Robert Bolt Quotes

We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder.

Thomas More: ...And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!

When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!” Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Thomas More: Will, I'd trust you with my life. But not your principles. You see, we speak of being anchored to our principles. But if the weather turns nasty you up with an anchor and let it down where there's less wind, and the fishing's better. And "Look," we say, "look, I'm anchored! To my principles!

The law is not a "light" for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. ...The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.

Lord, grant us rest tonight, and if we must be wakeful, cheerful.

RICH I’m lamenting. I’ve lost my innocence. CROMWELL You lost that some time ago. If you’ve only just noticed, it can’t have been very important to you.

I am used to hear bad men misuse the name of God, yet God exists.

I'm breathing . . . are you breathing too? It's nice, isn't it?

But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

Sir Thomas More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one. Richard Rich: If I was, who would know it? Sir Thomas More: You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that.

The nobility of England would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount. But you'll labor like scholars over a bulldog's pedigree.

Your taste in music is excellent. It exactly coinsides with my own!

Death comes for us all; even at our birth-- even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh. It is the law of nature, and the will of God.

If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we /must/ stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes.

When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water (he cups his hands) and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men aren't capable of this, but I'd be loathe to think your father one of them.

The hunters’ crossbow bolts are capable of bringing down most of the animals they hunt, but not the auroch. To kill an auroch the hunters would fire three bolts into the animal, each of them coated with what they call ‘the juice of the yew’.” Robert Reid – The Son

Bolt actions speak louder than words.

I'm breathing . . . Are you breathing too? . . . It's nice, isn't it? It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends just don't -make trouble-or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected. Well, I don't need to tell you that. Good night. If we should bump into one another, recognize me

She turned the doorknob and pushed - but the door wouldn’t budge. ‘Lillian? Lillian, don't tell me this door is bolted!’ ‘That’s fine,’ I answered in as light a tone as I could manage while frantically unbuttoning Uncle Bufford’s waistcoat. ‘I won’t tell you, I promise.’ ‘Don’t get smart with me, young lady! Is this door bolted?’ ‘You just asked me not to tell you that. So I can’t, even though technically it actually might be true.’ ‘Lillian!

This account of him [Thomas More] developed as I wrote: what first attracted me was a person who could not be accused of any incapacity for life, who indeed seized life in great variety and almost greedy quantities, who nevertheless found something in himself without which life was valueless and when that was denied him was able to grasp his death.

One hardly need believe that the events in your life are actually planned as bolts from the blue, sent special delivery from a deity who is testing and training you like a lab rat! And that is what we are saying when we fretfully ask, "What can God be trying to teach me through this tragedy?

Alice More: As for understanding, I understand that you are the best man that I ever met, or am likely to; And, if you go...Well, God knows why I suppose. Though as God's my witness God's kept deadly quiet about it!

My master Thomas More would give anything to anyone. Some say that’s good and some say that’s bad, but I say he can’t help it—and that’s bad…because some day someone’s going to ask him for something that he wants to keep; and he’ll be out of practice

The White Goddess All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go our headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

The man who tells lies hides the truth, but the man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.

Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But, if it is flat, will the King's command make it round? And, if it is round, will the King's command flatten it?

If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.

He easily outran everyone, bolting deeper into the forest like a coked-up hooker fleeing a crime scene.

We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder. —

I neither could nor would rule my King. But there's a little. . . little, area... where I must rule myself.

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world -- not even in infinite space. I was free -- free to think, to express my thoughts -- free to live to my own ideal -- free to live for myself and those I loved -- free to use all my faculties, all my senses -- free to spread imagination's wings -- free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope -- free to judge and determine for myself -- free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past -- free from popes and priests -- free from all the "called" and "set apart" -- free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies -- free from the fear of eternal pain -- free from the winged monsters of the night -- free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought -- no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings -- no chains for my limbs -- no lashes for my back -- no fires for my flesh -- no master's frown or threat – no following another's steps -- no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain -- for the freedom of labor and thought -- to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains -- to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs -- to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn -- to those by fire consumed -- to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But if it is flat, will the King's command make it round? And if it is round, will the King's command flatten it? No, I will not sign.

