O'brien Power Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to O'brien Power. Here they are! All 100 of them:

They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life.
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
You've had the power all along, girl. Go live your dreams.
Lisa Genova (Inside the O'Briens)
Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One Beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.
Flann O'Brien
It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty... Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference- a powerful, implacable beauty- and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:   Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
George Orwell (1984)
Bad art has the power to deform a people just as good art generates new reflection, growth, vision, and hope.
Michel O'Brien
The upstairs was hopeless: all her clothes, Dale’s suits, everything belonging to the boys. And everywhere the powerful, sickening smell of ashes and water.
Darcy O'Brien (Murder in Little Egypt: The True Story of a Father's Ultimate Betrayal)
Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood.
Fitz-James O'Brien
O’Brien: How does one man assert his power over another, Winston? Winston: By making him suffer. O’Brien: Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred.
George Orwell
Yes, the issue was courage. It always had been, even as a kid. Things scared him. He couldn't help it. Noise scared him, dark scared him. Tunnels scared him: the time he almost won the Silver Star for valor. But the real issue was courage. It had nothing to do with the Silver Star...Oh, he would've liked winning it, true, but that wasn't the issue. He would've liked showing the medal to his father, the heavy feel of it, looking his father in the eye to show he had been brave, but even that wasn't the real issue. The real issue was the power of will to defeat fear. A matter of figuring a way to do it. Somehow working his way into that secret chamber of the human heart, where, in tangles, lay the circuitry for all that was possible, the full range of what a man might be. He believed, like Doc Peret, that somewhere inside each man is a biological center for the exercise of courage, a piece of tissue that might be touched and sparked and made to respond, a chemical maybe, or a lone chromosome that when made to fire would produce a blaze of valor that even the biles could not extinguish. A filament, a fuse, that if ignited would release the full energy of what might be. There was a Silver Star twinkling somewhere inside him.
Tim O'Brien
So don't stop moving forward. For a while, you may feel as though you're taking two steps forward, one step back. And there may be some personal heartache along the way. But when you look your little ones in the eye, you will find your voice and take a stand for them. We are their voices. And we must have the courage to stand up for them, whatever the odds or however powerful the opposition might be.
Robyn O'Brien (The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick And What We Can Do About It)
For me it's connection-the pleasure of an expansive, long-ranging dinner conversation with people who do all sorts of things and being able to come back to that night, night after night, and pick up threads and follow them. There's a voyeuristic pleasure, there's a synthetic pleasure, but primarily it's the pleasure of being able to live in a frame of time that the rest of life conspires to annihilate.
Richard Powers
You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not. Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference—a powerful, implacable beauty—and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly. To
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
I had not accounted for the fact that I had about as much control over my situation as a tennis ball does when a cat is toying with it. I was no more than a plaything of some unseen and immensely powerful otherworldly force that would not be denied its fun, and certainly not because of my pathetically ineffective countermeasures.
Ronan O'Brien (Confessions of a Fallen Angel)
The Secret Government went into place in 1947,” Mark explained to a caller. “As did the National Security Act. The Constitution of the United States was founded in truth and justice for all, not for a few self appointed secret leaders operating on the philosophy that ‘secret knowledge equals power.’ Secrets have now compounded to the point where people no longer think to ask the right questions. Technological secrets emerge as technological control. Ask what HAARP is about. Ask about DARPA. Ask now while you can still think to do so because technology is breeding itself through computerization and it’s time we took it out of the hands of the Secret Government.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
The world is full of hatred because it refuses to be poor. It wants to conquer fear with power. But you will conquer in another way, the unknown way. First, perhaps, you will forget. You will not see. You will not understand. Later you may see, and then you will know that the false self must die in order for the true self to be born.
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
Wait a minute,” Billy said. “What about elections?” “What elections?” I asked. “Its easy for them to rig votes with the electronic ballets. If third world countries used archaic methods of voting, we sent in representatives from the US to ‘oversee them.’ Everybody I knew in politics didn’t give elections a thought. They knew that people would believe in the corrupted, controlled polls, and that those appointed to office in accordance with the New World Order were secure.” “So people are misled by their leaders to believe they chose them?” “Not only that,” I answered, “but figureheads are placed while the real power works behind the scenes. For example, when Salinas was Vice President of Mexico, he ran the country while dela Madrid was only a Presidential figurehead. Vice President Bush ran this country while Reagan was acting President.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
Granddaddy’s squirrel gun is not going to get it when faced with their computerized advancements, harmonics, ELF waves, biologicals, nuclear capacity and so on. Still, we better hang on to our weapons just because they are hell-bent on taking them away. They must feel threatened by them. Besides, being armed with truth and weapons is a powerful combination.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
power had trampled his weary, badly-worn face. The Elignon’s voice burrowed into the holy man’s mind. “Welcome home, Prime Guardian.
Michael O'Brien (Prime Guardian of the Dead)
becoming a leader requires each of us to ‘create changes we believe in’.
