“
At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: “When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.” And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.
”
”
Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks)
“
So he held toward them an attitude of iron reserve; he lived with them, but behind a wall, a curtain. And toward himself he was even more exacting.
”
”
Richard Wright (Native Son)
“
Oil may run out, liquidity may dry up, but as long as ink flows freely, the next chapter of Life will continue to be written.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Impromptu Scribe)
“
ABUSIVE MEN COME in every personality type, arise from good childhoods and bad ones, are macho men or gentle, “liberated” men. No psychological test can distinguish an abusive man from a respectful one. Abusiveness is not a product of a man’s emotional injuries or of deficits in his skills. In reality, abuse springs from a man’s early cultural training, his key male role models, and his peer influences. In other words, abuse is a problem of values, not of psychology. When someone challenges an abuser’s attitudes and beliefs, he tends to reveal the contemptuous and insulting personality that normally stays hidden, reserved for private attacks on his partner. An abuser tries to keep everybody—his partner, his therapist, his friends and relatives—focused on how he feels, so that they won’t focus on how he thinks, perhaps because on some level he is aware that if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
They were all fitting into place, the jig-saw pieces. The odd strained shapes that I had tried to piece together with my fumbling fingers and they had never fitted. Frank's odd manner when I spoke about Rebecca. Beatrice and her rather diffident negative attitude. The silence that I had always taken for sympathy and regret was a silence born of shame and embarrassment. It seemed incredible to me now that I had never understood. I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great wall in front of them that hid the truth. This was what I had done. I had built up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth. Had I made one step forward out of my own shyness Maxim would have told these things four months, five months ago.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
“
But one of the saddest, most deprecating misuses of power is the withholding of love, affirmation, and delight from other people. Few things keep people in line with our wishes more than an attitude of reserve or aloofness. It is paradoxical that in the power struggle of relationships, the one who loves and encourages the least, gains the most power. This puts people on edge, keeps them guessing, and plays on their need for assurance about their worth.
”
”
Lloyd John Ogilvie (Lord of the Loose Ends: The Secret of Getting Your Life Under Control)
“
I AM A CONSISTENT WINNER BECAUSE: 1. I objectively identify my edges. 2. I predefine the risk of every trade. 3. I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let go of the trade. 4. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me. 6. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors. 7. I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and, therefore, I never violate them.
”
”
Mark Douglas (Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline, and a Winning Attitude)
“
Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?'
'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?'
'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...'
'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
'There was Manicheanism...'
'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'
Snow pondered for a while:
'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'
I kept on:
'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...'
'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.'
'If you're going to take what I say literally...'
...Snow asked abruptly:
'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.
”
”
Stanisław Lem (Solaris)
“
A thrilling sense of having been chosen for something is the best and the only certain thing in one whose glance surveys the world for the first time. If he monitors his feelings, he finds nothing he can accept without reservation. He seeks a possible beloved but can't tell whether it's the right one; he is capable of killing without being sure that he will have to. The drive of his own nature to keep developing prevents him from believing that anything is final and complete, yet
everything he encounters behaves as though it were final and complete. He suspects that the given order of things is not as solid as it pretends to be; no thing, no self, no form, no principle, is safe, everything is undergoing an invisible but ceaseless transformation, the unsettled holds more of the future than the settled, and the present is nothing but a hypothesis that has not yet been surmounted. What better can he do than hold himself apart from the world, in the good sense exemplified by the scientist's guarded attitude toward facts that might be tempting him to premature conclusions? Hence he hesitates in trying to make something of himself; a character, a profession, a fixed mode of being, are for him concepts that already shadow forth the outlines of the skeleton, which is all that will be left of him in the end.
”
”
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities: Volume I)
“
Realness often stands alone but painfully just.
© TyLeishia Douglass 2012 All Rights Reserved
”
”
TyLeishia Douglass
“
Godliness is an attitude whereby what we want is to please God.
”
”
Richard A. Swenson (Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives)
“
So it is that intelligent people often reserve their outrage almost exclusively for what they see as judgmental attitudes – - the one evil they are willing to indict with impunity.
”
”
Charles W. Colson
“
The Age Of Reason
1. ‘Well, it’s that same frankness you fuss about so much. You’re so absurdly scared of being your own dupe, my poor boy, that you would back out of the finest adventure in the world rather than risk telling yourself a lie.’
2. “ I’m not so much interested in myself as all that’ he said simply.
‘I know’, said Marcelle. It isn’t an aim , it’s a means. It helps you to get rid of yourself; to contemplate and criticize yourself: that’s the attitude you prefer. When you look at yourself, you imagine you aren’t what you see, you imagine you are nothing. That is your ideal: you want to be nothing.’’
3. ‘In vain he repeated the once inspiring phrase: ‘I must be free: I must be self-impelled, and able to say: ‘’I am because I will: I am my own beginning.’’ Empty, pompous words, the commonplaces of the intellectual.’
4. ‘He had waited so long: his later years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless daily cares, he had waited…But through all that, his sole care had been to hold himself in readiness. For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence….He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from behind….’
5. ‘ ‘It was love. This time, it was love. And Mathiue thought:’ What have I done?’ Five minutes ago this love didn’t exist; there was between them a rare and precious feeling, without a name and not expressible in gestures.’
6. ‘ The fact is, you are beyond my comprehension: you, so prompt with your indignation when you hear of an injustice, you keep this woman for years in a humiliating position, for the sole pleasure of telling yourself that you are respecting your principles. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were true, if you really did adapt your life to your ideas. But, I must tell you once more…you like that sort of life-placid, orderly, the typical life of an official.’
‘’That freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one’s responsibilities.’
‘Well…perhaps I’m doing you an injustice. Perhaps you haven’t in fact reached the age of reason, it’s really a moral age…perhaps I’ve got there sooner than you have.’