I was never afraid of my monsters. I controlled them. I slept with them in the dark, and they never stepped beyond their boundaries. My monsters had never asked to be bora with bolts in their necks, scaly wings, blood hunger in their veins, or deformed faces from which beautiful girls shrank back in horror. My monsters were not evil; they were simply trying to survive in a tough old world. They reminded me of myself and my friends: ungainly, unlovely, beaten but not conquered. They were the outsiders searching for a place to belong in a cataclysm of villagers’ torches, amulets, crucifixes, silver bullets, radiation bombs, air force jets, and flamethrowers. They were imperfect, and heroic in their suffering.

Then came a volley of colorful abuse, delivered in such an imperious voice, at at such a volume, that Terentia's distant ancestor, who had commanded the Roman line against Hannibal at Cannae a century and a half before, must surely have sat bolt upright in his tomb.

The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there ... ...when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you-where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast-man's laws, not God's-and if you cut them down-and you're just the man to do it-d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Have patience, Margaret, and trouble not thyself. Death comes for us all; even at our birth—death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh. It is the law of nature and the will of God.

My master Thomas More would give anything to anyone. Some say that's good and some say that's bad, but I say he can't help it and that's bad... because some day someone's going to ask him for something that he wants to keep; and he'll be out of practice.

WILLIAM ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! THOMAS MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -man's laws, not God's -and if you cut them down- and you're just the man to do it -d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake.

To what purpose? I am a dead man. (To Cromwell) You have your desire of me. What you have hunted me for is not my actions, but the thoughts of my heart. It is a long road you have opened. For first men will disclaim their hearts and presently they will have no hearts. God help the people whose Statesmen walk your road.

In Dedication. All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go my headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies’ cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel … all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.” He had run her halfway across the castle; twice around the Tower of the Hand, across the inner bailey, through the stables, down the serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard and the barracks of the gold cloaks, along the base of the river wall and up more steps and back and forth over Traitor’s Walk, and then down again and through a gate and around a well and in and out of strange buildings until Arya didn’t know where she was. Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather. When she was three steps away from him, the tomcat bolted. Left, then right, he went; and right, then left, went Arya, cutting off his escape. He hissed again and tried to dart between her legs. Quick as a snake, she thought.

She pointed to a chair,then shifted the finger to her son. "You,go. I'll finish with you later." "I'll be at the stables, doing penance." With a heavy sigh, Patrick rose, then he wrapped his arms around his mother's waist, laid his chin on top of her head. "Sorry." "Get." But Brian saw her lay a hand over Patrick's, and squeeze. With a quick grin tossed to the room in general, he bolted. "That boy's responsible for every other line on my face," Adelia muttered. "What lines?" Travis asked, and made her laugh. "That's the right answer.

An hour later, thoroughly appalled with the state of the cabin now that she had given it a thorough assessment, Camilla sailed into the shed. She was armed with a long list. "You need supplies." "Hand me that damn wrench." She picked up the tool and considered herself beyond civilized for not simply bashing him over the head with it. "Your home is an abomination. I'll require cleaning supplies - preferably industrial strength. And if you want a decent meal, I'll need some food to stock the kitchen. You have to go into town." He battled the bolt into submission, shoved the switch on. And got nothing but a wheezy chuckle out of the generator. "I don't have time to go into town." "If you want food for your belly and clean sheets on which to sleep, you'll make time.

Theo. Galen.” She waited for them to look at her and dropped the robe. Meg crooked her finger at them and tried to act like she was cool and collected and not about to bolt at the sheer hunger that flashed through their expressions. “Come and get me.

Eventual verdict of the curious few Who care to sift a business to the bran Nor coarsely bolt it like the simpler sort. Here, after ignorance, instruction speaks; Here, clarity of candour, history's soul, The critical mind, in short: no gossip-guess.

Every night, after Robert had retired to his bedroom, I would lie on the patch of kweek grass in the garden, searching the night sky with my field glasses, a thrill bolting through me whenever I saw a dislodged star streaking across the heavens. I learned their names and their shapes: the Southern Cross; Auriga; Coma Berenices; Horologium; Orion; Circinus; Apus; Andromeda. I soon knew them all, these constellations in the night sky, constellations that had, since the beginning of the world, been sinking into the earth each morning, to rise again the next night.

In his turn, the P.M. when he had shot his bolt got up and had a walk, pulling from his heated buttocks the seat of his trousers which had clearly stuck to them. It was indeed a warm night. There was something about this dumpy figure, plucking at his backside, which suggested immense strength but little distinction.

