“
Once exposed, a secret loses all its power.
”
”
Ann Aguirre (Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, #1))
“
History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.
”
”
David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI)
“
Keep your innocence and ignorance aside, and expose yourself to dangerous situations, and understand the deeper secrets of life.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
Woman’s role in creation should be parallel to her role in life. I don’t mean the good earth. I mean the bad earth too, the demon, the instincts, the storms of nature. Tragedies, conflicts, mysteries are personal. Man fabricated a detachment which became fatal. Woman must not fabricate. She must descend into the real womb and expose its secrets and its labyrinths. She must describe it as the city of Fez, with its Arabian Nights gentleness, tranquility and mystery. She must describe the voracious moods, the desires, the worlds contained in each cell of it. For the womb has dreams. It is not as simple as the good earth. I believe at times that man created art out of fear of exploring woman. I believe woman stuttered about herself out of fear of what she had to say. She covered herself with taboos and veils. Man invented a woman to suit his needs. He disposed of her by identifying her with nature and then paraded his contemptuous domination of nature. But woman is not nature only.
She is the mermaid with her fish-tail dipped in the unconscious.
”
”
Anaïs Nin
“
She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love.
He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love.
He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises.
She had desperately wanted his promises.
She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get.
Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation.
He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving.
If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct.
If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself.
He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see.
If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow.
He was deathly afraid of his shadow.
She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it.
She thought her love would change him.
He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave.
He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain.
He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him.
Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her.
His dark heart concealed.
She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender.
Wide open, exposed to deception.
It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love.
It was blinding the way she wanted him.
She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen.
She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed.
He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs.
Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake.
When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it.
Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem.
She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life.
He stirred her core.
The place she dared not enter.
The place she could not stir for herself.
But something wasn’t right.
His eyes were cold and dark.
His energy, unaffected.
He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess.
Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain.
And her heart stopped.
”
”
GG Renee Hill (The Beautiful Disruption)
“
The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:"I was wrong." will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes.
”
”
Jim Anderson (Unmasked: Exposing the Cultural Sexual Assualt)
“
Telling Sam and Daneca feels like peeling off my own skin to expose everything underneath. It hurts.
”
”
Holly Black (White Cat (Curse Workers, #1))
“
Like icebergs, people normally expose only a small part of themselves, and generally just the part they wish to show.
”
”
Nikki Sex (Fate (Fate, #1))
“
Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes.
Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face.
”
”
Chris Hedges
“
Love the great narcotic was the revealer in the alchemist's bottle rendering visible the most untraceable substances.
Love the great narcotic was the agent provocateur exposing all the secret selves to daylight.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (The Four-Chambered Heart: V3 in Nin's Continuous Novel)
“
For the righteous, the revelation is a joyous event, the realization of a divine truth. But for the wicked, revelations can be far more terrifying, when dark secrets are exposed and sinners are punished for their trespasses.
”
”
Emily Thorne
“
Love shouldn’t hinge solely on exposing your physical body to another person. Love was intangible. Universal. It was whatever someone wanted it to be and should be respected as such. For Alice, it was staying up late and talking about nothing and everything and anything because you didn’t want to sleep—you’d miss them too much. It was catching yourself smiling at them because wow, how does this person exist?? before they caught you. It was the intimacy of shared secrets. The comfort of unconditional acceptance. It was a confidence in knowing no matter what happened that person would always be there for you.
”
”
Claire Kann (Let's Talk About Love)
“
Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Problems grow in the dark and become bigger and bigger, but when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as sick as your secrets. So take off your mask, stop pretending you’re perfect, and walk into freedom.
”
”
Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?)
“
First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and third---before long the best lines cancel out---and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the picture have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
His steely stare turned her knees to jelly, exposing her feigned bravado.
”
”
Marilyn Dalla Valle (Westwind Secrets)
“
On of the reasons that I wanted to study literature was because it exposed everything. Writers looked for secrets that had never been mined. Every writer has to invent their own magical language, in order to describe the indescribable. They might seem to be writing in French, English, or Spanish, but really they were writing in the language of butterflies, crows, and hanged men.
”
”
Heather O'Neill (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night)
“
The reason people fear to confide in anyone is that even an internal friend can make personal details external, and it will remain eternal.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bight and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third--before long the best lines cancel out--and the secret is exposed at last; the panes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such famous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
And all that burgeoning physicality is held within yourself as a sort of secret, even as it is also the actual surface that you present to the world, so that you’re left absurdly exposed, unsure whether the world knows everything about you or nothing, because you have no way of knowing whether these experiences that you’re having are universal or entirely specific
”
”
David Szalay (Flesh)
“
Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety.
”
”
Héctor García (Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life)
“
So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make our own lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home," but rather that there is no longer such a place as home: except, of course, for the homes we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began.
In the place from which I began, after all, I watched the film from the child's - Dorothy's point of view. I experienced, with her, the frustration of being brushed aside by Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, busy with their dull grown-up counting. Like all adults, they couldn't focus on what was really important to Dorothy: namely, the threat to Toto. I ran away with Dorothy and then ran back. Even the shock of discovering that the Wizard was a humbug was a shock I felt as a child, a shock to the child's faith in adults. Perhaps, too, I felt something deeper, something I couldn't articulate; perhaps some half-formed suspicion about grown-ups was being confirmed.
Now, as I look at the movie again, I have become the fallible adult. Now I am a member of the tribe of imperfect parents who cannot listen to their children's voices. I, who no longer have a father, have become a father instead, and now it is my fate to be unable to satisfy the longings of a child. This is the last and most terrible lesson of the film: that there is one final, unexpected rite of passage. In the end, ceasing to be children, we all become magicians without magic, exposed conjurers, with only our simply humanity to get us through.
We are the humbugs now.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002)
“
Naked I felt as if my soul was exposed, my thoughts could be read. In the mask I felt protected. I eased the elastic strap over my head, adjusted the fascia to my cheekbones and glanced again at the mirror. The acid in my tummy had gone. Masked I am me. Masked I can do anything.
”
”
Chloe Thurlow (Sophie's Secret)
“
The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It’s as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.
”
”
Mitch Albom
“
the growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third – before long the best lines cancel out – and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“
How ... how fragile situations are. But not tenuous. Delicate, but not flimsy, not indulgent. Delicate, that's why they keep breaking, they must break and you must get the pieces together and show it before it breaks again, or put them aside for a moment when something else breaks and turn to that, and all this keeps going on. That's why most writing now, if you read it they go on one two three four and tell you what happened like newspaper accounts, no adjectives, no long sentences, no tricks they pretend, and they finally believe that they really believe that the way they saw it is the way it is ... it never takes your breath away, telling you things you already know, laying everything out flat, as though the terms and the time, and the nature and the movement of everything were secrets of the same magnitude. They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises. Clarity's essential, and detail, no fake mysticism, the facts are bad enough. But we're embarrassed for people who tell too much, and tell it without surprise. How does he know what happened? unless it's one unshaven man alone in a boat, changing I to he, and how often do you get a man alone in a boat, in all this ... all this ... Listen, there are so many delicate fixtures, moving toward you, you'll see. Like a man going into a dark room, holding his hands down guarding his parts for fear of a table corner, and ... Why, all this around us is for people who can keep their balance only in the light, where they move as though nothing were fragile, nothing tempered by possibility, and all of a sudden bang! something breaks. Then you have to stop and put the pieces together again. But you never can put them back together quite the same way. You stop when you can and expose things, and leave them within reach, and others come on by themselves, and they break, and even then you may put the pieces aside just out of reach until you can bring them back and show them, put together slightly different, maybe a little more enduring, until you've broken it and picked up the pieces enough times, and you have the whole thing in all its dimensions. But the discipline, the detail, it's just ... sometimes the accumulation is too much to bear.
”
”
William Gaddis (The Recognitions)
“
Expose them {your kids} to the widest variety of vegetables and fruits, showing them how good things can be in season. Tasteless fruits and vegetables won't win them over for life.
”
”
Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure)
“
For isn't that what our homes are ultimately, our fantasies made corporeal, our secret selves exposed? The converse is also true: we grow to become that which we live within.
”
”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (The Palace of Illusions)
“
Have you ever had a secret that involved other people, and you couldn't share it without exposing them?I have to be really careful."
He rubbed his forehead. "And swimming is going to help?
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Light of the Spirit (Muse Chronicles, #4))
“
It was as if she would never be whole until the secrets of the past were exposed.
”
”
Rachel Abbott (The Back Road (DCI Tom Douglas, #2))
“
Writing is exposing yourself to strangers
”
”
Bangambiki Habyarimana (The Great Pearl of Wisdom)
“
A man’s work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from little actions, of which he is unconscious, and from fleeting expressions, which cross his face unknown to him. Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. But in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. His pretentiousness will only expose his vacuity. The lathe painted to look like iron is seen to be but a lathe. No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of the soul.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham (The Moon and Sixpence)
“
The phrase “The cat’s out of the bag” tells that a secret’s been exposed to the world. But who put the secret, or cat, in the bag in the first place? I thought only kidnap victims were supposed to be kept in bags.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Seriously delirious, but not at all serious)
“
Revelations help us accept the things we need the most, expose the secrets we so desperately try to hide and illuminate the dangers all around us. But more than anything, revelations are windows into our true selves... of the good and the evil and those wavering somewhere in between. But they have the ultimate power to destroy all that we cherish most.
”
”
Emily Thorne
“
Obi-Wan's young face clouded. "Some secrets are best left concealed, Master." He shook his head. "Besides, why must you always be the one to do the uncovering? You know how the Council feels about these... detours. Perhaps, just once, the uncovering should be left to someone else."
Qui-Gon looked suddenly sad. "No, Obi-Wan. Secrets must be exposed when found. Detours must be taken when encountered. And if you are the one who stands at the crossroads or the place of concealment, you must never leave it to another to act in your place.
”
”
Terry Brooks (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (Star Wars Novelizations, #1))
“
I had once asked him if he felt happy hiding in the internet and he said yes, it was his home. On a good day it is the bright field that contains all souls but on a bad day it is the final darkness, where misery is gapingly exposed.
”
”
Andrew O'Hagan (The Secret Life: Three True Stories)
“
The life of comparison is deadly. One is always more than or less than and it is based upon a brief proof which tends to be seen as emotional but is in fact bereft of emotion. Comparison is so subtle a force it exposes itself in the guise of emotion to protect its own cunning from being seen as the judgmental emphasis it is.
”
”
Michael Burkard (My Secret Boat: A Notebook of Prose and Poems)
“
How wonderful, I thought every time I watched it: to stand next to the people who knew you best and hide yourself completely. To be simultaneously secret and exposed, to be concealed in plain sight, to keep yourself safe and to deliberately risk that safety.
”
”
Lynn Darling (Necessary Sins: A Memoir)
“
So he was queer, E.M. Forster. It wasn't his middle name (that would be 'Morgan'), but it was his orientation, his romping pleasure, his half-secret, his romantic passion. In the long-suppressed novel Maurice the title character blurts out his truth, 'I'm an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.' It must have felt that way when Forster came of sexual age in the last years of the 19th century: seriously risky and dangerously blurt-able. The public cry had caught Wilde, exposed and arrested him, broken him in prison. He was one face of anxiety to Forster; his mother was another. As long as she lived (and they lived together until she died, when he was 66), he couldn't let her know.
”
”
Michael Levenson
“
Beware of the good Nazi...Because they compared themselves by the standard they themselves created. Each, in his own eyes, was a good Nazi, a moral Nazi, a decent Nazi, a religious Nazi, and a Nazi no worse than the next. For by seeing themselves in their own eyes, they become blind. But their judgement would come in the form of destruction, and their sins would be exposed before the world...You can never judge yourself by your own standards and your own righteousness, but only in the light of His righteousness.
”
”
Jonathan Cahn (The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future)
“
I believe one of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice.
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
“
Our secrets exposed what we most deeply fear, or most fervently want
”
”
Uzma Jalaluddin (Hana Khan Carries On)
“
The time spent rereading one book is one less new story I'll be exposed to in my life.
”
”
Michelle Madow (Diamonds in the Rough (The Secret Diamond Sisters, #2))
“
The Laws of Healing Through Pain:
1. Do not regret telling your deepest secrets to evil ears.
2. Do not regret exposing your deepest wound to the eyes of one million snakes.
3. Do not regret revealing your shame to broken mirrors.
4. Vulnerability is ought to be temporary. But, regret will bind you to it on a permanent basis.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
Mom became even more concerned about my values when my editor offered me a job writing a weekly column about what he called the behind-the-scenes doings of the movers and shakers. Mom thought I should be writing exposes about oppressive landlords, social injustice, and the class struggle on the Lower East Side. But I leaped at the job, because it meant I would become one of those people who knew what was really going on. Also, most people in Welch had a pretty good idea how bad off the Walls family was, but the truth was, they all had their problems, too--they were just better than we were at covering them up. I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.
”
”
Jeannette Walls
“
So Recklessly Exposed
December and January, gone.
Tulips coming up. It's time to watch
how trees stagger in the wind
and roses never rest.
Wisteria and Jasmine twist on themselves.
Violet kneels to Hyacinth, who bows.
Narcissus winks, wondering what will
the lightheaded Willow say
of such slow dancing by Cypress.
Painters come outdoors with brushes.
I love their hands.
The birds sing suddenly and all at once.
The soul says Ya Hu, quietly.
A dove calls, Where, ku?
Soul, you will find it.
Now the roses show their breasts.
No one hides when the Friend arrives.
The Rose speaks openly to the Nightingale.
Notice how the Green Lily has several tongues
but still keeps her secret.
Now the Nightingale sings this love
that is so recklessly exposed, like you.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Essential Rumi)
“
The many mysteries boil down to three. There is the kind that can be solved: who planted the bomb? Will the travellers reach their destination? What is Mother's childhood secret? There is the supernatural: dark metaphysical forces, never to be fully exposed, yet hinting of themselves in a way that suggests the author could reveal more if he chose, and might do, in his next book. And there are the insoluble mysteries: what lies beyond life, what beauty is for, why the innocent suffer and the guilty prosper, what goes on in the heads of other people, why life keeps fucking us over just when we're doing all right -- these are the mysteries the books dealing with them can't solve, and it is for this reason that the best of these books are the ones we keep rereading.
