Resist Persist Quotes

Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.

What you resist, persists

Forgiveness is healing—everything is energy—thoughts create—we are all connected—what you resist persists—true love never dies—the soul’s immortality is the only true immortality—

They key of persistence opens all door closed by resistence

What you resist, persists

I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some people never observe anything, Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.

whatever you fight, you strengthyen. What you resist, persists. "A New Earth":War is a mind set

Persistence wears down resistance.

Persist and resist". Persist in your efforts. Resist giving into distraction, discouragement, and disorder. - Epictetus

So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It’s one I’ve always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down. Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn’t always safe, but it’s often necessary.

...what you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.

But I feel this, Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift them out of resentment-filled illusions of security. -Alma Mavis Taraza

Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling. The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with stubborn fidelity. It resists compromising reasonableness and often forces deviance and oddity upon its keeper, especially when neglected or opposed. It offers comfort and can pull you into its shell, but it cannot abide innocence. It can make the body ill. It is out of step with time, finding all sorts of faults, gaps, and knots in the flow of life - and it prefers them. It has affinities with myth, since it is itself a mythical being and thinks in mythical patterns. It has much to do with feelings of uniqueness, of grandeur and with the restlessness of the heart, its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, witnessed, accorded recognition, particularly by the person who is its caretaker. Metaphoric images are its first unlearned language, which provides the poetic basis of mind, making possible communication between all people and all things by means of metaphors

She persisted when I resisted. And thank God for that. Because the number of storms I needed to go through before appreciating the way the wind whipped through her hair was one to many. Now, I'd move mountains to make her mine. Rain or shine.

We may lose battles but we are stronger and the only thing that can defeat us ultimately is our willingness to accept defeat. We cannot accept defeat. I do not accept defeat.

What you resist persists.

The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can’t beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they ‘re defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We’re the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don’t see the ants and don’t know what we’re doing. They’ll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money and we resist with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time

Any government's condemnation of terrorism is only credible if it shows itself to be responsive to persistent, reasonable, closely argued, non-violent dissent. And yet, what's happening is just the opposite. The world over, non-violent resistance movements are being crushed and broken. If we do not respect and honour them, by default we privilege those who turn to violent means.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths - whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over. If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.

The dreams you have that may meet mockeries from the lips of negative people will yield the success that will squeeze tears from their eyes later! Dare to resist every negative criticism and persist to make it happen!

Not able to stop it, I felt a small smile tilt up the corners of my mouth. "Noted. Althought I must protest that you keep forcing unwanted kisses on me." "It's the only way to get one. Unwanted indeed." He raised a knowing eyebrow at me. Arrogant Knave. I shook my head, feeling sad and happy all at the same time. "Why do you persist, Wolfe?" His grin was slow and wicked as he stood back from me, allowing my body and mind to breathe again. "Strategy." "Strategy?" He cocked his eyebrow. "At first I thought imposed isolation would make you miss me-" "Why you arro-" "-But then I realised that it's being near me you can't resist. And there are only so many kisses you'll take before you give in to me completely, Rogan.

You got to insist on your success, resist every obstacle and persist in times of difficulty and you will get there.

Just do not give up at the first signs of resistance because you can break through many barriers with persistence.

I later learn that what I suffered was called blunt force trauma. It's remarkably similar to how I felt after the election, as if I'd been slammed into a wall or hit by a car. Both pains persist-show no signs, in fact, of ever going away. The damage is permanent. I will never be the same as I was before the accident/election.

The bigger the change you’re suggesting, the more it will sap people’s self-control. And when people exhaust their self-control, what they’re exhausting are the mental muscles needed to think creatively, to focus, to inhibit their impulses, and to persist in the face of frustration or failure. In other words, they’re exhausting precisely the mental muscles needed to make a big change. So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that’s just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

When resistance closes the door against you, remember that persistence holds the key. Don't give up too early; insist to endure to the end... You will never regret it!

It is when speaking is not safe that we must speak. It is when taking a stand hurts that we must stand. Whenever freedom is threatened, we must resist. When forces oppress us, we must persist. And when hope deserts us, we must rest... then pick up the torch again and again and again until all are free to do the same.

As you develop the unconditional love, what you’re essentially looking for is where your body or mind resists this love. One of the most persistent and difficult “resisters” is toxic shame. We finally stop running.

As summer neared, as the evening lengthened there came to the wakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool, imaginations of the strangest kind- of flesh turned to atoms which drove before the wind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of outwardly the scattered parts of the vision within. In those mirrors, the minds of men, in those pools of uneasy water, in which cloud forever and shadows form, dreams persisted; and it was impossible to resist the strange intimation which every gull, flower, tree, man and woman, and the white earth itself seemed to declare (but if you questioned at once to withdraw) that good triumph, happiness prevails, order rules, or to resist the extra ordinary stimulus to range hither and thither in search of some absolute good, some crystal of intensity remote from the known pleasures and familiar virtues, something alien to the processes of domestic life, single, hard, bright, like a diamond in the sand which would render the possessor secure. Moreover softened and acquiescent, the spring with their bees humming and gnats dancing threw her cloud about her, veiled her eyes, averted her head, and among passing shadows and fights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her knowledge of the sorrows of mankind.

What you resist, persists. What you look at disappears. That is, it ceases to have its illusory form. You see it for what it Is. And what Is can always be changed. It is only what Is Not that cannot be changed. Therefore, to change the Isness, move into it. Do not resist it. Do not deny it.

Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. (...) So they moved with the snow, became part of the snowstorm which drifted up against the trees and fences. And when they died, frozen solid against a fence, with the snow drifted around their heads? "Ah, Tayo," Josiah said, "the wind convinced them they were the ice.