Day after day we seek an answer to the ageless question Aristotle posed in Ethics: How should a human being lead his life? But the answer eludes us, hiding behind a blur of racing hours as we struggle to fit our means to our dreams, fuse idea with passion, turn desire into reality. (...) Traditionally humankind has sought the answer to Aristotle's question from the four wisdoms - philosophy, science, religion, art - taking insight from each to bolt together a livable meaning. But today who reads Hegel or Kant without an exam to pass? Science, once the great explicator, garbles life with complexity and perplexity. Who can listen without cynicism to economists, sociologists, politicians? Religion, for many, has become an empty ritual that masks hypocrisy. As our faith in traditional ideologies diminishes, we turn to the source we still believe in: the art of story.

With blood and tears we spill our fears.” She waved a hand over the cauldron, and the liquid within began to stir. “A pinch of salt times four to close and bolt the door. Weeds to bind, berries to blind. My children he will not see, and they will live safe and free. Pretty petals tinged with hate, scented sweet and so to bait. Boil it all in fire and smoke, and on this potion Cabhan chokes. When I call he comes to me, as I will, so mote it be.

Back home, Huxley drew from this experience to compose a series of audacious attacks against the Romantic love of wilderness. The worship of nature, he wrote, is "a modern, artificial, and somewhat precarious invention of refined minds." Byron and Wordsworth could only rhapsodize about their love of nature because the English countryside had already been "enslaved to man." In the tropics, he observed, where forests dripped with venom and vines, Romantic poets were notably absent. Tropical peoples knew something Englishmen didn't. "Nature," Huxley wrote, "is always alien and inhuman, and occasionally diabolic." And he meant always: Even in the gentle woods of Westermain, the Romantics were naive in assuming that the environment was humane, that it would not callously snuff out their lives with a bolt of lightning or a sudden cold snap. After three days amid the Tuckamore, I was inclined to agree.

I got back from the University late in the afternoon, had a quick swim, ate my dinner, and bolted off to the Stanton house to see Adam. I saw him sitting out on the galley reading a book (Gibbon, I remember) in the long twilight. And I saw Anne. I was sitting in the swing with Adam, when she came out the door. I looked at her and knew that it had been a thousand years since I had last seen her back at Christmas when she had been back at the Landing on vacation from Miss Pound's School. She certainly was not now a little girl wearing round-toed, black patent-leather, flat-heeled slippers held on by a one-button strap and white socks held up by a dab of soap. She was wearing a white linen dress, cut very straight, and the straightness of the cut and the stiffness of the linen did nothing in the world but suggest by a kind of teasing paradox the curves and softnesses sheathed by the cloth. She had her hair in a knot on the nape of her neck, and a little white ribbon around her head, and she was smiling at me with a smile which I had known all my life but which was entirely new, and saying, 'Hello, Jack,' while I held her strong narrow hand in mine and knew that summer had come.

More Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More (roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on Roper.) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (Leaves him.) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – Man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly.) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

The early dictionaries in English were frequently created by a single author, but they were small works, and not what we think of today as dictionaries. Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, is generally regarded as the first English dictionary. It was an impressive feat in many respects, but it contained fewer than 2,500 entries, the defining of which would not be a lifetime’s work. This and the other dictionaries of the seventeenth century were mostly attempts to catalog and define “difficult words”; little or no attention was given to the nuts and bolts of the language or to such concerns as etymology and pronunciation. For

back. She knew she was lucky to have a job but she didn’t feel lucky. She felt depressed. Sad. Tired. And most of all, confused. She knew this was the week of Ruth Ann’s trial. There hadn’t been any press coverage yet, but she remembered the date. She had wanted to call Rick and wish him luck. In fact, she had picked up the phone several times and started to dial the number, but she just couldn’t go through with it. Not after all the things they had said to each other. She opened the back door to the office and stepped out into the night. The parking lot was barren except for her white Mustang, and the only sounds she heard were the passing of cars on Greensboro a few blocks up. She shut the door behind her, putting the key in the dead bolt and twisting it. “Kinda late for a pretty girl like you to be out.” Dawn turned to the sound of the voice, her stomach tightening into a knot. The lot was sparsely lit, and for a moment she didn’t see him. Then, standing by her Mustang, she saw a tall man dressed in khaki pants and a golf shirt. As he stepped toward her, she noticed that his hair was sandy blond and he had a patch of stubble on his face. “Can I help you?” Dawn asked, her voice shaky. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone but then remembered that the battery was dead. Damn, damn, damn. The man was in front of her now. He had continued to approach as if his appearance were completely natural.