”
”
James Meek
“
Who was it you were thinking about when you turned into an animal?” he whispers before firmly pushing his hips into my backside, taking my breath away. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He flips my hair over my shoulder, exposing my neck to him. “I was thinking about you, too,
”
”
Jescie Hall (Hawke)
“
But now all the natural secrets have been exposed, and it is likely that the turtles have been sold to laboratory scientists who want to remove their shells so that they can wire electrodes to the turtles' skin in order to monitor their increasing terror at the loss of their shells.
”
”
Mary Gaitskill (Don't Cry)
“
Great party, Max!' Amy congratulated.
Marvin hung back, watching their exchange.
'Anything for Jessie,' Max muttered, but his eyes were completely on Amy.
Amy dressed as...
'Little Red Riding Hood?' I gulped. Uh-oh.
'The same.' She laughed, doing a little spin so her head fell back, her short cape ruffled and her brilliant red hair whipped loose. A low cut blouse did double duty, exposing the thinnest hint of both cleavage and midriff.
Max gaped. 'You even have'—he stuttered—'a—an amazingly well-packed basket of goodies.'
Ohhh...I looked. Thank God. Amy was actually carrying a basket.
”
”
Shannon Delany (Secrets and Shadows (13 to Life, #2))
“
My grandfather had been the ugliest, darkest, foulest, most depraved figure of my childhood, more beast than human, and I had grown up to be him, locked in the basement with my secrets as the rest of the family reveled in the petty and ordinary upstairs. Down there, I saw my black, ancient, ineluctable core exposed, like a crab forced out of its shell--dirty, vulnerable, and obscene. For the first time in my life, I was truly alone.
”
”
Marilyn Manson (The Long Hard Road Out of Hell)
“
We curve around her like parentheses; Iris is some precious phrase between us that needs the shelter of our crooked knees and tucked hands under chins, breath skating in the space between that makes up all three of us now, along with our secrets, exposed and not.
”
”
Tess Sharpe (The Girls I've Been)
“
In daily life we never understand each other, neither complete clairvoyance nor complete confessional exists. We know each other approximately, by external signs, and these serve well enough as a basis for society and even for intimacy. But people in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed. And this is why they often seem more definite than characters in history, or even our own friends; we have been told all about them that can be told; even if they are imperfect or unreal they do not contain any secrets, whereas our friends do and must, mutual secrecy being one of the conditions of life upon this globe.
”
”
E.M. Forster
“
I have never told anyone about this part of my life. Keeping it secret gave me a sense of control over the uncontrollable; unveiling the lies leaves me painfully exposed.
”
”
Maggi Myers (The Final Piece)
“
I was feeling like a rock in a stream with the water passing by me, not fully engaging in life with this heavy burden hanging over me.
”
”
Lisa Bonavita (Secrets Exposed: When Remaining Silent is No Longer an Option)
“
Heart can keep a secret, but face is not a good secret keeper! So what heart knows, face will expose it!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically,
”
”
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
“
Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
Us survivors know we cannot change the past, but we can expose the truth and share our story. We just might make a difference for tomorrow’s children.
”
”
Barbara O'Hare (The Hospital: How I Survived the Secret Child Experiments at Aston Hall)
“
Their parents died to expose the truth while mine sacrificed my brother to keep this heinous secret.
”
”
Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1))
“
The deeply secretive cannot grasp that protecting your secret too fiercely exposes it.
”
”
Kai Ashante Wilson (The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, #1))
“
No wonder people hate the word “patriarchy.” It’s a word that exposes and names a source of pain so old and deep we’ve learned to ignore it or treat it as if it’s how life should be.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle)
“
Female rats exposed to chronic, mild stressors persist more than males do. They work harder in the face of difficulty; it takes twice as long for their brains to shift into helplessness.
”
”
Amelia Nagoski (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle)
“
It was a cold still afternoon with a hard steely sky overhead, when he slipped out of the warm parlour into the open air. The country lay bare and entirely leafless around him, and he thought that he had never seen so far and intimately into the insides of things as on that winter day when Nature was deep in her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked the clothes off. Copses, dells, quarries and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while, til they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering-even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple. He did not want the warm clover and the play of seeding grasses; the screens of quickset, the billowy drapery of beech and elm seemed best away; and with great cheerfulness of spirit he pushed on towards the Wild Wood, which lay before him low and threatening, like a black reef in some still southern sea.
”
”
Kenneth Grahame
“
I knew that to find and to feel Yoav again would be terribly painful, because of what had become of him, and because of what I knew he could ignite in me, a vitality that was excruciating because like a flare it lit up the emptiness inside me and exposed what I always secretly knew about myself: how much time I’d spent being only partly alive, and how easily I’d accepted a lesser life.
”
”
Nicole Krauss (Great House)
“
Being accused of murder and having all my secrets exposed to the entire world counts as a fairy tale now?"
"Haven't you read the Brothers Grimm?" says Tibby. "Murder is practically a plot requirement.
”
”
Aimee Carter (Royal Scandal (Royal Blood, #2))
“
The ripped open houses with their exposed arrangements, their laid bare secrets, are like portraits. Each one has its own individual facial expression. More identity is on display in the midst of the destruction. More intimacy. It makes her realise how vulnerable these achievements are. Identity. Intimacy.
”
”
Glenn Haybittle (The Way Back to Florence)
“
Other personalities are created to handle new traumas, their existence usually occurring one at a time. Each has a singular purpose and is totally focused on that task. The important aspect of the mind's extreme dissociation is that each ego state is totally without knowledge of the other. Because of this, the researchers for the CIA and the Department of Defense believed they could take a personality, train him or her to be a killer and no other ego stares would be aware of the violence that was taking place. The personality running the body would be genuinely unaware of the deaths another personality was causing. Even torture could not expose the with, because the personality experiencing the torture would have no awareness of the information being sought.
Earlier, such knowledge was gained from therapists working with adults who had multiple personalities. The earliest pioneers in the field, such as Dr. Ralph Alison, a psychiatrist then living in Santa Cruz, California, were helping victims of severe early childhood trauma. Because there were no protocols for treatment, the pioneers made careful notes, publishing their discoveries so other therapists would understand how to help these rare cases. By 1965, the information was fairly extensive, including the knowledge that only unusually intelligent children become multiple personalities and that sexual trauma endured by a restrained child under the age of seven is the most common way to induce hysteric dissociation.
”
”
Lynn Hersha (Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country)
“
Another real-world manifestation of implicit memory is known as the illusion-of-truth effect: you are more likely to believe that a statement is true if you have heard it before – whether or not it is actually true. In one study, subjects rated the validity of plausible sentences every two weeks. Without letting on, the experimenters snuck in some repeat sentences (both true and false ones) across the testing sessions. And they found a clear result: if subjects had heard a sentence in previous weeks, they were more likely to now rate it as true, even if they swore they had never heard it before. This is the case even when the experimenter tells the subjects that the sentences they are about to hear are false: despite this, mere exposure to an idea is enough to boost its believability upon later contact. The illusion-of-truth effect highlights the potential danger for people who are repeatedly exposed to the same religious edicts or political slogans.
”
”
David Eagleman (Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain)
“
Hushlanders, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend you for reading this book. I realize the difficulty you must have gone through to obtain it – after all, no Librarian is likely to recommend it, considering the secrets it exposes about their kind.
Actually, my experience has been that people generally don’t recommend this kind of book at all. It is far too interesting. Perhaps you have had other kinds of books recommended to you. Perhaps, even, you have been given books by friends, parents, or teachers, then told that these books are the type you “have to read.” Those books are invariably described as “important” – which, in my experience, pretty much means that they’re boring. (Words like meaningful and thoughtful are other good clues.) If there is a boy in these kinds of books, he will not go on an adventure to fight against Librarians, paper monsters, and one-eyed Dark Oculators.
In fact, the lad will not go on an adventure or fight against anything at all. Instead, his dog will die. Or, in some cases, his mother will die. If it’s a really meaningful book, both his dog and his mother will die. (Apparently, most writers have something against dogs and mothers.)
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (Alcatraz, #1))
“
There are those who believe all secrets to be guilty. If the truth is innocent, they declare, why can it not be revealed? The very existence of a secret indicates malice and wrongdoing. All should be open, all exposed.
”
”
Naomi Alderman (Disobedience)
“
It was getting warmer. The dirty snow was pockmarked from the warm rain, and melting in patches to expose the slimy, yellowed grass beneath it; icicles cracked and plunged like daggers from the sharp peaks of the roofs.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
He was rowed down from the north in a leather skiff manned by a crew of trolls. His fur cape was caked with candle wax, his brow stained blue by wine - though the latter was seldom noticed due to the fox mask he wore at-all times. A quill in his teeth, a solitary teardrop a-squirm in his palm, he was the young poet prince of Montreal, handsome, immaculate, searching for sturdier doors to nail his poignant verses on.
In Manhattan, grit drifted into his ink bottle. In Vienna, his spice box exploded. On the Greek island of Hydra, Orpheus came to him at dawn astride a transparent donkey and restrung his cheap guitar. From that moment on, he shamelessly and willingly exposed himself to the contagion of music. To the secretly religious curiosity of the traveler was added the openly foolhardy dignity of the troubadour. By the time he returned to America, songs were working in him like bees in an attic. Connoisseurs developed cravings for his nocturnal honey, despite the fact that hearts were occasionally stung.
Now, thirty years later, as society staggers towards the millennium - nailing and screeching at the while, like an orangutan with a steak knife in its side - Leonard Cohen, his vision, his gift, his perseverance, are finally getting their due. It may be because he speaks to this wounded zeitgeist with particular eloquence and accuracy, it may be merely cultural time-lag, another example of the slow-to-catch-on many opening their ears belatedly to what the few have been hearing all along. In any case, the sparkle curtain has shredded, the boogie-woogie gate has rocked loose from its hinges, and here sits L. Cohen at an altar in the garden, solemnly enjoying new-found popularity and expanded respect.
From the beginning, his musical peers have recognized Cohen´s ability to establish succinct analogies among life´s realities, his talent for creating intimate relationships between the interior world of longing and language and the exterior world of trains and violins. Even those performers who have neither "covered" his compositions nor been overtly influenced by them have professed to admire their artfulness: the darkly delicious melodies - aural bouquets of gardenia and thistle - that bring to mind an electrified, de-Germanized Kurt Weill; the playfully (and therefore dangerously) mournful lyrics that can peel the apple of love and the peach of lust with a knife that cuts all the way to the mystery, a layer Cole Porter just could`t expose. It is their desire to honor L. Cohen, songwriter, that has prompted a delegation of our brightest artists to climb, one by one, joss sticks smoldering, the steep and salty staircase in the Tower of Song.
”
”
Tom Robbins
“
To enter deeply into meditation is to enter into the mystery of suffering love. It is to encounter the woundedness of our human nature. We are all deeply wounded from our infancy and bear these wounds in the unconscious. The repetition of the mantra is a way of opening these depths of the unconsciousness and exposing them to light. It is first of all to accept our woundedness and thus to realize that this is part of the wound of humanity. All the weaknesses we find in ourselves and all the things that upset us, we tend to try to push aside and get rid of. But we cannot do this. We have to accept that "this is me" and allow grace to come and heal it all. That is the great secret of suffering, not to push it back but to open the depths of the unconscious and to realize that we are not isolated individuals when we meditate, but are entering into the whole inheritance of the human family.
”
”
Bede Griffiths (The New Creation in Christ: Christian Meditation and Community)
“
The knowledge of secrets is a very enticing ship, a very tempting voyage, and one thinks that the highest attainment in life is to find out hidden truths, to seek out what is truth, to know what are all lies; to uncover, to discover and to rediscover, to dig up, to expose, to reveal... But secrets can go on forever, for an eternity! For as vast as the universe is, so are the secrets therein! And one can lose, because of that thought that in the secrets, everything is to be gained! But I can see, that all the knowledge of hidden things, all the knowledge in the universe, is not nearly as valuable and as worthy as the innocence of one's soul. And we are not directed unto good things through our ability to scavenge or to hunt or to decipher or to sail! Or to fly! But we are directed unto good things, through sovereign providence! He is more worthy- the innocent soul who has a simple faith in what he believes in- than the one who has found out all the dark secrets about what the other man has put his faith in! And it is far more profitable for a man to be healthy, to have a long, long life, loved ones that are blessed with these blessings all the same, much love and happiness and safety! It is far more profitable for a man to be able to remain innocent and have love and be healthy and to be able to watch his loved ones in good health and in good love, than for a man to uncover all the secrets of the universe! A single love, a single faith, a single trust, and one hope- these are far, far better things to aspire to have! And this– this is the biggest secret!
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
No one pries as effectively into other people’s business as those whose business it most definitely is not… What for? For nothing. For the sake of finding out, knowing, penetrating the mystery. Out of an itching need to be able to tell. And often, once these secrets are out, the mysteries broadcast, the enigmas exposed to the light of day, they lead to catastrophe, duels, bankruptcies, ruined families, shattered existences-to the great joy of those who “got to the bottom of it all” for no apparent reason and through sheer instinct. Sad. Some people are malicious out of a simple need to have something to say. Their conversation, parlour talk, antechamber gossip, is reminiscent of those fireplaces that swiftly go through the wood-they need a lot of fuel and the fuel is their neighbour.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
An event is never just what it is in itself and nothing more. It’s what goes on around it, at the same time, that makes it — potentially — a tragic situation.
You have to have been exposed to this, at least once, to understand it.
”
”
Jacques Yonnet (Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City)
“
I have to act the way I always do with you. Because otherwise they’ll see.” He flings his arm in the direction of the dining room, color rising over his cheeks. “They’ll all know how much I want you. That I’m fucking aching to touch you.”
My breath leaves in a whoosh, and his comes out in a pant.
“They’ll see right through me,” he whispers hotly. “I couldn’t let them know that, Bren. Not if we want to keep us a secret.”
“There is no us.”
His eyes flash. “Bullshit.
”
”
Kristen Callihan (Exposed (VIP, #4))
“
The least dignified thing that can happen to a man is to be murdered. If he dies in his sleep he gets a respectful obituary and perhaps a smiling portrait; it is how we all want to be remembered. But murder is the great exposer: here is the victim in his torn underwear, face down on the floor, unpaid bills on his dresser, a meager shopping list, some loose change, and worst of all the fact that he is alone. Investigation reveals what he did that day - it all matters - his habits are examined, his behavior scrutinized, his trunks rifled, and a balance sheet is drawn up at the hospital giving the contents of his stomach. Dying, the last private act we perform, is made public: the murder victim has no secrets.
