Passage Aggressive Quotes

They say the passage of time will heal all wounds, but the greater the loss, the deeper the cut and the more difficult the process to become whole again. The pain may fade, but scars serve as a reminder of our suffering and make the bearer all the more resolved never to be wounded again. So as time moves along we get lost in distractions, act out in frustration, react with aggression, give in to anger, and all the while we plot and plan as we wait to grow stronger, and before we know it, the time passes. We are healed. Ready to begin anew.

The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past enters its future.

In [the] early days, Muslims did not see Islam as a new, exclusive religion but as a continuation of the primordial faith of the ‘People of the Book’, the Jews and Christians. In one remarkable passage, God insists that Muslims must accept indiscriminately the revelations of every single one of God’s messengers: Abraham, Isaac, Ishamel, Jacob, Moses, Jesus and all the other prophets. The Qur’an is simply a ‘confirmation’ of the previous scriptures. Nobody must be forced to accept Islam, because each of the revealed traditions had its own din; it was not God’s will that all human beings should belong to the same faith community. God was not the exclusive property of any one tradition; the divine light could not be confined to a single lamp, belonged neither to the East or to the West, but enlightened all human beings. Muslims must speak courteously to the People of the Book, debate with them only in ‘the most kindly manner’, remember that they worshipped the same God, and not engage in pointless, aggressive disputes.

I want gifts and Christmas music. I don’t care how many Draziri are out there. They won’t take Christmas from me.” “Yes, but we don’t have a suitable male,” Orro said. “And only one dog.” I looked at him. “What is this Christmas?” Wing asked. Orro turned from the stove. “It’s the rite of passage during which the young males of the human species learn to display aggression and use weapons.” Sean stopped what he was doing and looked at Orro. “The young men go out in small packs,” Orro continued. “They brave the cold and come into conflict with other packs and they have to prove their dominance through physical combat. Their fathers teach them lessons in the proper use of swear words, and the young men have to undergo tests of endurance, like holding soap in their mouths and licking cold metal objects.” Sean made a strangled noise. “At the end of their trials, they go to see a wise elder in a red suit to prove their worth. If they are judged worthy, the family erects a ceremonial tree and presents them with gifts of weapons.” Sean was clearly struggling, because his head was shaking. “Also,” Orro added, “a sacrificial poultry is prepared and then given to the wild animals, probably to appease the nature spirits.” Sean roared with laughter.

In a fight between a shifter and a witch, the shifter would often win—but only if they could keep the witch from speaking, usually by severing the throat or tearing out the tongue. If the witch was powerful enough, and quick enough, physical size didn't matter. Catherine had heard of the horrible ways the witches could kill their victims. Cooking them alive from the inside out, restricting oxygen flow through the nasal and oral passages by creating a vacuum, drowning them with vapor pulled from the very air. It made fights between shifters look almost humane by comparison.

(Note: The following was written in 2003, before the full implication of US military commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq could be fully appreciated. The passage also predates US drone attacks against targets in Pakistan and Yemen - to say nothing of Israeli affairs since 2003. It is unknown if and how the author's comments would change if he were writing the same today.) The value of Israel to the United States as a strategic asset has been much disputed. There have been some in the United States who view Israel as a major strategic ally in the region and the one sure bastion against both external and regional enemies. Others have argued that Israel, far from being a strategic asset, has been a strategic liability, by embittering U.S. relations with the Arab world and causing the failure of U.S. policies in the region. But if one compares the record of American policy in the Middle East with that of other regions, one is struck not by its failure but by its success. There is, after all, no Vietnam in the Middle East, no Cuba or Nicaragua or El Salvador, not even an Angola. On the contrary, throughout the successive crises that have shaken the region, there has always been an imposing political, economic, and cultural American presence, usually in several countries - and this, until the Gulf War of 1991, without the need for any significant military intervention. And even then, their presence was needed to rescue the victims of an inter-Arab aggression, unrelated to either Israelis or Palestinians. (99)