Sophie at sixteen," he remembered. "Christ. She was like a lightning bolt. And she knew it. Irritated the hell out of me.

The rifle was mottled with a synthetic preservative that smelled like overripe peaches. The stock and pistol grip were made of a bright orange wood that was slick with the preservative. The Russians had gone to polymer stocks, but the Chinese still went with the wood. Pike opened the bolt to inspect the receiver and breech. They were flawless. Stone

If you make it through dinner without bolting, we can come back here and I’ll fuck you on every single surface this hotel room has to offer.” Her breath stalled in her lungs. “I thought you were already going to do that.” “Nah, I was already going to fuck you until you couldn’t walk right. This is something else altogether.” She

The rifle was mottled with a synthetic preservative that smelled like overripe peaches. The stock and pistol grip were made of a bright orange wood that was slick with the preservative. The Russians had gone to polymer stocks, but the Chinese still went with the wood. Pike opened the bolt to inspect the receiver and breech. They were flawless.

And perhaps most important, the evangelicals went to great lengths to offer warnings that the ends cannot justify the means, and that to believe they can is to head down a perilous path that would lead to unintended bad consequences. Thomas More, in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, sums up their position well: “When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

We begin to excavate our buried dreams. This is a tricky process ... the mere act of brushing some of them off sends an enormous surge of energy bolting through our denial system ... we make what Robert Bly calls a "decent into ashes". We mourn the self we abandoned ... we find a certain amount of grief to be essential ... We must allow the bolt of pain to strike us. Remember, this is useful pain; lightning illuminates.

How to scale and enter the risen path was largely unknown. It all might begin in darkness, but it cast a shadow that, when viewed from the ground, was too bleak. Demolition was once a question not of “whether, but when,” until one photographer spent a year on the trail documenting what was there. 4 The scenes were “hallucinatory”—wildflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, irises, and grasses wafted next to hardwood ailanthus trees that bolted up from the soil on railroad tracks, on which rust had accumulated over the decades. 5 Steel played willing host to an exuberant, spontaneous garden that showed fealty to its unusual roots. Tulips shared the soilbed with a single pine tree outfitted with lights for the winter holidays, planted outside of a building window that opened onto the iron-bottomed greenway with views of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty to the left and traffic, buildings, and Tenth Avenue to the right. 6 Wading through waist-high Queen Anne’s lace was like seeing “another world right in the middle of Manhattan.” 7 The scene was a kind of wildering, the German idea of ortsbewüstung, an ongoing sense of nature reclaiming its ground. 8 “You think of hidden things as small. That is how they stay hidden. But this hidden thing was huge. A huge space in New York City that had somehow escaped everybody’s notice,” said Joshua David, who cofounded a nonprofit organization with Robert Hammonds to save the railroad. 9 They called it the High Line. “It was beautiful refuse, which is kind of a scary thing because you find yourself looking forward and looking backwards at the same time,” architect Liz Diller told me in our conversation about the conversion of the tracks into a public space, done in a partnership with her architectural firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and James Corner, Principal of Field Operations, and Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf. Other architectural plans proposed turning the High Line into a “Street in the Air” with biking, art galleries, and restaurants, but their team “saw that the ruinous state was really alive.” Joel Sternfeld, the “poet-keeper” of the walkway, put the High Line’s resonance best: “It’s more of a path than a park. And more of a Path than a path.” 10

In other words, heroin seems to affect the more normal individuals in the same way that a tranquilizer does – the effect is hardly perceptible to consciousness – but produces a definite “hit” and afterglow for the seriously disturbed. The only theory that can account for these facts is that (a) heroin innately produces no pleasure, (b) the pleasure experienced by the mentally disturbed user is equivalent to that felt by normal people, most of the time and (c) it appears as a bolt of joy to the user because his ordinary state is one of acute misery. More simply, heroin, which was invented as a pain killer originally, acts as a psychological pain killer to those who are potential addicts. It makes life bearable, which is all they ask.