Eamonn O'Brien (How to Make Powerful Speeches: A Step-by-Step Guide to Inspiring and Memorable Speeches)
Secret knowledge equals power, with the end result being control.
Cathy O'Brien (TRANCE Formation of America: True life story of a mind control slave)
Hitler/Himler research into genetics and mutigenerational families led them to believe that they could control the future by controlling society. Operating on the philosophy that secret knowledge equals power, they would keep pertinent facts from the people and alter their natural evolutionary process. They knew that traumas like incest and torture left people highly suggestible and easily led. After three generations of incest, abuse, and ignorance it becomes genetically encoded and people are born more compliant. It was believed that this could be a formula for mass mind control.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
Intellectuals ponder, philosophize, interpret, and all this is essential to our shared experience, however, to feel the warmth of what lays at our feet within all that can be felt by the heart, is in an instant more powerful than mere words, we need to feel the words, capture the essence of what we see, and revel in the tastes of nature, and let ourselves allow our hearts to sing out loud, wild, and free.
Mark Donnelly
Alzheimer’s is an enormous, uncontrollable, expensive disease with the power to overwhelm an individual or family with the stereotype that nothing can be done to make it easier, but we know that this is not true.
Greg O'Brien (On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's)
Oh no, we stem from different traditions, all three of us. Monsignor O’Brien is a priest in the tradition of the priests of the Bible, the sons of Aaron. He has certain powers, magical powers, that he exercises in the celebration of the Mass, for example, where the bread and wine are magically changed to the body and blood of Christ. Dr. Skinner as a Protestant minister is in the tradition of the prophets. He has received a call to preach the word of God. I, a rabbi, am essentially a secular figure, having neither the mana of the priest nor the ‘call’ of the minister. If anything, I suppose we come closest to the judges of the Bible.
Harry Kemelman (Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (The Rabbi Small Mysteries))
O’Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing the worn face nearer. You are thinking, he said, that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails? We are priests of power, he said. God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: ‘Freedom is slavery’. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone – free- the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realise is that power is power over human beings. Over the body – but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter – external reality, as you would call it – is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute….But how can you control matter? He burst out. You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death- O’Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston….But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny-helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited…Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exist except through human consciousness…
George Orwell (1984)
I thought about that, watching the ambulance growing smaller in the distance, thought about the bottomless abuse of power by the bottom feeders gorging on the feedbag of greed while plowing scars into the souls of others, justified for the purported good of the masses, when it was really all about them.
Tom Lowe (Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien, #5))
You’d have to be crazy to want this job. I don’t mean to be casual about that; I mean that the desire to be the president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, “Yeah. I should be in charge of that.” Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, “Sign me up!” Only a lunatic.
Daniel O'Brien (How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country)
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens. He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as 'two and two make five' were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors. Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.
George Orwell (1984)
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:   Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.  
George Orwell (1984)
No doubt you are aware that the winds have colour... A record of this belief will be found in the literature of all ancient peoples. There are four winds and eight sub-winds each with its own colour. The wind from the east is a deep purple, from the south a fine shining silver. The north wind is a hard black and the west is amber. People in the old days had the power of perceiving these colours and could spend a day sitting quietly on a hillside watching the beauty of the winds, their fall and rise and changing hues, the magic of neighbouring winds when they are inter-weaved like ribbons at a wedding. It was a better occupation than gazing at newspapers. The sub-winds had colours of indescribable delicacy, a reddish-yellow half-way between silver and purple, a greyish-green which was related equally to black and brown. What could be more exquisite than a countryside swept lightly by cool rain reddened by the south-west breeze'.
Flann O'Brien (The Third Policeman)
Why are you here, Harley? What is it that you really want from me?” I came away from the wall with my hands balled into fists. He nodded thoughtfully, a slight tilt to his head. “I want to know what Arys has that I don’t. I want to know what is so important that he is willing to destroy anything that dares to threaten you. Clearly he loves you, yet he chooses not to bond you.” Harley’s voice was low, contemplative. “I want to know what joins him to the most powerful werewolf alive.” I stared at him fearfully as if he were mad, which I was pretty sure he was. This was all about what Arys had that he did not. Was it just a vampire’s need to dominate or was there more to it? “All I can tell you is this, whatever Arys and I have, it’s meant to be. It’s bigger than we are and try as I might to find my way out, it is here to stay.” I saw no harm in divulging that much to Harley. I was hoping he would see it for the truth it was and leave me alone.
Trina M. Lee (The Wicked Kiss (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress, #2))
There are four winds and eight sub-winds, each with its own colour. The wind from the east is a deep purple, from the south a fine shining silver. The north wind is a hard black and the west is amber. People in the old days had the power of perceiving these colours and could spend a day sitting quietly on a hillside watching the beauty of the winds, their fall and rise and changing hues, the magic of neighbouring winds when they are inter-weaved like ribbons at a wedding. It was a better occupation than gazing at newspapers.
