught, as the rappers say, acting like it can't happen. And my ambition is to write both in defiance of tragedy and in blindness of its possibility, to keep screaming into the waves - just as my ancestors did.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates (We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy)
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But after eighteen months of Presidency he was angry that Mexico and Canada and South America (obviously his own property, by manifest destiny) should curtly answer his curt diplomatic notes and show no helpfulness about becoming part of his inevitable empire. And daily he wanted louder, more convincing Yeses from everybody about him ... Anyone, from Sarason to inter-office messenger, who did not play valet to his ego he suspected of plotting against him.
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Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)
“
Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves. I
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Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
To justify such direct forms of imperialism and oppression, whites developed the IDEA of whiteness to define a privileged social category elevated above everyone who wasn't included in it. This made it possible to reconcile conquest, treachery, slavery, and genocide, with the nation's newly professed ideals of democracy, freedom, and human dignity. If whiteness define what it meant to be human, then it was seen as less off an offense against the Constitution (not to mention God) to dominate and oppress those who happened to fall outside that definition as the United States marched onward toward what was popularly perceived as its Manifest Destiny.
”
”
Allan G. Johnson (Privilege, Power, and Difference)
“
Senator H. V. Johnson said: I believe we should be recreant to our noble mission, if we refused acquiescence in the high purposes of a wise Providence. War has its evils. In all ages it has been the minister of wholesale death and appalling desolation; but however inscrutable to us, it has also been made, by the Allwise Dispenser of events, the instrumentality of accomplishing the great end of human elevation and human happiness. . . . It is in this view, that I subscribe to the doctrine of “manifest destiny.
”
”
Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present)
“
Now, however, Cooper’s romanticism was a receding memory, a newly muscular America replacing it with a post–Civil War vision of Manifest Destiny. The old attitudes were reconfigured with cruel clarity, particularly among westerners. Even whites who had once considered Indians the equivalent of wayward children—naifs like Thomas Gainsborough’s English rustics, to be “civilized” with Bibles and plows—were beginning to view them as a subhuman race to be exterminated or swept onto reservations by the tide of progress.
”
”
Bob Drury (The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend)
“
Like all empires, the harsh and violent forms of control that have been used on the “wretched of the earth,” have migrated back to the homeland in a time of decay to keep the population in check. The tyranny we have imposed on others is now being imposed on us.
”
”
Mumia Abu-Jamal (Murder Incorporated - Dreaming of Empire: Book One (Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny 1))
“
No, the whole point in me telling you this story is to remind you that we need to manifest our own destiny.
”
”
Abby Jimenez (Worst Wingman Ever)
“
Maintaining a state of joyful expectancy and positive anticipation about our desires significantly influences their manifestation into reality.
”
”
Russ Kyle (Manifestation Mindset: The 12 Universal Laws of Creation)
“
means that people, unsettled by their vulnerability, eternally fear to tell the truth, to mediate between chaos and order, and to manifest their destiny.
”
”
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
“
When we set a goal we are fulfilling our destiny. Even if we do not reach it, we have changed our lives and the lives of others by attempting to reach it.
”
”
Lawren Leo (Dragonflame: Tap Into Your Reservoir of Power Using Talismans, Manifestation, and Visualization)
“
We do have the ability to manifest things, but our purpose, our end, our legacy is also
controlled by our destiny. So focus on what comes easy—that is your destined life.
”
”
Emma Mildon (The Soul Searcher's Handbook: A Modern Girl's Guide to the New Age World)
“
Love thy soul, manifest thy light
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
A man carries his faith in him, not in some god of book or manifest destiny."
~ Jon Highfather
”
”
R.S. Belcher (The Shotgun Arcana (Golgotha, #2))
“
Shooting arrows at the iron horses of Manifest Destiny.
”
”
Ken MacLeod (The Cassini Division (The Fall Revolution #3))
“
Only the New Englanders, who had destroyed or driven out all their Indians, spoke against Manifest Destiny.
”
”
Dee Brown (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West)
“
China discuss how they planned to leverage Jade Dragon and Dr. Zhong’s lab-created virus to defeat the West and lay claim to China’s manifest destiny.
”
”
James Rosone (Monroe Doctrine: Volume I (Monroe Doctrine, #1))
“
All of us in the West, our political leaders and our newspapers above all, had underestimated Adolf Hitler and his domination of this land and its people. His ideas might seem half-baked and often evil - to me they did. But the unpleasant fact was not only that he believed in them, fanatically, but that he was persuading the German people to believe in them. He might seem like a demagogue... but his oratory, his drive, his zeal, his iron will and the power of his personality were having an immense impact on the citizens of this country. He was convincing them that the new Germany...under his leadership, was great, was strong, and had a manifest destiny ... I heard no mention...of the loss of personal freedom and of other democratic rights. Apparently this was not much of a sacrifice. They couldn't have cared less. They had committed themselves to Adolf Hitler and his barbarian dictatorship.
”
”
William L. Shirer (The Nightmare Years: 1930-40 (20th Century Journey, #2))
“
Old Country Buffet, where our family went on the days we saved enough money.
...Here, our family reveled in the American way of waste, manifest destinied our way through the mac & cheese...
”
”
Fatimah Asghar (If They Come for Us)
“
But my thoughts turned to what he had just taught me. Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
”
”
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
”
”
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
I firmly believe that American society would not endure ten years if subjected to half the trials and tortures we’ve put Natives through. And yet Native peoples have not been utterly destroyed, not by the world’s strongest military. They have not been totally assimilated, not by the world’s largest religion. Native religions are indeed concerned with being a good person, respecting one’s family, ancestors, community, and the Earth—and when these principles are lived, there is great strength.
”
”
Israel Morrow (Gods of the Flesh: A Skeptic's Journey Through Sex, Politics and Religion)
“
There may be something genuinely evil in the idea of an N.F.L. Maybe the Miami Dolphins is an evil concept, the Houston Astros, Burger King, the American League. Franchises like some screwy version of Manifest Destiny.
”
”
Stanley Elkin (The Franchiser)
“
In the mystery and the energy of loving, we all view time's shadow upon the beloved as wretchedly as any of Poe's narrators. We do not think of it every day, but we never forget it: the beloved shall grow old, or ill, and be taken away finally. No matter how ferociously we fight, how tenderly we love, how bitterly we argue, how pervasively we berate the universe, how cunningly we hide, this is what shall happen. In the wide circles of timelessness, everything material and temporal will fail, including the manifestation of the beloved. In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us. This is Poe's real story. As it is ours. And this is why we honor him, why we are fascinated far past the simple narratives. He writes about our own inescapable destiny.
”
”
Mary Oliver (Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems)
“
In 1845 the United States Magazine and Democratic Review coined an indelible phrase and captured the prevailing mood when it wrote of the nation’s “manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development
”
”
Daniel Immerwahr (How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States)
“
There was the feeling in him then that his body had become the manifestation of some power he could no longer control. He had become a non-being, a stillness which moved itself. At the core of the non-being, there he existed, allowing himself to be led through the stress of his city, following a track so familiar in his visions that it froze his heart with grief.
”
”
Frank Herbert (Dune Messiah (Dune #2))
“
Whoever lives like me doesn’t die: he terminates, wilts, devegetates. The place where he was remains without him being there; the street where he walked remains without him being seen on it; the house where he lived is inhabited by not-him. That’s all, and we call it nothing; but not even this tragedy of negation can be staged to applause, for we don’t even know for sure if it’s nothing, we, these vegetable manifestations of both truth and life, dust on both the outside and the inside of the panes, grandchildren of Destiny and stepchildren of God, who married Eternal Night when she was widowed by the Chaos that fathered us.
”
”
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)
“
Dark rumblings inside told him he was in a tremendous amount of trouble. He didn't know how it was going to manifest or when but it was coming, sure as Zeta would break the horizon before everyone else arose from their sleepzone. If they hauled him away, then what?
”
”
Marcha A. Fox (Beyond the Hidden Sky (Star Trails Tetralogy, #1))
“
I knew I lived in a country founded on the murder of the body and the spirit of others. Native American nations were decimated with little regret, Africans fell beneath the same juggernaut, and all of the bloodshed was aided and abetted by practitioners of Christianity who manufactured innumerable ways to glorify Manifest Destiny and slavery. The Founding Fathers thought it easier to subjugate by dehumanizing their prey; their descendants find it easier to subjugate their prey by humanizing and prioritizing corporate entities.
”
”
Jewelle Gomez (Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times)
“
From the beginning I had a sense of destiny, as though my life was assigned to me by fate and had to be fulfilled. This gave me an inner security, and, though I could never prove it to myself, it proved itself to me. I did not have the certainty, it had me.” — CARL JUNG
”
”
Wayne W. Dyer (Wishes Fulfilled: Mastering the Art of Manifesting)
“
When the culture of the East, its chief characteristic, is added to the strength of body and the strength of mind of the agricultural center, its special contribution, and these two great characteristics are constantly imbued with the spirit of independence and love of liberty which lives in the hearts of the dwellers of the mountains, their main quality added to the national character, there is every reason to believe that we shall have a people and institutions such as will be permanent; with such wealth of resources, of such high education and intelligence, and of such vitality, of such longevity, of such devotion to freedom and hostility to centralization and tyranny as shall enable this Nation of ours to stand indefinitely; and to maintain in the future years its manifest destiny of leading the peoples and nations of earth in the principles of free government, constitutional security and individual liberty. Under these and under these alone, the faculties, the aspirations and inspirations of mankind may be unfolded into their full flowering to the fruition of an ever greater and more humane civilization.