”
”
Paul Theroux
“
Secrets and lies. They’re like arrows that pierce our hearts, shattering our reality, exposing the ugly truth we don’t want to see. You can pull out the barb, but the wound never heals, festering until every part of you is infected with mistrust.
”
”
Dean Cole (Capturing Magick (The Quentin Strange Mysteries #2))
“
Sarah Lynn strides out of the stairwell. Lawrence watches her go. The door slushes shut behind her, and he turns to me with a tightened jaw. I want to tell him: No, no, you've got it all wrong. I don't care if you kiss a white girl. I don't care if you love a white girl. I just wish you'd chosen a white girl worthy of your love.
Lawrence's Adam's apple jerks up and down, and I realize that in addition to whatever else he's feeling, he's scared. He's in love with the darling of the school, Sarah Lynn Lancaster, ad he's afriad I'll expose his secret. I give a tiny shake of my head, wanting him to know he has nothing to fear, not from me.
”
”
Lauren Myracle (Bliss (Crestview Academy, #1))
“
The seeds of our own destruction are often sown at birth or in childhood. We are too busy acquiring knowledge and living life to notice their presence. It is for our biographers, if we are of sufficient importance to have any, to highlight them to a post-mortem audience.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
We live in a time when the values of courage and honesty, particularly for women writers, equate to confessing only the darkest, most painful parts of our lives. "How brave you are," my students say to each other over workshop tables, "to expose that." Meaning, to uncover this family secret or that heinous act or to openly confront the demons of alcoholism, promiscuity, substance abuse, incest, infidelity, illness, betrayal....I have also wrestled many dark angels, and continue to do so, so I acknowledge the price such writing exacts. But more and more I have come to respect the honesty and courage required to recognize the bright angels when they appear in our memory, and to allow them equal space in our narratives.
”
”
Rebecca McClanahan
“
Black's no longer hiding anything," Calyx said. "He doesn't have any secrets that you can exploit or expose. Now that he's walked away from JC2 he's got nothing to lose. It's over, sweetheart. You've got nothing on him. And guess what? I still want to have his babies. Hopefully twins." Genesis
”
”
Tricia Owens (Shattered Alliance (Juxtapose City #7))
“
According to 1 Corinthians 14, if meetings are governed by the Holy Spirit, the result for the visitor will be that “the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” (v. 25). This should be our goal. When a visitor comes in, there should be such a mixture of God’s truth and God’s presence that the person’s heart is x-rayed, the futility of his life is exposed, and he crumbles in repentance.
”
”
Jim Cymbala (Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People)
“
Judge ye not others; judge yourself." If you love to talk loudly about the faults of others, then satisfy that lust by loudly talking about your own secret faults, and see
how you like it even for a minute. If you cannot stand one minute's publicity about your own faults, then you must not rejoice in exposing others.
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (Spiritual Relationships (Wisdom of Yogananda, Vol 3))
“
A raptor is a fierce and formidable bird of prey, and the crow’s natural enemy. When a crow strays from its flock, that’s when it’s most vulnerable, when it exposes itself to the danger of the raptor’s lethal presence. “You’ve ruined me, Delilah. In this world of deception and power, where I’ve lived among a murder of crows, you have become the one person capable of breaking through my defenses. You’ve made me vulnerable, isolated me from the safety of the Order and from the founding families. You are my greatest weakness.
”
”
Morgan Bridges (Vicious Secret (The Obsidian Order, #1))
“
A man who lives a part, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself the practice of deception is not particularly exacting. It is a matter of experience, a professional expertise. It is a facility most of us can acquire. But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self defense. He must protect himself not only from without, but from within, and against the most natural of impulses. Though he earn a fortune, his role may forbid him the purchase of a razor. Though he be erudite, it can befall him to mumble nothing but banalities. Though he be an affectionate husband and father, he must within all circumstances without himself from those with whom he should naturally confide. Aware of the overwhelming temptations which assail a man permanently isolated in his deceit, Limas resorted to the course which armed him best. Even when he was alone, he compelled himself to live with the personality he had assumed. It is said that Balzac on his deathbed inquired anxiously after the health and prosperity of characters he had created. Similarly, Limas, without relinquishing the power of invention, identified himself with what he had invented. The qualities he had exhibited to Fiedler: the restless uncertainty, the protective arrogance concealing shame were not approximations, but extensions of qualities he actually possessed. Hence, also, the slight dragging of the feet, the aspect of personal neglect, the indifference to food, and an increasing reliance on alcohol and tobacco. When alone, he remained faithful to these habits. He would even exaggerate them a little, mumbling to himself about the iniquities of his service. Only very rarely, as now, going to bed that evening, did he allow himself the dangerous luxury of admitting the great lie that he lived.
”
”
John le Carré (The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (George Smiley, #3))
“
The image on the film or print has been exposed to light but not developed yet. It's there, but you can't see it. like a ghost image. it's like... the darkness is hiding. All it takes is light and chemicals and patience to make it appear. Humans have hidden darkness, too, like secrets and sadness. But you cant just stick a person in developer fluid, can you?
”
”
Brenna Thummler (Delicates (Sheets, #2))
“
They intend to turn the world into their conception of a totalitarian socialist state. In the process they will eliminate
”
”
Milton William Cooper (Secret Societies: A Sinister Agenda Exposed)
“
Secrets that shield the wicked should be exposed. But why not hide an ugly truth that would only harm an innocent?
”
”
C. S. Harris
“
The trial threatened to expose the secret nature not only of those charged but also of an empire whose self-professed mission was spreading civilization
”
”
David Grann (The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder)
“
it almost didn’t matter that I had possibly exposed our family’s secret, put us all in terrible danger, and mussed up my hair.
”
”
Anna Jones Buttimore (Twilight: Midnight Sunburn: A light parody of Midnight Sun)
“
I exposed every part of myself to him, keeping no secrets, no defense mechanism in place.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Love the One You're With)
“
Cleveland was “the kind of man who would rather do something badly for himself than to have somebody else do it well.
”
”
Matthew Algeo (The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth)
“
The power of the sin is in its secrecy. Rip the covers off!
”
”
TemitOpe Ibrahim
“
Everyone had secrets. It was up to us to unearth those secrets and expose them for all to see. Whether they were good or bad.
”
”
Abigail Davies (Exposed (MAC Security #2))
“
Game... Set... Match Bitch!
~Alexandria Bell
”
”
April Nichols Baker (Exposed Secrets)
“
Your life will not change overnight it will take time.
”
”
Hattie T. Hoerner (Secrets of Most Millionaire And Richest People Exposed: Tested, Proven & Guaranteed To Work Techniques And Strategies To Achieve The Life You Desire)
“
Everybody has their secrets. We would all feel too exposed if we weren’t able to keep things to ourselves.
”
”
Tricia Levenseller (Daughter of the Pirate King (Daughter of the Pirate King, #1))
“
As part of the animal sentinel program, going back to 1999, scientists had been making great progress training honeybees to locate bombs. Bees have sensing capabilities that outperform the dog’s nose by a trillion parts per second. Using Pavlovian techniques, scientists cooled down groups of bees in a refrigerator, then strapped them into tiny boxes using masking tape, leaving their heads, and most of their antennae, poking out the top. Using a sugar water reward system, the scientists trained the bees to use their tongues to “sniff out” explosives, resulting in a reaction the scientists call a “purr.” After training, when the scientists exposed the bees to a six-second burst of explosives, some had learned to “purr.
”
”
Annie Jacobsen (The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency)
“
We perpetually need something to fail—often fucking spectacularly—to drive interest in fixing it, because we reward heroes more than we reward the people who prevent a need for heroism,
”
”
Jeff Horwitz (Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets)
“
Achieving mastery in any area requires repetition - being exposed to certain ideas, strategies, or techniques over and over again, until they become engrained in your subconscious mind.
”
”
Hal Elrod (The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM)
“
There had been a time in high school, see, when I wrestled with the possibility that I might be gay, a torturous six-month culmination of years of unpopularity and girllessness. At night I lay in bed and cooly informed myself that I was gay and that I had better get used to it. The locker room became a place of torment, full of exposed male genitalia that seemed to taunt me with my failure to avoid glancing at them, for a fraction of a second that might have seemed accidental but was, I recognized, a bitter symptom of my perversion. Bursting with typical fourteen-year-old desire, I attempted to focus it in succession on the thought of every boy I knew, hoping to find some outlet for my horniness, even if it had to be perverted, secret, and doomed to disappointment. Without exception these attempts failed to produce anything but bemusement, if not actual disgust.
This crisis of self-esteem had been abruptly dispelled by the advent of Julie Lefkowitz, followed swiftly by her sister Robin, and then Sharon Horne and little Rose Fagan and Jennifer Schaeffer; but I never forgot my period of profound sexual doubt. Once in a while I would meet an enthralling man who shook, dimly but perceptibley, the foundations laid by Julie Lefkowitz, and I would wonder, just for a moment, by what whim of fate I had decided that I was not a homosexual.
”
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Michael Chabon (The Mysteries of Pittsburgh)
“
The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third—before long the best lines cancel out—and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true. "It
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
I think you quite extraordinary.' He used the action of pulling off his undershirt to hide his face. Bare to the waist, he didn't feel as naked now that there was more exposed than just his expression.
”
”
Anne Mallory (One Night Is Never Enough (Secrets, #2))
“
The hurt means you're alive. It means your body is reacting and willing to fight - both to fight back and fight through it. So rather than running from grief's harsh reality, you may find that in letting it groan and pierce and ache and cry, you begin to exhaust some of its staying power. You expose its secret hiding places. You force it into the open air where it can be more easily outlined and dealt with.
”
”
Frank Page (Melissa: A Father's Lessons from a Daughter's Suicide)
“
The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our text- books have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:
"The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps, He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory."
Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never -seen- in the rocks.
Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.
[Evolution’s Erratic Pace - "Natural History," May, 1977]
”
”
Stephen Jay Gould
“
In 90 per cent of cases, the accused prefer to forgo a trial. The reason is simple: the defendants must bear the full exorbitant cost of a defence, and only the wealthiest can afford the services of a lawyer.
”
”
Frédéric Pierucci (The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world)
“
The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third--before long the best lines cancel out--and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
Religion, then, is far from "useless." It humanizes violence; it protects man from his own violence by taking it out of his hands, transforming it into a transcendent and ever-present danger to be kept in check by the appropriate rites appropriately observed and by a modest and prudent demeanor. Religious misinterpretation is a truly constructive force, for it purges man of the suspicions that would poison his existence if he were to remain conscious of the crisis as it actually took place.
To think religiously is to envision the city's destiny in terms of that violence whose mastery over man increases as man believes he has gained mastery over it. To think religiously (in the primitive sense) is to see violence as something superhuman, to be kept always at a distance and ultimately renounced. When the fearful adoration of this power begins to diminish and all distinctions begin to disappear, the ritual sacrifices lose their force; their potency is not longer recognized by the entire community. Each member tries to correct the situation individually, and none succeeds. The withering away of the transcendental influence means that there is no longer the slightest difference between a desire to save the city and unbridled ambition, between genuine piety and the desire to claim divine status for oneself. Everyone looks on a rival enterprise as evidence of blasphemous designs. Men set to quarreling about the gods, and their skepticism leads to a new sacrificial crisis that will appear - retrospectively, in the light of a new manifestation of unanimous violence - as a new act of divine intervention and divine revenge.
Men would not be able to shake loose the violence between them, to make of it a separate entity both sovereign and redemptory, without the surrogate victim. Also, violence itself offers a sort of respite, the fresh beginning of a cycle of ritual after a cycle of violence. Violence will come to an end only after it has had the last word and that word has been accepted as divine. The meaning of this word must remain hidden, the mechanism of unanimity remain concealed. For religion protects man as long as its ultimate foundations are not revealed. To drive the monster from its secret lair is to risk loosing it on mankind. To remove men's ignorance is only to risk exposing them to an even greater peril. The only barrier against human violence is raised on misconception. In fact, the sacrificial crisis is simply another form of that knowledge which grows grater as the reciprocal violence grows more intense but which never leads to the whole truth. It is the knowledge of violence, along with the violence itself, that the act of expulsion succeeds in shunting outside the realm of consciousness. From the very fact that it belies the overt mythological messages, tragic drama opens a vast abyss before the poet; but he always draws back at the last moment. He is exposed to a form of hubris more dangerous than any contracted by his characters; it has to do with a truth that is felt to be infinitely destructive, even if it is not fully understood - and its destructiveness is as obvious to ancient religious thought as it is to modern philosophers. Thus we are dealing with an interdiction that still applies to ourselves and that modern thought has not yet invalidated. The fact that this secret has been subjected to exceptional pressure in the play [Bacchae] must prompt the following lines:
May our thoughts never aspire to anything higher than laws! What does it cost man to acknowledge the full sovereignty of the gods? That which has always been held as true owes its strength to Nature.
”
”
René Girard (Violence and the Sacred)
“
supernatural, and my own rational philosophy is founded on proven science. But I still believe in hell." The dark man smiled. "For every man manufactures his own private hell and peoples it with demons of his own creation, to torment him for his own secret sins, imagined or real. It's my business to explore those personal hells and expose their demons for what they are. Usually they turn out to be much less terrifying than they seem.
”
”
Jack Williamson (Darker Than You Think)
“
There is humility in confession. A recognition of flaws. To hear myself say out loud these shameful secrets meant I acknowledged my flaws. I also for the first time was given the opportunity to contextualize anew the catalogue of beliefs and prejudices, simply by exposing them to another, for the first time hearing the words ‘Yes, but have you looked at it this way?’ This was a helpful step in gaining a new perspective on my past, and my past was a significant proportion of who I believed myself to be. It felt like I had hacked into my own past. Unravelled all the erroneous and poisonous information I had unconsciously lived with and lived by and with necessary witness, the accompaniment of another man, reset the beliefs I had formed as a child and left unamended through unnecessary fear. Suddenly my fraught and freighted childhood became reasonable and soothed. ‘My mum was doing her best, so was my dad.’ Yes, people made mistakes but that’s what humans do, and I am under no obligation to hoard these errors and allow them to clutter my perception of the present. Yes, it is wrong that I was abused as a child but there is no reason for me to relive it, consciously or unconsciously, in the way I conduct my adult relationships. My perceptions of reality, even my own memories, are not objective or absolute, they are a biased account and they can be altered. It is possible to reprogram your mind. Not alone, because a tendency, a habit, an addiction will always reassert by its own invisible momentum, like a tide. With this program, with the support of others, and with this mysterious power, this new ability to change, we achieve a new perspective, and a new life.