For success, don't take the path of least resistance. Take the path of most persistence.

There are moment of sadness and moment of joy. This is life.

What you resist, persists....Let go and your life will flow.

Anxiety is one of the worst things you can experience in your whole life. The more you resist, the more it persists. I learned pretty quickly that I had to lean in to my anxiety. And accept it. Or try to. I had a much-needed conversation with myself.

To all those who I do not know, and who live in the worlds where superstition and barbarism are still dominant, and into whose hands I hope this little book may fall, I offer the modest encouragement of an older wisdom. It is in fact this, and not any arrogant preaching that come to us out of the whirlwind: "Die stimme der vernunft ist leise". Yes, The voice of reason is very soft, but it is very persistent. In this, and in the lives and minds of combatants known and unknown, we repose our chief hope.

Doing new things invariably means obstacles. A new path is, by definition, uncleared. Only with persistence and time can we cut away debris and remove impediments. Only in struggling with the impediments that made others quit can we find ourselves on untrodden territory—only by persisting and resisting can we learn what others were too impatient to be taught.

What I Will by Suheir Hammad I will not dance to your war drum. I will not lend my soul nor my bones to your war drum. I will not dance to your beating. I know that beat. It is lifeless. I know intimately that skin you are hitting. It was alive once hunted stolen stretched. I will not dance to your drummed up war. I will not pop spin break for you. I will not hate for you or even hate you. I will not kill for you. Especially I will not die for you. I will not mourn the dead with murder nor suicide. I will not side with you nor dance to bombs because everyone else is dancing. Everyone can be wrong. Life is a right not collateral or casual. I will not forget where I come from. I will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved near and our chanting will be dancing. Our humming will be drumming. I will not be played. I will not lend my name nor my rhythm to your beat. I will dance and resist and dance and persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than death. Your war drum ain’t louder than this breath.

Suffering is exacerbated by avoidance. The body carries with it any undigested pain. Our attempts at self-protection cause us to live in a small, dark, cramped corner of our lives. We accept a limited perspective of the situation and a restricted view of ourselves. We cling to what is familiar simply in order to reassert control, thinking we can fend off what we fear will be intolerable. When we push back, hoping to get rid of a difficult experience, we are actually encapsulating it. In short, what we resist persists.

Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.

Si on persiste à se fourvoyer dans une mauvaise voie on est sûr de ne jamais atteindre sa destination.

What we resist persists.

Optimism More and more I have come to admire resilience. Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side, it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true. But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.

The desire to make art begins early. Among the very young this is encouraged (or at least indulged as harmless) but the push toward a 'serious' education soon exacts a heavy toll on dreams and fantasies....Yet for some the desire persists, and sooner or later must be addressed. And with good reason: your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are. Life and Art, once entwined, can quickly become inseparable; at age ninety Frank Lloyd Wright was still designing, Imogen Cunningham still photographing, Stravinsky still composing, Picasso still painting. But if making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you're not up to the task -- that you can't do it, or can't do it well, or can't do it again; or that you're not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have no talent, or have nothing to say. The line between the artist and his/her work is a fine one at best, and for the artist it feels (quite naturally) like there is no such line. Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be. For many people, that alone is enough to prevent their ever getting started at all -- and for those who do, trouble isn't long in coming. Doubts, in fact, soon rise in swarms: "I am not an artist -- I am a phony. I have nothing worth saying. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Other people are better than I am. I'm only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever]. I've never had a real exhibit. No one understands my work. No one likes my work. I'm no good. Yet viewed objectively, these fears obviously have less to do with art than they do with the artist. And even less to do with the individual artworks. After all, in making art you bring your highest skills to bear upon the materials and ideas you most care about. Art is a high calling -- fears are coincidental. Coincidental, sneaky and disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others -- indeed anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test.

This world can erode girls, strip away their foundation of self Love. The act is gradual, can be inviting. One day, you naturally feed yourself what feels good to your soul. Another day, you find yourself as a woman so far out to sea you cannot see your soul. To be well as a woman is to choose continuous resistance to this subtle erosion. Persistent whole-keeping. Many want to break you down, fraction you up. Turn you into parts. Stay whole. Surround yourself with wholeness and whole-keepers. Make your freedom sing. You are everything.

What we resist persists. Whether it’s pain, anxiety, fear, loss—whatever emotion you feel—don’t fight it. Experience it. Feel it all. Lean into it. Surrender to it. Breathe into it fully. Open your arms wide and welcome it all. Let go. It will lead you to the light.

Nature of the Desire for Change: There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us. Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change. The tendency to look for all causes outside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is the product of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, health and so on. “If anything ail a man,” says Thoreau, “so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.” It is understandable that those who fail should incline to blame the world for their failure. The remarkable thing is that the successful, too, however much they pride themselves on their foresight, fortitude, thrift and other “sterling qualities,” are at bottom convinced that their success is the result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self-confidence of even the consistently successful is never absolute. They are never sure that they know all the ingredients which go into the making of their success. The outside world seems to them a precariously balanced mechanism, and so long as it ticks in their favor they are afraid to tinker with it. Thus the resistance to change and the ardent desire for it spring from the same conviction, and the one can be as vehement as the other.

Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice.

Imagine what it would be like if we went through life never encountering an enemy, or any other obstacles for that matter, if from the cradle to the grave everyone we met pampered us, held us, hand fed us (soft bland food, easy to digest), amused us with funny faces and the occasional ‘goo-goo’ noise. If from infancy we were carried around in a basket (later on, perhaps on a litter), never encountering any challenge, never tested – in short, if everyone continued to treat us like a baby. That might sound good at first. For the first few months of life it might be appropriate. But if it persisted it could only result in one becoming a sort of gelatinous mass, a monstrosity really – with the mental and emotional development of veal. It’s the very struggle of life that makes us who we are. And it is our enemies that test us, provide us with the resistance necessary for growth.