”
”
Charles Edwin Winter (Four Hundred Million Acres: The Public Lands and Resources)
“
John Williams’s intense scrutiny of this romantic tale, this unquestioned gloss of the manic energies underlying westward expansion, manifest destiny, the “American spirit” and its projection of an individualism which could only be sought and found in the wild open spaces of the American Frontier.
”
”
John Williams (Butcher's Crossing)
“
The lives of all the men we meet and know are woven into our own destiny, together with the lives of many we shall never know on earth. But certain ones, very few, are our close friends. Because we have more in common with them, we are able to love them with a special selfless perfection, since we have more to share. They are inseparable from our own destiny, and, therefore, our love for them is especially holy: it is a manifestation of God in our lives.
”
”
Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)
“
I am tired of women and men of destiny. The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us all lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.
”
”
Tade Thompson (Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, #1))
“
Powell was first of all a scientist with a deep curiosity about nature, and this curiosity motivated his explorations. Because Powell viewed the landscape and waterscape as a scientist, he realized that the arid West couldn't fit into America's Manifest Destiny dreams, and thus he became a pioneering conservationist.
”
”
Don Lago (The Powell Expedition: New Discoveries about John Wesley Powell's 1869 River Journey)
“
As the twentieth century arrived, America’s manifest destiny had been fulfilled. The 1890 census found so many settlements as to declare the extinction of the frontier. Having reached the Pacific, our forebears looked back and saw a denuded landscape: mountains demolished and rivers fouled by the Gold Rush, and species vanishing as cities grew larger and their smokestacks taller. Between 1883 and 1898, bird populations in twenty-six states dropped by nearly half. In 1914, Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon on earth, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. Four years later her cage hosted the death of Incas, the last of the Carolina Parakeets.
”
”
Kirk Wallace Johnson (The Feather Thief)
“
Post-Racial. Trans–Jim Crow. Epi-Traumatic. Alt-Reparational. Omni-Restitutional. Jingoistic Body-Positive. Sociocultural-Transcendental. Indigenous-Ripostic. Treaty of Fort Laramie–Perpendicular. Meta-Exculpatory. Pan-Political. Uber-Intermutual. MLK-Adjacent. Demi-Arcadian Bucolic. That is the vernacular of the inclusive, hyphenated, beau-American destiny we’re manifesting here! You and me! Book by book we’re making it happen! But it doesn’t happen by planting flags and picking at the scabbed-over wounds of a certain Dispossessed Neo-Global Cultural demographic committed at the hands of a onetime possibly improprietous proto-nation.
”
”
Jason Mott (Hell of a Book)
“
While our land forces are for unpredictable contingencies, our sea and air forces secure the global commons. The navy is our away team: its operations tempo around the world is the same, whether in peacetime or wartime. So crucial is our navy that were just one of America’s eleven aircraft carriers sunk or disabled by an enemy combatant, it would constitute a national disaster in strategic and reputational terms as devastating as 9/11. Manifest Destiny, the conquest of a continent with its unleashing of vast economic wealth and national will, reaches a point of concision here at Naval Base San Diego. It is a fitting end to my journey.
”
”
Robert D. Kaplan (Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World)
“
You may have control of your life, but you cannot control your environment. You cannot control the economy, trends, family circumstances, accidents, unexpected expenses, and the weather of life. You cannot control other people and their moods, personal situations, or issues. You cannot control biases or changes in your industry of choice. You cannot even control jealousy and envy in others. However, you can control your own STRENGTH to get back up and START AGAIN. Destiny is manifested only through action. You cannot be the captain of your own destiny, only the sailor, because we cannot control external influences that may alter the stability or direction of our ships. Once you understand this basic principle, you won't be so hard on yourself when things don't go your way. If man could write his own fate, he would have designed his journey to be without obstacles. Yet all obstacles come with valuable lessons designed just for you and only you. Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
The myth of America’s religious founding thus provided an explanation for those who needed to sanctify the past before they could go forward with America’s chosen mission and its manifest destiny. This myth, promoted in patriotic addresses, sermons, essays, and in school books, became the dominant narrative of America’s founding.
”
”
Steven K. Green (Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding)
“
Viewed through this prism, the War of Northern Aggression had little to do with slavery. Rather, it was a culture war in which Yankees imposed their imperialist and capitalistic will on the agrarian South, just as the English had done to the Irish and Scots—and as America did to the Indians and the Mexicans in the name of Manifest Destiny.
”
”
Tony Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (Vintage Departures))
“
There were spaceships again in that century, and the ships were manned by fuzzy impossibilities that walked on two legs and sprouted tufts of hair in unlikely anatomical regions. They were a garrulous kind. They belonged to a race quite capable of admiring its own image in a mirror, and equally capable of cutting its own throat before the altar of some god, such as the deity of Daily Shaving. It was a species which often considered itself to be, basically, a race of divinely inspired toolmakers; any intelligent entity from Arcturus would instantly have perceived them to be, basically, a race of impassioned after-dinner speechmakers.
It was inevitable, it was manifest destiny, they felt (and not for the first time) that such a race go forth to conquer stars. To conquer them several times, if need be, and certainly to make speeches about the conquest. But, too, it was inevitable that the race succumb again to the old maladies on new worlds, even as on Earth before, in the litany of life and in the special liturgy of Man...
”
”
Walter M. Miller Jr.
“
The first secretary of defense, General Henry Knox, said that what we’re doing to the native population is worse than what the conquistadors did in Peru and Mexico. He said future historians will look at the “destruction” of these people—what would nowadays be called genocide—and paint the acts with “sable colors” [in other words, darkly]. This was known all the way through. Long after John Quincy Adams, the intellectual father of Manifest Destiny, left power, he became an opponent of both slavery and the policy toward the Indians. He said he’d been involved—along with the rest of them—in a crime of “extermination” of such enormity that surely God would punish them for these “heinous sins.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (How the World Works)
“
Self proclamation of authoritative titles is a common phenomenon among religious and/or occult sect leaders. A cursory survey of this primarily 20th century phenomenon will instantly reveal a multitude of self-declared Masters, High Priests, gurus, Ipsissimi, Bhaghwani, etc.. I am pleased that I cannot count myself among such types. Legitimate religious teachers and scholars know that a genuine spiritual leader is one whose calling to lead is first noticed by those outside of him or herself based on certain qualities, abilities, and actions and then must subsequently be accepted by the individual in question as his or her destiny. This contrasts with those whose will to lead is born simply out of the mundane wish to be a leader. In such cases the goal being to reap the rewards a title brings without the hard work and the innate, manifest qualities which validate the position; in short what might be considered a 'false prophet'."
--“From the Eye of the Storm” (Zeena's column for the SLM) Volume II – Winter Issue (2003): “One Year Later...
”
”
Zeena Schreck (Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic)
“
In the mystery and the energy of loving, we all view time's shadow upon the beloved as wretchedly as any of Poe's narrators. We do not think of it every day, but we never forget it: the beloved shall grow old, or ill, and be taken away finally. No matter how ferociously we fight, how tenderly we love, how bitterly we argue, how pervasively we berate the universe, how cunningly we hide, this is what shall happen. In the wide circles of timelessness, everything material and temporal will fail, including the manifestation of the beloved. In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us. This is Poe's real story. As it is ours. And this is why we honor him, why we are fascinated far past the simple narratives. He writes about our own inescapable destiny. His
”
”
Mary Oliver (Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems)
“
May each reader be now freed from that thing which has held him in bondage through the ages, standing between him and his own, and "know the Truth which makes him free" - free to fulfill his destiny, to bring into manifestation the "Divine Design of his life, Health, Wealth, Love and Perfect SelfExpression." "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
”
”
Florence Scovel Shinn (The Game of Life and How to Play It)
“
We need to manifest our own destiny. I never accepted less than what I deserved ever again.
”
”
Abby Jimenez (Worst Wingman Ever)
“
There can’t be manifestation of anything if the minds of the people are still living in ignorance.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo (Destiny of Liberty)
“
Destiny is manifested only through action.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Destiny has an ironic way of manifesting itself.
”
”
Dave Cenker (Second Chance)
“
The steam trains crossed the country, the gleaming tracks clumsy sutures across wounded miles of stolen land.
”
”
Libba Bray (Lair of Dreams (The Diviners, #2))
“
Once you begin to change the way you think, you will begin to inspire innovation that will help you to manifest greatness in your life.
”
”
Germany Kent
“
There was for everything a possibility, an invisible pattern that could be made manifest given work and the right materials.
”
”
Kij Johnson (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2011)
“
Expansion (both far and wide) is the order of the day
”
”
Sereda Aleta Dailey (The Art of Manifesting Abundance)
“
That's why I was able to manifest these. I used the pain to make myself stronger than my destiny.
”
”
Stephanie Rowe (Inferno of Darkness (Order of the Blade #8))
“
The foundation of all personal development, actually, is self-acceptance and self-love.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Ask and the Universe Will Provide: A Straightforward Guide to Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Creating abundance must start from within ourselves.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Ask and the Universe Will Provide: A Straightforward Guide to Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Millionaires, though, see objects like diamonds and good feelings merely as fruits. The root of true wealth, in fact, stems from your behaviors.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Ask and the Universe Will Provide: A Straightforward Guide to Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Imagine repeating the power words ‘love’ or ‘happiness’ for five minutes twice a day for the rest of your life, amazing things could happen.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Ask and the Universe Will Provide: A Straightforward Guide to Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Leaving your future to pot luck is holding you back, you are worth more than anything, yet why do you leave everything to chance?