”
”
Russell Brand (Recovery: Freedom from Our Addiction)
“
A movement like that can be summed up in this - that redemption, like sunlight, always reaches through the gates, and that we, like flowers, bend toward what grows us. So that the imitations and likenesses we have accepted as originals are exposed as deception, and we are left with the hope of a truer inheritance, a truer promise: a second garden, where all the dead things come alive again and all that was forfeited is restored and al that is fractured becomes a mosaic of color.
”
”
Ashley Clark
“
He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortune on the other, who when abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprize, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or to far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries of hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanick part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing, viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied, that kings had frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty or riches.
He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were so subjected to so many distempers and uneasiness, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagancies on one hand, and by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kinds of vertues and all kinds of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the hand-maids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversion, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessing attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly thro’ the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labour of their hands or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for daily bread, or harrast with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but in easy circumstances sliding gently thro’ the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living without the bitter, feeling that they are happy and learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.
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Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
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There exits within the ecclesia and among its citizens a phenomena I refer to as 'Spiritual Correctness'. Essentially it says: 'Don't say anything that could offend anyone, focus on what is right with the 'church' and its leadership, don't be critical, speak the truth in 'love', promote the status quo, don't make 'waves', don't call anyone 'out', respect 'authority', don't expose 'wrong-doing', cover those who 'spiritually abuse' others, keep it 'secret' within our family; don't ask any hard questions. Sounds exactly like the textbook definition of a highly dysfunctional family system. The only 'system' and its enablers that Jesus spoke out against vehemently was the religious system of His day and its leadership."
~R. Alan Woods [2013]
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R. Alan Woods (Pharisee's Among Us: False Authority vs. Servant Leadership)
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A secret is anathema to believing love is true. A kernel of promise that if the past is exposed, love will abandon her. What a terrible predicament, to not know if love is conditional, and yet, to understand that the only way to find out is to risk losing it.
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Melissa Febos (Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative)
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The future story writer in the child I was must have taken unconscious note and stored it away then: one secret is liable to be revealed in the place of another that is harder to tell, and the substitute secret when nakedly exposed is often the more appalling.
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Eudora Welty
“
...most scientists feel it's not their job to expose pseudoscientific bamboozles - much less, passionately held self-deceptions. They tend not to be very good at it either. Scientists are used to struggling with Nature, who may surrender her secrets reluctantly but who fights fair.
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Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World)
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Back in England, the principal figures from each group along with their allies were now summoned by the Admiralty to face a court-martial. The trial threatened to expose the secret nature not only of those charged but also of an empire whose self-professed mission was spreading civilization.
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David Grann (The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder)
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If you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.
It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.
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Glenn Greenwald
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So in 1932, the US Public Health Service began its “Study of Syphilis in the Untreated Negro Male.” Government researchers promised free medical care to six hundred syphilis-infected sharecroppers around Tuskegee, Alabama. They secretly withheld treatment to these men and waited for their deaths, so they could perform autopsies. Researchers wanted to confirm their hypothesis that syphilis damaged the neurological systems of Whites, while bypassing Blacks “underdeveloped” brains and damaging their cardiovascular systems instead. The study was not halted until the press exposed it in 1972.
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Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
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what system would I want as the falsely accused? Knowing what I already know after only a few years exposed to the grimy coalface of the criminal justice system, would I have faith in an inquisitorial jurisdiction where the state, with its variable competence and political vulnerability, controlled my fate throughout? Or would I trust the presentation of my case to an independent solicitor and advocate, and hope that twelve ordinary people, shown evidence that is relevant, reliable and fairly adduced, would find the prosecution insufficient to convict me? Every time the answer is the same.
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The Secret Barrister (The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken)
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In a relationship with God, our most secret places once thickly cloaked and meticulously hidden away now stand before us utterly and entirely exposed. And it may be that this dreaded fear is the single thing that keeps us an arm’s length from God, and forever a single step away from His blessings.
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
We carry old secrets too painful to utter, too shameful to acknowledge, too burdensome to bear, of failures we cannot undo, of alienations we regret but cannot fix, of grandiose exhibits we cannot curb. And you know them. You know them all. And so we take a deep sigh in your presence, no longer needing to pretend and cover up and deny. We mostly do not have big sins to confess, only modest shames that do not fit our hoped-for selves. And then we find that your knowing is more powerful than our secrets. You know and do not turn away, and our secrets that seemed too powerful are emptied of strength, secrets that seemed too burdensome are now less severe. We marvel that when you find us out you stay with us, taking us seriously, taking our secrets soberly, but not ultimately, overpowering our little failure with your massive love and abiding patience. We long to be fully, honestly exposed to your gaze of gentleness. In the moment of your knowing we are eased and lightened, and we feel the surge of joy move in our bodies, because we are not ours in cringing but yours in communion. We are yours and find the truth before you makes us free for wonder, love, and praise—and new life.
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Walter Brueggemann (Prayers for a Privileged People)
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The next minute he realized what had happened to him, but not before she’d caught him staring.
For a decade, I was fixated by her beauty. I wrote an entire article on the evolutionary significance of beauty as a rebuke to myself, that I, who understood the concepts so well, nevertheless could not escape the magnetic pull of one particular woman’s beauty.
She knew. With surgical precision, she had peeled back his layers of defenses, until his heart lay bare before her, all its shame and yearning exposed.
He could have lived with this if only he’d kept his secret whole and buried. But she knew. She knew.
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Sherry Thomas (Beguiling the Beauty (Fitzhugh Trilogy, #1))
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The principal effect of fear is that it prevents you from seeing where love is present, whereas love helps you to see where you are afraid. Love makes you conscious. It switches a light on in your mind. This light brings everything into view. You can see into every corner of your mind. Love does not judge, so nothing is hidden. Love does not condemn, so there is no deception. Love does not censure, so all is revealed. Love exposes the fears you identify with, the secret shame you haven’t forgiven, the old wounds not yet released, and every other unloving thought that blocks the awareness of love’s presence.
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Robert Holden (Loveability: Knowing How to Love and Be Loved)
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I highly recommend re-reading good personal development books. Rarely can we read a book once and internalized all of the value from that book. Achieving mastery in any area requires repetition—being exposed to certain ideas, strategies, or techniques over and over again, until they become ingrained in your subconscious mind.
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Hal Elrod (The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM)
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Many years ago, as I was glancing through a catalogue of jokes for parties and weddings, I saw an item, 'An object difficult to pick up'. I haven't the slightest idea what that 'object' is or what it looks like, but I like knowing that it exists and I like thinking about it.
A work of art should also be 'an object difficult to pick up'. It must protect itself from vulgar pawing, which tarnishes and disfigures it. It should be made of such a shape that people don't know which way to hold it, which embarrasses and irritates the critics, incites them to be rude, but keeps it fresh. The less it's understood, the slower it opens its petals, the later it will fade. A work of art must make contact, be it even through a misunderstanding, but at the same time it must hide its riches, to reveal them little by little over a long period of time. A work that doesn't keep its secrets and surrenders itself too soon exposes itself to the risk of withering away, leaving only a dead stalk.
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Jean Cocteau (Cocteau on the Film)
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First, Martini said, came the Church’s approach toward the divorced. Second came the appointment of bishops. Third came priestly celibacy and the role of the laity. Fourth came the relationship between politics and the hierarchy.23 Then, having delivered his blueprint, Martini smiled, his intense blue eyes illuminating his face.
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Julia Meloni (The St. Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church)
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While it is certainly true that bullies typically pick on children they perceive as weak, it is also true that there is a wide selection of weak children to choose from, so what is it about children with autism that tends to attract their wrath? One key factor is that children with autism tend not to roam in packs! For example, a child with autism may be able to tolerate the stress and required masking of the classroom for a few hours but might need the respite of recess to take a break and be away from other people for a bit. This alone time exposes them to greater risk. But is there anything about the behavior of the child with autism that attracts bullying?
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David William Plummer (Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire: Everything I know about Autism, ASD, and Asperger's that I wish I'd known back then... (Optimistic Autism Book 2))
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All writers struggle at some point with the problem of balance between authority and involvement, seduction and revelation. Specifically, beginning writers wonder how much description to employ, and more advanced writers ask how much plot is too much or too little. And there is no better place to find answers than in the Victoria's Secret catalogue--or in any ad for lingerie--where the arts of seduction and revelation are so successfully practiced. After all, the secret of the effective lingerie ad is the secret of effective storytelling--to provide, moment by moment, the illusion of imminent expose, to give the viewer (read: reader) the uncanny sense that something fundamentally compelling is always just about to be revealed. Lingerie ads and storytelling balance the veiled and the unveiled, the seen and the unseen, the shown and the about-to-be-shown. In short, it is the art of the tease, the craft of selective 'coverage,' that, not just in lingerie but in storytelling, works to enthrall.
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Julie Checkoway
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Womanhood as a “chronic, low-level stress” is even messier than it sounds, for two reasons: First, it’s very possible that female and male biologies respond differently to that stress. When male rats are exposed to these chronic, mild stressors, their swim time in the forced swim drops in half pretty much right away. After six weeks, it drops in half again. Female rats, by contrast, take three weeks to drop their swim time in half…and it doesn’t change after six weeks. Female rats exposed to chronic, mild stressors persist more than males do. They work harder in the face of difficulty; it takes twice as long for their brains to shift into helplessness. Even female rats, it seems, #persist.
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Emily Nagoski (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle)
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The Heiligenstadt Testament"
Oh! ye who think or declare me to be hostile, morose, and misanthropical, how unjust you are, and how little you know the secret cause of what appears thus to you! My heart and mind were ever from childhood prone to the most tender feelings of affection, and I was always disposed to accomplish something great. But you must remember that six years ago I was attacked by an incurable malady, aggravated by unskillful physicians, deluded from year to year, too, by the hope of relief, and at length forced to the conviction of a lasting affliction (the cure of which may go on for years, and perhaps after all prove impracticable).
Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was yet obliged early in life to isolate myself, and to pass my existence in solitude. If I at any time resolved to surmount all this, oh! how cruelly was I again repelled by the experience, sadder than ever, of my defective hearing! — and yet I found it impossible to say to others: Speak louder; shout! for I am deaf! Alas! how could I proclaim the deficiency of a sense which ought to have been more perfect with me than with other men, — a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, to an extent, indeed, that few of my profession ever enjoyed! Alas, I cannot do this! Forgive me therefore when you see me withdraw from you with whom I would so gladly mingle. My misfortune is doubly severe from causing me to be misunderstood. No longer can I enjoy recreation in social intercourse, refined conversation, or mutual outpourings of thought. Completely isolated, I only enter society when compelled to do so. I must live like art exile. In company I am assailed by the most painful apprehensions, from the dread of being exposed to the risk of my condition being observed. It was the same during the last six months I spent in the country. My intelligent physician recommended me to spare my hearing as much as possible, which was quite in accordance with my present disposition, though sometimes, tempted by my natural inclination for society, I allowed myself to be beguiled into it. But what humiliation when any one beside me heard a flute in the far distance, while I heard nothing, or when others heard a shepherd singing, and I still heard nothing! Such things brought me to the verge of desperation, and well-nigh caused me to put an end to my life. Art! art alone deterred me. Ah! how could I possibly quit the world before bringing forth all that I felt it was my vocation to produce? And thus I spared this miserable life — so utterly miserable that any sudden change may reduce me at any moment from my best condition into the worst. It is decreed that I must now choose Patience for my guide! This I have done. I hope the resolve will not fail me, steadfastly to persevere till it may please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread of my life. Perhaps I may get better, perhaps not. I am prepared for either. Constrained to become a philosopher in my twenty-eighth year! This is no slight trial, and more severe on an artist than on any one else. God looks into my heart, He searches it, and knows that love for man and feelings of benevolence have their abode there! Oh! ye who may one day read this, think that you have done me injustice, and let any one similarly afflicted be consoled, by finding one like himself, who, in defiance of all the obstacles of Nature, has done all in his power to be included in the ranks of estimable artists and men. My brothers Carl and [Johann], as soon as I am no more, if Professor Schmidt be still alive, beg him in my name to describe my malady, and to add these pages to the analysis of my disease, that at least, so far as possible, the world may be reconciled to me after my death. I also hereby declare you both heirs of my small fortune (if so it may be called). Share it fairly, agree together and assist each other. You know that any
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Ludwig van Beethoven
“
Some of the seeds lie dormant in the desiccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Wonders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.
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Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
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Encouraging kids to read gives them tools to safely navigate the real world, and to protect themselves. Reading helps them think critically—and it gives them the opportunity to learn about themselves and others, to create empathy and compassion. Students need to be able to see themselves in books, but also to be exposed to and experience somebody else’s life through books.
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James Patterson (The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading)
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Evie was writhing on the blanket, while Daisy stood over her with arms akimbo.
Hurrying to the pair, Annabelle asked Daisy in consternation, "What is it?"
"The embarrassment was too much for her to endure," Daisy said. "It sent her into fits."
Evie rolled on the blanket, a napkin concealing her face, while one exposed ear had turned the color of pickled beets. The more she tried to control her giggles, the worse they became, until she gasped frantically for air in between yelps. Somehow she managed to squeak out a few words. "What a s-s-smashing introduction to lawn sports!" And then she was snorting with more spasms of helpless laughter, while the other three stood over her.
Daisy threw Annabelle a significant glance. "Those," she informed her, "are conniptions.
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Lisa Kleypas (Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers, #1))
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His instinct of a successful man had taught him long ago that, as a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement. And he felt that his manner when confronted with the telegram had not been impressive. He had opened his eyes widely, and had exclaimed 'Impossible!' exposing himself thereby to the unanswerable retort of a finger-tip laid forcibly on the telegram which the Assistant Commissioner, after reading it aloud had flung on the desk. To be crushed, as it were, under the tip of a forefinger was an unpleasant experience. Very damaging too! Furthermore, Chief Inspector Heat was conscious of not having mended matters by allowing himself to express a conviction.