Flann O'Brien (The Third Policeman)
Monsignor O’Brien is a priest in the tradition of the priests of the Bible, the sons of Aaron. He has certain powers, magical powers, that he exercises in the celebration of the Mass, for example, where the bread and wine are magically changed to the body and blood of Christ. Dr. Skinner as a Protestant minister is in the tradition of the prophets. He has received a call to preach the word of God. I, a rabbi, am essentially a secular figure, having neither the mana of the priest nor the ‘call’ of the minister. If anything, I suppose we come closest to the judges of the Bible.
Harry Kemelman (Four Rabbi Small Mysteries: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home, and Monday the Rabbi Took Off (The Rabbi Small Mysteries))
Is it real hatred, Father?” said Elijah. “Anger is an emotion that can rise up in us for legitimate reasons. But it can become hatred if we refuse to forgive, if we desire vengeance. The sin is only in the will. What do we choose to do with our anger? We must convert these feelings. Pray for our enemies. Suffer in silence. When the time comes, you will speak the truth before your accusers, but you must do it without rancor. Offer your sufferings to the Lord. He will use them as a powerful weapon to confound the devices of the enemy. Believe in the ultimate victory, and then your pain will become joy.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
During that long summer I'd been over and over the various arguments, all the pros and cons, and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason. Intellect had come up against emotion. My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me. Not my parents, not my brother and sister, not even the folks down at the Gobbler Cafe. I was ashamed to be there at the Tip Top Lodge. I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing.
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
You must believe so strong and without a doubt that you can and will fulfill your dreams and gain your desires. You must in this believe so deeply that it creates an intense level of thinking, leading to your desires becoming only a burning obsession. You must be worthy to envision it and emotionalize it distinctly. The thought must consume you and become a part of you. You must believe deeply that you can overcome any obstacle that may arise and that it is all true, that you will pay any price. You will give and do whatever it takes to achieve your goal, and when you have a belief as strong as this, you invoke the superhuman powers of your mind to alter your reality. The world all relies on your feelings toward it!
Alan O'Brien (DECLUTTER YOUR MIND A Life Сhanging Guide for You to Eliminate Stress, Remove Negative Thinking, Increase Happiness, and Overcome Anxiety)
People are as blinded by emotion as you were a few minutes ago. There are very few people these days who have eyes-to-see and ears-to-hear truth. Social engineering through cover-up, censorship, and contrived news keeps the public fearful and emotionally arguing over ancient issues like abortion, cloning, gun control, and song lyrics. People hopelessly rely on government to tell them what to do, then blindly blame and fight each other in drug and race wars designed to separate them from the truth and each other.” “People are so easily led, it’s no wonder the criminals I knew in DC refer to them as sheeple. Byrd even said that 95% of the people want to be led by the ruling 5%.” “That is a widely known fact,” Mark said, “that gives folks like me hope. We only need the majority of that 5% to know and live truth in order to have leaders like Von Raab in power.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
Get started with the new, happy life you deserve by reading Be Happy! How to Stop Negative Thinking, Start Focusing on the Positive, and Create Your Happiness Mindset today by clicking here! The Stress-Free You: How to Live Stress-Free and Feel Great Every Day, Starting Today – Elizabeth O’Brien Stressors are everywhere. Each and every day, we run into situations that constantly test us, rob us of our patience, strip us of our sanity, impact our focus, and cause us to lose control of our days. Inside The Stres- Free You: How to Live Stress-Free and Feel Great Every Day, Starting Today is an easy-to-implement system which you can use today to knock out the stressors in your life one by one. You’ll also discover why a little stress is good for you and why your body becomes “overloaded” with chronic stress, how to assess your stress level and take definite action steps to tame the wild beast of stress, stress
Colleen Archer (The Power of the Positive - Achieve Fulfillment, Success, and Happiness Using Powerful, Positive Affirmations)
Harry Truman,” Mark was saying to the crowd,” had only one regret in his Presidency, according to his sister’s testimony, and that is signing the National Security Act into power. Truman felt he had been tricked into signing it, and foresaw it as the downfall of the country he loved and served so well. The 1947 National Security Act fully allows for the takeover of the American government by a secret government, or shadow government as it has been called. Here in the United States of America we have laws, Constitutional Laws, and the Bill of Rights enabling we-the-people from succumbing to such takeover; yet the National Security Act overrides them all. We don’t need more laws to stop the proliferation of these criminals in control of our country and their blatant child abuse, mind control, erosion of justice, drug dealings, murders, genocide, and dominance of the world’s technology and resources. We only need to repeal the 1947 National Security Act!
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
It's all about the relationships; forming them and sustaining them, growing and building a back and forth that will be useful to both parties. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the practice so often seen today: a person decides that a particular God or Goddess is suitable for a one off ritual or occasion, calls them up, expects them to grant boons and favours and help out in whatever situation is being worked for, and then is never heard from again. If a complete stranger walked into your house and asked for a favour, however politely - would you be inclined to help? Possibly you would, and sometimes the Powers do too, if there is sufficient offering or perhaps bribery involved. They are not above being bought off. However, most people would be far more inclined to help out when a friend asks a favour, and this follows through with the Gods, in my experience. A give and take relationship is the most effective and respectful way I have found of working with them.