”
”
Stephen Richards (Ask and the Universe Will Provide: A Straightforward Guide to Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Your wish has be granted by God. Time will make it manifest.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
What good is globalization when you lose your uniqueness in the process of it all? ! At the end of the day, you will become like a drop of water in the ocean.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo
“
Progress is not just about change, hitting the right target and going in the right direction, these attributes must also be present.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo
“
Only thoughts create. Emotions navigate.
”
”
Anthon St. Maarten
“
Your future is not tomorrow. The future is what you are creating today.
”
”
Anthon St. Maarten
“
WHEN IT COMES TO MANIFESTING YOUR DESTINY
YOU HAVE TO SEE IT
BEFORE YOU SEE IT
OR YOU'LL NEVER SEE IT.
”
”
John Ricardo Mazarite
“
Manifest of souls;
Adventurous soul,
Enthusiastic soul,
Sound soul,
Happy soul,
Great soul.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.”~~William Jennings Bryan
”
”
Louise Johnson (Tarot and the Law of Attraction: Meditations for Manifesting (Tarot and the Law of Attraction: Meditations for Manifesting Book 1))
“
Those who find courage to pursue their dreams, manifest gladness of their souls.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
Leave everything to follow your dream, until your future walks it down the aisle of existence giving it away to meet you at the altered reality of your destiny.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones
“
Dreams are the manifestations of activities of mankind on a daily basis. They are vibrations happening inside everyone.
”
”
Neeraj Singhvi (Temple of Destiny)
“
It was now manifestly impossible to maintain the struggle against destiny.
”
”
Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
“
No man can concentrate his attention upon evil, or even upon the idea of evil, and remain unaffected. To be more against the devil than for God is exceedingly dangerous. Every crusader is apt to go mad. He is haunted by the wickedness which he attributes to his enemies; it becomes in some sort a part of him.
Possession is more often secular than supernatural. Men are possessed by their thoughts of a hated person, a hated class, race or nation. At the present time the destinies of the world are in the hands of self-made demoniacs - of men who are possessed by, and who manifest, the evil they have chose to see in others. They do not believe in devils; but they have tried their hardest to be possessed - have tried and been triumphantly successful. And since they believe even less in God than in the devil, seems very unlikely that they will ever be able to cure themselves of their possession. Concentrating his attention upon the idea of a supernatural uncommon among secular demoniacs. But his idea of good was also supernatural and metaphysical, and in the end it saved him.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Devils of Loudun)
“
These men flocked to the plains, and were rather stimulated than retarded by the danger of an Indian war. This was another potent agency in producing the result we enjoy to-day, in having in so short a time replaced the wild buffaloes by more numerous herds of tame cattle, and by substituting for the useless Indians the intelligent owners of productive farms and cattle-ranches.
”
”
William T. Sherman (Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman)
“
What violent, good luck you had. When you bought your home you received stolen property, but the blood had dried, the war forgotten, and it seemed your god himself had granted you this land.
”
”
Edward J. Santella (American Ghosts)
“
Wars continued for another century, unrelentingly and without pause, and the march across the continent used the same strategy and tactics of scorched earth and annihilation with increasingly deadly firepower. Somehow, even “genocide” seems an inadequate description for what happened, yet rather than viewing it with horror, most Americans have conceived of it as their country’s manifest destiny.
”
”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3))
“
But I was wrong. The Left did not engage in the soul-searching or self-examination necessary to understand why half of America – incidentally, the half with most of the senators, congressmen, and Electoral College votes – rejected it. Or, if it did, the result of that soul-searching and self-examination was a renewed sense of its own absolute moral purity and its manifest destiny to rule over us.
”
”
Kurt Schlichter (Indian Country (Kelly Turnbull, #2))
“
Washington argued that the takeover of Mexican soil was simply a matter of fulfilling America’s manifest destiny, but on the ground, where military power meant more than political rhetoric, the conquest seemed more propitious than predestined: the Americans who marched into Mexico in the name of destiny and democracy did so in the footsteps of Comanches, whose expansion had paved the way for theirs.
”
”
Pekka Hämäläinen (The Comanche Empire)
“
According to Christ, the pathway to revelation, the heart of revival, and the fullness of the Kingdom of God is becoming child- like. Becoming dependent as children in our relationship with our heavenly Father forces us to lose our religious mindsets and protocol. Staying in a place of wonder and trust will keep us from becoming easily offended by the ways God chooses to manifest Himself in our lives.
”
”
Theresa Dedmon (Born to Create: Stepping Into Your Supernatural Destiny)
“
For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian)
“
The first question we needed to address in response to the popular “Take America Back for God” slogan concerned the precedent of Jesus, and in this light we must judge that the slogan can lead us into temptation. The second concerns the meaning of the slogan itself. I, for one, confess to being utterly mystified by the phrase. If we are to take America back for God, it must have once belonged to God, but it’s not at all clear when this golden Christian age was.
Were these God-glorifying years before, during, or after Europeans “discovered” America and carried out the doctrine of “manifest destiny”—the belief that God (or, for some, nature) had destined white Christians to conquer the native inhabitants and steal their land? Were the God-glorifying years the ones in which whites massacred these natives by the millions, broke just about every covenant they ever made with them, and then forced survivors onto isolated reservations? Was the golden age before, during, or after white Christians loaded five to six million Africans on cargo ships to bring them to their newfound country, enslaving the three million or so who actually survived the brutal trip? Was it during the two centuries when Americans acquired remarkable wealth by the sweat and blood of their slaves? Was this the time when we were truly “one nation under God,” the blessed time that so many evangelicals seem to want to take our nation back to?
Maybe someone would suggest that the golden age occurred after the Civil War, when blacks were finally freed. That doesn’t quite work either, however, for the virtual apartheid that followed under Jim Crow laws—along with the ongoing violence, injustices, and dishonesty toward Native Americans and other nonwhites up into the early twentieth century—was hardly “God-glorifying.” (In this light, it should come as no surprise to find that few Christian Native Americans, African-Americans, or other nonwhites join in the chorus that we need to “Take America Back for God.”)
If we look at historical reality rather than pious verbiage, it’s obvious that America never really “belonged to God.
”
”
Gregory A. Boyd (The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church)
“
Religion, then, is far from "useless." It humanizes violence; it protects man from his own violence by taking it out of his hands, transforming it into a transcendent and ever-present danger to be kept in check by the appropriate rites appropriately observed and by a modest and prudent demeanor. Religious misinterpretation is a truly constructive force, for it purges man of the suspicions that would poison his existence if he were to remain conscious of the crisis as it actually took place.
To think religiously is to envision the city's destiny in terms of that violence whose mastery over man increases as man believes he has gained mastery over it. To think religiously (in the primitive sense) is to see violence as something superhuman, to be kept always at a distance and ultimately renounced. When the fearful adoration of this power begins to diminish and all distinctions begin to disappear, the ritual sacrifices lose their force; their potency is not longer recognized by the entire community. Each member tries to correct the situation individually, and none succeeds. The withering away of the transcendental influence means that there is no longer the slightest difference between a desire to save the city and unbridled ambition, between genuine piety and the desire to claim divine status for oneself. Everyone looks on a rival enterprise as evidence of blasphemous designs. Men set to quarreling about the gods, and their skepticism leads to a new sacrificial crisis that will appear - retrospectively, in the light of a new manifestation of unanimous violence - as a new act of divine intervention and divine revenge.
Men would not be able to shake loose the violence between them, to make of it a separate entity both sovereign and redemptory, without the surrogate victim. Also, violence itself offers a sort of respite, the fresh beginning of a cycle of ritual after a cycle of violence. Violence will come to an end only after it has had the last word and that word has been accepted as divine. The meaning of this word must remain hidden, the mechanism of unanimity remain concealed. For religion protects man as long as its ultimate foundations are not revealed. To drive the monster from its secret lair is to risk loosing it on mankind. To remove men's ignorance is only to risk exposing them to an even greater peril. The only barrier against human violence is raised on misconception. In fact, the sacrificial crisis is simply another form of that knowledge which grows grater as the reciprocal violence grows more intense but which never leads to the whole truth. It is the knowledge of violence, along with the violence itself, that the act of expulsion succeeds in shunting outside the realm of consciousness. From the very fact that it belies the overt mythological messages, tragic drama opens a vast abyss before the poet; but he always draws back at the last moment. He is exposed to a form of hubris more dangerous than any contracted by his characters; it has to do with a truth that is felt to be infinitely destructive, even if it is not fully understood - and its destructiveness is as obvious to ancient religious thought as it is to modern philosophers. Thus we are dealing with an interdiction that still applies to ourselves and that modern thought has not yet invalidated. The fact that this secret has been subjected to exceptional pressure in the play [Bacchae] must prompt the following lines:
May our thoughts never aspire to anything higher than laws! What does it cost man to acknowledge the full sovereignty of the gods? That which has always been held as true owes its strength to Nature.
”
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René Girard (Violence and the Sacred)
“
For the mind, there is no true separation from God. Even though it looks like you are separated, you are always connected. God or Consciousness is always a whole, it is One. In manifestation, you create Many, by Gardener.
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Jozef Simkovic (How to Kiss the Universe: An Inspirational Spiritual and Metaphysical Narrative about Human Origin, Essence and Destiny)
“
Veronica: "Perhaps. If Sa'aw had but a male aspect, but recall the old, true worship of Sa'aw, male and female, bird, beast, and plant, earth, fire, air, and water are all honored in Sa'aw and Sa'aw manifests in all of them. If the Divine is also female and the female also divine, then she understands that woman is more than mother, more than daughter, more than wife. Those are the facets of a full life, but no single facet defines the jewel.