'One thing I can tell you at once: none of our lot had anything to do with this.'
He was strong in his integrity of a good detective, but he saw now that an impenetrably attentive reserve towards this incident would have served his reputation better. On the other hand, he admitted to himself that it was difficult to preserve one's reputation if rank outsiders were going to take a hand in the business. Outsiders are the bane of the police as of other professions.
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Joseph Conrad (The Secret Agent)
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It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries.
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Kory Stamper (Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries)
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Ex Libris
Here is the fossil as a perfume. Here is a bone
picked clean and whittled into a tiny tall ship.
Here are magicians teaching secrets
to contortionists. Here is colored glass on fire.
Here is love broken into vowels and a shrug.
Here is scripture forged into the memory of water.
Here are rosettes, exposed wiring, teasings onto the brink.
Here is the full vista of an hour, and the sun.
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megan-harlan
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To turn yourself into an image is to expose your daily life, your misfortunes, your desires and your possibilities. It is to have no secrets left. Never to tire of expressing yourself,
speaking, communicating. To be readable at every moment, overexposed to the glare of the information media (like the woman who appears live twenty-four hours a day on the
Internet, showing the tiniest details of her life).
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Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images))
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No, the political establishment of both parties is not eager to establish a solid southern border. Joe Biden is a creature of establishment Washington and the Democrat Party, so his border policy has been boilerplate. Like so many of his policies, it would be indistinguishable from most other American politicians’ if they were in his job. Still, that doesn’t make it any less devastating for America and Americans.
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Alex Marlow (Breaking Biden: Exposing the Hidden Forces and Secret Money Machine Behind Joe Biden, His Family, and His Administration)
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Such companies are then given the opportunity to sign a DPA (Deferred Prosecution Agreement). To do this, the company must agree to incriminate itself by disclosing the entirety of its practices, and if necessary, by denouncing its own staff. It must also commit to setting up an internal anti-corruption mechanism and accept the presence of a monitor, i.e. a controller who reports to the DOJ for a period of three years.
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Frédéric Pierucci (The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world)
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Sabina, too, was slipping out of the burning moment which had almost welded their differences. Her secret self, unveiled and naked in his arms, must be costumed once more, for what she felt in the silence were his withdrawal and silent accusations. Before he could speak and harm her with words while she lay naked and exposed, while he prepared a judgment, she was preparing her metamorphosis, so that whatever Sabina he struck down, she could abandon like a disguise, shedding the self he had seized upon and say, "that was not me." Any devastating words addressed to the Sabina he had possessed, the primitive one, could not reach her then. She was already half out of the forest of their desire, the core already far away, invulnerable, protected by flight. What remained was a costume. It was piled on the floor of his room and empty of her.
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Anaïs Nin (A Spy in the House of Love (Cities of the Interior, #4))
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When those in power use shame to bully the weak into compliance, they are stealing from us. They tell us that they will expose our secrets (not good enough, not hardworking enough, not from the right family, made a huge mistake once) and will use the truth to exile us from our tribe. This shame, the shame that lives deep within each of us, is used as a threat. And when those in power use it, they take away part of our humanity.
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Seth Godin (The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?)
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My husband carries many scars,” she said, “as all men who have lived a life like his must do. There are some scars that show, and there are many, many more that he keeps hidden, and when you’ve discovered all of those, then you may try to test me on how well I know my husband. But until that day comes, Captain, I have little time for games.” Her tone was calm, but even she could hear the tremor of her righteous anger running underneath the words. “My husband is a private man, as is his right, and I’ll not take his secrets and expose them for the sake of proving something that his word alone should be the proof of. I’ll not do it. He’s a better man than any I have met in all my life, and if you choose to doubt the truth of our attachment you will have to doubt it, Captain, and be done with it, as I am done with answering your questions. He has told you what we are.
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Susanna Kearsley (A Desperate Fortune)
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desire are united to his purpose by the use of Sigils, or sacred letters. By projecting consciousness into one object, sensation becomes intensified because not dissipated by the usual distractions.This intensification is attained by abstaining from desire in anything but the object [i.e. the Sigil]. By non-resistance (involuntary thought and action), any worry or apprehension of it not working, being transient, find no permanent abode, and the practitioner desires everything. Anxiety defeats the purpose, because it retains and exposes the desire; desire is non-attraction. When the mind is quiet and focused, and undisturbed by external images, there is no distortion of the sense impression (there should be no hallucination: that could end in fulfilment of whatever it is that is imagined). Instead, the mind magnifies the existing desire, and joins it to the object in secret.
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Austin Osman Spare (Book of Pleasure in Plain English)
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In my years as a detective and particularly with Searchlight, I’ve learned so much about cycles of violence in family systems. But cycles of silence can be just as dangerous—and they repeat through generations with startling consistency. A mother’s dieting becomes her daughter’s obsessive control over bonsai trees. Secret glaring infidelity becomes wordless assent and then emptiness. Cameron was exposed to all of this. Silver spoon or no, Emily had fed her powerlessness.
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Paula McLain (When the Stars Go Dark)
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I'm more excited than I'll admit when my hand closes around the paperback. It's like I've been handed a secret, a piece of her soul that she just decided to entrust with me. That's the way with writers--every word on a page like a window into their private place, exposing a great deal of vulnerability when they allow others to see inside. Even fiction is made up of the truthful scars of the people telling the story. I should know. I tell the same stories myself every day.
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Amy Matayo (The Whys Have It)
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Rose was patently a degenerate. Nature, in scheduling his characteristics, had pruned all superlatives. The rude armour of the flesh, under which the spiritual, like a hide-bound chrysalis, should develop secret and self-contained, was perished in his case, as it were, to a semi-opaque suit, through which his soul gazed dimly and fearfully on its monstrous arbitrary surroundings. Not the mantle of the poet, philosopher, or artist fallen upon such, can still its shiverings, or give the comfort that Nature denies.
Yet he was a little bit of each - poet, philosopher, and artist; a nerveless and self-deprecatory stalker of ideals, in the pursuit of which he would wear patent leather shoes and all the apologetic graces. The grandson of a 'three-bottle' J.P., who had upheld the dignity of the State constitution while abusing his own in the best spirit of squirearchy; the son of a petulant dyspeptic, who alternated seizures of long moroseness with fits of abject moral helplessnes, Amos found his inheritance in the reversion of a dissipated constitution, and an imagination as sensitive as an exposed nerve. Before he was thirty he was a neurasthenic so practised, as to have learned a sense of luxury in the very consciousness of his own suffering. It was a negative evolution from the instinct of self-protection - self-protection, as designed in this case, against the attacks of the unspeakable.
("The Accursed Cordonnier")
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Bernard Capes (Gaslit Nightmares: Stories by Robert W. Chambers, Charles Dickens, Richard Marsh, and Others)
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In his 1973 “literary investigation,” The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn exposed the practices of the Soviet penal system: “If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty or forty years had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed within iron rings, that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.
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Donnie Eichar (Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident)
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Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. —JOHN ADAMS, 1765, DISSERTATION ON THE CANON AND FEUDAL LAW
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Tom Fitton (Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies)
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Those painful childhood memories we bury, that some of us try and drown out with sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, all the usual crutches and distractions. These childhood experiences are going to be really painful to engage with, no one wants anyone else to be exposed to their deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets, but unless these issues are talked about they can never be defeated, and you will never be at peace with yourself or anyone else. You have one day got to face that shit head-on and defeat it. Believe me.
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Bobby Gillespie (Tenement Kid)
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One can distinguish several types of inspiration, which intergrade, as all things do in this fluid and interesting world of ours, while yielding gracefully to a semblance of classification. A prefatory glow, not unlike some benign variety of the aura before an epileptic attack, is something the artist learns to perceive very early in life. This feeling of tickly well-being branches through him like the red and the blue in the picture of a skinned man under Circulation. As it spreads, it banishes all awareness of physical discomfort — youth’s toothache as well as the neuralgia of old age. The beauty of it is that, while completely intelligible (as if it were connected with a known gland or led to an expected climax), it has neither source nor object. It expands, glows, and subsides without revealing its secret. In the meantime, however, a window has opened, an auroral wind has blown, every exposed nerve has tingled. Presently all dissolves: the familiar worries are back and the eyebrow redescribes its arc
of pain; but the artist knows he is ready.
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Vladimir Nabokov
“
He would expose, remorselessly, those hypocrites and cynics who publicly denied the catastrophe of climate change while secretly short-selling that very same position and hedging all their bets; the millionaires and billionaires who preached self-reliance while accepting vast handouts in the form of subsidies and easy credit, and who bemoaned red tape while building contractual fortresses to shield their capital from their ex-wives; the tax-dodging economic parasites who treated state treasuries like casinos and dismantled welfare programmes out of spite, who secured immensely lucrative state contracts through illegitimate back channels and grubby, endlessly revolving doors, who eroded civil standards, who demolished social norms, and whose obscene fortunes had been made, in every case, on the back of institutions built with public funding, enriched by public patronage, and rightfully belonging to the public, most notably, the fucking Internet; the confirmed sociopaths who were literally vampiric with their regular transfusions of younger, healthier blood; the cancerous polluters who consumed more, and burned more, and wasted more than half the world’s population put together; the crypto-fascist dirty tricksters who pretended to be populists while defrauding and despising the people, who lied with impunity, who stole with impunity, who murdered with impunity, who invented scapegoats, who incited suicides, who encouraged violence and provoked unrest, and who then retreated into a private sphere of luxury so well insulated from the lives of ordinary people, and so well defended against them, that it basically amounted to a form of secession.
”
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Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood)
“
People hate you and paint you as a bad person if you are telling them the truth they don’t want to hear or If you are pointing the wrongs they secretly do ,thinking no one will notice. They don’t want to be exposed for their wrongs ,because they are enjoying the benefits of their wrongs and bad decisions making. They want to keep everyone in the dark that when the time comes for them to face repercussions of their actions, they will be acting surprised and playing victims. So that everyone will sympathies with them. Always be on alert for such people.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
It is a little-known but significant fact that no president has appeared more times in Superman comic books than JFK. He was even entrusted with Superman's secret identity and once pretended to be Clark Kent so as to prevent it from being exposed. When Supergirl debuted as a character, she was formally presented to the Kennedys. (Not surprisingly, the president took an immediate liking to her.) In a special issue dedicated to getting American youth to become physically fit — just like the astronaut 'Colonel Glenn' — Kennedy enlists Superman on a mission to close 'the muscle gap'.
”
”
Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning)
“
The soul then, thus disguised and clad in the vesture of hope, is secure from its second foe, the world, for St. Paul calls hope the helmet of salvation.10 Now a helmet is armor which protects and covers the whole head, and has no opening except in one place, where the eyes may look through. Hope is such a helmet, for it covers all the senses of the head of the soul in such a way that they cannot be lost in worldly things, and leaves no part of them exposed to the arrows of the world. It has one loophole only through which the eyes may look upwards only; this is the ordinary work of hope, to direct the eyes of the soul to God alone; as David says, “My eyes are always to our Lord,”11 looking for succor nowhere else; as he says in another psalm, “As the eyes of the handmaid on the hands of her mistress, so are our eyes to our Lord God until He have mercy on us,”12 hoping in Him. 9. The green vesture of hope—for the soul is then ever looking upwards unto God, disregarding all else, and delighting only in Him—is so pleasing to the Beloved that the soul obtains from Him all it hopes for. This is why He tells the soul in the Canticle, “Thou hast wounded My heart in one of thine eyes.”13 It would have been useless for the soul, if it had not put on the green robe of hope in God, to claim such love, for it would not have succeeded, because that which influences the Beloved, and prevails, is persevering hope. It is in the vesture of hope that the soul goes forth disguised in this secret and dark night; seeing that it goes forth so detached from all possession, without any consolations, that it regards nothing, and that its sole anxiety is about God, putting its “mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope” in the words of Jeremiah quoted already.14 10.
”
”
Juan de la Cruz (Dark Night of the Soul)
“
The church of God is never so well built up as when it is built up with men of broken hearts. I have prayed to God in secret many a time, of late, that he would be pleased to gather out from among us a people who have a deep experience, who should know the guilt of sin, who should be broken and ground to powder under a sense of their own inability and unworthiness… He who has never been in the dungeon, who has never been in the abyss, who has never felt as if he were cast out from the sight of God, how can he comfort many who are outcasts, and who are bound with the fetters of despair?”2
”
”
Steve Gallagher (i: the root of sin exposed)
“
His soft words, sounding almost like poetry, taught her that soil is packed with life and one of the most precious riches on Earth; that draining wetlands dries the land for miles beyond, killing plants and animals along with the water. Some of the seeds lie dormant in the desiccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Wonders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
He wasn't normally conscious of it, but there was one part of his body that was extremely sensitive, somewhere along his back. This soft, subtle spot he couldn't reach was usually covered by something, so that it was invisible to the naked eye. But when, for whatever reason, that spot became exposed and someone's finger pressed down on it, something inside him would stir. A special substance would be secreted, swiftly carried by his bloodstream to every corner of his body. That special stimulus was both a physical sensation and a mental one, creating vivid images in his mind.
The first time he met Sara, he felt an anonymous finger reach out and push down forcefully on that trigger on his back. The day they met they talked for a long time, though he couldn't recall much of what they said. What he did recall was the special feeling on his back, and the indefinably thrilling sensation it brought to his mind and body. One part of him relaxed, one part tightened up. That sort of feeling. But what did it mean? Tsukuru thought about it for days, but he was not, by nature, adept at abstract thinking. So Tsukuru emailed Sara and invited her to dinner. He was determined to find out the meaning of that feeling, of that sensation.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage)
“
She learned where the geese go in winter, and the meaning of their music. His soft words, sounding almost like poetry, taught her that soil is packed with life and one of the most precious riches on Earth; that draining wetlands dries the land for miles beyond, killing plants and animals along with the water. Some of the seeds lie dormant in the desiccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Wonders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
How many of our loved ones are dead today due to these experiments? What is to become of all of those who were part of these experiments the innocent women, children, prisoners, and service members who became human guinea pigs for “A Nobler Purpose?” How many citizens of this country were exposed to radiation from fallout? Do we really need to ask why Cancer is so prevalent? How much were our oceans damaged due to sea dumping? These are tough questions, for which you have the answers. Let your voices be heard, lest your silence convey a more powerful message to those in power. Until we make the necessary changes to protect every citizen, history will continue to repeat itself.