Aquilo que você resiste, persiste.

What you resist, persists. Until you deal with your feelings, you will be stuck with them.

Finally, don’t try to “get out” of anything. What you resist, persists. I

What we resist, will persist.

Success cannot resist the temptation of consistency and persistence.

We would all be well advised to avoid the motivation to the evil thought. If persistently resisted it will "get the message" and stay away.

I was no more interested in agriculture than I was in learning how to milk cats, but I persisted because I couldn’t resist bothering him while he was reading. “And what have you learned so far?” “That certain young women are relentless pests,” he responded blandly, his eyes still fixed on the book. “Ridiculous,” I chided. “That has nothing to do with agriculture.

I still identify as Black. Not because I believe Blackness, or race, is a meaningful scientific category but because our societies, our policies, our ideas, our histories, and our cultures have rendered race and made it matter. I am among those who have been degraded by racist ideas, suffered under racist policies, and who have nevertheless endured and built movements and cultures to resist or at least persist through this madness. I see myself culturally and historically and politically in Blackness, in being an African American, an African, a member of the forced and unforced African diaspora. I see myself historically and politically as a person of color, as a member of the global south, as a close ally of Latinx, East Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native peoples and all the world’s degraded peoples, from the Roma and Jews of Europe to the aboriginals of Australia to the White people battered for their religion, class, gender, transgender identity, ethnicity, sexuality, body size, age, and disability. The gift of seeing myself as Black instead of being color-blind is that it allows me to clearly see myself historically and politically as being an antiracist, as a member of the interracial body striving to accept and equate and empower racial difference of all kinds.

The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they’ve got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change.

Grit embodies—but is not the same as—resilience, ambition, and self-control. The University of Pennsylvania psychologist and researcher Angela Duckworth defines it as passion and sustained persistence in trying to achieve a goal over the very long haul, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. Resilience is about overcoming adversity; ambition, at some level, suggests a desire for wealth, fame, and/or power; self-control can help you resist temptations, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re persistently pursuing a long-term goal.

And "sharing the work of survival," therefore, means resisting every temptation towards independence, towards personal liberty, towards "doing your own thing". This takes s sober vigilance and a persistent labour in a world which elevates the individual above the community, in a society which claims that individual desires are more important than contracts, commitments, and the good of the family

It was a gentle assault that chiselled at your will, and chip by chip, your resistance fell away, sculpting a new you. When you acquiesced, you were left wondering why you had ever resisted. In some moments you were even convinced that it was your decision, that you were acting of your own free will—that mirage of a notion—because after all, any pressure on you had only been mild, albeit persistent.

We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice.

To figure out what students were carrying with them from kindergarten into adulthood, Chetty’s team turned to another possible explanation. In fourth and eighth grade, the students were rated by their teachers on some other qualities. Here’s a sample: Proactive: How often did they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answers, seek information from books, and engage the teacher to learn outside class? Prosocial: How well did they get along and collaborate with peers? Disciplined: How effectively did they pay attention—and resist the impulse to disrupt the class? Determined: How consistently did they take on challenging problems, do more than the assigned work, and persist in the face of obstacles? When students were taught by more experienced kindergarten teachers, their fourth-grade teachers rated them higher on all four of these attributes. So did their eighth-grade teachers. The capacities to be proactive, prosocial, disciplined, and determined stayed with students longer—and ultimately proved more powerful—than early math and reading skills.

Overt bigotry, Jim Crow laws and policies, government-mandated discrimination, and the belief in black inferiority have virtually disappeared. Laissez-faire racism, instead, involves persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, a tendency to blame blacks for their own conditions, appeals to meritocracy, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to ameliorate America’s racist social conditions and institutions. Government is formally race neutral and committed to antidiscrimination, and most white Americans prefer a more volitional and cultural, as opposed to inherent and biological, interpretation of blacks’ disadvantage status.

Mindful of this hesitation, Desiree persisted in her physical seduction by pulling her shoulders back—thereby extending her breasts, tilting her head, raising her right eyebrow, and smiling. She blew him a kiss. Who could resist that?

Three things change your prakriti: your food, your atmosphere, your association. Without making any fuss about it, be in it. Sāttvic food, limited and timely food is good. The body is in the right shape. If too many desires come in your mind, or too much restlessness and agitation then food, atmosphere and association have been the cause. Without a fuss, just observe and do whatever is needful. Forget about it. Relax. Ahō niranjanaha shāntō bōdhō’ham prakrateh paraha. Some unpleasant feeling comes and you feel that it should not come. By doing that, you are resisting it. When you resist, it persists. Just observe and go deep into it. Dance, stand up and dance. Be intoxicated, move intoxicated. यथा

Cats catch mice, small birds and the like, very well. Teleology tells us that they do so because they were expressly constructed for so doing—that they are perfect mousing apparatuses, so perfect and so delicately adjusted that no one of their organs could be altered, without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. Darwinism affirms on the contrary, that there was no express construction concerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations of the Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resist opposing influences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch mice than others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to the advantage over their fellows thus offered to them. Far from imagining that cats exist 'in order' to catch mice well, Darwinism supposes that cats exist 'because' they catch mice well—mousing being not the end, but the condition, of their existence. And if the cat type has long persisted as we know it, the interpretation of the fact upon Darwinian principles would be, not that the cats have remained invariable, but that such varieties as have incessantly occurred have been, on the whole, less fitted to get on in the world than the existing stock.