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Robin Hobb (Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3))
“
Destiny is manifested only through action. You cannot be the captain of your own destiny, only the sailor, because we cannot control external influences that may alter the stability or direction of our ships. Once you understand this basic principle, you won't be so hard on yourself when things don't go your way. If man could write his own fate, he would have designed his journey to be without obstacles. Yet all obstacles come with valuable lessons designed just for you and only you. Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
However opinionated, perhaps even high-handed his presentations were, he was unquestionably an ingenious man--that was evident in the stimulating, thought-provoking effect his words had on a highly gifted young mind like Adri Leverkühn's. What had chiefly impressed him, as he revealed on the way home and the following day in the schoolyard, was the distinction Kretzschmar had made between cultic and cultural epochs and his observation that the secularization of art, its separation from worship, was of only a superficial and episodic nature. The high-school sophomore was manifestly moved by an idea that the lecturer had not even articulated, but that had caught fire in him:: that the separation of art from any liturgical context, its liberation and elevation to the isolated and personal, to culture for culture's sake, had burdened it with a solemnity without any point of reference, an absolute seriousness, a pathos of suffering epitomized in Beethoven's terrible appearance in the doorway--but that did not have to be its abiding destiny, its perpetual state of mind. Just listen to the young man! With almost no real, practical experience in the field of art, he was fantasizing in a void and in precocious words about art's apparently imminent retreat from its present-day role to a happier, more modest one in the service of a higher fellowship, which did not have to be, as at one time, the Church. What it would be, he could not say.
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Thomas Mann (Doctor Faustus)
“
Perhaps the best way to understand the book of Revelation is that it is a prophetic critique of civil religion. By civil religion I mean the religion of state where the state is the actual object of worship. Civil religion is religious patriotism. Christians are called to practice responsible citizenship but to renounce religious patriotism. In the practice of civil religion, the truth that the state is what is actually being deified and worshiped is usually carefully concealed. Instead of directly worshiping the state as God, worship of the state is expressed through sacred symbols, myths, and personifications of the state treated with religious reverence. The tendency to deify the state is particularly pronounced in empires—rich and powerful nations that believe they have a divine right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape history according to their agenda. God’s contention with empire is one of the major themes of the Bible. From Egypt and Assyria to Babylonia and Rome, the prophets constantly critique empire as a direct challenge to the sovereignty of God. This prophetic tradition of empire critique reaches its apex in the book of Revelation. John the Revelator tells us that Rome’s claim of a divine right to rule the nations and of a manifest destiny to shape history is the very thing that God has given to his Son, Jesus Christ. Thus the drama of Revelation is cast as an epic conflict between the Lamb (Jesus) and the Beast (Rome).
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Brian Zahnd (Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News)
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Wilder made history. Sealing her themes inside an unassailably innocent vessel, a novelistic Trojan horse for complex and ambiguous reactions to manifest destiny, wilderness, self-reliance, and changing views of women’s roles outside the home, her books have exercised more influence, across a wider segment of society, than the thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner, which held that American democracy was shaped by settlers conquering the frontier. Their place in our culture continues to evolve.
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Caroline Fraser (Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder)
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Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest - as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance to a galaxy of stars.
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Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces)
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Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest - as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars.
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Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces)
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On a collective level, the stakes are higher. We know that we live in complex times that demand complex thoughts and conversations—and those, in turn, demand the very time and space that is nowhere to be found. The convenience of limitless connectivity has neatly paved over the nuances of in-person conversation, cutting away so much information and context in the process. In an endless cycle where communication is stunted and time is money, there are few moments to slip away and fewer ways to find each other. Given how poorly art survives in a system that only values the bottom line, the stakes are cultural as well. What the tastes of neoliberal techno manifest–destiny and the culture of Trump have in common is impatience with anything nuanced, poetic, or less-than-obvious.
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Jenny Odell (How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy)
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Colonization would make of Germany a continental empire fit to rival the United States, another hardy frontier state based upon exterminatory colonialism and slave labor. The East was the Nazi Manifest Destiny. In Hitler’s view, “in the East a similar process will repeat itself for a second time as in the conquest of America.” As Hitler imagined the future, Germany would deal with the Slavs much as the North Americans had dealt with the Indians. The Volga River in Russia, he once proclaimed, will be Germany’s Mississippi.9
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Timothy Snyder (Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin)
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Women are taught to sacrifice, to play nice, to live an altruistic life because a good girl is always rewarded in the end. This is not a virtue; it is propaganda. Submission gets you a ticket to future prosperity that will never manifest. By the time you realize the ticket to success and happiness you have been sold isn’t worth the paper it was printed on, it will be too late. Go on, spend a quarter of your life, even half of your life, in the service of others and you will realize you were hustled. You do not manifest your destiny by placing others first! A kingdom built on your back doesn’t become your kingdom, it becomes your folly. History does not remember the slaves of Egypt that built the pyramids, they remember the Pharaohs that wielded the power over those laborers. Yet here you are, content with being a worker bee, motivated by some sales pitch that inspires you to work harder for some master than you work for yourself, with this loose promise that one day you will share in his wealth. Altruism is your sin. Selfishness is your savior. Ruthless aggression and self-preservation are not evil. Why aren’t females taught these things? Instead of putting themselves first, women are told to be considerate and selfless. From birth, they have been beaten in the head with this notion of “Don’t be selfish!” Fuck that. Your mother may have told you to wait your turn like a good girl, but I’m saying cut in front of that other bitch. Club Success is about to hit capacity, and you don’t want to be the odd woman out. Where are the powerful women? Those who refuse to play by those rules and want more out of life than what a man allows her to have? I created a category for such women and labeled them Spartans. Much like the Greek warriors who fought against all odds, these women refuse to surrender and curtsy before the status quo. Being
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G.L. Lambert (Men Don't Love Women Like You: The Brutal Truth About Dating, Relationships, and How to Go from Placeholder to Game Changer)
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After many years of doing astrology and tarot, I fall somewhere in between the fate versus free will camp. I do believe some things are 'meant to be' and cannot be explained. In some cases, we can get a glimpse of the future. Other times, the Universe surprises you.
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Theresa Reed (Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology and Tarot)
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If you want to manifest your destiny, you will have to move forward without knowing all the details. By trusting God with each step forward, there will be provision, there will be favor, and there will be protection. Your faith will provide you with perfect opportunities.
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Tony Warrick
“
A land-hungry fledging government attempted to wipe out a people by allowing starvation and disease and hardship to go unchecked. It is frightening to contemplate what might have happened if the American government had possessed the technology for mass extermination of a culture.
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Gary Paulsen (The Legend of Bass Reeves: Being the True and Fictional Account of the Most Valiant Marshal in the West)
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They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them, and as they rode up into the mountains this fire seemed to become altered of its location, now here, now there, drawing away, or shifting unaccountably along the flank of their movement. Like some ignis fatuus belated upon the road behind them which all could see and of which none spoke. For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies. As
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Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)
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I fear that which I cannot control, and this existential anxiety is most intense when I reflect on my ambiguous relation to the mysterious presence of God, which I am unable to manipulate, and on my futile attempts to secure a place for my "self" in the world. Theological anthropology articulates the gospel of grace manifested in the history of Jesus Christ, by whose Spirit I am set free from the binding pain of my attempts to control my own destiny and in whose Spirit I rest peacefully in the dynamic presence of divine love. But it is not simply about me and God.
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F. LeRon Shults (Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality)
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The decent humans are generally supportive of doing the right thing,’ said the Venerable Bunty, ‘but never take it much farther than that. You’re trashing the ecosystem for no reason other than a deluded sense of anthropocentric manifest destiny, and until you stop talking around the issue and actually feel some genuine guilt, there’ll be no change.’ ‘Shame, for want of a better word, is good,’ said Finkle. ‘Shame is right, shame works. Shame is the gateway emotion to increased self-criticism, which leads to realisation, an apology, outrage and eventually meaningful action.
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Jasper Fforde (The Constant Rabbit)
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there is a relation among the desire for mastery, an objectivist account of science, and the imperialist project of subduing nature, then the posthuman offers resources for the construction of another kind of account. 18 In this account, emergence replaces teleology; reflexive epistemology replaces objectivism; distributed cognition replaces autonomous will; embodiment replaces a body seen as a support system for the mind; and a dynamic partnership between humans and intelligent machines replaces the liberal humanist subject’s manifest destiny to dominate and control nature. Of
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N. Katherine Hayles (How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics)
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When the West overpowered native populations, these actions, no matter how violent, were rationalized as manifestations of the natural order of things. “Manifest destiny” and “social Darwinism” laid the foundation for violent improvement of the world. Europeans saw themselves as superior and naturally born to rule. They believed that their domination of faraway lands brought “civilization” to the natives. In return, the rulers of the empires benefited. “The purpose of colonies was to supply the mother country with raw materials and to provide a market for her manufactured goods,
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Eric Bogosian (Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide)
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When we come under the spell of the deeper domain of technology, its economic character and even its power aspect fascinate us less than its playful side. Then we realize we that we are involved in a play, a dance of the spirit, which cannot be grasped by calculation. What is ultimately left for science is intuition alone - a call of destiny.
This playful feature manifests itself more clearly in small things than in the gigantic works of our world. The crude observer can only be impressed by large quantities - chiefly when they are in motion - and yet there are as many organs in a fly as in a leviathan.