”
”
Carol Rutz (A Nation Betrayed: Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on our Children and Other Innocent People[Annotated])
“
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist . . .” Lord, I put on the belt of truth. I choose a lifestyle of honesty and integrity. Show me the truths I so desperately need today. Expose the lies I’m not even aware that I’m believing. “. . . with the breastplate of righteousness in place . . .” And yes, Lord, I wear your righteousness today against all condemnation and corruption. Fit me with your holiness and purity—defend me from all assaults against my heart. “. . . and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace . . .” I do choose to live for the gospel at any moment. Show me where the larger story is unfolding and keep me from being so lax that I think the most important thing today is the soap operas of this world. “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one . . .” Jesus, I lift against every lie and every assault the confidence that you are good, and that you have good in store for me. Nothing is coming today that can overcome me because you are with me. “. . . Take the helmet of salvation . . .” Thank you, Lord, for my salvation. I receive it in a new and fresh way from you and I declare that nothing can separate me now from the love of Christ and the place I shall ever have in your kingdom. “. . . and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God . . .” Holy Spirit, show me specifically today the truths of the Word of God that I will need to counter the assaults and the snares of the Enemy. Bring them to mind throughout the day. “. . . And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” Finally, Holy Spirit, I agree to walk in step with you in everything—in all prayer as my spirit communes with you throughout the day. (6:13-18)
”
”
John Eldredge (Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul)
“
Negroes know about each other what can here be called family secrets, and this means that one Negro, if he wishes, can “knock” the other’s “hustle”—can give his game away. It is still not possible to overstate the price a Negro pays to climb out of obscurity—for it is a particular price, involved with being a Negro; and the great wounds, gouges, amputations, losses, scars, endured in such a journey cannot be calculated. But even this is not the worst of it, since he is really dealing with two hierarchies, one white and one black, the latter modeled on the former. The higher he rises, the less is his journey worth, since (unless he is extremely energetic and anarchic, a genuinely “bad nigger” in the most positive sense of the term) all he can possibly find himself exposed to is the grim emptiness of the white world—which does not live by the standards it uses to victimize him—and the even more ghastly emptiness of black people who wish they were white. Therefore, one “exceptional” Negro watches another “exceptional” Negro in order to find out if he knows how vastly successful and bitterly funny the hoax has been. Alliances, in the great cocktail party of the white man’s world, are formed, almost purely, on this basis, for if both of you can laugh, you have a lot to laugh about. On the other hand, if only one of you can laugh, one of you, inevitably, is laughing at the other.
”
”
James Baldwin (Nobody Knows My Name)
“
Joseph LeDoux at New York University has shown how the BLA learns fear.fn14,20 Expose a rat to an innate trigger of fear—a shock. When this “unconditioned stimulus” occurs, the central amygdala activates, stress hormones are secreted, the sympathetic nervous system mobilizes, and, as a clear end point, the rat freezes in place—“What was that? What do I do?” Now do some conditioning. Before each shock, expose the rat to a stimulus that normally does not evoke fear, such as a tone. And with repeated coupling of the tone (the conditioned stimulus) with the shock (the unconditioned one), fear conditioning occurs—the sound of the tone alone elicits freezing, stress hormone release, and so on.fn15
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
He wasn’t normally conscious of it, but there was one part of his body that was extremely sensitive, somewhere along his back. This soft, subtle spot he couldn’t reach was usually covered by something, so that it was invisible to the naked eye. But when, for whatever reason, that spot became exposed and someone’s finger pressed down on it, something inside him would stir. A special substance would be secreted, swiftly carried by his bloodstream to every corner of his body. That special stimulus was both a physical sensation and a mental one, creating vivid images in his mind. The first time he met Sara, he felt an anonymous finger reach out and push down forcefully on that trigger on his back.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage)
“
Eight hundred and more years later, more than three and a half thousand miles away, and now more than one thousand years ago, a storm fell upon our ancestors’ city like a bomb. Their childhoods slipped into the water and were lost, the piers built of memories on which they once ate candy and pizza, the boardwalks of desire under which they hid from the summer sun and kissed their first lips. The roofs of houses flew through the night sky like disoriented bats, and the attics where they stored their past stood exposed to the elements until it seemed that everything they once were had been devoured by the predatory sky. Their secrets drowned in flooded basements and they could no longer remember them. Their power failed them. Darkness fell.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights)
“
8for b at one time you were c darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. d Walk as children of light 9(for e the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10and f try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 g Take no part in the h unfruitful i works of darkness, but instead j expose them. 12For k it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13But when l anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, m “Awake, O sleeper, and n arise from the dead, and o Christ will shine on you.” 15 p Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 p making the best use of the time, because q the days are evil.
”
”
Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
“
Because both Birkenau and Auschwitz are infamous names and a blot on the history of mankind it is necessary to explain how they differed. The railroad separated one from the other. When the selectors told off the deportees on the station platform “Right!” or “Left!” they were sending them to either Birkenau or Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a slave camp. Hard as life was at Auschwitz it was better than Birkenau. For the latter was definitely an extermination camp, and as such was never mentioned in the reports. It was part of the colossal guilt of the German rulers and was rarely referred to, nor was its existence ever admitted until the troops of the liberating Allies exposed the secret to the world. At Auschwitz many war factories were in operation, such as the D.A.W. (Deutsches-Aufrustungswerk), Siemens, and Krupp. All were devoted to the production of armaments. The prisoners detailed to work there were highly privileged compared to those who were not given such employment. But even those who did not work productively were more fortunate than the prisoners in Birkenau. The latter were merely awaiting their turn to be gassed and cremated. The unpleasant job of handling the soon-to-be corpses, and later the ashes, were relegated to groups called “kommandos.” The sole task of the Birkenau personnel was to camouflage the real reason for the camp: extermination. When the internees in Auschwitz, or in other camps in the area, were no longer judged useful they were dispatched to Birkenau to die in the ovens. It was as simple and cold-blooded as that.
”
”
Olga Lengyel (Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz)
“
For example, while 5s are driven by their desire to know all the answers in the world, they are also scared by the idea that perhaps one day, God will appear to them and expose the secrets of the universe, which could collapse their world as they know it. Unhealthy 5s could believe that God will come to them and show them those people who they have hurt or how the difficult lessons that they have mastered are all based on some large conspiracy, etc. This paradoxical conflict can cause a lot of damage to the minds of 5s. Again, interestingly, most 5s opine that belief in God is not necessary to learn and master things. Yet, they also feel a deep reverence for the complexities in the universe. Paradoxically, they also believe that the world is so complex and deep that it could ruin them.
”
”
Mari Silva (Enneagram Type 5: What You Need to Know About the Investigator (Enneagram Personality Types))
“
Think about people who changed the world, like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Mother Teresa. Now search their name along with the word scandal, and see what comes up. Now imagine: If you had the whole world shouting those things at you, whether or not you did them, could you still keep your mental strong, decide to press forward, and succeed on an even bigger scale? Because here’s a secret: Most people hate change. Most people don’t like something new. So if you want to make an impact, you will have to deal with negativity and people exposing the worst things about you. And somehow, you have to take the appropriate steps to surthrive and move forward on your mission. Yeah, I made that word up. Not sure if I like it yet. But I’m risking negativity. Remember these three words: Mindset. Is. Everything.
”
”
Kevin Hart (This Is How We Do It: A Pep Talk)
“
We are not going to do the "does God test people" topic complete justice here because it's complicated, but a fair, brief summary would be this: Yes, God sometimes tests us (Deuteronomy 13:3, I Chronicles 29:17). But by God tests us, we don't mean He puts us through trials to see if we will fail (even secretly hoping we will fail). No, when God tests us, He is looking to find out what is in our hearts. He is looking to expose strength and weakness, to show us where we are and where we need to grow. His tests are not so much like a driver's license exam - you pass or fail - but like the diagnostic test a car manufacturer does on the cars themselves before releasing them into the world. The manufacturer needs to know if the vehicles are safe and ready for the road or if they need more work before they leave the factory.
”
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Elizabeth Laing Thompson (When God Says "Wait": Navigating Life's Detours and Delays Without Losing Your Faith, Your Friends, or Your Mind)
“
Putting the Other Person Down The manipulator has other options available to help them reach their ultimate goal. One tactic that can be quite effective consists in putting their target down on a regular basis. However, this isn’t done through insults or threats. This covert technique is very useful because the manipulator uses it in a very subtle manner. This can be seen in the abundant use of sarcasm or perhaps passive-aggressive attacks. For example, the manipulator may say, “don’t we look lovely today” when it is clear that the victim is not at their best. A passive-aggressive approach might be something like, “I’m just going to have to take you in for a good scrubbing and a haircut.” It might say in a playful tone, but the subtext is far more sinister. As for the target, they may not realize that they are the subject of manipulation. They may feel terrible as a result of the interaction, but may not realize that they are being deliberately acted upon by the manipulator. Consequently, the target is left to wonder is what the motives might be for being treated in such a manner. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter, at least not to the manipulator. What does matter is that the target is left feeling vulnerable and exposed. This is where the manipulator can make the most of their efforts. When a victim is left feeling defenseless, the manipulator is in a prime position to take advantage ([27]). On the contrary, if a person feels safe and empowered, the likelihood of them being manipulated is quite low. That’s why manipulators prey upon people with low self-esteem. If a person has high self-esteem, then they won’t be easily manipulated. If anything, put-downs and insults will spark a defensive reaction. That would leave the manipulator with no choice but to move on to the next victim.
”
”
William Cooper (Dark Psychology and Manipulation: Discover 40 Covert Emotional Manipulation Techniques, Mind Control, Brainwashing. Learn How to Analyze People, NLP Secret ... Effect, Subliminal Influence Book 1))
“
The problem with being ravished by books at an early age is that later rereadings are often likely to disappoint. “The sharp luscious flavor, the fine aroma is fled,” Hazlitt wrote, “and nothing but the stalk, the bran, the husk of literature is left.” Terrible words, but it can happen. You become harder to move, frighten, arouse, provoke, jangle. Your education becomes an interrogation lamp under which the hapless book, its every wart and scar exposed, confesses its guilty secrets: “My characters are wooden! My plot creaks! I am pre-feminist, pre-deconstructivist, and pre-postcolonialist!” (The upside of English classes is that they give you critical tools, some of which are useful, but the downside is that those tools make you less able to shower your books with unconditional love. Conditions are the very thing you’re asked to learn.) You read too many other books, and the currency of each one becomes debased.
”
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Anne Fadiman (Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader)
“
With a tremendous effort Anthony made his acquiescence a twist of subject, and they drifted into and ancient question-and-answer game concerned with each other's pasts, gradually warming as they discovered the age-old, immemorial resemblances in tastes and ideas. They said things that were more revealing than they intended - but each pretended to accept the other at face, or rather word, value.
The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third - and before long the lines cancel out - and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and our children and business associates are accepted as true.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
“
When it comes to the Obama administration, we have observed how it has operated by implementing the “Chicago Way,” an approach to government Obama learned in his days serving the Daley Machine in Chicago. It’s a “my way or the highway” style that combines unaccountability and illegal secrecy with brazen favoritism toward allies and the punishment of political enemies. Despite the idealism with which he promised he would govern, President Obama has proven quite comfortable operating in the morally bankrupt idiom of the urban politico. We have detailed shady dealings with cronies, clear and present dangers to our national security, cozy relationships with union bosses, ethically questionable appointments, abuse of power in the use of executive orders, double talk on ethics reform, politicization of government agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service, and, of course, the widespread practice of “crony capitalism,” which rewards friends of the president and the Democratic Party.
”
”
Tom Fitton (Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies)
“
My love," he said gently, as one hand reached up to caress my face, "you are not still afraid of me?"
"No." My voice seemed to be coming to me from a far-off place. "But we cannot... my husband, I-"
"I assure you, he will remain unconscious. He will never know that I was here."
He drew me to him. I found myself melting into his embrace. It was as if my will had left me; I could no more have pushed him away than I could have ceased to breathe. As he kissed me, I felt all my vows of resistance evaporate, replaced by growing desire. Oh! How could any woman refuse the advances of such a man? I wanted him! How I wanted him!
His mouth left mine, and he looked down at me, his eyes like red flames. I knew what he needed. My heart pounded. I knew I should refuse; but I yearned for it. I untied my nightdress at the collar. He pulled it open to expose my throat. As he bent his head and fastened there, I gave out a sigh, drawing pleasure from it. 'Yes. Yes. Yes. Liquid, molten ecstasy. Nirvana.
”
”
Syrie James (Dracula, My Love: A Gothic Paranormal Romance – Mina Harker's Forbidden Victorian Passion)
“
MARCH 14 I WILL CLEANSE YOUR LIFE FROM SECRET FAULTS MY CHILD, BE aware of the danger of trying to hide your faults or actions from Me, for I see the hidden secrets in your heart. Nothing can be hidden from the light of My presence. You were once darkness, but now you are light in Me. Live as children of light (for My light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases Me. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Everything exposed by My light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Be very careful how you live—not as unwise by as wise—making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. PSALM 19:12–13; JEREMIAH 23:24; EPHESIANS 5:8–16 Prayer Declaration Lord, cleanse my life from secret faults. I renounce secret and shameful ways. I will not use deception, nor will I distort the Word of God. The only thing that I will hide in my heart is the Word of God, so that I might not sin against You.