7. ‘ I have nothing to defend. I am not proud of my life and I’m penniless. My freedom? It’s a burden to me, for years past I have been free and to no purpose. I simply long to exchange it for a good sound of certainty….Besides, I agree with you that no one can be a man who has not discovered something for which he is prepared to die.’
8. ‘‘I have led a toothless life’, he thought. ‘ A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on-and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What’s to be done? Break the shell? That’s easily said. Besides, what would remain? A little viscous gum, oozing through the dust and leaving a glistering trail behind it.’
9.’’ A life’, thought Mathieu, ‘is formed from the future just like the bodies are compounded from the void’. He bent his head: he thought of his own life. The future had made way into his heart, where everything was in process and suspense. The far-off days of childhood, the day when he has said:’I will be free’, the day when he had said: ’I will be famous’, appeared to him even now with their individual future, like a small, circled individual sky above them all, and the future was himself, himself just as he was at present, weary and a little over-ripe, they had claims upon him across the passage of time past, they maintained their insistencies, and he was often visited by attacks of devastating remorse, because his casual, cynical present was the original future of those past days.
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre
“
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)
“
1. I objectively identify my edges. 2. I predefine the risk of every trade. 3. I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let go of the trade. 4. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me. 6. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors.
”
”
Mark Douglas (Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline, and a Winning Attitude)
“
I do not know which impulse was stronger in me when I began to think: the original thirst for knowledge or the urge to communicate with man. Knowledge attains its full meaning only through the bond that unites men; however, the urge to achieve agreement with another human being was so hard to satisfy. I was shocked by the lack of understanding, paralyzed, as it were, by every reconciliation in which what had gone before was not fully cleared up. Early in my life and then later again and again I was perplexed by people’s rigid inaccessibility and their failure to listen to reasons, their disregard of facts, their indifference which prohibited discussion, their defensive attitude which kept you at a distance and at the decisive moment buried any possibility of a close approach, and finally their shamelessness, that bares its own soul without reserve, as though no one were present. When ready assent occurred I remained unsatisfied, because it was not based on true insight but on yielding to persuasion; because it was the consequence of friendly cooperation, not a meeting of two selves. True, I knew the glory of friendship (in common studies, in the cordial atmosphere of home or countryside). But then came the moments of strangeness, as if human beings lived in different worlds. Steadily the consciousness of loneliness grew upon me in my youth, yet nothing seemed more pernicious to me than loneliness, especially the loneliness in the midst of social intercourse that deceives itself in a multitude of friendships. No urge seemed stronger to me than that for communication with others. If the never-completed movement of communication succeeds with but a single human being, everything is achieved. It is a criterion of this success that there be a readiness to communicate with every human being encountered and that grief is felt whenever communication fails. Not merely an exchange of words, nor friendliness and sociability, but only the constant urge towards total revelation reaches the path of communication.
”
”
Karl Jaspers
“
It is ironic that the Great Depression was produced by government but was blamed on the private enterprise system. The Federal Reserve System explained in its 1933 annual report how much worse things would have been if the Federal Reserve had not behaved so well, yet the Federal Reserve was the chief culprit in making the depression as deep as it was. So the government produced the depression, the private enterprise system got blamed for it, and there was a tremendous change in attitudes.
”
”
Milton Friedman (Why Government Is the Problem (Essays in Public Policy Book 39))
“
Lolita has no illusions. She is not one to be dazzled by a man’s bearing, by delicate hands, a fashionable frockcoat or a dashing uniform. Her father brought her up to be constantly aware of who she is, something that allows her to meet the attentions of gentlemen with a polite, somewhat reserved attitude. An affected indifference which conceals her distrust. Like the accomplished duelist who, without any fuss, turns his profile to his adversary to reduce the chances of being hit by a bullet.
”
”
Arturo Pérez-Reverte (The Siege)
“
From the perspective of inclusive fitness, unfamiliar others are potential free-riders and, out of a concern that they will be exploited by others, people reduce considerably their altruistic attitudes and behavior in a general way in more diverse communities. This loss of trust is a symptom of a breakdown in social cohesion and is surely a forerunner of the sort of ethnic conflict that is always likely to break out if allowed to do so. This is undoubtedly the reason why multicultural nation-states are forever promoting tolerance and ever more punitive sanctions for the expression of ethnic hostility, even going so far to as to discourage the expression of opinion about the reality of ethnic and racial differences. Currently these measures are directed at the host population when they express reservations about the wisdom of mass immigration, but this will surely change as it becomes ever more obvious that it is the presence of competing ethnic groups that is creating the tension and not the expressed reservations of the majority population. The real danger for modern democracies is that in their zeal to promote multicultural societies, they will be forced to resort to the means that have characterized all empires attempting to maintain their hegemony over disparate peoples.
”
”
Byron M. Roth (The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature)
“
There’s my girl,” he said. “On her feet already. You’ll be a military officer in no time with an attitude like that.”
Kestrel sat. She gave him a slight, ironic smile.
He returned it. “What I meant to say is that I’m glad you’re better, and that I’m sorry I can’t go to the Firstwinter ball.”
It was good that she was already sitting. “Why would you want to go to a ball?”
“I thought I would take you.”
She stared.
“It occurred to me that I have never danced with my daughter,” he said. “And it would have been a wise move.”
A wise move.
A show of force, then. A reminder of the respect due to the general’s family. Quietly, Kestrel said, “You’ve heard the rumors.”
He raised a hand, palm flat and facing her.
“Father--”
“Stop.”
“It’s not true. I--”
“We will not have this discussion.” His hand lifted to block his eyes, then fell. “Kestrel, I’m not here for that. I’m here to tell you that I’m leaving. The emperor is sending me east to fight the barbarians.”
It wasn’t the first time in Kestrel’s memory that her father had been sent to war, but the fear she felt was always the same, always keen. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes. I leave the morning of the ball with my regiment.”