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Ernst Jünger (The Glass Bees)
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The story of the Donner Party is a long and complex account of how a group of people from varied backgrounds, stratified in age, wealth, education, and ethnicity, followed their different dreams. Out of necessity, they were made to unite and battle against the unknown—weather, nature, and finally life and death
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Michael Wallis (The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny)
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Even though Pope Urban VIII reversed the pronouncements of his predecessors by declaring slavery unacceptable in the mid-seventeenth century, the vast majority of Protestant Christians in America considered slavery and white supremacy to be absolutely consistent with “biblical” Christianity. It would take American Protestants over a hundred years to make slavery history. Even then, they would find ways to cleverly camouflage the old Doctrine of Discovery and its white supremacist scaffolding under distinctly American terms like Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism, terms still celebrated in many sectors of US society today. Professor
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Brian D. McLaren (The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World's Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian)
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Regardless of occasional experiences to the contrary, it is your destiny to rise to higher and higher states of consciousness, and to bring into manifestation more and more of creation's infinite wonders. Actually, you are destined to reach the point where you realise that, through your own desire, you can consciously create your successive destinies.
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Neville Goddard (The Power of Awareness)
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... all the smart men talking about Manifest Destiny. Like it's a new idea. ... It means taking what is yours, your property, whatever you decide it to be. And everyone else taking their assigned places to allow you to to take it. Whether it's red men or Africans, giving up themselves, giving of themselves, so that we can have what is rightfully ours. The French seeing aside their territorial claims. The British and the Spanish slinking away. ... the American spirit, ... to conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate, exterminate. Our destiny by divine prescription -- the American imperative."
"I need to visit the outhouse," ...
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Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad)
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A person’s zealous act of rebellion leading to their expulsion from a pampered private sanctuary is the first step in self-articulation. Passion requires a struggle. Only by risking committing grievous error can men and women claim authorship for their own destiny. Only the vigorous pursuit of our destiny allows us to discover our authenticity. When we learn to stop resisting our innermost calling, when we accept a lifestyle that makes us experience joy by pursuing our passions and the commonplace acts of being, we discover our pathway to bliss. We must listen to the demands of our spirit; we must break free from self-imposed barriers and cultural impediments that obstruct us from achieving the final manifestation of our spiritual being.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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But for all of Whitman’s celebration of the many peoples in the United States, the demand of poorer white men for inclusion in the government was based on the idea of keeping other marginalized people out. States’ rights democracy kept white men in charge, for they were the voters who determined the shape of the state governments. Those white men advanced their own interests at the expense of their Brown and Black neighbors, declaring it the nation’s “Manifest Destiny” to push Indigenous Americans off their lands and take over parts of Mexico to establish plantations and plantation slavery there. Above all, they protected and extended the practice of human enslavement that people like Elizabeth Freeman had successfully challenged seventy years before.
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Heather Cox Richardson (Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America)
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As much as I wanted to make all of our customers happy, our farm inevitably began to sell out of certain items each week...
I had been taught that businesses should constantly grow and expand. Owners should demand annual productivity increases, and resources were to be tapped for maximum potential. Like most things in our melting-pot society, the message was a uniquely American blend -- equal parts Manifest Destiny, Yankee ingenuity, and Protestant work ethic. A dash of Horatio Alger seemed to be thrown in for good luck.
Be more! Live more!
Consume! Produce!
...What if, at the end of the day, just growing what we could grow was good enough? And what if we genuinely wanted other family farms to succeed as well? These were the ideas I valued most, and the questions I wanted to answer. Everything else began to feel like noise.
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Forrest Pritchard (Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm)
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Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole life filled with the spiritual blessings Christianity has given me, full of them, and living on those blessings, like the children I did not understand them, and destroy, that is try to destroy, what I live by. And as soon as an important moment of life comes, like the children when they are cold and hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children when their mother scolds them for their childish mischief, do I feel that my childish efforts at wanton madness are reckoned against me.
"Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by faith in the chief thing taught by the church.
"The church! the church!" Levin repeated to himself. He turned over on the other side, and leaning on his elbow, fell to gazing into the distance at a herd of cattle crossing over to the river.
"But can I believe in all the church teaches?" he thought, trying himself, and thinking of everything that could destroy his present peace of mind. Itentionally he recalled all those doctrines of the church which had always seemed most strange and had always been a stumbling block to him.
"The Creation? But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain evil?... The atonement?...
"But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing but what has been told to me and all men."
And it seemed to him that there was not a single article of faith of the church which could destroy the chief thing--faith in God, in goodness, as the one goal of man's destiny.
Under every article of faith of the church could be put the faith in the service of truth instead of one's desires. And each doctrine did not simply leave that faith unshaken, each doctrine seemed essential to complete that great miracle, continually manifest upon earth, that made it possible for each man and millions of different sorts of men, wise men and imbeciles, old men and children--all men, peasants, Lvov, Kitty, beggars and kings to understand perfectly the same one thing, and to build up thereby that life of the soul which alone is worth living, and which alone is precious to us.
Lying on his back, he gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky. "Do I not know that that is infinite space, and that it is not a round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I cannot see it not round and not bounded, and in spite of my knowing about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see a solid blue dome, and more right than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it."
Levin ceased thinking, and only, as it were, listened to mysterious voices that seemed talking joyfully and earnestly within him.
"Can this be faith?" he thought, afraid to believe in his happiness. "My God, I thank Thee!" he said, gulping down his sobs, and with both hands brushing away the tears that filled his eyes.
”
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Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
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We were created by God’s eternal spoken word, and His word is quick, sharp, and powerful. His word is able to renew us in the spirit of our minds so that we begin to see clearly, think higher thoughts, and walk in higher ways. Kingdom purpose is activated by faith. Our faith gives permission for an unseen destiny (that which we already are) to come forth out of the invisible spiritual realm and manifest in its fullness.
”
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Barbie L. Breathitt (The Gateway to the Seer Realm: Look Again to See Beyond the Natural)
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The term may have been coined in 1845, but the seeds of Manifest Destiny arrived with Christopher Columbus when he stumbled onto the shores of North America—the self-styled “New World.” Since then, the death grip of its ideology has been the operating principle of the American Empire—a fervent, fanatical, at times religious mandate to carry out economic and geo-political acts that will always benefit the chosen few, which, in today’s parlance is the “one percent.” In fact, this Draconian gospel of exceptionalism has been the all-powerful dogma fueling American imperialism and free-market fundamentalism at the core of U.S. armed atrocities—both domestic and foreign. Writer and cabinetmaker Charles Sullivan offers this allegory: “It is the unquestioned religion of America that also bears a strange resemblance to the ideology of the cancer cell.
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Mumia Abu-Jamal (Murder Incorporated - Dreaming of Empire: Book One (Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny 1))
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In the humanist world following Erasmus, man is at the centre of the universe. Man becomes largely responsible for his own destiny, behaviour and future. This is the new current of thought which finds its manifestation in the writing of the 1590s and the decades which follow. The euphoria of Elizabeth's global affirmation of authority was undermined in these years by intimations of mortality: in 1590 she was 57 years old. No one could tell how much longer her golden age would last; hence, in part, Spenser's attempts to analyse and encapsulate that glory in an epic of the age. This concern about the death of a monarch who - as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen - was both symbol and totem, underscores the deeper realisation that mortality is central to life. After the Reformation, the certainties of heaven and hell were less clear, more debatable, more uncertain.
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Ronald Carter (The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland)
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In an awakened family, parents are aware that every relationship in their family exists to help each person grow. Parents view their children as mirrors through which they are able to see how they themselves need to mature and develop. Instead of fixing what they see as faults in their children, these parents seek to work on themselves, raising their own levels of maturity and presence. The focus is always on the parent’s awareness rather than the child’s behavior. This is the core insight of the book. When parents are aware in the present moment, learning and growing alongside their children, the entire family thrives. Free to actualize their individual destiny, each family member lives unencumbered and unafraid. Empowered with self-awareness, boundless in self-belief, liberated in self-expression, each feels free to explore, discover, and manifest their authentic being. This is the mandate of the awakened family.
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Shefali Tsabary (The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children)
“
I wondered how I would come to love a woman, and with both pleasure and terror, I would think that somewhere in the world there was some laughing, singing girl who would one day become my wife. In my mind, I could see her dancing and playing and flirting in preparation for that day of awe and wonder when we would meet and in mutual ecstasy declare, “I shall live with you forever.” How much of my father would I bring to that singing girl’s life? How much of my mother? And how many days would it take before I, Tom Wingo, child of storm, would silence her laughter and song for all time? How long would it take for me to end the dance of that laughing girl who would not know the doubts and imperfections I brought to the task of loving a woman? I loved the image of this girl long before I ever met her and wanted to warn her to beware the day when I would come into her life. Somewhere in America she was waiting out her childhood innocent of her destiny. She did not know that she was on a collision course with a boy so damaged and bewildered he would spend his whole life trying to figure out how love was supposed to feel, how it manifested itself between two people, and how it could be practiced without rage and sorrow and blood. I was thirteen years old when I decided that this wonderful girl deserved much better and I would warn her long before I interfered with her lovely passage and transfiguring dance.
”
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Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides)
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Think of the many miracles that had to occur in order for you to exist. Think of the lives you've touched, perhaps when you weren't even aware of it. Think of the immense power you have over your own life and your own destiny. Let these thoughts fill you with expansive joy and the feeling of empowerment. You are so much more than just a body or a cog in the machine. You are a powerful being, a miracle in the flesh, and a spirit that was meant to soak up all the joy that life has to offer. Feel it.