Lora O'Brien (A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality)
When Bush and Clinton were talking in 1984, Bush told Clinton ‘when the American people become disillusioned with Republicans leading them into the New World Order, you, as a Democrat, will be put into place.’ I expect that Clinton will be our next President based on that conversation I heard.” “This is serious information!” Billy looked up from his work. “Its no wonder the Feds are worried about your revealing what you know.” “There are a lot of people who know what I know7,” I assured him. “And even more are waking up to reality fast. People with Intelligence operating on a Need-to-Know are gaining insight into a bigger picture with the truth that is emerging. They gain one more piece of the puzzle and the Big Picture suddenly comes into focus. When it does, their paradigms shift. Mark and I are also aware of numerous scientists waking up to the reality of a New World Order agenda who are furious that they’ve been mislead and used. These people are uniting with strength, and the New World Order elite will need to play their hold card and switch political parties. Watch and see. Clinton will appear to ‘defeat’ Bush according to plan, while Bush continues business as usual from behind the scenes of the New World Order.” “Who do you think will follow Clinton?” “A compliant, sleeping public mesmerized by his Oxford learned charisma.” Billy looked up from his work again to clarify his question. “I mean into the Presidency.” “Hillary?” I smiled half-heartedly. “Seriously, she is brighter than Bill, and is even more corrupt. Knowing her, she’d probably rather work behind the scenes, although she may be used as another appearance of ‘change’ since she’s a woman. That’s just speculation based on how these criminals operate. They want to keep their power all in the family. I did see Bush, Jr. being conditioned, and trained for the role of President at the Mount Shasta, California military programming compound in 19868. He’s not very bright, though, so I don’t know how they could possibly prop him up…
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
With the motto “do what you will,” Rabelais gave himself permission to do anything he damn well pleased with the language and the form of the novel; as a result, every author of an innovative novel mixing literary forms and genres in an extravagant style is indebted to Rabelais, directly or indirectly. Out of his codpiece came Aneau’s Alector, Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller, López de Úbeda’s Justina, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Béroalde de Verville’s Fantastic Tales, Sorel’s Francion, Burton’s Anatomy, Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels, Fielding’s Tom Jones, Amory’s John Buncle, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, the novels of Diderot and maybe Voltaire (a late convert), Smollett’s Adventures of an Atom, Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr, Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Southey’s Doctor, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony and Bouvard and Pecuchet, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Frederick Rolfe’s ornate novels, Bely’s Petersburg, Joyce’s Ulysses, Witkiewicz’s Polish jokes, Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces, Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren, Patchen’s tender novels, Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones, Nabokov’s later works, Schmidt’s fiction, the novels of Durrell, Burgess (especially A Clockwork Orange and Earthly Powers), Gaddis and Pynchon, Barth, Coover, Sorrentino, Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, Brossard’s later works, the masterpieces of Latin American magic realism (Paradiso, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Three Trapped Tigers, I the Supreme, Avalovara, Terra Nostra, Palinuro of Mexico), the fabulous creations of those gay Cubans Severo Sarduy and Reinaldo Arenas, Markson’s Springer’s Progress, Mano’s Take Five, Ríos’s Larva and otros libros, the novels of Paul West, Tom Robbins, Stanley Elkin, Alexander Theroux, W. M. Spackman, Alasdair Gray, Gaétan Soucy, and Rikki Ducornet (“Lady Rabelais,” as one critic called her), Mark Leyner’s hyperbolic novels, the writings of Magiser Gass, Greer Gilman’s folkloric fictions and Roger Boylan’s Celtic comedies, Vollmann’s voluminous volumes, Wallace’s brainy fictions, Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language, Danielewski’s novels, Jackson’s Half Life, Field’s Ululu, De La Pava’s Naked Singularity, and James McCourt’s ongoing Mawrdew Czgowchwz saga. (p. 331)
Steven Moore (The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600)
It was discussed and decided that fear would be perpetuated globally in order that focus would stay on the negative rather than allow for soul expression to positively emerge. As people became more fearful and compliant, capacity for free thought and soul expression would diminish. There is a distinct inability to exert soul expression under mind control, and evolution of the human spirit would diminish along with freedom of thought when bombarded with constant negative terrors. Whether Bush and Cheney deliberately planned to raise a collective fear over collective conscious love is doubtful. They did not think, speak, or act in those terms. Instead, they knew that information control gave them power over people, and they were hell-bent to perpetuate it at all costs. Cheney, Bush, and other global elite ushering in the New World Order totally believed in the plan mapped out by artificial intelligence. They were allowing technology to dictate global control. “Life is like a video