“The entire regiment?”
He caught the tone in her voice. He sighed. “Yes.”
“That means there will be no soldiers in the city or its surroundings. If there’s a problem--”
“The city guard will be here. The emperor feels they can deal with any problem, at least until a force arrives from the capital.”
“Then the emperor is a fool. The captain of the city guard isn’t up to the task. You yourself said that the new captain is nothing but a bungler, someone who got the position because he’s the governor’s toady--”
“Kestrel.” His voice was quelling. “I’ve already expressed my reservations to the emperor. But he gave me orders. It’s my duty to follow them.”
Kestrel studied her fingers, the way they wove together. She didn’t say Come back safely, and he didn’t say I always have. She said what a Valorian should. “Fight well.”
“I will.”
He was halfway to the door when he glanced back and said, “I’m trusting you to do what’s right while I’m gone.”
Which meant that he didn’t trust her--not quite.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
“
Deronda to-night was stirred with, the feeling that the brief remnant of this fervid life had become his charge. He had been peculiarly wrought on by what he had seen at the club of the friendly indifference which Mordecai must have gone on encountering. His own experience of the small room that ardor can make for itself in ordinary minds had had the effect of increasing his reserve; and while tolerance was the easiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also capable of becoming a weakness— the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an ineffective insistance on his own opinion. But such caution appeared contemptible to him just now, when he, for the first time, saw in a complete picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves out in solitary enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in the rarity of their own minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no more than a long passionate soliloquy— unless perhaps at last, when they are nearing the invisible shores, signs of recognition and fulfilment may penetrate the cloud of loneliness; or perhaps it may be with them as with the dying Copernicus made to touch the first printed copy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a dim object through the deepening dusk.
”
”
George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
“
In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations—configurations—of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other—when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.
”
”
Steven Erikson (Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9))
“
Jews, notably, were defined as a ‘people’, while others, not even identified, were referred to only as ‘communities’. It was an extraordinary phrase that echoes down the decades and explains why Balfour is remembered a century later by Arabs as the architect of perfidy and disaster.16 Zionists, for opposite reasons, revere his memory; Balfour Street in Jerusalem is still the site of the official residence of the Israeli prime minister. The reservation had been inserted in the text to meet the strong objections raised by Lord Curzon, the former British viceroy of India and, as lord president of the council, an influential member of the war cabinet. Curzon – reflecting contemporary perceptions about the map and identity of the region – had referred to the ‘Syrian Arabs’ who had ‘occupied [Palestine] for the best part of 1,500 years’, and asked what would become of them. ‘They will not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the latter’, he predicted with the help of another then familiar biblical reference.17 The declaration’s second reservation – about the rights of Jews in other countries – was a response to the opposition of Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, even though he was not in the war cabinet. Montagu was a Jewish grandee who feared that an official expression of sympathy for Zionism in fact masked anti-Semitic prejudice and would undermine the hard-won position of British Jews and their co-religionists elsewhere in the world. However, it did not weaken his vehement opposition, any more than the words about ‘non-Jewish communities’ assuaged Arab fears. Over time, Jewish attitudes to Zionism would change significantly; Arab attitudes, by and large, did not.
”
”
Ian Black (Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017)
“
This reaction to the work was obviously a misunderstanding. It ignores the fact that the future Buddha was also of noble origins, that he was the son of a king and heir to the throne and had been raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit the crown. He had been taught martial arts and the art of government, and having reached the right age, he had married and had a son. All of these things would be more typical of the physical and mental formation of a future samurai than of a seminarian ready to take holy orders. A man like Julius Evola was particularly suitable to dispel such a misconception.
He did so on two fronts in his Doctrine: on the one hand, he did not cease to recall the origins of the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, who was destined to the throne of Kapilavastu: on the other hand, he attempted to demonstrate that Buddhist asceticism is not a cowardly resignation before life's vicissitudes, but rather a struggle of a spiritual kind, which is not any less heroic than the struggle of a knight on the battlefield. As Buddha himself said (Mahavagga, 2.15): 'It is better to die fighting than to live as one vanquished.' This resolution is in accord with Evola's ideal of overcoming natural resistances in order to achieve the Awakening through meditation; it should he noted, however, that the warrior terminology is contained in the oldest writings of Buddhism, which are those that best reflect the living teaching of the master. Evola works tirelessly in his hook to erase the Western view of a languid and dull doctrine that in fact was originally regarded as aristocratic and reserved for real 'champions.'
After Schopenhauer, the unfounded idea arose in Western culture that Buddhism involved a renunciation of the world and the adoption of a passive attitude: 'Let things go their way; who cares anyway.' Since in this inferior world 'everything is evil,' the wise person is the one who, like Simeon the Stylite, withdraws, if not to the top of a pillar; at least to an isolated place of meditation. Moreover, the most widespread view of Buddhists is that of monks dressed in orange robes, begging for their food; people suppose that the only activity these monks are devoted to is reciting memorized texts, since they shun prayers; thus, their religion appears to an outsider as a form of atheism.
Evola successfully demonstrates that this view is profoundly distorted by a series of prejudices. Passivity? Inaction? On the contrary, Buddha never tired of exhorting his disciples to 'work toward victory'; he himself, at the end of his life, said with pride: katam karaniyam, 'done is what needed to he done!' Pessimism? It is true that Buddha, picking up a formula of Brahmanism, the religion in which he had been raised prior to his departure from Kapilavastu, affirmed that everything on earth is 'suffering.' But he also clarified for us that this is the case because we are always yearning to reap concrete benefits from our actions. For example, warriors risk their lives because they long for the pleasure of victory and for the spoils, and yet in the end they are always disappointed: the pillaging is never enough and what has been gained is quickly squandered. Also, the taste of victory soon fades away. But if one becomes aware of this state of affairs (this is one aspect of the Awakening), the pessimism is dispelled since reality is what it is, neither good nor bad in itself; reality is inscribed in Becoming, which cannot be interrupted. Thus, one must live and act with the awareness that the only thing that matters is each and every moment. Thus, duty (dhamma) is claimed to be the only valid reference point: 'Do your duty,' that is. 'let your every action he totally disinterested.