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Mandi Em (Happy Witch: Activities, Spells, and Rituals to Calm the Chaos and Find Your Joy)
“
With our powerful founding story, our unusual reverence for our Constitution, our geographic isolation, and our two centuries of relative economic success, modern Americans have long been convinced that liberal democracy, once achieved, was impossible to reverse. The founders themselves were not so certain: their beloved classical authors taught them that history was circular, that human nature was flawed, and that special measures were needed to precent democracy from sliding back into tyranny. But American history, to most modern Americans, does not feel circular. On the contrary, it is often told as a tale of progress, forward and upward, with the Civil War as a blip in the middle. Cultural despair does not come easily to a nation that believed in the Horatio Alger myth and Manifest Destiny. Pessimism is an alien sentiment in a state whose founding documents, the embodiment of the Enlightenment, contain one of the most optimistic views of the possibilities of human government ever written.
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Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism)
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AFFIRMATIONS TO ENHANCE MANIFESTATION • Every day I am becoming more aware of what I prioritize and what I tend to focus on. I prioritize my goals. I focus on all that I have to value. • I am choosing to be more and more conscious of what I have to appreciate in my life. • I am conscious of my resourcefulness, my creativity, and my power to create a great destiny. • I know that my consciousness creates my reality. I always choose an optimistic mind-set. • I consciously choose hope, joy, and peace in my daily life.
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Sandra Anne Taylor (Quantum Success: The Astounding Science of Wealth and Happiness)
“
There are all these books that say we create our own destiny and what we believe is what we manifest. You’re supposed to walk around with this perpetual bubble over your head thinking happy thoughts and then everything is going to be sunshine and roses. Nope, sorry, don’t think so. You can be as happy as you’ve ever been in your life, and shit is still going to happen. But it doesn’t just happen. It knocks you sideways and crushes you into the ground, because you were stupid enough to believe in sunshine and roses.
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Chevy Stevens (Still Missing)
“
Man is the highest expression of individual life, because he thinks. We sometimes blame God for our misfortune, but the fact remains that we are entirely responsible for our success or failure, happiness or misery. Man makes himself, creates his own personality, character and circumstances.
Destiny is fixed by subconscious action; you are not the slave of circumstance, but the creator of your own destiny. We attract to ourselves only that which corresponds to our subconscious impressions, and you can always make a new start and create new conditions by changing your subconscious impressions.
If you have thought failure, think success; replace
sick thoughts with thoughts of health. If there is any reason for unhappiness, resolutely put it out of your mind, for LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE, and the more you think of discordant conditions, the more such conditions will manifest for you. CONCENTRATE ON WHAT YOU WANT. When you do think you are impressing that desire on your subconscious mind; NEVER let your thoughts dwell on what you DO NOT WANT.
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Venice J. Bloodworth (Key to Yourself: Opening the Door to a Joyful Life from Within)
“
They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them, and as they rode up into the mountains this fire seemed to become altered of its location, now here, now there, drawing away, or shifting unaccountably along the flank of their movement. Like some ignis fatuus belated upon the road behind them which all could see and of which none spoke. For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)
“
Whom are we attracted to? People who have the same traits as we have, but more so. We want to be in their company because subconsciously we feel that by doing so we, too, might manifest more of those traits as well. By the same token we are repelled by people who reflect back to us traits that we deny in our own selves. So if you are having a strong negative reaction to someone, you can be sure that they possess some traits in common with you, traits that you are not willing to embrace. If you were willing to accept those qualities, then they wouldn’t upset you.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (SynchroDestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles)
“
If habits, Lifestyles,or personalities are fruits, then thoughts,words,or actions are seeds.
hange your seeds and the fruits will change accordingy.This can be shown as a flow like this :
Thughts->Words->Actions->Habits->Character->Destiny.
The first three are soft, and easier to change.
What you need is your decision to change and mindfulness to be aware of your thoughts, words and actions.
The three on the right are hard, already manifested, and connected to many other euqally har things. The further you go to the left, the softer things become and the easier to change.
”
”
Ilchi Lee (Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential)
“
Bannon pounds relentlessly at what he calls the Big Steal—the claim that Biden stole the 2020 election—while the Democrats call that the Big Lie. And it is a big lie, a dangerous one. But is it the Big Lie? Bigger, say, than trickle-down economics? Bigger than “tax cuts create jobs”? Bigger than infinite growth on a finite planet? Bigger than Thatcher’s double whammy of “There is no alternative” and “There is no such thing as society”? Bigger, for that matter, than Manifest Destiny, Terra Nullius, and the Doctrine of Discovery—the lies that form the basis of the United States, Canada, Australia, and every other settler colonial state? If we can stand to look at the Shadow Lands even for a moment, it becomes clear that we are ensnared in a web of life-annihilating lies and that whatever the Mirror World is on about this week is neither the biggest lie nor the one with the highest stakes. It’s entirely possible that Bannon and Wolf’s war on reality is just what happens when so many of the big lies that built the modern world visibly crumble. As the house collapses, some people choose to take flight into full-blown fantasy, sure—but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us who were also born and raised in that house are guardians of the truth.
”
”
Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
“
discussed. Nowhere else in the book does Hitler more blatantly display his exponentially growing “self-belief,” sense of divine calling, and hardening infallibility. His gifts as a politician are manifest, he believes. Nobody else has his combination of practical and philosophical talents. If there were a single month, a critical pivot point, a precise moment that can be said to be the one that made Hitler in 1924, this was it. It was from this point forward that Hitler “acquired that fearless faith, that optimism and confidence in our destiny that absolutely nothing could shake afterwards,” as he put it.55 With his claim to
”
”
Peter Ross Range (1924: The Year That Made Hitler)
“
Frequency Attunement is a universal integrated spirit/ science, which acts as one of the foundations of creation. At a core level we understand and work with this system already. It is what we call intuition, or our sixth sense. When we feel as if we know something we can't see or hear, we are picking up its frequency. Frequencies are the subtle unseen vibrations, which make up all of creation. They are what compose matter, thought, and energy. They are a measurement of the force. We can control and design the events that occur in our lives by manipulating frequencies and applying the Law of Affinity. We have this power to create our own destiny. This is the gift of free will.
”
”
Linda West (The Frequency: Fulfill all Your Wishes by Manifesting With Vibrations (Use the Law of Attraction and Amazing Manifestation Strategies to Attract the Life You Want Book 1))
“
My friend (if I may still call him that) believed in humanity, and so he also believed in order, in the order of painting and the order of words, since words are what we paint with. He believed in redemption. Deep down he may even have believed in progress. Coincidence, on the other hand, is total freedom, our natural destiny. Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don’t know what they are. Coincidence, if you’ll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. The communion of coincidence and effect and the communion of effect with us.
”
”
Roberto Bolaño
“
If the term 'science' has any precise meaning - relating it to knowledge of the real - then it is the science of tawhid. It could be said, and with good reason, that the kafir should never be permitted to approach the physical sciences or to involve himself in them. He does not possess the key to them, and he is therefore bound to go astray and to lead others astray. He divides when he should unite, and his fragmented mind deals only with fragments: it is little wonder that he splits the atom, with devastating results. Those who know nothing of the principle are incompetent to study its manifestations. 'Pursue not that of which thou hast no knowledge. Surely hearing and sight and heart - all these - shall be called to account' (Q.17.36).
”
”
Charles Le Gai Eaton (Islam and the Destiny of Man)
“
The next time you start regretting something you did, something you said, that life-changing choice you made—please remember that you did the best you could. You made the decision you felt was best for you at the time. And even though the outcome you desired turned into something completely different; maybe you were always meant to be exactly where you are right now. Maybe that relationship was supposed to end, even though you didn’t want it to. Maybe some things fall apart so that something else more beautiful can come together. Maybe even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, this—this small yet giant, mighty yet magic little moment—was always where you were supposed to end up. So don’t wistfully wish for what could have been. You did the best you could, the best way you knew how. You were meant to be here.
”
”
Kirsten Robinson
“
Each of us is always blessed with third options, with choices. If there is one thing the scientific approach to living our life points to is – there is no end to our abilities to discover and make meaning. There are no “absolutes,” or end point in our explorations and possibilities. The blessing comes in participating in our surroundings and consciously making meaning through our perceptions and choices. Everything is taken in as filled with blessing because no experience is exempt. We are always making meaning through our choices, but now, we do so consciously, deliberately and creatively while tapping into the universes power to manifest. We are like gardeners (always) in the garden of Eden – with the most basic choices sometimes awakening us to our true nature – do I eat the apple? Every decision as Joseph Campbell says, “is a destiny decision.
”
”
Julie Tallard Johnson (The Zero Point Agreement: How to Be Who You Already Are)
“
Arbitration: The process of adjudication of a dispute by a tribunal, a majority of whose members are appointed by the disputantas, whose decision to the disputants agree to accept as final and binding. Contrast Conciliation.
Arbitration: Arbitration should not be entered lightly. It can allow a third party to determine the destiny of your nation, perhaps at the expense of its vital interests. Arbitrate only if you manifestly have principle on your side but are so weak that you must call on others to enforce it.
Arbitration: "International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one."
— Ambrose Bierce
Arbitration, defense through resort to: "It is impossible to attack as a transgressor him who offers to lay his grievance before a tribunal of arbitration."