But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

My Song So many memories, and I'm still young. So many dreams, my song's just begun. Sometimes I hear my private melody grow, then the sound vanishes, but returns, I now know. I've heard my heart break; wounded, I've felt alone, but slowly I learned to thrive on my own. I want to keep learning, to depend my song; in whatever I work may my best self grow strong. It's still the morning, the green spring of my life. i'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide. My family wonders where I will go. I wonder too. I long to discover how to protect the earth, our home, hear world sisters and brothers, who feel so alone. Hearts and hands open to those close and those far, a great family circle with peace our lodestar. No child should be hungry. All children should read, be healthy and safe, feel hope, learn to lead. It's still the morning, the spring of my life I'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide. I'm take wrong turns and again lose my way. I'll search for wise answers, listen, study and pray. So many memories, and I'm still young. So many dreams; my own song has begun. I'll resist judging others by their accents and skin, confront my life challenges, improve myself within. Heeding my song- for life's not easy or fair- I'll persist, be a light resist the snare of despair. Mysteriously, I've grown to feel strong. I'm preparing to lead. I'm composing my song. It's still the morning, the spring of my life. I'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

May 27, 1941 Sunday we encountered specimens of the rarely appearing yellow lady's slipper. This orchis is fragilely beautiful. One tends to think of it almost as a phenomenon, without any roots or place in the natural world. And yet it, too, has had its tough old ancestors which have eluded fires and drought and freezes to pass on in this lovely form the boon of existence. If a plant so delicately lovely can at the same time be so toughly persistent and resistant to all natural enemies, can we doubt that hopes for a better an more rational world may not also withstand all assaults, be bequeathed from generation to generation, and come ultimately to flower? President Roosevelt says he has not lost faith in democracy; nor have I lost faith in the transcendent potentialities of LIFE itself. One has but to look about him to become almost wildly imbued with something of the massive, surging vitality of the earth.

We have good news and bad news. The good news is that the dismal vision of human sexuality reflected in the standard narrative is mistaken. Men have not evolved to be deceitful cads, nor have millions of years shaped women into lying, two-timing gold-diggers. But the bad news is that the amoral agencies of evolution have created in us a species with a secret it just can’t keep. Homo sapiens evolved to be shamelessly, undeniably, inescapably sexual. Lusty libertines. Rakes, rogues, and roués. Tomcats and sex kittens. Horndogs. Bitches in heat.1 True, some of us manage to rise above this aspect of our nature (or to sink below it). But these preconscious impulses remain our biological baseline, our reference point, the zero in our own personal number system. Our evolved tendencies are considered “normal” by the body each of us occupies. Willpower fortified with plenty of guilt, fear, shame, and mutilation of body and soul may provide some control over these urges and impulses. Sometimes. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon. But even when controlled, they refuse to be ignored. As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.) Acknowledged or not, these evolved yearnings persist and clamor for our attention. And there are costs involved in denying one’s evolved sexual nature, costs paid by individuals, couples, families, and societies every day and every night. They are paid in what E. O. Wilson called “the less tangible currency of human happiness that must be spent to circumvent our natural predispositions.”2 Whether or not our society’s investment in sexual repression is a net gain or loss is a question for another time. For now, we’ll just suggest that trying to rise above nature is always a risky, exhausting endeavor, often resulting in spectacular collapse. Any attempt to understand who we are, how we got to be this way, and what to do about it must begin by facing up to our evolved human sexual predispositions. Why do so many forces resist our sustained fulfillment? Why is conventional marriage so much damned work? How has the incessant, grinding campaign of socio-scientific insistence upon the naturalness of sexual monogamy combined with a couple thousand years of fire and brimstone failed to rid even the priests, preachers, politicians, and professors of their prohibited desires? To see ourselves as we are, we must begin by acknowledging that of all Earth’s creatures, none is as urgently, creatively, and constantly sexual as Homo sapiens.

The more intimate we are with someone, the more difficult it is objectively to hear their point of view without reacting to their negative feelings. To protect ourselves from feeling worthy of their disrespect or disapproval automatic defenses come up to resist their point of view. Even if we agree with their point of view, we may stubbornly persist in arguing with them.

Life and death are not two opposed forces; they are simply two ways of looking at the same force, for the movement of change is as much the builder as the destroyer. The human body lives because it is a complex of motions, of circulation, respiration, and digestion. To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.

What I meant when I said that Hillary Clinton had made the world ready for Hillary Clinton is that I recognized her as a woman who had whacked the weeds to blaze her own trail, who had always stood up again after she was told to sit down, who had persisted, and persisted, and persisted, nevertheless. What I meant is that a woman like this was finally going to win. Someday she will.

A bishop friend who is known for his advocacy of controversial positions says his rule of thumb when uncertain about which course to choose is "Go with the future." Had he lived in Germany in 1932 and followed that rule of thumb he would have been a spirited supporter of Adolf Hitler. There is no "future" to guide our present decisions. There are only possible futures that we can strive to advance or resist. More precisely, there is no "future" until it happens, and then it is fleetingly the present on its way to becoming the past. Yet we persist in trying to dismiss proposals labeled as conservative because, we confidently proclaim, they are not of the future but of the past. . . . The commandments of the future are easier, of course, because we can make them up to our liking.

Humans—especially women—have an extraordinary capacity to ignore this voice. We live in a culture that values “self-control,” “grit,” and persistence. Many of us are taught to see a shift in goals as “weakness” and “failure,” where another culture would see courage, strength, and openness to new possibilities. We have been taught that letting go of a goal is the same as failing. We share stories of people overcoming the odds to achieve remarkable things in the face of great resistance, which is inspiring. But these stories too often imply that we are the controllers of our destinies—as if we control the amount of nuts and seeds in a particular patch of forest. If we “fail” to achieve a goal, it’s because there is something wrong with us. We didn’t fight hard enough. We didn’t “believe.