”
”
Jean Varenne (The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts)
“
How are Good Europeans such as ourselves distinguished from the patriots? In the first place, we are atheists and immoralists, but we take care to support the religions and the morality which we associate with the gregarious instinct: for by means of them, an order of men is, so to speak, being prepared, which must at some time or other fall into our hands, which must actually crave for our hands.
Beyond Good and Evil, — certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional and strict preservation of herd-morality.
We reserve ourselves the right to several kinds of philosophy which it is necessary to learn: under certain circumstances, the pessimistic kind as a hammer; a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable.
We should probably support the development and the maturation of democratic tendencies; for it conduces to weakness of will: in "Socialism" we recognise a thorn which prevents smug ease.
Attitude towards the people. Our prejudices; we pay attention to the results of cross-breeding.
Detached, well-to-do, strong: irony concerning the "press" and its culture. Our care: that scientific men should not become journalists. We mistrust any form of culture that tolerates news-paper reading or writing.
We make our accidental positions (as Goethe and Stendhal did), our experiences, a foreground, and we lay stress upon them, so that we may deceive concerning our backgrounds. We ourselves wait and avoid putting our heart into them. They serve us as refuges, such as a wanderer might require and use — but we avoid feeling at home in them. We are ahead of our fellows in that we have had a disciplina voluntatis. All strength is directed to the development of the will, an art which allows us to wear masks, an art of understanding beyond the passions (also "super-European" thought at times).
This is our preparation before becoming the law-givers of the future and the lords of the earth; if not we, at least our children. Caution where marriage is concerned.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations – configurations – of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other – when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.
”
”
Steven Erikson (Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9))
“
In this experience self-consciousness becomes aware that life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness. In immediate self-consciousness the simple ego is absolute object, which, however, is for us or in itself absolute mediation, and has as its essential moment substantial and solid independence. The dissolution of that simple unity is the result of the first experience; through this there is posited a pure self-consciousness, and a consciousness which is not purely for itself, but for another, i.e. as an existent consciousness, consciousness in the form and shape of thinghood. Both moments are essential, since, in the first instance, they are unlike and opposed, and their reflexion into unity has not yet come to light, they stand as two opposed forms or modes of consciousness. The one is independent, and its essential nature is to be for itself; the other is dependent, and its essence is life or existence for another. The former is the Master, or Lord, the latter the Bondsman.
Φ 190. The master is the consciousness that exists for itself; but no longer merely the general notion of existence for self. Rather, it is a consciousness existing on its own account which is mediated with itself through an other consciousness, i.e. through an other whose very nature implies that it is bound up with an independent being or with thinghood in general. The master brings himself into relation to both these moments, to a thing as such, the object of desire, and to the consciousness whose essential character is thinghood. And since the master, is (a) qua notion of self-consciousness, an immediate relation of self-existence, but (b) is now moreover at the same time mediation, or a being-for-self which is for itself only through an other — he [the master] stands in relation (a) immediately to both, (b) mediately to each through the other. The master relates himself to the bondsman mediately through independent existence, for that is precisely what keeps the bondsman in thrall; it is his chain, from which he could not in the struggle get away, and for that reason he proved himself to be dependent, to have his independence in the shape of thinghood. The master, however, is the power controlling this state of existence, for he has shown in the struggle that he holds it to be merely something negative. Since he is the power dominating existence, while this existence again is the power controlling the other [the bondsman], the master holds, par consequence, this other in subordination. In the same way the master relates himself to the thing mediately through the bondsman. The bondsman being a self-consciousness in the broad sense, also takes up a negative attitude to things and cancels them; but the thing is, at the same time, independent for him and, in consequence, he cannot, with all his negating, get so far as to annihilate it outright and be done with it; that is to say, he merely works on it. To the master, on the other hand, by means of this mediating process, belongs the immediate relation, in the sense of the pure negation of it, in other words he gets the enjoyment. What mere desire did not attain, he now succeeds in attaining, viz. to have done with the thing, and find satisfaction in enjoyment. Desire alone did not get the length of this, because of the independence of the thing. The master, however, who has interposed the bondsman between it and himself, thereby relates himself merely to the dependence of the thing, and enjoys it without qualification and without reserve. The aspect of its independence he leaves to the bondsman, who labours upon it.
”
”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
“
Stand alone decisions stands way out in front of people majority.Same happens for encouraging a reserved person for his unique achievement
”
”
Vignesh Srinivasan
“
Friend! There’s a subtle feature of speculative behaviour which reflects the public attitude to money itself. When money is in its right place, fulfilling its proper function, men’s minds are fixed upon the goods and services which money can help them to exchange. In such an economic environment the producers of real wealth are seen to earn a fitting reward for their labours and expertise, and in fact productive and community endeavour are portrayed universally as almost the sole means whereby the individual can get himself a goodly share of the world’s riches. Let there just be a change in the emphasis however. Raise the interest rates. Exacerbate the debt structure. Turn money into a commodity which can be bought and sold at a profit. Then you create a breed of men who live by their dexterity at the exchanges. When these men are seen to prosper more considerably than the producers of goods and services, there is a desire amongst the ordinary plodding citizenry to command a share of the action, and to participate in what are seen as easily made profits. Many a fond illusion was wiped out in the collapse of Wall Street share values during the crash of 1929. Whole volumes have been written about its causes and repercussions, and about the sinister shift in real estate ownership which took place during the spate of liquidations and forced sales which followed. But we shall content ourselves meanwhile with the comment that it was just one of a chain of events that were set in motion way back in 1913 when the Federal Reserve Bank was formed to lend money to the Government.