”
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John Eckhardt (Daily Declarations for Spiritual Warfare: Biblical Principles to Defeat the Devil)
“
on without anesthesia. In a letter he describes: “I suffered agonies, as they related all to me, and did violence to myself in keeping to my seat. I could scarcely bear it.” Surgery on the penis, the rectum or the anus would have been a terrifying torture, especially if the patient was a five-year-old foreigner who couldn’t have possessed the coping skills, the insight or perhaps sufficient fluency in English to understand what was happening to him. It’s awful to consider what he might have imagined when a nurse changed his dressings, administered his medicines or appeared at his bedside with a supply of leeches if he had an inflammation believed to be due to an excess of blood. The nurse may have had a sweet bedside manner. She may have been strict and humorless. A typical requirement in those days was that she was single or widowed, ensuring that all her time could be devoted to the hospital. Nurses were underpaid. They worked long, grueling hours and were exposed to extraordinarily unpleasant conditions
”
”
Patricia Cornwell (Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert)
“
FOR THE REST of the summer Kya and Tate did the reading lessons at the tumbledown cabin. By mid-August they had read through A Sand County Almanac, and although she couldn’t read every word, she got most of it. Aldo Leopold taught her that floodplains are living extensions of the rivers, which will claim them back any time they choose. Anyone living on a floodplain is just waiting in the river’s wings. She learned where the geese go in winter, and the meaning of their music. His soft words, sounding almost like poetry, taught her that soil is packed with life and one of the most precious riches on Earth; that draining wetlands dries the land for miles beyond, killing plants and animals along with the water. Some of the seeds lie dormant in the desiccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Wonders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
Albert Einstein once said, “Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.” . . . On one level, science is a collection of facts about the world, and adding to that collection does require discoveries. But science is also something larger. It’s a mindset, a process, a way of reasoning about the world that allows us to expose wishful thinking and biases and replace them with deeper, more reliable truths. Considering how vast the world is, there’s no way to check every reported experiment yourself and personally verify it. At some point, you have to trust other people’s claims—which means those people need to be honorable, need to be worthy of trusting. Moreover, science is an inherently social process. Results cannot be kept secret; they have to be verified by the wider community, or science simply doesn’t work. And given what a deeply social process science is, acts that damage society by shortchanging human rights or ignoring human dignity will almost always cost you in the end—by destroying people’s trust in science and even undermining the very conditions that make science possible.
”
”
Sam Kean (The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science)
“
In the past, people were vaguely fearful of photographs, believing the camera's exact reproduction of their own image would steal their souls. Not only did these images survive for much longer than their subjects, they were also endowed with an aura of magic the subjects lacked. A superstition, but one whose traces can still be felt today. People sense that the photograph captures an uncanny moment in the interstices of reality, enhancing reality's eeriness, the root of which is unknown, and fixing that moment in place like a death mask. Photography differs from the art of painting in that capturing or exposing such a moment happens neither at the will of the photographer nor the one who is photographed. What is photographed is a ghost moment, clothed in matter. Photography is the dream of comprehensive meaning. Each object has parts of itself that are invisible. This territory, which neither the photographer nor the subject can govern, constitutes the secret kept by the object. Unrelated to the intention of either photographer or subject, within the magic of photography dwells a still, quiet shock. Try to imagine our house one day when we ourselves are no more. Somewhere in that house is the ghost of us, which will pass alone in front of a blind mirror, revealing our own blurred image.
”
”
Bae Suah (Untold Night and Day)
“
Chemotherapy, the third main prong in cancer treatment after surgery and radiation, came about by similarly unlikely means. Although chemical weapons had been outlawed by international treaty after World War I, several nations still produced them, if only as a precaution in the event that others did likewise. The United States was among the transgressors. For obvious reasons, this was kept secret, but in 1943 a U.S. Navy supply ship, the SS John Harvey, carrying mustard gas bombs as part of its cargo, was caught in a German bombing raid on the Italian port of Bari. The Harvey was blown up, releasing a cloud of mustard gas over a wide area, killing an unknown number of people. Realizing that this was an excellent, if accidental, test of the mustard gas’s efficacy as a killing agent, the navy dispatched a chemical expert, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander, to study the effects of the mustard gas on the ship’s crew and others nearby. Luckily for posterity, Alexander was an astute and diligent investigator, for he noticed something that might have been overlooked: mustard gas dramatically slowed the creation of white blood cells in those exposed to it. From this, it was realized that some derivative of mustard gas might be useful in treating some cancers. Thus was born chemotherapy.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Body: A Guide for Occupants)
“
So trees communicate by means of olfactory, visual, and electrical signals. (The electrical signals travel via a from of nerve cell at the tips of the roots.) What about sounds? Let's get back to hearing and speech. When I said at the beginning of this chapter that trees are definitely silent, the latest scientific research casts doubt even on this statement. Along with colleagues from Bristol and Florence, Dr. Monica Gagliano from the University of Western Australia has, quite literally, had her ear to the ground. It's not practical to study trees in the laboratory; therefore, researchers substitute grain seedlings because they are easier to handle. They started listening, and it didn't take them long to discover that their measuring apparatus was registering roots crackling quietly at a frequency of 220 hertz. Crackling roots? That doesn't necessarily mean anything. After all, even dead wood crackles when it's burned in a stove. But the noised discovered in the laboratory caused the researchers to sit up and pay attention. For the roots of seedlings not directly involved in the experiment reacted. Whenever the seedlings' roots were exposed to a cracking at 220 hertz, they oriented their tips in that direction. That means the grasses were registering this frequency, so it makes sense to say they "heard" it.
”
”
Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World)
“
It must be noted that Congress also has another power that it has rarely used—impeachment. Many people are under the mistaken impression that impeachment can only be used to remove the president or vice president. But the impeachment power given to Congress in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides Congress the authority to remove “all civil Officers of the United States” for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” That means, for example, that Congress has the ability to use impeachment to remove individuals who refuse to provide Congress with the information it needs for oversight, or who, like John Koskinen, President Obama’s head of the IRS, withheld information from Congress concerning the destruction of records that had been subpoenaed for the Lois Lerner investigation. As James Madison said, impeachment was a necessary power to defend the nation against “the incapacity, negligence or perfidy” of officials within the government. Of course, if an administration were truly transparent, none of this would matter. Truth fears no inquiry. Crafty, corrupt politicians realize that transparency and accountably go hand in hand. If the Obama administration truly had nothing to hide, it would not have gone to such extraordinary lengths to keep information on what it was doing and its internal machinations from the public. What is needed is a commitment to transparency that cuts across partisan, political lines.
”
”
Tom Fitton (Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies)
“
I was too stunned to think or move. I knew he desired my blood. And yet I did not want to hinder him. With a flick of his fingers, he untied the ribbon at my collar and pulled open my nightdress at my neck, exposing my collar-bone and upper chest. His mouth instantly found the supersensitive skin at the side of my throat, and at first, butterfly touch, I quivered and moaned in ecstasy. Suddenly, I felt two sharp pricks against my flesh, and I gasped again. The pain was trivial, quickly replaced by a feeling of languid pleasure such as I had never before imagined. It was as if I could feel my blood seeping out of me, and at the same time, something new, magical, and effervescent seemed to be mingling with my own life essence. Soon, it felt as if the tingling, liquid glow that had been throbbing in my very centre was pulsating throughout all the veins in my body, as if every one of my senses was alive and heightened to a fever-pitch- and with it came a sense of impending danger. Deep down inside of me, I knew that this was bad for me- very bad- that if he took too much blood it would kill me- that I must put a stop to it before it was too late. But I had no will to stop it. I heard a strange vibration, like singing through deep water. My head fell back; I heard myself sigh with intense pleasure; my knees began to buckle beneath me. If nirvana existed, I thought, in the remote corner of my mind which could still think, this must be it. I never wanted it to end.
”
”
Syrie James (Dracula, My Love: A Gothic Paranormal Romance – Mina Harker's Forbidden Victorian Passion)
“
While David runs the financial end of the Rockefeller dynasty, Nelson runs the political. Nelson would like to be President of the United States. But, unfortunately for him, he is unacceptable to the vast majority of the grass roots of his own party. The next best thing to being President is controlling a President. Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon are supposed to be bitter political competitors. In a sense they are, but that still does not preclude Rockefeller from asserting dominion over Mr. Nixon. When Mr. Nixon and Mr. Rockefeller competed for the Republican nomination in 1968, Rockefeller naturally would have preferred to win the prize, but regardless of who won, he would control the highest office in the land.
You will recall that right in the middle of drawing up the Republican platform in 1960, Mr. Nixon suddenly left Chicago and flew to New York to meet with Nelson Rockefeller in what Barry Goldwater described as the "Munich of the Republican Party." There was no political reason why Mr. Nixon needed to crawl to Mr. Rockefeller. He had the convention all sewed up. The Chicago Tribune cracked that it was like Grant surrendering to Lee.
In The Making of the President, 1960, Theodore White noted that Nixon accepted all the Rockefeller terms for this meeting, including provisions "that Nixon telephone Rockefeller personally with his request for a meeting; that they meet at the Rockefeller apartment…that their meeting be secret and later be announced in a press release from the Governor, not Nixon; that the meeting be clearly announced as taking place at the Vice President's request; that the statement of policy issuing from it be long, detailed, inclusive, not a summary communiqué."
The meeting produced the infamous "Compact of Fifth Avenue" in which the Republican Platform was scrapped and replaced by Rockefeller's socialist plans. The Wall Street Journal of July 25, 1960, commented: "…a little band of conservatives within the party…are shoved to the sidelines… [T]he fourteen points are very liberal indeed; they comprise a platform akin in many ways to the Democratic platform and they are a far cry from the things that conservative men think the Republican Party ought to stand for…" As Theodore White put it:
"Never had the quadrennial liberal swoop of the regulars been more nakedly dramatized than by the open compact of Fifth Avenue. Whatever honor they might have been able to carry from their services on the platform committee had been wiped out. A single night's meeting of the two men in a millionaire's triplex apartment in Babylon-by-the-Hudson, eight hundred and thirty miles away, was about to overrule them; they were exposed as clowns for all the world to see."
The whole story behind what happened in Rockefeller's apartment will doubtless never be known. We can only make an educated guess in light of subsequent events. But it is obvious that since that time Mr. Nixon has been in the Rockefeller orbit.
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Gary Allen (None Dare Call It Conspiracy)
“
A moment ago, when he entered this human aviary, the pictures, modestly enclosed in four wooden mouldings, remained flat and silent before him; in order to wrest their secret from them, he must believe in them. He wanted to believe in them. He stood in front of one of the canvases. Between the two walls, drenched in sunlight, a single hoop rolled towards that point where the parallels meet in infinity. Little by little, as he looked at it, the picture came alive. What it was saying he could not be translated into words; it was said in painting and no other language could have expressed its meaning; but it spoke. He advanced a few paces. Under his attentive gaze, all the pictures came alive; they awoke memories more ancient than the beginning of the world; they evoked the unpredictable face of the earth far beyond the revolutions to come; they exposed the secrets of a jagged coastline, of a dessert sprinkled with shells, as they remained solitary within themselves, protected from any conscience. Statues without faces, men turned to pillars of salt, landscapes scorched by the flames of death, oceans frozen into immobility of the absolute instant: these were the thousand shapes of absence. And while he looked at this universe devoid of onlookers, it seemed as if he were absent from himself, and that he remained, outside his own personal history, in an empty white eternity. And yet that dream of purity and absence only existed because I was there to lend it the strength of my life.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir
“
We speak of the things which you see with your own eyes, which We both bemoan. Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved by evil men, but defiled and held up to ridicule. Hence sound doctrine is perverted and errors of all kinds spread boldly. The laws of the sacred, the rights, institutions, and discipline — none are safe from the audacity of those speaking evil. Our Roman See is harassed violently and the bonds of unity are daily loosened and severed. The divine authority of the Church is opposed and her rights shorn off. She is subjected to human reason and with the greatest injustice exposed to the hatred of the people and reduced to vile servitude. The obedience due bishops is denied and their rights are trampled underfoot. Furthermore, academies and schools resound with new, monstrous opinions, which openly attack the Catholic faith; this horrible and nefarious war is openly and even publicly waged. Thus, by institutions and by the example of teachers, the minds of the youth are corrupted and a tremendous blow is dealt to religion and the perversion of morals is spread. So the restraints of religion are thrown off, by which alone kingdoms stand. We see the destruction of public order, the fall of principalities, and the overturning of all legitimate power approaching. Indeed this great mass of calamities had its inception in the heretical societies and sects in which all that is sacrilegious, infamous, and blasphemous has gathered as bilge water in a ship’s hold, a congealed mass of all filth.
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Pope Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos)
“
John Adams was keenly aware of the relationship between secrecy and corruption in government and the preservation of liberty. Many of the Founding Fathers understood the importance of transparency in a nation’s rulers. James Madison wrote that “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both.” Thomas Jefferson said that “If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.” Judicial Watch has always believed that knowing the “characters and conduct” of the individuals who serve in the government and ensuring that the public is “informed” about what its government is doing is crucial to preserving our great republic. That is why for over twenty-two years we have been the most active user of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in government, politics, and the law. We are the nation’s largest and most effective government watchdog group that works to advance the public interest. Transparency is all about self-governance. If we don’t know what the government is doing, how is that self-governance? How is that even a republic? When we were founded in 1994, we used the FOIA open records law to root out corruption in the Clinton administration. During the Bush administration, we used it to combat that administration’s penchant for improper secrecy. But the Bush administration pales in comparison to the Obama administration. Today, our government is bigger than ever, and also the most secretive in recent memory.
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”
Tom Fitton (Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies)
“
solar panels are expensive, and, whatever the coating, they are manufactured by esoteric processes. But Tesla's solar panel is just a shiny metal plate with a transparent coating of an insulating material. Stick one of these antenna like panels up in the air, the higher the better, and wire it to one side of a capacitor, the other going to a good earth ground. Now the energy from the sun is charging that capacitor. Connect across the capacitor some sort of switching device so that it can be discharged at rhythmic intervals, and you have an electric output. Tesla’s patent tells us that it is very simple to get electric energy. The bigger the area of the insulated plate, the more energy you get. However, this is more than a solar panel because it does not necessarily need sunshine to operate. It also produces power at night. Of course, this is impossible according to official science. For this reason, you could not get a patent on such an invention today. Tesla's free energy receiver refers to the sun, as well as other sources of radiant energy, like cosmic rays. That the device works at night is explained in terms of the nighttime availability of cosmic rays. Tesla also refers to the ground as a vast reservoir of negative electricity. Tesla was fascinated by radiant energy and its free energy possibilities. He called the Crooke's radiometer (a device which has vanes that spin in a vacuum when exposed to radiant energy) a beautiful invention. He believed that it would become possible to harness energy directly by connecting to the very wheelwork of nature. This seems like a very straightforward design and would seem to fulfill
”
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Tim R. Swartz (The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla: Time Travel - Alternative Energy and the Secret of Nazi Flying Saucers)
“
We are cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. Receiving such secrets is a privilege given to very few. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Other secrets pulsate within me and arouse my own fugitive, long-forgotten memories and impulses. Still others sadden me as I witness how an entire life can be needlessly consumed by shame and the inability to forgive oneself.