Jabotinsky wrote in 1923: “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the ‘Land of Israel.

PULL BEATS PUSH Training managers how to give feedback—how to push more effectively—can be helpful. But if the receiver isn’t willing or able to absorb the feedback, then there’s only so far persistence or even skillful delivery can go. It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change. Pushing harder rarely opens the door to genuine learning. The focus should not be on teaching feedback givers to give. The focus—at work and at home—should be on feedback receivers, helping us all to become more skillful learners. The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow. It’s also about how to stand up for who we are and how we see the world, and ask for what we need. It’s about how to learn from feedback—yes, even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood.

Despite the billions spent on gerontology and arresting the ageing process, our time-worn adversaries, growing old and dying, persist like spots on the moon. Deep within us is the desire to live forever. We resist the concept of nothingness…the ‘dust to dust’ philosophy. This built-in aversion is an indirect indication of our sense of permanence. The advertising industry has jumped on the bandwagon of pursuing eternal life.

. . .biographers tend to regard as character those elements of personality that remain constant, or nearly so, throughout. . .Like practitioners of fractal geometry, biographers seek patterns that persist as one moves from micro- to macro-levels of analysis, and back again. . . . It follows from this that the scale across which we seek similarity need not be chronological. Consider the following incidents in the life of Stalin between 1929 and 1940, arranged not by dates but in terms of ascending horror. Start with the parrot he kept in a cage in his Kremlin apartment. The dictator had the habit of pacing up and down for long periods of time, smoking his pipe, brooding, and occasionally spitting on the floor. One day the parrot tried to mimic Stalin's spitting. He immediately reached into the cage with his pipe and crushed the parrot's head. A very micro-level event, you might well say, so what? But then you learn that Stalin, while on vacation in the Crimea, was once kept awake by a barking dog. It turned out to be a seeing-eye dog that belonged to a blind peasant. The dog wound up being shot, and the peasant wound up in the Gulag. And then you learn that Stalin drove his independently minded second wife, who tried to talk back to him, into committing suicide. And that he arranged for Trotsky, who also talked back, to be assassinated halfway around the world. And that he arranged as well the deaths of as many of Trotsky's associates that he could reach, as well as the deaths of hundred of thousands of other people who never had anything to do with Trotsky. And that when his own people began to talk back by resisting the collectivization of agriculture, he allowed some fourteen million of them to die from the resulting starvation, exile, or imprisonment. Again, there's self-similarity across scale, except that the scale this time is a body count. It's a fractal geometry of terror. Stalin's character extended across time and space, to be sure, but what's most striking about it is its extension across scale: the fact that his behavior seemed much the same in large matters, small matters, and most of those that lay in between.

I persisted in my resistance to Gilberte’s invitations. This resistance was now costing me less and less: however much one may savor one’s poison, when one has been forcibly deprived of it for any length of time, one is bound to be struck by how restful it can be to do without it, by the absence of excitements and sorrows. We may be not entirely sincere in hoping never again to see the woman we love; but the same may well be true when we say we do hope to see her again.

Regular fasting, by routinely lowering insulin levels, has been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity. This finding is the missing piece in the weight-loss puzzle. Most diets restrict the intake of foods that cause increased insulin secretion, but don’t address insulin resistance. You lose weight initially, but insulin resistance keeps your insulin levels and body set weight high. By fasting, you can efficiently reduce your body’s insulin resistance, since it requires both persistent and high levels.

The difference between the butch and the queen is rooted in the system of male supremacy. Gay male camp is based not simply on the incongruous juxtaposition of femininity and maleness, but also on the reordering of particular power relationships inherent in our society’s version of masculinity and femininity. The most obvious cause for the minimum development of camp among lesbians was that masculinity was not and still isn’t as incongruous as femininity in twentieth century American culture and therefore not as easily used as a basis for humor. Concomitantly although individual women might be able to sexually objectify a man, women has a group did not have the social power to objectify men in general. Therefore, such objectification could never be the basis for a genre of humor with wide appeal. But why didn’t camp develop and thrive within the lesbian community itself? Because the structures of oppression were such that lesbians never really escaped from male supremacy. In lesbians’ actual struggles in the bars or out on the streets, authority was always male. For queens to confront male authority was a confrontation between two men, on some level equals. The queen was playing with male privilege, which was his by birthright. For women to confront male authority is to break all traditional training and roles. Without a solid organization of all women, this requires taking on a male identity, beating men at their own game. Passive resistance or the fist is most appropriate for the situation, though not a very good basis for theater and humor.

The fourth challenge we face is to unite around powerful action programs to eradicate the last vestiges of racial injustice. We will be greatly misled if we feel that the problem will work itself out. Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice.

(...)because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain.” “Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?” “Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.” “A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” “You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl.” “But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” “Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.” “How? I don’t understand.” “It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” “What then?” “Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.” “What does He say?” “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.

Furthermore, some researchers have suggested a strong association with the presence of the protective gene in populations who have historically farmed yams. To plant yams, farmers clear forests. Cleared forest means more standing water. More standing water means more mosquitoes. More mosquitoes means more malaria—so the idea goes. The emergence of the disease, and as a consequence the resistance gene, may well have been enabled, or at least nurtured, by yam farming. The persistence of sickle cell anemia is the cost of positive selection for resistance against the most destructive disease in our history.

But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” “Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.” “How? I don’t understand.” “It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” “What then?” “Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.