”
”
James Gibb Stuart (The Money Bomb)
“
At that time, my father was definitely dead. He had been dying a number of times, always with some reservations that forced us to revise our attitude toward the fact of his death. This had some advantages. By dividing his death into installments, Father had familiarized us with his demise. We gradually became indifferent to his returns—each one shorter, each one more pitiful. His features were already dispersed throughout the room in which he had lived, and were sprouting in it, creating in some spots strange knots of likeness that were most expressive. The wallpaper in certain places began to imitate his habitual nervous tic; the flower designs arranged themselves into the doleful elements of his smile, symmetrical as the fossilized imprint of a trilobite. For a time, we gave a wide berth to his fur coat lined with polecat skins. The fur coat breathed. The panic of small animals sewn together and biting into one another passed through it in helpless currents and lost itself in the folds of its fur. Putting one’s ear against it, one could hear the melodious purring unison of the animal’s sleep. In this well-tanned form, amid the faint smell of polecat, murder, and night-time matings, my father might have lasted many years. But he did not last.
”
”
Bruno Schulz (Father's Last Escape)
“
An Inflicted Introduction by Stewart Stafford
A sour smile across thin lips,
While cat-and-mouse eyes,
Stared, unblinking, at my face,
Forked tongue gauged reaction.
Acid wafting from that mouth,
Light as flecks of warm butter,
But leaving a bitter aftertaste,
Tricking nobody within earshot.
Their hooded gaze scorched,
As infants on their playthings,
Bloated from odious overspill,
I withdrew from their presence.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
Of course when the history books tell of the groups murdered by the Nazis, they never list the prostitutes, because I'm sure the mention of their deaths is considered a stain on the other victims. The attitude is that the lives of prostitutes are worthless. I think it is self-hate. Our world hates anyone who would accept us and our bodies, and our secret desires without reservation. But that is what the ladies taught me... to welcome disdained things.
”
”
Emil Ferris (My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 (My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, #1))
“
In Hayek’s monetary theory of the cycle the upswing is generated by monetary expansions that cause an excess of investment over volun- tary saving and a shift in the structure of production toward more time- consuming processes. This structure, created by a depressed money rate of interest, cannot be sustained. Monetary expansion, then, will not pro- duce an everlasting boom, and when the expansion eventually stops, crisis and depression follow. With regard to the sources of monetary expansion, while others like Mises put the blame on the misguided (“inflationist” or “cheap money”) attitude of the monetary authorities, Hayek pointed to the endogenous process of money creation by the banks, in particular in a sys- tem of fractional reserve banking (see, e.g., Hayek 2012a [1933a], chap. 4, vs. Mises 2006b [1928]).
”
”
Bruce Caldwell (Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950)
“
Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.
― Thucydides
Ignorance is a violent behaviour; knowledge is a peaceful attitude.
― Ehsan Sehgal
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
So she is tearing us apart, dictating the rest of my life and we have to go along with it or she will destroy Hytanica?”
“Yes. And we’re running out of time.”
He shook his head in awe. “I have to hand it to her, Alera. She’s ruthless in pursuing what she wants.”
“This is serious, Narian.” I found his attitude almost irritating. He obviously understaood the direness of his situation, yet was acting like it was only a game.
“I know it’s serious, but there is only one choice as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to live without you, Alera. I won’t live without you.”
I sat up and searched the depths of his blue eyes. “What do you mean?”
He leaned forward and kissed me tenderly, and my pulse raced. Then I put my hands on his chest and pushed myself away.
“Tell me, Narian.”
“All right. There are three things I believe with all my heart. Hytanica can withstand a Cokyrian assault. I can no longer let Nantilam control my life and I will die before I let you go.”
His eyes met mine and he unlaced my blouse, slowly pushing it off my shoulders. This time I did not resist him.
“What I want,” he softly finished, “is to spend these last hours holding the woman I love, the woman to whom I am bound.”
“But how are you feeling?”
“Trust me, Alera, I’m not feeling any pain right now.”
Tears trickled from the corners of my eyes as I opened his shirt and ran my fingers over the muscles of his chest. He stood, leading me to the rug in front of the hearth, where he drew me down to kneel beside him. His touch was warm, gentle, as he almost reverently removed my clothing, then he stripped off his shirt and breeches, his skin and his golden hair glistening in the light cast by the fire. As my pulse and breathing quickened, he caressed me, first with his eyes, then with his hands and mouth.
“I love you, Alera,” he whispered against my skin, and I gave in to him completely, sinking into the feelings he stirred in me, knowing I stirred the same feelings in him. In all my dreams of what this moment would be like, I had never imagined the soaring bliss that came from giving yourself to another person with reservation, without fear, without pressure. A person you loved and trusted with all your heart and who returned those feelings a hundredfold.
”
”
Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
“
Due to climate change and growing world population, the demand for vital requirements for human survival will continue to rise. If the world is not producing as much food as demanded, the prices will continue to rise affecting the poor and lower classes more, in every society. It is sad, looking at the shocking statistics of people who die every day as well as the spread of preventable diseases in developing nations, just because people do not have access to clean drinking water. So are we proud of our leadership contribution? Are we doing enough to increase food production, harvest rain water and replenish underground water reserves?
”
”
Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
“
I reserve the right to not to be addressed...at all; my thoughts should not be interrupted with your words.