Attribution given to the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, Marcus Garvey, Usain Bolt, the Honorable Portia Simpson-Miller, Louise Bennett, Grace Jones, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Deepest gratitude to all the leaders that continue to inspire us to be our best selves.

Anyway, the above must serve as my explanation and apology for treating Thomas More, a Christian Saint, as a hero of selfhood.

More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness, and affability? And as time requireth a man of marvellous mirth and pastimes; and sometimes of as sad gravity: a man for all seasons. Robert Whittinton (1520) He was the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever produced. Jonathan Swift (1736)

The Pope was once again approached, this time by England only, and asked to declare the marriage with Catherine null, on the grounds that it contravened the Christian law which forbade marriage with a brother’s widow. But England’s insistence that the marriage had been null was now balanced by Spain’s insistence that it hadn’t. And at that moment Spain was well placed to influence the Pope’s deliberations;

THE KING: Not the Holbein Henry, but a much younger man, clean-shaven, bright-eyed, graceful and athletic. The Golden Hope of the New Learning throughout Europe. Only the levity with which he handles his absolute power foreshadows his future corruption.

Actually, typefaces and racing bikes are very much alike. Both are ideas as well as machines, and neither should be burdened with excess drag or baggage. Pictures of pumping feet will not make the type go faster, any more than smoke trails, pictures of rocket ships or imitation lightning bolts tied to the frame will improve the speed of the bike.

LITTLE LOST PUP He was lost! — Not a shade of doubt of that; For he never barked at a slinking cat. But stood in the square where the wind blew raw, With a drooping ear, and a trembling paw, And a mournful look in his pleading eye. And a plaintive sniff at the passer-by That begged as plain as a tongue could sue, " Oh, Mister, please may I follow you?" A lorn, wee waif of a tawny brown Adrift in the roar of a heedless town. Oh, the saddest of sights in a world of sin Is a little lost pup with his tail tucked inl Well, he won my heart (for I set great store On my own red Bute, who is here no more) So I whistled clear, and he trotted up. And who so glad as that small lost pup? Now he shares my board, and he owns my bed, And he fairly shouts when he hears my tread. Then if things go wrong, as they sometimes do. And the world is cold, and I'm feeling blue. He asserts his right to assuage my woes With a warm, red tongue and a nice, cold nose, And a silky head on my arm or knee, And a paw as soft as a paw can be. When we rove the woods for a league about He's as full of pranks as a school let out; For he romps and frisks like a three-months colt. And he runs me down like a thunder-bolt. Oh, the blithest of sights in the world so fair Is a gay little pup with his tail in air! - Anonymous

Liam,” he sighed. “It’s terribly disappointing to see you treat your time so carelessly. That’s seven minutes that you’re now late by. What a terrible example to set for these young ladies.” “I don’t give a shit,” I said with a grin, and Roberts damn near choked. “Excuse me?” he spluttered. “How dare you–” “No, you can shut up now,” I said. “You’ve treated me like shit for years, and I’m done. I don’t need this job. I don’t need you. So today was my last day here. I quit.” Roberts’ eyes bulged so widely I thought they were going to pop, and he sat bolt upright as his gaunt face reddened. “You cannot just walk out on the spot,” he spat. “I require four weeks’ notice, or you will lose your pay! I have that power, you know! Your pay will be withheld if you just–” “That shitty wage?” I snorted, even as I knew for damn sure it would be illegal for him to pull this shit. In fact, I sort of hoped he did so I could hand his ass to him later. For now, though… “I don’t need that, either. Keep it. Use it to buy higher quality gel that makes you look less like a greasy weasel.” I heard the murmur of stunned colleagues behind me as Roberts stared at me with pure fury in his beady eyes. His hands shook, and the sight made a wave of adrenaline wash over me. This was the most fun I had ever had in my workplace. “I’ve rented the floor above you,” I said casually. “My own business has really taken off, and I’ve hired these ladies to join me. They’ll be leaving your company immediately.” “We can’t wait to work for Liam,” Kali said firmly. “This place is stinky!” “And has uninspiring vibrations.” Ash nodded. “It feels like a prison,” Cleo hissed. “And I do not like your mustache.” “I think that about sums it up,” I snorted. “So yeah, I quit. I’m not coming back, and I hope your shitty business goes under. See ya around!