While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. With those extra sixty-five words, my personal fight for justice had become everyone’s fight. The revised bill was officially introduced on May 19, 2011, less than a month after we posted the Olga Stepanova YouTube video. Following its introduction, a small army of Russian activists descended on Capitol Hill, pushing for the bill’s passage. They pressed every senator who would talk to them to sign on. There was Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grand master and human rights activist; there was Alexei Navalny, the most popular Russian opposition leader; and there was Evgenia Chirikova, a well-known Russian environmental activist. I didn’t have to recruit any of these people. They just showed up by themselves. This uncoordinated initiative worked beautifully. The number of Senate cosponsors grew quickly, with three or four new senators signing on every month. It was an easy sell. There wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby in Washington to oppose it. No senator, whether the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican, would lose a single vote for banning Russian torturers and murderers from coming to America. The Magnitsky Act was gathering so much momentum that it appeared it might be unstoppable. From the day that Kyle Scott at the State Department stonewalled me, I knew that the administration was dead set against this, but now they were in a tough spot. If they openly opposed the law, it would look as if they were siding with the Russians. However, if they publicly supported it, it would threaten Obama’s “reset” with Russia. They needed to come up with some other solution. On July 20, 2011, the State Department showed its cards. They sent a memo to the Senate entitled “Administration Comments on S.1039 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law.” Though not meant to be made public, within a day it was leaked.

Power of Prayer     “The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:9).     I realize the power of prayer and the importance of praying for others. Yet sometimes I have these pesky doubts sprouting up in the garden of my mind, like weeds. Unless I pull out the root of the problem, they will continue to grow and return.   Recently, I prayed for my daughter’s healing. I also used common sense, having her sleep and take it easy all day. But then this morning her cough continued. It got progressively worse on our walk to the bus stop. Later in the day, she even had to break from an aggressive game of hide-n-seek to give her lungs a rest.   I found myself wondering; I know God is a miracle-working God, so why is she not healed? I know that God heals the sick, so why is she still coughing? I know that God says, ask and you shall receive (Luke 11) so why has my prayer not been heard? I want a miracle now. I know it’s within God’s power. Her lungs could become instantly made perfect in a simple command.   So knowing He can do this, why doesn’t He?   I reason that either: a) God didn’t hear my prayer, b) He heard my prayer and ignored it, c) He heard my prayer and answered, Yes later, or d) He heard my prayer and answered, No.   a)   He didn’t hear my prayer   I know God hears my prayers, based on scripture and my own experiences. There are lots of passages in the Bible to back up the fact that God does hear us. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14).   My own experiences even include God hearing my inner, unspoken prayers. I have prayed for safety, while driving in dangerous storms, and He answered my prayer. I have prayed for help and He answered immediately. Actually, I could fill this page and the next with prayers answered, both verbally expressed and those silently directed to God, as proof that He does hear my prayers.   b)   He heard my prayer and ignored it   Given that God hears my prayer, He can either respond, Yes or No. Considering that nothing is impossible for God (Luke 18 ) and He is a just and loving God, there is no reason for Him to ignore me. He calls to me everyday. Since He wants to communicate with me, it would be against His very nature to ignore me. He is merciful and kind, forgiving and gentle. If anything, He wants a relationship with me and so He would not ignore me. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12).   c) He heard my prayer and answered, Yes later   I know that God hears my prayers. I know by His very nature He would not ignore my prayers. (2 Chronicles 7 NIV) So He may be saying, Yes later. God knows the past, the present and the future. He lives in eternity. He knows what is best for me and when. His timing is perfect and I must learn to accept this. I must lift my prayer to Him and then settle back knowing that He is in full control.   It’s just a matter of patience. “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised” (Hebrews 6:12). Like the time I had to wait for my house to sell. I