”
”
Mamur Mustapha
“
That brings us to the nub of the issue. The second reason for drawing lines even when drawing lines is not “cool” (as my daughter and son would say) is that the New Testament documents model the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, even if these terms are not deployed exactly in their English sense. Despite the faddish popularity of religious pluralism, despite the erroneous historical reconstructions of Walter Bauer and others, despite the common practice of treating other religions with more deference than a Christianity that tries to conform to the Bible, the fact remains that there is something disturbingly unfaithful about forms of expression that attempt to be more “broadminded” than the New Testament documents themselves. True, most who read these pages will want to avoid the kind of obscurantist “fundamentalism” that is less concerned with fundamentals than with fences. But most who read these pages will not be tempted down that path, and so they scarcely need to be warned against it. It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others. We are more likely to squirm when we read words like these: Do you agree with those who say that a spirit of love is incompatible with the negative and critical denunciation of blatant error, and that we must always be positive? The simple answer to such an attitude is that the Lord Jesus Christ denounced evil and denounced false teachers. I repeat that He denounced them as “ravening wolves” and “whited sepulchres,” and as “blind guides.” The Apostle Paul said of some of them, “whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame”. That is the language of the Scriptures. There can be little doubt but that the Church is as she is today because we do not follow New Testament teaching and its exhortations, and confine ourselves to the positive and the so-called “simple Gospel”, and fail to stress the negatives and the criticism. The result is that people do not reconize error when they meet it. It is not pleasant to be negative; it is not enjoyable to have to denounce and to expose error. But any pastor who feels in a little measure, and with humility, the responsibility which the Apostle Paul knew in an infinitely greater degree for the souls and the well-being spiritually of his people is compelled to utter these warnings. It is not liked and appreciated in this modern flabby generation.29
”
”
D.A. Carson (The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism)
“
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
We must fight for the true freedom the founders of this great nation fought for.
And our sons and daughters spilled their blood for.
We must fight for our next generation - our children.
We must fight for our values.
We must fight to preserve our way of life that has taken over two hundred years to establish.
We must fight against the external forces that vowed in their dark minds, to exterminate our foundation to extinction.
The American Constitution has endured for generations, and I echo the same sentiment of Patrick Henry “Give me liberty or give me death”.
Give us the same freedom our founding fathers established generations past.
We as a people have to take back what our enemies are trying to steal from us.
This fight has to be on our knees in prayer.
This is our Country!
This is our future!
This is our freedom!
God bless America!
©joaministries All rights reserved.
”
”
Josephine Akhagbeme
“
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM”
We must fight for the true freedom the founders of this great nation fought for.
And our sons and daughters spilled their blood for.
We must fight for our next generation - our children.
We must fight for our values.
We must fight to preserve our way of life that has taken over two hundred years to establish.
We must fight against the external forces that vowed in their dark minds, to exterminate our foundation to extinction.
The American Constitution has endured for generations, and I echo the same sentiment of Patrick Henry “Give me liberty or give me death”.
Give us the same freedom our founding fathers established generations past.
We as a people have to take back what our enemies are trying to steal from us.
This fight has to be on our knees in prayer.
This is our Country!
This is our future!
This is our freedom!
God bless America!
©joaministries All rights reserved.
”
”
Josephine Akhagbeme
“
would love to live at the White House. That would be like one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.” “I may not win, Nicole.” “That’s the wrong attitude, Dad.” “No, that’s the right attitude. If you attach yourself to winning, to living at the White House, to all the privileges that come with being part of the First Family, you’ll only be disappointed. The prize isn’t going to be winning. The prize will be in how we conduct the campaign. It’s going to be different.
”
”
Glen Merzer (Off the Reservation)
“
One of the first lessons of the Sisterhood had been to reserve an attitude of questioning distrust for anything which came in the guise of logic.
”
”
Frank Herbert (Children of Dune (Dune, #3))
“
Going over to the side of the principle of Evil implies making a choice in every sphere that is not only critical but also criminal. In any society, even a liberal one (such as ours!), this kind of choice cannot be publicly expressed. A stated position in support of the non-human or of the principle of Evil will be rejected by any value system (by 'principle of Evil' here I mean nothing more than the simple stating of a few hard truths concerning values, law, power, reality, etc.). In this respect there is no difference at all between East, West, North or South. And there is not the slightest chance of seeing an end to this intolerant attitude, as opaque and crystalline as a glass wall, which no progress in the sphere of either morality or immorality has managed to modify.
The world is so full of positive feelings, naive sentimentality, self-important rectitude and sycophancy that irony, mockery and the subjective energy of evil are always in the weaker position. At this rate every last negative sentiment will soon be forced into a clandestine existence. Already the merest gibe tends to meet with incomprehension. It will soon be impossible to express reservations about anything at all. We shall have nothing left but disgust and consternation.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena)
“
While many feminists - especially those who came of age in the 1980s and '90s - recognize that trans women can be allies in the fight to eliminate gender stereotypes, others, particularly those who embrace gender essentialism, believe that trans women foster sexism by mimicking patriarchal attitudes about femininity, or that we objectify women by trying to possess female bodies of our own. Many of these latter ideas stem from Janice Raymond's 1979 book 'The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-male', which is perhaps the most infamous feminist writing on transsexuals. Like the media makers discussed earlier, Raymond assumes that trans women transition in order to achieve stereotypical femininity, which she believes is an artificial by-product of a patriarchal society. Raymond does acknowledge, reluctantly, the existence of trans women who are not stereotypically feminine, but she reserves her most venomous remarks for those she calls 'transsexually constructed lesbian-feminists', describing how they use 'deception' in order to 'penetrate' women's spaces and minds. She writes, 'Although the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist does not exhibit a feminine identity and role, he [sic] does exhibit stereotypical masculine behavior.' This puts trans women in a double bind, where if they act feminine they are perceived as being a parody, but if they act masculine it is seen as a sign of their 'true' male identity. This damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't tactic is reminiscent of the pop cultural deceptive/pathetic archetypes.
”
”
Julia Serano (Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity)
“
Busyness draws more emotional energy from our reserves than it fills back.