game,” Bush once told me at the rural multi-million dollar Lampe, Missouri CIA mind control training camp complex designed for Black Ops Special Forces where torture and virtual reality technologies were used. “Since I have access to the technological source of the plans, I dictate the rules of the game.” The rules of the game demanded instantaneous response with no time to consciously think and critically analyze. Constant conscious disruption of thought through television’s burst of light flashes, harmonics, and subconscious subliminals diminished continuity of conscious thought anyway, creating a deficit of attention that could easily be refocused into video game format. DARPA’s artificial intelligence was reliant on secrecy, and a terrifying cover for reality was chosen to divert people from the simple truth. Since people perceive aliens as being physical like them, it was decided that the technological reality could be disguised according to preconceptions. Through generations of genetic encoding dating back to the beginning of man, serpents incite an innate autogenic response system in humans to “freeze” in terror. George Bush was excited at the prospects of diverting people from truth by fear through perpetuating lizard-like serpent alien misconceptions. “People fear what they don’t know anyway. By compounding that fear with autogenic fear response, they won’t want to look into Pandora’s Box.” Through deliberate generation of fear; suppression of facts under the 1947 National Security Act; Bush’s stint as CIA director during Ford’s Administration; the Warren Commission’s whitewash of the Kennedy Assassination; secrecy artificially ensured by mind control particularly concerning DARPA, HAARP, Roswell, Montauk, etc; and with people’s fluidity of conscious thought rapidly diminishing; the secret government embraced the proverbial ‘absolute power that corrupts absolutely.’ According to New World Order plans being discussed at the Grove, plans for reducing the earth’s population was a high priority. Mass genocide of so-called “undesirables” through the proliferation of AIDS4 was high on Bush’s agenda. “We’ll annihilate the niggers at their source, beginning in South and East Africa and Haiti5.” Having heard Bush say those words is by far one of the most torturous things I ever endured. Equally as torturous to my being were the discussions on genetic engineering, human cloning, and depletion of earth’s natural resources for profit. Cheney remarked that no one would be able to think to stop technology’s plan. “I’ll destroy the planet first,” Bush had vowed.
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
He knew in advance what O’Brien would say: that the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That
George Orwell (1984)
The serpent hated the light and knew he had no power to hurt it, except through its creatures.
Michael D. O'Brien (Sophia House: A Novel)
Words have power”, he said intensely. “They have a life of their own. They shift the balance of the world.
Michael D. O'Brien (Sophia House: A Novel)
He had met so many like that in the camps, in universities, in seats of power, and even in the place where he now lived. All of them felt compelled to seek solutions, and in doing so they tried to force their will upon others. The worst would try to force it upon mankind. They would make space for humanity by destroying a portion of humanity. Like their forerunners, they would in the end make the world more bereft of space and time. They looked at the sky, but it was meaningless to them, empty and flat. They killed hope because they had no true hope.
Michael D. O'Brien (Sophia House: A Novel)
came at the impossible moment, and the world, which was powerful and sick unto death, burning and dying in its sins, was born again.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
For a time, the enemy is masked and appears to the world as light, though he is darkness. When he reveals himself, his malice will be unleashed as never before. Take heart, beloveds, that great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel, our Savior Jesus. Like the prophets before you, like the apostles and saints, you will have fear, yet you will overcome this fear by his presence, by the power of the Blood of the Lamb. When you see the things that are about to happen, do not let yourself fall into despair. Look up! Look up, for your redemption is near at hand.
Michael D. O'Brien (Elijah in Jerusalem)
He knew that God very often did his deepest work in the soul without any sensible manifestations. He was always at work—always—and often most powerfully in those times when his children felt abandoned, alone with impossible responsibilities or afflictions. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
Michael D. O'Brien (Elijah in Jerusalem)
Is this, then, the source of the primal wound—the sense of fatherlessness? The wound makes one vulnerable to a lie: you have no father, there is no fatherhood, the universe is abandoned. The wound begets loneliness. Loneliness seeks relief in the theater of the imagination. The imagination ferments a romance. Then romance, impelled by the generative powers of the body, gradually degenerates into erotic fantasy.
Michael D. O'Brien (Sophia House: A Novel)
That’s just the thing. I’m so fucking sick of hearing everyone go on about how much power I’ve got when I have no idea what the hell to do with most of it. I feel like I’m running on all cylinders and going nowhere.
Trina M. Lee (Only Vampires Cry Blood (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress, #3))
Arys visibly shook with the effort it took him to restrain his own reaction to the rage in our shared power. “Calm the fuck down, Alexa. We can deal with this rationally.