«[…] Apropiarse de la tristeza, tragándosela sorbo a sorbo, inhalándola, aprisionándola dentro de usté, dejándola entrar hasta el último rincón del cuerpo, hasta que nada de ella quede fuera. ¿En ese momento qué la va a rodear si ya dejó entrar toda la tristeza?» —¿Qué? —preguntó Azucena. «—¡Pues la felicidad! Por eso no hay que temerle a la tristeza, al dolor. Hay que saberlos gozar, aceptar. "Lo que resistes persiste." Si uno resiste el sufrimiento, éste siempre nos va a estar rodeando. Si uno lo acepta como parte de la vida, del todo, y lo deja entrar hasta agotarlo, quedará rodeado de alegría, de felicidad. ¡Adelante, mucha suerte, niña, y a darle vuelo al gozo! […]» (P. 144)

Quraysh, who had shown throughout the day that they were still in thrall to the overbearing haughtiness and intransigence of the jahiliyyah, a stubborn resistance to anything that might injure their sense of honor or their traditional way of life. They had even been ready to massacre the innocent unarmed pilgrims rather than accept the “humiliation” of admitting them to the Haram. When in the hearts of those who persist in unbelief arose the characteristic arrogance, the arrogance of jahiliyyah, then God sent down his peace of soul (sakinah) upon His Messenger and upon the believers, and imposed upon them the formula of self-restraint (hilm), for that was most befitting to them and they were most suited for that.31

The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare. We avoid talking about caste in our society because we are ashamed of our racial history. We also avoid talking about race. We even avoid talking about class. Conversations about class are resisted in part because there is a tendency to imagine that one's class reflects upon one's character. What is key to America's understanding of class is the persistent belief - despite all evidence to the contrary - that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. We recognize that mobility may be difficult, but the key to our collective self-image is the assumption that mobility is always possible, so failure to move up reflects on one's character. By extension, the failure of a race or ethnic group to move up reflects very poorly on the group as a whole. What is completely missed in the rare public debates today about the plight of African Americans is that a huge percentage of them are not free to move up at all. It is not just that they lack opportunity, attend poor schools, or are plagued by poverty. They are barred by law from doing so. And the major institutions with which they come into contact are designed to prevent their mobility. To put the matter starkly: The current system of control permanently locks a huge percentage of the African American community out of the mainstream society and economy. The system operates through our criminal justice institutions, but it functions more like a caste system than a system of crime control. Viewed from this perspective, the so-called underclass is better understood as an undercaste - a lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society. Although this new system of racialized social control purports to be colorblind, it creates and maintains racial hierarchy much as earlier systems of control did. Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.

While slaveowners worked vigorously to allow slaves only so much biblical teaching as to make them good, docile, submissive slaves, even the most basic moral elements of Christian truth proved revolutionary. This phenomenon arises clearly with the commandment against theft. Reading the proslavery defenses from the antebellum era, one encounters consistent references to slaves stealing and "pilfering" from their masters' stores and livestock, etc. This is always held up as evidence of their incapacity for civilization. Yet it was hardly any lack of capacity; it was resistance and restitution in their keen understanding of their masters' hypocrisy. "While white preachers repeatedly urged 'Don't steal,' slaves just as persistently denied that this commandment applied to them, since they themselves were stolen property." Former slave Josephine Howard retorted to those slaveholders who preached against theft: "[T]hen why did de white folks steal my mammy and her mammy? . . . Dat de sinfulles' stealin' dey is." A Virginian slave preached back at his master, "You white folks set the bad example of stealing—you stole us from Africa, and not content with that, if any got free here, you stole them afterward, and so we are made slaves." Former Georgian slave George Womble agreed: "Slaves were taught to steal by their masters." [...] It is no wonder that whole audiences full of slaves were known to get up and leave the preaching services of missionaries when they began to preach on stealing. They simply could not stomach the hypocrisy.

It is already the fashion to diminish Eliot by calling him derivative, the mouthpiece of Pound, and so forth; and yet if one wanted to understand the apocalypse of early modernism in its true complexity it would be Eliot, I fancy, who would demand one's closest attention. He was ready to rewrite the history of all that interested him in order to have past and present conform; he was a poet of apocalypse, of the last days and the renovation, the destruction of the earthly city as a chastisement of human presumption, but also of empire. Tradition, a word we especially associate with this modernist, is for him the continuity of imperial deposits; hence the importance in his thought of Virgil and Dante. He saw his age as a long transition through which the elect must live, redeeming the time. He had his demonic host, too; the word 'Jew' remained in lower case through all the editions of the poems until the last of his lifetime, the seventy-fifth birthday edition of 1963. He had a persistent nostalgia for closed, immobile hierarchical societies. If tradition is, as he said in After Strange Gods--though the work was suppressed--'the habitual actions, habits and customs' which represent the kinship 'of the same people living in the same place' it is clear that Jews do not have it, but also that practically nobody now does. It is a fiction, a fiction cousin to a myth which had its effect in more practical politics. In extenuation it might be said that these writers felt, as Sartre felt later, that in a choice between Terror and Slavery one chooses Terror, 'not for its own sake, but because, in this era of flux, it upholds the exigencies proper to the aesthetics of Art.' The fictions of modernist literature were revolutionary, new, though affirming a relation of complementarity with the past. These fictions were, I think it is clear, related to others, which helped to shape the disastrous history of our time. Fictions, notably the fiction of apocalypse, turn easily into myths; people will live by that which was designed only to know by. Lawrence would be the writer to discuss here, if there were time; apocalypse works in Woman in Love, and perhaps even in Lady Chatterley's Lover, but not n Apocalypse, which is failed myth. It is hard to restore the fictive status of what has become mythical; that, I take it, is what Mr. Saul Bellow is talking about in his assaults on wastelandism, the cant of alienation. In speaking of the great men of early modernism we have to make very subtle distinctions between the work itself, in which the fictions are properly employed, and obiter dicta in which they are not, being either myths or dangerous pragmatic assertions. When the fictions are thus transformed there is not only danger but a leak, as it were, of reality; and what we feel about. all these men at times is perhaps that they retreated inso some paradigm, into a timeless and unreal vacuum from which all reality had been pumped. Joyce, who was a realist, was admired by Eliot because he modernized myth, and attacked by Lewis because he concerned himself with mess, the disorders of common perception. But Ulysses ,alone of these great works studies and develops the tension between paradigm and reality, asserts the resistance of fact to fiction, human freedom and unpredictability against plot. Joyce chooses a Day; it is a crisis ironically treated. The day is full of randomness. There are coincidences, meetings that have point, and coincidences which do not. We might ask whether one of the merits of the book is not its lack of mythologizing; compare Joyce on coincidence with the Jungians and their solemn concordmyth, the Principle of Synchronicity. From Joyce you cannot even extract a myth of Negative Concord; he shows us fiction fitting where it touches. And Joyce, who probably knew more about it than any of the others, was not at tracted by the intellectual opportunities or the formal elegance of fascism.