”
”
Sukant Ratnakar (Quantraz)
“
Associating with Benjamin was fraught with considerable difficulties, though on the surface these seemed insignificant in view of his consummate courtesy and willingness to listen. He always was surrounded by a wall of reserve, which could be recognized intuitively and was evident to another person even without Benjamin’s not infrequent efforts to make that area noticeable. These efforts consisted above all in a secretiveness bordering on eccentricity, a mystery-mongering that generally prevailed in everything relating to him personally, though it sometimes was breached unexpectedly by personal and confidential revelations. There were primarily three difficult requirements. The first was respect for his solitude; this was easy to observe, for it was dictated by a natural sense of limits. I soon realized that he appreciated this respect, a sine qua non for associating with him, and that it heightened his trust. The observance of the second requirement was particularly easy for me: his utter aversion to discussing the political events of the day and occurrences of the war. Some reviewers of the Briefe expressed astonishment at the fact that the published letters contain no reference to the events of the First World War (which, after all, so decisively influenced our generation) and blamed the editors (I was the one responsible for this period) for an incomprehensible omission or, worse, censorship. The fact of the matter is that in those years anyone who wished to have a closer association with Benjamin either had to share this attitude (as I did) or respect it. ...The third requirement, that of overlooking his secretiveness, often demanded a real effort, because there was something surprising, even ludicrous, about such secretiveness in someone as sober, as melancholy as Benjamin. He did not like to give the names of friends and acquaintances if he could avoid it. When circumstances of his life were mentioned, there frequently was attached an urgent request for absolute secrecy; more often than not this made very little sense. Gradually, but even then only partially, this secretiveness (which by that time others had noticed as well) began to dissipate, and Benjamin began to speak of people without the accompanying stamp of anonymity, at least when he had initiated the discussion. It was in keeping with this aversion that he tried to keep his acquaintances separate; for a time this was more effective with me, who came from another environment—Zionist youth—than it was with those from the same sphere as he, namely members of the German-Jewish intelligentsia. Only occasionally did it turn out that we had mutual acquaintances, such as the poet Ludwig Strauss or the philosopher David Baumgardt. Other friends and acquaintances of his I did not meet until years later, from 1918 on, some of them only after 1945. In short, then, to associate with Benjamin took a great deal of patience and consideration—qualities that were by no means natural to my temperament and that, to my own surprise, I was able to muster only in my association with him.
”
”
Gershom Scholem
“
Victor’s attitude
It was a narrow passage,
But it led people into a new age,
Where everything was wide and filled with grandeur,
Kissed by the hope, enabling them to strive and endure,
As life stretched its checkerboard of new moves,
And chance and fate filled its groves,
Those who had reached there via this narrow passage,
Received for his/her effort a due wage,
Because it led them all into the world of deeds,
Where only actions matter, nothing else, no castes and no creeds,
As they reached there hope greeted them all,
And she whispered to them, “no matter what happens rise every time you fall,
Because everything may be working against you,
Do not forget I am always on your side, because I was born just for you!”
Then all get pitched against life and its main actor “the chance,”
And based on its wishes all play the game of life and to its tunes they begin to dance,
Many lose after few blows, a few after many blows, but some rise after every fall,
And it is then life makes them experience the might of fate, and thus ensues the grand brawl,
Where life, chance and fate form the formidable side,
While men and women on the other end reside,
And life offers them blows of chance and fate,
Most of them are sent sooner than expected behind the graveyard's always open gate,
But few rise from their graves too because they never lose hope,
They remember her whispers and it becomes their renewed courage’s most befitting trope,
And as life begins to feel weary, because it runs short of its reserves of chances,
And fate too appears to have exhausted all its probabilities and likelihoods of adding new steps to life’s dances,
The victor is born, who never rests until he/she is dead,
Because a true victor is not by life, but by his/her attitude fed!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Gladiator” is not merely a title reserved for those in the rodeo arena of bull riding. Being a gladiator is a state of mind, an attitude that anyone can embody. It is about having the confidence to shut out the skeptics and the courage to step into your own personal arena, whatever that may be, giving everything you have without holding back.
”
”
Ronald Duren Jr. (The Art of Forging Mettle: A Blueprint for the Evolution of Mental Toughness and Leadership for a Shifting World)
“
On the rare occasions when farm animals have been individualized in fiction, perceptions of their
rights have changed. For example, Babe (1995) is a film that appears to have influenced some viewers’ perceptions of eating meat. Babe is a comedy- drama about an anthropomorphised pig that dreams of being a sheep dog. During the film, Babe (the pig) escapes being slaughtered several times, often in comical circumstances. The story ends happily with Babe achieving his ambition of becoming a “sheep dog” and thus avoiding his fate as a farmed pig. In the period following the film’s release, there was a dramatic rise in the number of vegetarians, especially young female vegetarians (Nobis 2009: 58). This change in attitude was dubbed the “Babe effect” (Nobis 2009: 58). The “Babe effect” likely occurred because this film depicted farm animals as intelligent, individual, and compassionate individuals, something that had seldom been done previously and is usually reserved for higher-order species (Plumwood 2012: 55–74).
”
”
Rebecca Rose Stanton (The Disneyfication of Animals (The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series))
“
The greatest enemy of true faith has always been religion (notice who Jesus reserves his harshest words for), and a religious attitude is not what we are after.
”
”
John Eldredge (The Way of the Wild Heart: A Map for the Masculine Journey)
“
I know what it’s like to lose someone,” Finn said, lowering his voice into that old gentle tone he used when discussing something private and sacred. “I also know from experience that if you keep this up, this reserved attitude, dwelling on your loss instead of what you still have in front of you, you’ll feel this way for the rest of your life. If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t say anything.