Trina M. Lee (Only Vampires Cry Blood (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress, #3))
Was there indeed something essential missing in the composition of their characters, a fracture in the psyche left by violent revolution? One might live comfortably within such a chasm if there were compensations—power, for example, or wealth, space, and frontiers. But the globe had shrunk drastically since the war. Rule, Brittania and the brash pragmatism of Pax Americana had both been eclipsed. Was that it? But it was not only the Americans and the British who had suffered from the revolutions of the past three hundred years. What of the French themselves? And the Germans? What of the great blow dealt to the consciousness of the West by the Reformation? No, take it further back to the split between the Church of the East and the Church of the West. Perhaps even further.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
Jesus, true Lord of the world, I do not ask for human strength. But I ask for the grace to speak to him only those words that You desire to be spoken. Give me a right heart. Gird me with truth. Armor me with faith. Protect my soul from the principalities and powers that rule this man, even those that are unknown to him. Grant me the sword of the Spirit, that the words of my mouth might move the thoughts of his heart, that this enemy of Yours might no longer walk with the foe but be restored unto righteousness. For the glory of the Lamb!
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
He mused on the power of fear, saw its insidious and corrosive qualities, saw as well how extensive had been its control over him. He began to pray. The prayer took the form of stillness, of attention before the presence that was everywhere, that had created it all and loved it all. He did not feel the slightest desire to assess this new awareness, to articulate and categorize it, to store it in the architecture of his mind. Nor was there any need to manufacture words to say to God. By the same token, he did not think that God should deliver a message to him. If God was silent, he had good reason to be. If God did not speak, maybe it was because he, Alex, was not yet ready to hear, and premature speech would have made him more incapable of hearing.
Michael D. O'Brien (The Father's Tale)
If time was a dimension wholly within the boundaries of material creation, and if God was beyond time, then he could, if he so wished, accept the prayer of a man who lived at the end of the second millennium and apply it to the needs of those who had gone before. Were not the death and Resurrection of Christ still active and effective, not simply as a linear chain of cause and effect, but as a living thing whose generative power is undiminished? The Mass itself was a mysterious suspension of time, a reaching through impossible barriers into the eternal Present, a moment of union with the Sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary. History, therefore, was a limited dimension, a compression of an unspeakably vast and beautiful dance into a solid icon, an incarnate Logos, a terrarium of fertile gardens in the cup of a Hand. The metaphors mixed and agitated in his mind, each reflecting a facet of the light of understanding, none of them complete, none of them a summation of the entire problem.
Michael D. O'Brien (Eclipse of the Sun: A Novel (Children of the Last Days))
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin
Eamonn O'Brien (How to Make Powerful Speeches: A Step-by-Step Guide to Inspiring and Memorable Speeches)
Power to Laura Boudreau-McPherson-O'Brien: Laura's Story is about a woman finding her place in the world, and her voice, while struggling against poverty, societal limitations, and at times, herself. Anyone who has had to fight for what she believes in or come up against odds be they external or internal, will relate to this book. Women will feel strength and will realize that though this novel is a work of fiction, it is authentic in its aim to give a voice to many women's untold stories. Happy International Women's Day everyone!
Julie Larade (Laura's Story)
He had seen men nearly killed in fights and logging accidents, but his mother’s was the first corpse he had seen, and apart from its stillness what struck him was how fragile, insubstantial, and temporary her body seemed. Ellenora’s struggles and losses, her hard work and suffering, had developed from meagre flesh and sinew, a collection of fragile bones. It seemed extraordinary that a body could house the energy a mind produced, the secret powers to love and hate, forget and remember.
Peter Behrens (The O'Briens)
No sense being a reluctant queen, my love. If you don’t step into that place of power, someone else will.
Trina M. Lee (Junkyard Queen (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #12))
power of thought does exist, whether you are willing to accept it or not.
Alan O'Brien (DECLUTTER YOUR MIND A Life Сhanging Guide for You to Eliminate Stress, Remove Negative Thinking, Increase Happiness, and Overcome Anxiety)
One thing that went missing from the reporting of Donald’s percentages was some quick math. Donald was in the midst of his I-am-worth-$5-billion-to-$6-billion phase, but by valuing his casino stake at 1 or 2 percent of his net worth he gave himself a personal treasure chest worth no more than $1.7 billion. Still, such is the hypnotic power of the Trumpster that his verbal billions convince people to stop doing multiplication and division.
Timothy L. O'Brien (TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald)
Take Brooksley Born, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), who waged an unsuccessful campaign to regulate the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market. Soon after the Clinton administration asked her to take the reins of the CFTC, a regulatory backwater, she became aware of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market, a rapidly expanding and opaque market, which she attempted to regulate. According to a PBS Frontline special: "Her attempts to regulate derivatives ran into fierce resistance from then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who prevailed upon Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation." Put more directly by New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien, "they ... shut her up and shut her down." Mind you, Born was no dummy. She was the first female president of the Stanford Law Review, the first woman to finish at the top of the class, and an expert in commodities and futures. But because a trio of people who were literally en-titled decided they knew what was best for the market, they dismissed her call for regulation, a dismissal that triggered the financial collapse of 2008. To be fair to Greenspan et al., their resistance was not surprising. According to psychologists Hillel Einhorn and Robin Hogarth, "we [as human beings] are prone to search only for confirming evidence, and ignore disconfirming evidence." In the case of Born, it was the '90s, the markets were doing well, and the country was prospering; it's easy to see why the powerful troika rejected her disconfirming views. Throw in the fact that the disconcerting evidence was coming from a "disconfirming" person (i.e., a woman), and they were even more likely to disregard the data. In the aftermath, Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the SEC, said, "If she just would have gotten to know us... maybe it would have gone a different way."12 Born quotes Michael Greenberg, the director of the CFTC under her, as saying, "They say you weren't a team player, but I never saw them issue you a uniform." We like ideas and people that fit into our world-view, but there is tremendous value in finding room for those that don't. According to Paul Carlile and Clayton Christensen, "It is only when an anomaly is identified—an outcome for which a theory can't account that an opportunity to improve theory occurs."13 One of the ways you'll know you are coming up against an anomaly is if you find yourself annoyed, defensive, even dismissive, of a person, or his idea.