Power of Prayer     “The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:9).     I realize the power of prayer and the importance of praying for others. Yet sometimes I have these pesky doubts sprouting up in the garden of my mind, like weeds. Unless I pull out the root of the problem, they will continue to grow and return.   Recently, I prayed for my daughter’s healing. I also used common sense, having her sleep and take it easy all day. But then this morning her cough continued. It got progressively worse on our walk to the bus stop. Later in the day, she even had to break from an aggressive game of hide-n-seek to give her lungs a rest.   I found myself wondering; I know God is a miracle-working God, so why is she not healed? I know that God heals the sick, so why is she still coughing? I know that God says, ask and you shall receive (Luke 11) so why has my prayer not been heard? I want a miracle now. I know it’s within God’s power. Her lungs could become instantly made perfect in a simple command.   So knowing He can do this, why doesn’t He?   I reason that either: a) God didn’t hear my prayer, b) He heard my prayer and ignored it, c) He heard my prayer and answered, Yes later, or d) He heard my prayer and answered, No.   a)   He didn’t hear my prayer   I know God hears my prayers, based on scripture and my own experiences. There are lots of passages in the Bible to back up the fact that God does hear us. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14).   My own experiences even include God hearing my inner, unspoken prayers. I have prayed for safety, while driving in dangerous storms, and He answered my prayer. I have prayed for help and He answered immediately. Actually, I could fill this page and the next with prayers answered, both verbally expressed and those silently directed to God, as proof that He does hear my prayers.   b)   He heard my prayer and ignored it   Given that God hears my prayer, He can either respond, Yes or No. Considering that nothing is impossible for God (Luke 18 ) and He is a just and loving God, there is no reason for Him to ignore me. He calls to me everyday. Since He wants to communicate with me, it would be against His very nature to ignore me. He is

But when the genetic manipulations began to take effect, the alterations had disastrous consequences. As it turns out, the attempt had resulted not in corrected genes, but in damaged ones,” David says. “Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation. If you think about it, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.” I tick off each quality in my mind as he says it—fear, low intelligence, dishonesty, aggression, selfishness. He is talking about the factions. And he’s right to say that every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling. “Humanity has never been perfect, but the genetic alterations made it worse than it had ever been before. This manifested itself in what we call the Purity War. A civil war, waged by those with damaged genes, against the government and everyone with pure genes. The Purity War caused a level of destruction formerly unheard of on American soil, eliminating almost half of the country’s population.” “The visual is up,” says one of the people at a desk in the control room. A map appears on the screen above David’s head. It is an unfamiliar shape, so I’m not sure what it’s supposed to represent, but it is covered with patches of pink, red, and dark-crimson lights. “This is our country before the Purity War,” David says. “And this is after—” The lights start to recede, the patches shrinking like puddles of water drying in the sun. Then I realize that the red lights were people—people, disappearing, their lights going out. I stare at the screen, unable to wrap my mind around such a substantial loss. David continues, “When the war was finally over, the people demanded a permanent solution to the genetic problem. And that is why the Bureau of Genetic Welfare was formed. Armed with all the scientific knowledge at our government’s disposal, our predecessors designed experiments to restore humanity to its genetically pure state. “They called for genetically damaged individuals to come forward so that the Bureau could alter their genes. The Bureau then placed them in secure environments to settle in for the long haul, equipped with basic versions of the serums to help them control their society. They would wait for the passage of time—for the generations to pass, for each one to produce more genetically healed humans. Or, as you currently know them . . . the Divergent.

The point of this passage—part of what W. B. Yeats called “the finest description of sexual intercourse ever written”—is not to urge a more decorous, tepid form of lovemaking. It is to take note of the element of unsated appetite that haunts even the fulfillment of desire. The insatiability of sexual appetite is, in Lucretius’ view, one of Venus’ cunning strategies; it helps to account for the fact that, after brief interludes, the same acts of love are performed again and again. And he understood too that these repeated acts are deeply pleasurable. But he remained troubled by the ruse, by the emotional suffering that comes in its wake, by the arousal of aggressive impulses, and, above all, by the sense that even the moment of ecstasy leaves something to be desired. In 1685, the great poet John Dryden brilliantly captured Lucretius’ remarkable vision:

All religions are not equal in their capacity to mete out violence and genocidal hate. To say otherwise is to be hopelessly misguided or profoundly duplicitous. Two other popular deflections are 'But what about the crusades?' and 'But the Bible also has violent passages.' The crusades were a response to hundreds of years of Islamic aggression, and they took place within a very restricted time and place, nearly a millennium ago. As for the Bible, you can count on one hand the number of individuals who have used violent passages from Deuteronomy to justify act of terrorism in the twenty-first century. On the other hand, innumerable Jihadis around the world use Islamic doctrines to justify their violent actions. Scale matters. Another classic ploy used by apologists is the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. This argues that entire Islamic countries, Islamic governments, and leading Islamic scholars are "fake" representations of the true faith. If you point to sharia law in Saudi Arabia, the retort is that this does not represent True Islam. Similarly, Iran's mullahs apparently do not represent True Islam. Osama Bin Laden was a "fake" Muslim. Other "fake" Muslims include Amin al-Husseini (the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who was on friendly terms with Adolf Hitler), Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (arguably the leading Sunni theologian today), and Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the late leader of ISIS).

The maps of the region that the Chinese now print show almost the whole of the South China Sea as theirs. This is a statement of intent, backed by aggressive naval patrols and official statements. Beijing intends to change its neighbours’ ways of thinking and to change America’s way of thinking and behaving – pushing and pushing an agenda until its competitors back off. At stake here is the concept of international waters and free passage in peacetime; it is not something which will easily be given up by the other powers.

I drop down into a black lacquered chair and try not to burn to ashes under my twin cousins' withering stares. Things I wish I could say to them. Don't you think this is a little cliché, being mean to the outsider? Relational aggression is a terrible plague among young women. When did torturing others become a rite of passage?

Don’t you think this is a little cliché, being mean to the outsider? Relational aggression is a terrible plague among young women. When did torturing others become a rite of passage?

Sexuality is not just traversed by antagonisms, it is in itself the name of an antagonism, of a non-relationship. There is a basic discontent/unease in sexuality, and the passage from traditional patriarchal order to today’s multiple gender identities is ultimately just a passage from one to another mode of obfuscating this discontent. Traditional patriarchy elevates sexual difference into a stable natural order and attempts to obliterate its antagonistic nature by dismissing tensions as deviations from the natural order: in itself. Sexual difference is the creative tension between the two poles, masculine and feminine, which supplement each other and form a harmonious Whole; when one of the poles oversteps the boundaries of its proper role (say, when a woman behaves like an aggressive man), catastrophe occurs. Gender theory locates antagonism and violence in sexual difference as such and endeavors to create a space of identities outside this difference. What multiple gender identities exclude is not sexual difference as a stable hierarchical order but the antagonism, unease, impossibility, that define this difference. Traditional heterosexual binary order admits the potential aggressiveness and tension that pertains to sexual difference, and it tries to contain it through the ideological notion of a harmonious relationship between the two sexes. Sexual antagonism is here repressed, but it remains as a potential threat. In the space of multiple gender identities, what is repressed returns with a vengeance, all sexual perversions, all violations of heterosexual normativity, are not only permitted but even solicited. However, the paradox is that repression gets much stronger in this return of the repressed: what is much more repressed than before (in traditional heterosexuality) is the immanent antagonism of sexuality.

Now, I have used the word “struggle” and “fight” in the previous passages. But it’s a mistake to think that the moral struggle against internal weakness is a struggle the way a war is a struggle or the way a boxing match is a struggle—filled with clash of arms and violence and aggression. Moral realists sometimes do hard things, like standing firm against evil and imposing intense self-discipline on their desires. But character is built not only through austerity and hardship. It is also built sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits. When you love a person deeply, you want to serve them and

The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil...It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility...

What is this Christmas?” Wing asked. Orro turned from the stove. “It’s the rite of passage during which the young males of the human species learn to display aggression and use weapons.” Sean