I confess, I have setbacks like anyone. But they don’t cause distress or coalesce in a mess for I’ve learned to step back, to reflect and assess where I’m at and enact a simple plan of attack — to press forward, progress; not digress, not give up nor express my despair but address what I can, my mistakes and my faults, with a head-on assault. For I’m blessed with my faith and belief and a chest that encases a heart that does not know the meaning of “quit" or “give up" or “there there” or “oh well”, “never-mind” or “bad luck” or “just try something else”, no. Me and myself, my reflection and I, we are not of that ilk, we aren’t ones to comply. We aren’t ones to conform or accept that the norm is a one-size-fits-all way to simply exist for we strive to be different, incredible, unique. Not irrelevant, invisible, insignificant or meek. We strive to resist and we fight to excel, so setbacks to us are a thing to be quashed, to be quelled, to be squished, to be left in our wake as we go on our way, as we sail right on by to impossible ends, to what few dare to try. This is why – this is why – as my reflection attests, there is no time to rest. The struggle is unending … but I will give it my best.

At the risk of oversimplifying a topic that deserves entire books, we can summarize like this: During enslavement, many Black cooks learned their way around kitchens because their lives could depend on having that knowledge and skill. After slavery was abolished, many took to slinging fried chicken (or cooking in general) as one way to make a living. Interestingly, it wasn’t until Black folks began navigating their supposed freedoms-applying to schools, looking for paid work, seeking housing-that cartoonish, offensive images of Black folks eagerly consuming chicken or stealing chickens began to appear in essays, comics, advertisements, and postcards, perpetuating a narrative by white society that Black people were subhuman and needed to be controlled, policed, and locked out of mainstream opportunities. Exacerbated by the deep white resentment of Black people’s increasing social and political mobility (this period saw the largest representation of Black people in Congress than any time since), the idea took root that being Black meant that you loved fried chicken so much that you couldn’t resist it. This narrative is a painful legacy of slavery that wasn’t of our own making and is ironic, given that people all over the world get down with wings and things. But the essence of this stereotype persists. We know folks who refuse to eat fried chicken around white people, or chefs who don’t cook it in their restaurants, because they feel that’s the only thing certain diners expect from them…American fried chicken tastes good. It’s also complicated.

Do me a favor,” he said to her, “and stay close to me at all times. If I tell you to get down or to run like hell, you do it. No questions, you just do it, you got that?” A small furrow creased her perfect brow. “I thought I was safe in this town.” “You are.” George shot Harry a what-are-you-doing look behind Alessandra’s back. Harry ignored him. “Humor me,” he told her. “Please? I know you don’t believe this, but Trotta’s a son of a bitch, and he’s known for his persistence.” George opened the door. “Harry just wants an excuse to put his arm around you.” Alessandra glanced quickly at Harry, surprise lighting her eyes. Surprise and something else. Something as hot and electric as lightning. It brought her to life so completely and made her exquisitely beautiful despite the heavy makeup. But as instantly as it appeared, it was gone. Quaffed and shoved back inside. Somewhere down the line she’d learned to hide any excitement, any life, any passion. Someone hadn’t wanted her to be anything more than a pretty bauble. A decorative but unobtrusive piece of art. George closed the door. “If you want, I’ll turn around and you two can kiss.” Harry eviscerated George with his eyes. “George imagines there’s some kind of weird attraction thing between us, Al. But George is wrong. George is dead wrong.” He muttered under his breath, “In fact, George is dead.” He looked at Alessandra. “I’m sorry if he offended you.” “He didn’t. I’m aware that you’re not . . . that we’re not . . . I’m aware.” “Still, that was completely inappropriate.” Harry looked at George again, who was totally amused. “Stupendously, asshole-ishly inappropriate.” “I think we’re all a little punchy.” The ice princess had been replaced by someone softer, someone less certain. Someone he had far more trouble resisting. Someone he did want to kiss. And George knew it, too. The son of a bitch was grinning at him, damn him.