People are stealing nuts and bolts out of rail plates, Miss Taggart, stealing them at night, and our stock is running out, the division storehouse is bare, what are we to do, Miss Taggart?” But a super-color-four-foot-screen television set was being erected for tourists in a People’s Park in Washington—and a super-cyclotron for the study of cosmic rays was being erected at the State Science Institute, to be completed in ten years. “The trouble with our modern world,” Dr. Robert Stadler said over the radio, at the ceremonies launching the construction of the cyclotron, “is that too many people think too much. It is the cause of all our current fears and doubts. An enlightened citizenry should abandon the superstitious worship of logic and the outmoded reliance on reason. Just as laymen leave medicine to doctors and electronics to engineers, so people who are not qualified to think should leave all thinking to the experts and have faith in the experts’ higher authority. Only experts are able to understand the discoveries of modern science, which have proved that thought is an illusion and that the mind is a myth.” “This age of misery is God’s punishment to man for the sin of relying on his mind!” snarled the triumphant voices of mystics of every sect and sort, on street corners, in rain-soaked tents, in crumbling temples. “This world ordeal is the result of man’s attempt to live by reason! This is where thinking, logic and science have brought you! And there’s to be no salvation until men realize that their mortal mind is impotent to solve their problems and go back to faith, faith in God, faith in a higher authority!

The world is deceived by nothing. It must be given something by which to seem deceived.

A death-warrant requires a royal signature. And I signed my own. And if your Great and Virgin Queen should wonder why I signed it, you are to tell her this: There is more living in a death that is embraced than in a life that is avoided across three-score years and ten. And I embrace it-thus!

Over a period of time, I became adept at spotting non-serious buyers, because they all tend to talk and behave in the same manner.  For example, if you ask a non-serious buyer about his guidelines for purchasing properties, he will most likely tell you that he doesn't have any guidelines and that he's "willing to look at anything."  But the fact is that most serious buyers do have definite guidelines, because they know exactly what they're looking for. Another tip-off to a non-serious buyer is that he tends to dwell on questions of secondary importance, such as those pertaining to location, construction, and/or age of the property.  As I previously pointed out, such questions are reasonable, but not until the buyer is first satisfied with the numbers and has decided that he has a definite interest in purchasing the property.  If the numbers don't add up, it doesn't matter where the property is located, how well it's built, or how old it is.  Serious, sophisticated buyers get down to the nuts and bolts of the numbers right away, because they understand the mathematical guidelines for evaluating cash flow—again, the key factor when it comes to evaluating income-producing properties.

Halfway to Min he became aware of lightning bolts lancing out of the sky and fireballs exploding overhead.

We don’t bolt, Ensign.” Roberts smiled, but without amusement. “We advance cautiously to the front and quickly to the rear.

Alone of the Germanic tongues, it had received a massive influx of words from Latin and French, which doubled its vocabulary. Between 1250 and 1450, of 27,000 new words identified, 22 percent were derived from French, and most others from Latin. English often acquired several words for the same concept. They were sometimes used in tandem to make meaning sure, or just for rhetorical purposes, as in “aiding and abetting,” “fit and proper,” “peace and quiet.” In due course they could acquire nuances of meaning, as with “kingly,” “royal” and “regal,” or “loving,” “amorous” and “charitable,” from English, French and Latin respectively. Linguistic flexibility was greatly enhanced by bolting together grammatical elements from each language. Prefixes and suffixes made word creation easy: for example, the Old English “ful” added to French nouns (beautiful, graceful); or French suffixes with Old English verbs (knowable, findable). It has been argued that this made it really a new language.37 But the basics remained, and remain, Anglo-Saxon: in modern written English, the hundred most frequently used words are all derived from Old English.

The struggle for power conducted along logical lines is much more likely to occur in smoke-filled rooms than at the polls. The party system is a grid, a filter, a meat chopper, through which issues are processed for the consuming public. The Civil War confirmed our preference for this arrangement. We like the fog of politics, with the occasional drama of the flash of a lightning bolt that, happily, is usually nothing more than a near miss.

A man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself quite exceptionally to the statement, when he wants to make an identity between the truth of it and his own virtue; he offers himself as a guarantee. And it works.

lightning bolts and thunder.

too good.” “So you lied here today?” “Well . . .” “Lies are difficult to remember, aren’t they, as opposed to the truth?” Sullivan bolted to