”
”
James Russell Lingerfelt (Young Vines)
“
R.A. was conceived in 2006 by a Swede named Andie Nordgren, and its adherents believed that because love is not a limited resource, traditional hierarchical relationships that treat it as such are not just unnecessary but harmful, perpetuating toxic, retrograde attitudes that equate love with ownership. One should allow space in one’s life for the kind of intimacy that can be cut off when one designates a single person as special and reserved, and therefore owed and owing. Even designating a category of relationship as special and reserved was poison. Romantic relationships are not better than platonic or familial ones. The ingrained belief that romantic love should be life’s organizing principle is inextricably linked to patriarchy and the oppression of minorities, the poor, and immigrants, among other populations. The resulting expectations kill love at the root. When care-taking duties are foisted onto individuals and families, rather than supplied and paid for by the state, as they should be, the state must make it seem like this is the natural and noble situation. Propaganda. Marriage is obviously propaganda, but so are all conventional relationships because all conventional relationships cannot help but situate themselves in relation to marriage. Whether they are like marriage, or on track to marriage, or on track to being like marriage or not. Marriage is all-encompassing and cannot but enforce hierarchy. Thus, ritualized domestic exclusion begets systemic exclusion via our admiration and craving for exclusivity.
”
”
Lauren Oyler (Fake Accounts)
“
And he won't come any more?" her mother sighed, with reserved censure.
"Oh, I think he will. He couldn't very well come the next night. But he has the habit of coming, and with Mr. Beaton habit is everything—even the habit of thinking he's in love with some one."
"Alma," said her mother, "I don't think it's very nice for a girl to let a young man keep coming to see her after she's refused him."
"Why not, if it amuses him and doesn't hurt the girl?"
"But it does hurt her, Alma. It—it's indelicate. It isn't fair to him; it gives him hopes."
"Well, mamma, it hasn't happened in the given case yet. If Mr. Beaton comes again, I won't see him, and you can forbid him the house."
"If I could only feel sure, Alma," said her mother, taking up another branch of the inquiry, "that you really knew your own mind, I should be easier about it."
"Then you can rest perfectly quiet, mamma. I do know my own mind; and, what's worse, I know Mr. Beaton's mind."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he spoke to me the other night simply because Mr. Fulkerson's engagement had broken him all up."
"What expressions!" Mrs. Leighton lamented.
"He let it out himself," Alma went on. "And you wouldn't have thought it was very flattering yourself. When I'm made love to, after this, I prefer to be made love to in an off-year, when there isn't another engaged couple anywhere about."
"Did you tell him that, Alma?"
"Tell him that! What do you mean, mamma? I may be indelicate, but I'm not quite so indelicate as that."
"I didn't mean you were indelicate, really, Alma, but I wanted to warn you. I think Mr. Beaton was very much in earnest."
"Oh, so did he!"
"And you didn't?"
"Oh yes, for the time being. I suppose he's very much in earnest with Miss Vance at times, and with Miss Dryfoos at others. Sometimes he's a painter, and sometimes he's an architect, and sometimes he's a sculptor. He has too many gifts—too many tastes."
"And if Miss Vance and Miss Dryfoos—"
"Oh, do say Sculpture and Architecture, mamma! It's getting so dreadfully personal!"
"Alma, you know that I only wish to get at your real feeling in the matter."
"And you know that I don't want to let you—especially when I haven't got any real feeling in the matter. But I should think—speaking in the abstract entirely—that if either of those arts was ever going to be in earnest about him, it would want his exclusive devotion for a week at least."
"I didn't know," said Mrs. Leighton, "that he was doing anything now at the others. I thought he was entirely taken up with his work on 'Every Other Week.'"
"Oh, he is! he is!"
"And you certainly can't say, my dear, that he hasn't been very kind—very useful to you, in that matter."
"And so I ought to have said yes out of gratitude? Thank you, mamma! I didn't know you held me so cheap."
"You know whether I hold you cheap or not, Alma. I don't want you to cheapen yourself. I don't want you to trifle with any one. I want you to be honest with yourself."
"Well, come now, mamma! Suppose you begin. I've been perfectly honest with myself, and I've been honest with Mr. Beaton. I don't care for him, and I've told him I didn't; so he may be supposed to know it. If he comes here after this, he'll come as a plain, unostentatious friend of the family, and it's for you to say whether he shall come in that capacity or not. I hope you won't trifle with him, and let him get the notion that he's coming on any other basis."
Mrs. Leighton felt the comfort of the critical attitude far too keenly to abandon it for anything constructive. She only said, "You know very well, Alma, that's a matter I can have nothing to do with."
"Then you leave him entirely to me?"
"I hope you will regard his right to candid and open treatment."
"He's had nothing but the most open and candid treatment from me, mamma. It's you that wants to play fast and loose with him. And, to tell you the truth, I believe he would like that a good deal better.
”
”
William Dean Howells
“
Soon he joined with a number of other students, including his friend Iremashvili, in organizing a clandestine young socialists’ circle. Meanwhile, his attitude toward studies changed. He ceased striving to excel, did well only in two subjects that particularly interested him (secular history and logic), and gave to the others no more time than was needed to obtain passing marks.[126] His general bearing and relations with others also underwent a change. Fellow seminarians who remembered him from Gori as a vivacious boy, rather cheerful and sociable, now saw him become serious, reserved, and introverted.
”
”
Robert C. Tucker (Stalin as Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality, 1879-1929)
“
Stalin’s program was bound to appeal to Bolsheviks who harbored such attitudes, and his argumentation shows how conscious of this he was. “We cannot live like gypsies without grain reserves,
”
”
Robert C. Tucker (Stalin as Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality, 1879-1929)
“
Stalin’s program was bound to appeal to Bolsheviks who harbored such attitudes, and his argumentation shows how conscious of this he was. “We cannot live like gypsies without grain reserves,” he said in the speech of July 9, 1928. “Isn’t it clear that a great state covering a sixth of the earth’s surface can’t get along without grain reserves for internal and external needs?
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Robert C. Tucker (Stalin as Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality, 1879-1929)