As it happens, the term “white skin privilege” was first popularized in the 1970s by the SDS radicals of “Weatherman,” who were carrying on a terrorist war against “Amerikkka,” a spelling designed to stigmatize the United States as a nation of Klansmen. Led by presidential friends, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, the Weather terrorists called on other whites to renounce their privilege and join a global race war already in progress. Although their methods and style kept the Weather radicals on the political fringe, their views on race reflected those held by the broad ranks of the political left. In the following years, the concept of “white skin privilege” continued to spread until it became an article of faith among all progressives, a concept that accounted for everything that was racially wrong in America beginning with its constitutional founding. As Pax Christi USA, a Catholic organization, explained: “Law in the U.S. protects white skin privilege because white male landowners created the laws to protect their rights, their culture and their wealth.” This is the theme of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, the most popular book ever written on the subject, and of university curricula across the nation. Eventually, the concept of white skin privilege was embraced even by liberals who had initially resisted it as slander against a nation that had just concluded a historically unprecedented civil rights revolution. This was because the concept of white skin privilege provided an explanation for the fact that the recent Civil Rights Acts had not led to an equality of results, and that racial disparities persisted even as overt racists and institutional barriers were vanishing from public life. The inconvenient triumph of American tolerance presented an existential problem for civil rights activists, whom it threatened to put out of work. “White skin privilege” offered a solution. As the Southern Poverty Law Center explained: “white skin privilege is not something that white people necessarily do, create or enjoy on purpose,” but is rather an unavoidable consequence of the “transparent preference for whiteness that saturates our society.” In other words, even if white Americans were no longer racists, they were.

The tyranny of caste is that we are judged on the very things we cannot change: a chemical in the epidermis, the shape of one’s facial features, the signposts on our bodies of gender and ancestry—superficial differences that have nothing to do with who we are inside. The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful. We have seen in the years since the civil rights era that laws, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, can be weakened if there is not the collective will to maintain them. A caste system persists in part because we, each and every one of us, allow it to exist—in large and small ways, in our everyday actions, in how we elevate or demean, embrace or exclude, on the basis of the meaning attached to people’s physical traits. If enough people buy into the lie of natural hierarchy, then it becomes the truth or is assumed to be. Once awakened, we then have a choice. We can be born to the dominant caste but choose not to dominate. We can be born to a subordinated caste but resist the box others force upon us. And all of us can sharpen our powers of discernment to see past the external and to value the character of a person rather than demean those who are already marginalized or worship those born to false pedestals. We need not bristle when those deemed subordinate break free, but rejoice that here may be one more human being who can add their true strengths to humanity. The goal of this work has not been to resolve all of the problems of a millennia-old phenomenon, but to cast a light onto its history, its consequences, and its presence in our everyday lives and to express hopes for its resolution. A housing inspector does not make the repairs on the building he has examined. It is for the owners, meaning each of us, to correct the ruptures we have inherited. The fact is that the bottom caste, though it bears much of the burden of the hierarchy, did not create the caste system, and the bottom caste alone cannot fix it. The challenge has long been that many in the dominant caste, who are in a better position to fix caste inequity, have often been least likely to want to. Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune. It is as if alcoholism is encoded into the country’s DNA, and can never be declared fully cured. It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened.

At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough,” he said hoarsely. “Do you love him?” “Why does it matter?” His eyes ate her up. “If you do, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stay out of your life from now on.” “You’ve been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years,” she snapped. “I don’t see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything.” “Easily? It was never easy, I assure you.” His expression was stony. “And you’re avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?” How she wished she could lie about it. Dom would take himself off, and she wouldn’t be tempted by him anymore. Unfortunately, he could always tell when she was lying. “And if I say I’m not?” “Then I won’t rest until you’re mine again.” The determination in his voice shocked her. Unsettled her. Thrilled her. No! “I don’t want that.” His fingers dug into her arm. “Because you love Blakeborough?” “Because love is a lie designed to make a woman desire what is only a figure of smoke in the wind. Love is too dangerous.” He released a heavy breath. “So you don’t love him.” His persistence sparked her temper, and she pushed free of him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if you must know, I don’t.” She faced him down. “Not that it matters one whit. I don’t need love to have a good marriage, an amiable marriage. I don’t even want love.” It hurt too much when her heart was trampled upon. Dom had done that once before. How could she be sure he wouldn’t do it again? Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he said in a low voice, “You used to want love.” “I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better. But I do now.” “Do you? I wonder.” He circled her like a wolf assessing its prey’s weaknesses. “Very well, let’s forget about love for the moment. What about passion?” “What about it?” she asked unsteadily as he slipped behind her. Nervous, she edged nearer the impressively massive pianoforte that sat in the center of the room. “What part does passion play in your plan for a safe and loveless marriage?” She pivoted to face him, startled to find that he’d stepped to within a breath of her. “None at all.” He chuckled. “Does Blakeborough know that?” “Not that it’s any of your concern, but Edwin and I have an arrangement. He’ll give me children; I’ll help him make sure Yvette finds a good husband. We both agree that passion is…unimportant to our plans.” “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “It certainly aids in the production of those children you’re hoping for. To quote a certain lady, ‘You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.’ You may not want passion to be important, sweeting, but it always is.” “Not to us,” she said, though with him standing so close her legs felt like rubber and her blood raced wildly through her veins. “Not to me.” With his gaze darkening, he lifted his hand to run his thumb over the pounding pulse at her throat. “Yes, I can tell how unimportant it is to you.” “That doesn’t mean…anything.” “Doesn’t it?” He backed her against the pianoforte. “So the way you trembled in my arms this morning means nothing.” It meant far too much. It meant her body was susceptible to him, even when her mind had the good sense to resist. And curse him to the devil, he knew it. He slipped his hand about her waist to pull her against him. “It means nothing that every time we’re together, we ignite.” “People do not…ignite,” she said shakily, though her entire body was on fire. “What an absurd idea.” She held her breath and waited for his attempt to kiss her, determined to refuse it this time. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he fondled her breast through her gown, catching her so by surprise that she gasped, then moaned as the feel of his hand caressing her made liquid heat swirl in her belly. Devil take the man.