— King of Sparta, quoted by Thucydides [cf. History of Peloponnesian War, Book 1 Chapter 85.2]
”
”
Chas W. Freeman Jr. (The Diplomat's Dictionary)
“
What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. What treaty that the whites ever made with us red men have they kept? Not one. When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their lands. They sent ten thousand horsemen to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say that I ever stole his lands or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and gone unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked in me because my skin in red; because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my fathers lived; because I would die for my people and my country?32
”
”
Mumia Abu-Jamal (Murder Incorporated - Dreaming of Empire: Book One (Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny 1))
“
One might pause here to wonder how it is that the United States claims to support democracy and freedom in the world when it so often backs dictators like the Shah and Somoza. As I tell my human rights class every year, the United States always supports democracy and freedom, except when it doesn’t, which is all the time…. As political analyst Stephen Gowans explains, the United States is simply not what it claims to be, and most likely never has been: The United States—which began as 13 former British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America pursuing a “manifest destiny” of continental expansion, (the inspiration for Nazi Germany’s lebensraum policy); which fought a war with Spain for colonies; which promulgated the Monroe Doctrine asserting a sphere of influence in the Americas; which stole Panama to create a canal; whose special operations forces project US power in 81 countries; whose generals control the militaries of the combined NATO members in Europe and the military forces of South Korea; whose military command stations one hundred thousand troops on the territories of former imperialist rivals, manifestly has an empire. And yet this reality is denied, as assuredly as is the reality that the United States, built on the genocide of Native Americans and the slave labor of Africans, overtly white supremacist until the mid-1960s, and covertly white supremacist since, is unequivocally not a beacon of Enlightenment values, unless liberalism is defined as equality and liberty assigned exclusively to white men who own productive property. Indeed, so antithetical is the United States to the liberal values of the equality of all peoples and nations, freedom from exploitation and oppression, and the absence of discrimination on the bases of class, race, and sex, that it’s difficult to apprehend in what sense the United States has ever been liberal or has in any way had a legitimate claim to being the repository of the values of the Enlightenment.2
”
”
Dan Kovalik (The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran)
“
However, it looks somewhat different when viewed not from the personalistic standpoint, i.e., from the personal situation of Miss Miller, but from the standpoint of the archetype’s own life. As we have already explained, the phenomena of the unconscious can be regarded as more or less spontaneous manifestations of autonomous archetypes, and though this hypothesis may seem very strange to the layman, it is amply supported by the fact the archetype has a numinous character: it exerts a fascination, it enters into active opposition to the conscious mind, and may be said in the long run to mould the destinies of individuals by unconsciously influencing their thinking, feeling, and behaviour, even if this influence is not recognized until long afterwards. The primordial image is itself a “pattern of behaviour”4 which will assert itself with or without the co-operation of the conscious personality. Although the Miller case gives us some idea of the manner in which an archetype gradually draws nearer to consciousness and finally takes possession of it, the material is too scanty to serve as a complete illustration of the process. I must therefore refer my reader to the dream-series discussed in Psychology and Alchemy, where he will be able to follow the gradual emergence of a definite archetype with all the specific marks of its autonomy and authority.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 5: Symbols of Transformation (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung))
“
And by the end of March one of them had already begun his journey. Twenty-two years old, an A.B. and LL.B. of Harvard, Francis Parkman was back from a winter trip to scenes in Pennsylvania and Ohio that would figure in his book and now he started with his cousin, Quincy Adams Shaw, for St. Louis. He was prepared to find it quite as alien to Beacon Hill as the Dakota lands beyond it, whither he was going. He was already an author (a poet and romancer), had already designed the great edifice his books were to build, and already suffered from the mysterious, composite illness that was to make his life a long torture. He hoped, in fact, that a summer on the prairies might relieve or even cure the malady that had impaired his eyes and, he feared, his heart and brain as well. He had done his best to cure it by systematic exercise, hard living in the White Mountains, and a regimen self-imposed in the code of his Puritan ancestors which would excuse no weakness. But more specifically Parkman was going west to study the Indians. He intended to write the history of the conflict between imperial Britain and imperial France, which was in great part a story of Indians. The Conspiracy of Pontiac had already taken shape in his mind; beyond it stretched out the aisles and transepts of what remains the most considerable achievement by an American historian. So he needed to see some uncorrupted Indians in their native state. It was Parkman’s fortune to witness and take part in one of the greatest national experiences, at the moment and site of its occurrence. It is our misfortune that he did not understand the smallest part of it. No other historian, not even Xenophon, has ever had so magnificent an opportunity: Parkman did not even know that it was there, and if his trip to the prairies produced one of the exuberant masterpieces of American literature, it ought instead to have produced a key work of American history. But the other half of his inheritance forbade. It was the Puritan virtues that held him to the ideal of labor and achievement and kept him faithful to his goal in spite of suffering all but unparalleled in literary history. And likewise it was the narrowness, prejudice, and mere snobbery of the Brahmins that insulated him from the coarse, crude folk who were the movement he traveled with, turned him shuddering away from them to rejoice in the ineffabilities of Beacon Hill, and denied our culture a study of the American empire at the moment of its birth. Much may rightly be regretted, therefore. But set it down also that, though the Brahmin was indifferent to Manifest Destiny, the Puritan took with him a quiet valor which has not been outmatched among literary folk or in the history of the West.
”
”
Bernard DeVoto (The Year of Decision 1846)
“
I will begin by describing the nature of an emotional regression and showing how in any society, no matter how advanced its state of technology, chronic anxiety can induce an approach to life that is counter-evolutionary. One does not need dictators in order to create a totalitarian (that, is totalistic) society. Then, employing five characteristics of chronically anxious personal families, I will illustrate how those same characteristics are manifest throughout the greater American family today, demonstrating their regressive effects on the thinking and functioning, the formation and the expression, of leadership among parents and presidents. Those five characteristics are: 1. Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of each member to events and to one another. 2. Herding: a process through which the forces for togetherness triumph over the forces for individuality and move everyone to adapt to the least mature members. 3. Blame displacement: an emotional state in which family members focus on forces that have victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny. 4. A quick-fix mentality: a low threshold for pain that constantly seeks symptom relief rather than fundamental change. 5. Lack of well-differentiated leadership: a failure of nerve that both stems from and contributes to the first four. To
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
One would begin, for example, by remarking that the Vedic doctrine is neither pantheistic" nor polytheistic, nor a worship of the powers of Nature except in the sense that Natura naturans est Deus and all her powers but the names of God’s acts; that karma is not ‘‘fate’’ except in the orthodox sense of the character and destiny that inhere in created things themselves, and rightly understood, determines their vocation; 5 that 'maya' is not ‘illusion", but rather the material measure and means essential to the manifestation of a quantitative and in this sense “material”, world of appearances, by which we may be either enlightened or deluded according to the degree of our own maturity; that the notion of a “reincarnation” in the popular sense of the return of deceased individuals to rebirth on this earth represents only a misunderstanding of the doctrines of heredity, transmigration and regeneration; and that the six darshanas the later Sanskrit “philosophy” are not so many mutually exclusive “systems'’ but, as their name implies, so many “points of view" which are no more mutually contradictory than are, let us say, botany and mathematics. We shall also deny in Hinduism the existence of anything unique and peculiar to itself, apart from the local colouring and social adaptations that must be expected under the sun where nothing can be known except in the mode of the knower.
”
”
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (Hinduism and Buddhism)
“
As humans formed by the hands of a creative, imaginative God, we crave the supernatural. Believe it or not, we yearn for the very power we are actually destined for. It is why media concerning magic, witchcraft and sorcery is so prevalent today, because we were born for greater planes than most of us have currently seen. Amazingly, we are actually created to work in the same supernatural powers displayed in the bible and we are feeling the lack of it as our culture turns to crafty, counterfeit imitations. Though there are a few who perform miraculous acts around the world, the rest of us are left leading considerably mundane lives in a compromised condition, as if in half-form. Nevertheless, we are sons and daughters made in the image of an all-powerful God Who longs to see us live as supernatural kingdom-beings who have claimed their birthright and are moving in signs and wonders to lead a generation to Him. Assuredly, it is possible to manifest God’s glory through His great power in order to heal the wounded, sick and dying and bring hope and life to people who are dry and desolate. One day, it may even be possible to breathe underwater without scuba gear or fly without aviation. As for seeking, that is a gift accessible to anyone. Seek God, soak up His presence and you will find all that you long for, completing the destiny He planned for you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. My question is this: Do you long to move in the supernatural? If yes, the answer is simple. Seek. Seek Him. He is waiting.
”
”
Cassandra Boyson (Seeker's Revolution (Seeker's Trilogy Book 3))
“
There are no silly or inferior people; or people whose destiny is to be poor or to barely survive. There are, though, many that have bought into the lies of this world, internalizing and accepting as truth the horrible “You can’t”. And as they believe they can’t, they transmit it to others and “manifest” it in their lives.
But THE TRUTH, the only absolute truth is that every human being is special. Each and every one of us is a soul that is growing and evolving.
A soul on a mission!
To find and fulfill this mission, and not only to work tirelessly to accumulate material things, THAT IS SUCCESS!
If you've ever doubted how special you are, and the immense value you have for the world, you just have to do a historical analysis, and think about the thousands of people who had to live before you, only for you to be born!
Think of your ancestors: they survived a thousand tragedies so you could be here and read this book.
Do not kid yourself: life in this world has been harsh! Your ancestors had to fight against enormous odds, and only the strongest, fittest and special survived.
The weak perished... But not your grandparents, great-grandparents; great-great-grandparents and the ones before.
You come from a bread of Champions! You descend from the greater ones!
From those who crossed seas and conquered lands…
From those who beat pest, hunger and war.
From those who kept going ahead despite the persecutions…
From those who weighed anchors to go on great adventures...