Whitney Johnson (Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work)
But the words that lingered longest in the public imagination were those from Romeo and Juliet, “When I think of President Kennedy,” Bobby said, “I think of what Shakespeare said … “‘When he shall die Take him and cut him out in little stars And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.’” The hall burst again into applause. In a hotel room off the boardwalk, O’Brien, O’Donnell, Salinger, and Dave Powers watched the proceedings on television and wept. Elsewhere, Johnson men chafed at Bobby’s reference to the “garish sun.” An obvious, petty jab, they said. It was just like Bobby. After the twenty-minute film, as the lights in the hall were raised, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson entered the presidential box in which Bobby and Ethel had watched the tribute. Delegates began to cheer; the organ began a rousing reprise of “Hello, Lyndon!” The president shook Bobby’s hand. As Bobby and Ethel stepped to the back of the box, Johnson generously beckoned them forward. They sat at Lady Bird’s side while the president, moments later, gave his acceptance speech. “Let us now turn to our task!” Johnson charged the convention hall crowd in a fervent thirty-five-minute speech. “Let us be on our way!
Jeff Shesol (Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade)
They are association, location, and imagination.
Dominic O'Brien (Quantum Memory Power: Learn to Improve Your Memory With the World Memory Champion!)
A good point, my son. But it underlines the fact that those who do not live in the power of the Holy Spirit are most vulnerable. Even believers can reduce the Faith to a philosophical system. They can retain the exterior forms of religion and lose its heart.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
Surely you must know that the most powerful graces cannot be felt in the senses or the affections.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
Because of all the traffic in lusts and addictions that I have fostered and fed upon, none, I tell you, none has the power over the personality that information has. Scandal, slander, details, facts, and especially gossip.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
Then he came to a work by an anonymous artist of the late nineteenth century—it was a Last Judgment. He could not understand why he had not heard of the painting before, for it was clearly a masterpiece. The image was not so complex or populated with grotesque characters as Bosch’s famous painting of the same title. No, its power was magnified through simplicity. The artist had portrayed the second coming of Christ as the return of the Lord to a world devoured by evil. In the upper half a luminous divine order descended into a field of demonic energy and universal abomination. People staggered about the desolate landscape, unable to look up to the light. They could no longer see; they could no longer believe. They thought that ruin was the sum total of reality. He could see it in their faces, their despair, their fear, their terrible loneliness. The loneliness of the apocalypse. And in those faces he saw his own face. Pawel burst into tears and wept openly in front of the painting. It seemed to him that the artist had captured his experience perfectly. How had he done that? Had he, too, felt what Pawel had felt, had he once been where Pawel now was?
Michael D. O'Brien (Sophia House: A Novel)
That’s the trouble, isn’t it? He’s a good man, but he’s got no courage. Hardly anybody has courage anymore. That’s what’s so disheartening. No one wants to stop these guys who are going for power. No one can bear to be criticized. They’re all paralyzed.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
He wants you to know that He permits these adversities to increase your merit. All merit lies in the will. No other sacrifice compares with the immolation of your heart. He rewards not for success, but for patience and hardship undergone for His sake. No success matters as much as perfect obedience, for it is this which prepares the way for the action of divine grace in your soul. It is through your weakness that He will work most powerfully to bring mercy to mankind. He knows your fear, and He wants you to come to Him and lay your head against His heart. He asks you to talk with Him as friend to friend. He says that there is much opposition and deception coming. You must expect this and not be dismayed by it. He will console you at certain times, but the greater work is to do His will in the darkness of faith. Faith is of utmost importance.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
The ones who didn’t lose faith found a meaning beneath the horror.” “What was the meaning?” “They understood that the powers of evil must have felt threatened to unleash such malice against people of faith.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
He recognized another factor that should not be underestimated: The serpent mesmerizes. Whenever it cannot seduce, it attempts to overwhelm. It is like a cobra projecting an image of its power in order to paralyze its victim with fear, disabling its defenses without a struggle, before devouring it. In the victim’s eyes the threat grows so large that it becomes everything and appears to be irresistible. So too Satan desires that we think him omnipotent and omniscient.