And thanks to them, success runs in your blood… You are destined to success! You are called to live a meaningful life!
”
”
Mauricio Chaves Mesén (YES! TO SUCCESS)
“
There is no need, I think, of further examples to show that the concept of rta is a libido-symbol like sun, wind, etc. Only, rta is less concretistic and contains the abstract element of fixed direction and regularity, the idea of a predetermined, ordered path or process. It is, therefore, a kind of philosophical libido symbol that can be directly compared with the Stoic concept of heimarmene. For the Stoics heimarmene had the significance of creative, primal heat, and at the same time it was a predetermined, regular process (hence its other meaning: “compulsion of the stars”).104 Libido as psychic energy naturally has these attributes too; the concept of energy necessarily includes the idea of a regulated process, since a process always flows from a higher potential to a lower. It is the same with the libido concept, which signifies nothing more than the energy of the life process. Its laws are the laws of vital energy. Libido as an energy concept is a quantitative formula for the phenomena of life, which are naturally of varying intensity. Like physical energy, libido passes through every conceivable transformation; we find ample evidence of this in the fantasies of the unconscious and in myths. These fantasies are primarily self-representations of energic transformation processes, which follow their specific laws and keep to a definite “path.” This path is the line or curve representing the optimal discharge of energy and the corresponding result in work. Hence it is simply the expression of flowing and self-manifesting energy. The path is rta, the right way, the flow of vital energy or libido, the predetermined course along which a constantly self-renewing current is directed. This path is also fate, in so far as a man’s fate depends on his psychology. It is the path of our destiny and of the law of our being.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung))
“
The steel faithfully taught me the correspondence between the spirit and the body: thus feeble emotions, it seemed to me, corresponded to flaccid muscles, sentimentality to a sagging stomach, and overimpressionability to an oversensitive, white skin. Bulging muscles, a taut stomach, and a tough skin, I reasoned, would correspond respectively to an intrepid fighting spirit, the power of dispassionate intellectual judgement, and a robust disposition. I hasten to point out here that I do not believe ordinary people to be like this. Even my own scanty experience is enough to furnish me with innumerable examples of timid minds encased within bulging muscles. Yet, as I have already pointed out, words for me came before the flesh, so that intrepidity, dispassionateness, robustness, and all those emblems of moral character summed up by words, needed to manifest themselves in outward, bodily tokens. For that reason, I told myself, I ought to endow myself with the physical characteristics in question as a kind of educative process.
Beyond the educative process there also lurked another, romantic design. The romantic impulse that had formed an undercurrent in me from boyhood on, and that made sense only as the destruction of classical perfection, lay waiting within me. Like a theme in an operatic overture that is later destined to occur throughout the whole work, it laid down a definitive pattern for me before I had achieved anything in practice.
Specifically, I cherished a romantic impulse towards death, yet at the same time I required a strictly classical body as its vehicle; a peculiar sense of destiny made me believe that the reason why my romantic impulse towards death remained unfulfilled in reality was the immensely simple fact that I lacked the necessary physical qualifications. A powerful, tragic frame and sculpturesque muscles were indispensable in a romantically noble death.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Sun and Steel)
“
In Ahab and in his beatnik, quasi-criminal prototype, Jackson (in 'Redburn'), Melville gave expression both to the megatechnic 'Khans' of the global Pentagon and to the counter-forces they had brought into being. And the fact that Ahab's torment and hatred had gone so far that he had lost control of himself and, through his own mad reliance upon power, had become dominated completely by the creature that had disabled him, only makes Melville's story a central parable in the interpretation of modern man's destiny. In Ahab's throwing away compass and sextant at the height of the chase, Melville even anticipated the casting out of the orderly instruments of intelligence, so characteristic of the counter-culture and anti-life happenings of today. Similarly, by his maniacal concentration, Ahab rejects the inner change that might have saved the ship and the crew, when he turns a deaf ear to the pleas of love uttered by sober Starbuck in words and by Pip, a fright-shocked child and an African primitive, in dumb gesture.
Outwardly mankind is still committed tot he grim chase Melville described, lured by the adventure, the prospect of oil and whalebone, the promptings of pride, an above all by a love-rejecting pursuit of power. But it has also begun consciously to face the prospect of total annihilation, which may be brought about by the captains who now have command of the ship.
Against that senseless fate every act of rebellion, every exhibition of group defiance, every assertion of the will-to-live, every display of autonomy and self-direction, at however primitive a level, diminishes the headway of the doom-threatened ship and delays the fatal moment when the White Whale will shatter its planks and drown the crew. All the infantile, criminal, and imbecile manifestations in the arts today, everything that now expresses only murderous hatred and alienation, might still find justification if they performed their only conceivable rational function-that of awakening modern man sufficiently to his actual plight, so that he seizes the wheel and, guided by the stars, heads the ship to a friendlier shore.
”
”
Lewis Mumford (The Pentagon of Power (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 2))
“
Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is
totality. The former starts from a negative supported by an affirmative, the latter from absolute negation
and is condemned to every aspect of slavery in order to fabricate an affirmative that is dismissed until the
end of time. One is creative, the other nihilist. The first is dedicated to creation so as to exist more and
more completely; the second is forced to produce results in order to negate more and more completely.
The historical revolution is always obliged to act in the hope, which is invariably disappointed, of one day
really existing. Even unanimous consent will not suffice to create its existence. "Obey," said Frederick the
Great to his subjects; but when he died, his words were: "I am tired of ruling slaves." To escape this
absurd destiny, the revolution is and will be condemned to renounce, not only its own principles, but
nihilism as well as purely historical values in order to rediscover the creative source of rebellion.
Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the
insanity of history. Undoubtedly, it has nothing but scorn for the formal and mystifying morality to be
found in bourgeois society. But its folly has been to extend this scorn to every moral demand. At the very
sources of its inspiration and in its most profound transports is to be found a rule that is not formal but
that nevertheless can serve as a guide. Rebellion, in fact, says— and will say more and more explicitly—
that revolution must try to act, not in order to come into existence at some future date in the eyes of a
world reduced to acquiescence, but in terms of the obscure existence that is already made manifest in the
act of insurrection. This rule is neither formal nor subject to history, it is what can be best described by
examining it in its pure state—in artistic creation. Before doing so, let us only note that to the "I rebel,
therefore we exist" and the "We are alone" of metaphysical rebellion, rebellion at grips with history adds
that instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let live
in order to create what we are.
”
”
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
“
The history of the land is a history of blood.
In this history, someone wins and someone loses. There are patriots and enemies. Folk heroes who save the day. Vanquished foes who had it coming.
It’s all in the telling.
The conquered have no voice. Ask the thirty-eight Santee Sioux singing the death song with the nooses around their necks, the treaty signed fair and square, then nullified with a snap of the rope. Ask the slave women forced to bear their masters’ children, to raise and love them and see them sold. Ask the miners slaughtered by the militia in Ludlow.
Names are erased. The conqueror tells the story. The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness.
Oh, but let’s not speak of such things! Look: Here is an eagle whipping above the vast grasslands where the buffalo once thundered bold as gods. (The buffalo are here among the dead. So many buffalo.) There is the Declaration in sepia. (Signed by slave owners. Shhh, hush up about that, now!) See how the sun shines down upon the homesteaders’ wagons racing toward a precious claim in the nation’s future, the pursuit of happiness pursued without rest, destiny made manifest? (Never mind about those same homesteaders eating the flesh of neighbors. Winters are harsh in this country. Pack a snack.)
The history is a hungry history. Its mouth opens wide to consume. It must be fed. Bring me what you would forget, it cries, and I will swallow it whole and pull out the bones bleached of truth upon which you will hang the myths of yourselves. Feed me your pain and I will give you dreams and denial, a balm in Gilead. The land remembers everything, though. It knows the steps of this nation’s ballet of violence and forgetting.
The land receives our dead, and the dead sing softly the song of us: blood. Blood on the plains. In the rivers. On the trees where the ropes swing. Blood on the leaves. Blood under the flowers of Gettysburg, of Antioch. Blood on the auction blocks. Blood of the Lenape, the Cherokee, the Cheyenne. Blood of the Alamo. Blood of the Chinese railroad workers. Blood of the midwives hung for witchcraft, for the crime of being women who bleed. Blood of the immigrants fleeing the hopeless, running toward the open arms of the nation’s seductive hope, its greatest export. Blood of the first removed to make way for the cities, the factories, the people and their unbridled dreams: The chugging of the railways. The tapping of the telegram. The humming of industry. Sound burbling along telephone wires. Printing presses whirring with the day’s news. And the next day’s. And the day after that’s. Endless cycles of information. Cities brimming with ambitions used and discarded.
The dead hold what the people throw away. The stories sink the tendrils of their hope and sorrow down into the graves and coil around the dead buried there, deep in its womb.
All passes away, the dead whisper. Except for us. We, the eternal. Always here. Always listening. Always seeing.
One nation, under the earth. E Pluribus unum mortuis.
Oh, how we wish we could reach you! You dreamers and schemers! Oh, you children of optimism! You pioneers! You stars and stripes, forever! Sometimes, the dreamers wake as if they have heard. They take to the streets. They pick up the plow, the pen, the banner, the promise. They reach out to neighbors. They reach out to strangers. Backs stooped from a hard day’s labor, two men, one black, one white, share water from a well. They are thirsty and, in this one moment, thirst and work make them brothers. They drink of shared trust, that all men are created equal. They wipe their brows and smile up at a faithful sun.
”
”
Libba Bray