Michael D. O'Brien (Elijah in Jerusalem)
He knew in advance what O’Brien would say: that the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.
George Orwell (1984)
Everything is political,” O’Brien says. “Especially these days.
Don Winslow (The Border (Power of the Dog, #3))
I am tired of fighting off the voice of reason inside my head; that voice that only gets louder with every abuse of power I have suffered at the hands of those who I have sworn to serve and protect.
Addy O'Brien (Good Witch Gone Bad (The Shadowlands Duet, #1))
My strength is mine to protect, and defiling my body doesn’t give them the power to break my spirit.
Addy O'Brien (Good Witch Gone Bad (The Shadowlands Duet, #1))
Ultimately, evil is a lie”, his grandmother was saying now. “It’s bankrupt and you have to call its bluff. Oh, it has power all right, a terrible, terrible power to destroy, but it can never create. Only love creates. Truth and love are stronger . . . far stronger. But it takes a lot more effort to create than to destroy.
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
They will be the losers. They have power and knowledge, but they are unable to love anything. Whether or not the world is really as your father imagines it to be, or as I’m convinced it is, we are agreed on one thing: such men will be the servants of destruction. Nothing good will ever come from them, no matter how high their motives may seem. If they have lost respect for even one small human life, or one small freedom, they will not long retain it for this humanity they profess to love so well.
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
Was there an obscure design in the madness, a determination to degrade the human being, not just to enslave or to kill, but to reach that core of dignity which is the refutation of absolute power.
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
He has power only where his lie is believed. You need not fear that man’s curses.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
Rose looked him in the eye. “You would have made me wait and suffer, merely to show that you are superior and powerful”, she said without anger. “That is dangerous for your soul. You must examine your conscience, or else you may find yourself in a place of torment.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
In his famous novel 1984, O’Brien states frankly, “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. . . . The object of power is power.
Os Guinness (Zero Hour America: History's Ultimatum over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give)
For it seemed they instinctively knew that names had power to bind and loose, to tame and soothe, that a name went straight to the heart. They were heart people, that was clear enough.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
They had all the time in the world, and knew the names of hundreds of people. From what wells of grace did they draw their love, Rose wondered. They did not appear to be people of religious faith, and thus she learned that love itself was a power of the soul, replenished from hidden springs even as it was poured out.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
Everything, simply everything, was above him in the hierarchy of power.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
Men scattered before it or fought it or picked up the tools of malice as if to convince themselves that wielding death gave them power over it.
Michael D. O'Brien (A Cry of Stone: A Novel)
Stephen looked up from his old Irish poetry book and said, “There’s another way.” “What way?” said the boy and the woman in unison. “Treat them with mercy, but never let them have any power over your heart.
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire consumed by either fire or fire. It
Michael D. O'Brien (Strangers and Sojourners)
saw darkness visible. I saw its true face.” “Why then, after all you had seen, did you set your feet on this path, if you believe we are the powers of darkness?” “Because I thought that darkness had only one or two faces. It took me a long time to learn that it has many, and that its worst face masquerades as light.
Michael D. O'Brien (Father Elijah: An Apocalypse)
one already dead. From this state he was awakened—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness—of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
Terry O'Brien (50 Greatest Short Stories)
Jesus lived in a world where it is impossible to be fully human without undergoing suffering. Ultimately, this led to his cross. Yet by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus rose from the dead and is present to us by the power of the same Holy Spirit. His life points us to the humanity that lies hidden in us all. Yet this is where many are most afraid. Many of us have experienced rejection – to reject someone is to totally wound the heart of the person. In such ‘darkness’ it is hard to believe that one is loved.
John O'Brien (Therese and the Little Way of Love and Healing)
Let’s define what you mean by a taste.” Clarification was an absolute must with demons. Too easy, they twisted things to their favor. Nova regarded me with a hungry gaze. Running his tongue lasciviously over his bottom lip, he seemed to be playing out several fantasies in his head. Finally he said, “Your choice. A taste of your intoxicating power. Fuck, I can practically smell it. Or a taste of that magic between your legs. Either way, I’m sure you’ll taste about as close to heaven as I’ll ever get.
Trina M. Lee (Coda (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #13))
Tan as a catcher’s mitt and as whippet-thin as Gollum, Cohn was a power broker who, until his death in 1986, prowled New York with a slippery, lethal pragmatism worthy of any Tolkien creation.
Timothy L. O'Brien (TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald)
I know that I’ve seen and experienced enough in this life to think that, just maybe, some of the mundane or flat out shitty stuff we experience in this strange and seemingly meaningless act called life is predetermined by a mysterious, but maybe not higher, power.
Jeff O'Brien (Journey to the Edge of the Flat Earth)
Hate, at its heart, is about the exercise of power. In my experience, public hate usually involves the exercise of one, unhealthy, type of power in an effort to disguise or deny the absence of another, altogether healthier, type.
James O'Brien (How Not To Be Wrong: The Art of Changing Your Mind)
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’,
George Orwell (1984)