Those who are cradlers of secrets are granted a clarifying lens through which to view the world—a view with less distortion, denial, and illusion, a view of the way things really are. (Consider, in this regard, the titles of books written by Allen Wheelis, an eminent psychoanalyst: The Way Things Are, The Scheme of Things, The Illusionless Man.)
When I turn to others with the knowledge that we are all (therapist and patient alike) burdened with painful secrets—guilt for acts committed, shame for actions not taken, yearnings to be loved and cherished, deep vulnerabilities, insecurities, and fears—I draw closer to them. Being a cradler of secrets has, as the years have passed, made me gentler and more accepting. When I encounter individuals inflated with vanity or self-importance, or distracted by any of a myriad of consuming passions, I intuit the pain of their underlying secrets and feel not judgment but compassion and, above all, connectedness. When I was first exposed, at a Buddhist retreat, to the formal meditation of loving-kindness, I felt myself much at home. I believe that many therapists, more than is generally thought, are familiar with the realm of loving-kindness.
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Irvin D. Yalom
“
In the February 9, 1935, issue of the Saturday Evening Post, an article appeared written by Frank Vanderlip. In it he said: Despite my views about the value to society of greater publicity for the affairs of corporations, there was an occasion, near the close of 1910, when I was as secretive—indeed, as furtive—as any conspirator.... I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.... We were told to leave our last names behind us. We were told, further, that we should avoid dining together on the night of our departure. We were instructed to come one at a time and as unobtrusively as possible to the railroad terminal on the New Jersey littoral of the Hudson, where Senator Aldrich's private car would be in readiness, attached to the rear end of a train for the South.... Once aboard the private car we began to observe the taboo that had been fixed on last names. We addressed one another as "Ben," "Paul," "Nelson," "Abe"—it is Abraham Piatt Andrew. Davison and I adopted even deeper disguises, abandoning our first names. On the theory that we were always right, he became Wilbur and I became Orville, after those two aviation pioneers, the Wright brothers.... The servants and train crew may have known the identities of one or two of us, but they did not know all, and it was the names of all printed together that would have made our mysterious journey significant in Washington, in Wall Street, even in London. Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted. If it were to be exposed publicly that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.
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G. Edward Griffin (The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve)
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In the night I awoke. Was this my own voice reciting what was written? “ ‘And every secret thing shall be opened, and every dark place illuminated.’ ” Dear God, no, do not let them know this, do not let them know the great accumulation of all of this, this agony and joy, this misery, this solace, this reaching, this gouging pain, this . . . But they will know, each and every one of them will know. They will know because what you are remembering is what has happened to each and every one of them. Did you think this was more or less for you? Did you think—? And when they are called to account, when they stand naked before God and every incident and utterance is laid bare—you, you will know all of it with each and every one of them! I knelt in the sand. Is this possible, Lord, to be with each of them when he or she comes to know? To be there for every single cry of anguish? For the grief-stricken remembrance of every incomplete joy? Oh, Lord, God, what is judgment and how can it be, if I cannot bear to be with all of them for every ugly word, every harsh and desperate cry, for every gesture examined, for every deed explored to its roots? And I saw the deeds, the deeds of my own life, the smallest, most trivial things, I saw them suddenly in their seed and sprout and with their groping branches; I saw them growing, intertwining with other deeds, and those deeds come to form a thicket and a woodland and a great roving wilderness that dwarfed the world as we hold it on a map, the world as we hold it in our minds. Dear God, next to this, this endless spawning of deed from deed and word from word and thought from thought—the world is nothing. Every single soul is a world! I started to cry. But I would not close off this vision—no, let me see, and all those who lifted the stones, and I, I blundering, and James' face when I said it, I am weary of you, my brother, and from that instant outwards a million echoes of those words in all present who heard or thought they heard, who would remember, repeat, confess, defend . . . and so on it goes for the lifting of a finger, the launching of the ship, the fall of an army in a northern forest, the burning of a city as flames rage through house after house! Dear God, I cannot . . . but I will. I will. I sobbed aloud. I will. O Father in Heaven, I am reaching to You with hands of flesh and blood. I am longing for You in Your perfection with this heart that is imperfection! And I reach up for You with what is decaying before my very eyes, and I stare at Your stars from within the prison of this body, but this is not my prison, this is my Will. This is Your Will. I collapsed weeping. And I will go down, down with every single one of them into the depths of Sheol, into the private darkness, into the anguish exposed for all eyes and for Your eyes, into the fear, into the fire which is the heat of every mind. I will be with them, every solitary one of them. I am one of them! And I am Your Son! I am Your only begotten Son! And driven here by Your Spirit, I cry because I cannot do anything but grasp it, grasp it as I cannot contain it in this flesh-and-blood mind, and by Your leave I cry. I cried. I cried and I cried. “Lord, give me this little while that I may cry, for I've heard that tears accomplish much. . . .” Alone? You said you wanted to be alone? You wanted this, to be alone? You wanted the silence? You wanted to be alone and in the silence. Don't you understand the temptation now of being alone? You are alone. Well, you are absolutely alone because you are the only One who can do this! What judgment can there ever be for man, woman, or child—if I am not there for every heartbeat at every depth of their torment?
”
”
Anne Rice (Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (Life of Christ Book 2))
“
Sometimes our need clouds our ability to develop perspective. Being needy is kind of like losing your keys. You become desperate and search everywhere. You search in places you know damn well what you are looking for could never be. The more frantic you become in trying to find them the less rational you are in your search. The less rational you become the more likely you'll be searching in a way that actually makes finding what you want more difficult. You go back again and again to where you want them to be, knowing that there is no way in hell that they are there. There is a lot of wasted effort. You lose perspective of your real goal, let's say it's go to the grocery store, and instead of getting what you need -nourishment, you frantically chase your tail growing more and more confused and angry and desperate. You are mad at your keys, you are mad at your coat pockets for not doing their job. You are irrational. You could just grab the spare set, run to the grocery store and get what you need, have a sandwich, calm down and search at your leisure. But you don't.
Where ARE your keys?! Your desperation is skewing your judgement. But you need to face it, YOUR keys are not in HIS pocket. You know your keys are not there. You have checked several times. They are not there. He is not responsible for your keys. You are. He doesn't want to be responsible for your keys. Here's the secret: YOU don't want to be responsible for your keys. If you did you would be searching for them in places they actually have a chance of being. Straight boys don't have your keys. You have tried this before. They may have acted like they did because they wanted you to get them somewhere or you may have hoped they did because you didn't want to go alone but straight boys don't have your keys. Straight boys will never have your keys.
Where do you really want to go? It sounds like not far. If going somewhere was of importance you would have hung your keys on the nail by the door. Sometimes it's pretty comfortable at home. Lonely but familiar. Messy enough to lose your keys in but not messy enough to actually bother to clean house and let things go. Not so messy that you can't forget about really going somewhere and sit down awhile and think about taking a trip with that cute guy from work. Just a little while longer, you tell yourself. His girlfriend can sit in the backseat as long as she stays quiet. It will be fun. Just what you need.
And really isn't it much safer to sit there and think about taking a trip than accepting all the responsibility of planning one and servicing the car so that it's ready and capable?
Having a relationship consists of exposing yourself to someone else over and over, doing the work and sometimes failing. It entails being wrong in front of someone else and being right for someone too. Even if you do find a relationship that other guy doesn't want to be your chauffeur. He wants to take turns riding together. He may occasionally drive but you'll have to do some too. You will have to do some solo driving to keep up your end of the relationship. Boyfriends aren't meant to take you where you want to go. Sometimes they want to take a left when you want to go right. Being in a relationship is embarking on an uncertain adventure. It's not a commitment to a destination it is just a commitment to going together.
Maybe it's time to stop telling yourself that you are a starcrossed traveler and admit you're an armchair adventurer. You don't really want to go anywhere or you would venture out. If you really wanted to know where your keys were you'd search in the most likely spot, down underneath the cushion of that chair you've gotten so comfortable in.
”
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Tim Janes
“
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”
”
Matt Robbins (Hacking: Perfect Hacking for Beginners: Essentials You Must Know [Version 2.0] (hacking, how to hack, hacking exposed, hacking system, hacking 101, beg ... to hacking, Hacking, hacking for dummies))
“
But Glass, in her research, discovered that if you dig a little deeper into people's infidelities, you can almost always see how the affair started long before the first stolen kiss. Most affairs begin, Glass wrote, when a husband or wife makes a new friend, and an apparently harmless intimacy is born. You don't sense the danger as it's happening, because what's wrong with friendship? Why can't we have friends of the opposite sex--or of the same sex, for that matter--even if we are married?
The answer, as Dr. Glass explained, is that nothing is wrong with a married person launching a friendship outside of matrimony--so long as the "walls and windows" of the relationship remain in the correct places. It was Glass's theory that every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world--that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimate secrets of your marriage.
What often happens, though, during so-called harmless friendships, is that you begin sharing intimacies with your new friend that belong hidden within your marriage. You reveal secrets about yourself--your deepest yearnings and frustrations--and it feels good to be so exposed. You throw open a window where there really ought to be a solid, weight-bearing wall, and soon you find yourself spilling your secret heart with this new person. Not wanting your spouse to feel jealous, you keep the details of your new friendship hidden. In so doing, you have now created a problem: You have just built a wall between you and your spouse where there really ought to be free circulation of air and light. The entire architecture of your matrimonial intimacy has therefore been rearranged. Every old wall is now a giant picture window; every old window is now boarded up like a crack house. You have just established the perfect blueprint for infidelity without even noticing.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
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Mr. Hazlit!” She kept her voice down with effort, but when a man sneaked up behind a lady and slid his arms around her waist, some exclamation was in order. “Hush.” He turned her in his arms, though part of Maggie was strongly admonishing herself to wrestle free. He’d let her go. She trusted him that far, when a servant was likely to appear any moment with a tea tray. “Something has you in a dither. Tell me.” His embrace was the most beguiling, irresistible mockery of a kindness. Gayle had offered her a hug a few days ago, a brusque, brotherly gesture as careful as it was brief. This was different. This was… Benjamin Hazlit’s warm, strong male body, available for her comfort. No conditions, no awkwardness, no dissembling for the benefit of an audience. She sighed and tucked her face against his throat, unwilling—or unable—to deny herself what he offered. For a few moments, she was going to pretend she wasn’t alone in a sea of trouble. She was going to pretend they were friends—cousins, maybe—and stealing this from him was permitted. She was going to hold on to the fiction that she was as entitled to dream of children and a husband to dote upon as the next woman. “You are wound as tight as a fiddle string, Maggie Windham.” Hazlit’s hand settled on her neck, kneading gently. “Are the domestics feuding, or has Her Grace been hounding you?” “She never hounds or scolds.” Maggie rested her forehead on his shoulder, her bones turning to butter at his touch. “She looks at us, disappointment in the prettiest green eyes you’ve ever seen, and you want to disappear into the ground, never to emerge until you can make her smile again. His Grace says it’s the same for him.” When she was held like this, Maggie could detect a unique scent about Hazlit’s person: honeysuckle and spice, like an exotic incense. It clung to his clothing, and when she turned her head to rest her cheek on the wool of his coat, she caught the same fragrance rising from the exposed flesh of his neck. That hand of his went wandering, over her shoulder blades, down her spine. “You are tired,” he said, his voice resonating through her physically. “What is disturbing your sleep, Maggie? And don’t think I’ll be distracted by more hissing and arching your back.” “I’m not a cat.” “You’ve cat eyes.” He turned her so his arm was around her waist. “Let’s sit by the fire, and you can tell me your troubles.” Such
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
“
Neoliberal ideology has radically altered our working lives, leaving us isolated and exposed. The ‘freedom and independence’ of the gig economy it celebrates, in which regular jobs are replaced by an illusion of self-employment, often translates into no job security, no unions, no health benefits, no overtime compensation, no safety net and no sense of community. In 1987, Margaret Thatcher said the following in a magazine interview: I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’, ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ And so they are casting their problems on society, and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.8 As always, Thatcher was faithfully repeating the snake-oil remedies of neoliberalism. Precious few of the ideas attributed to her were her own. They were formulated by men like Hayek and Friedman, then spun by the think tanks and academic departments of the Neoliberal International. In this short quote, we see three of the ideology’s core tenets distilled: First, everyone is responsible for their own destiny, and if you fall through the cracks, the fault is yours and yours alone. Second, the state has no responsibility for those in economic distress, even those without a home. Third, there is no legitimate form of social organization beyond the individual and the family. There is genuine belief here. There is a long philosophical tradition, dating back to Thomas Hobbes,9 which sees humankind as engaged in a war of ‘every man against every man’. Hayek believed that this frantic competition delivered social benefits, generating the wealth which would eventually enrich us all. But there is also political calculation. Together we are powerful, alone we are powerless. As individual consumers, we can do almost nothing to change social or environmental outcomes. But as citizens, combining effectively with others to form political movements, there is almost nothing we cannot do. Those who govern on behalf of the rich have an incentive to persuade us we are alone in our struggle for survival, and that any attempts to solve our problems collectively – through trade unions, protest movements or even the mutual obligations of society – are illegitimate or even immoral. The strategy of political leaders such as Thatcher
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George Monbiot (The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life))
“
Although some scientists questioned the validity of these studies, others went along willingly. People from a wide range of disciplines were recruited, including psychics, physicists, and computer scientists, to investigate a variety of unorthodox projects: experimenting with mind-altering drugs such as LSD, asking psychics to locate the position of Soviet submarines patrolling the deep oceans, etc. In one sad incident, a U.S. Army scientist was secretly given LSD. According to some reports, he became so violently disoriented that he committed suicide by jumping out a window. Most of these experiments were justified on the grounds that the Soviets were already ahead of us in terms of mind control. The U.S. Senate was briefed in another secret report that the Soviets were experimenting with beaming microwave radiation directly into the brains of test subjects. Rather than denouncing the act, the United States saw “great potential for development into a system for disorienting or disrupting the behavior pattern of military or diplomatic personnel.” The U.S. Army even claimed that it might be able to beam entire words and speeches into the minds of the enemy: “One decoy and deception concept … is to remotely create noise in the heads of personnel by exposing them to low power, pulsed microwaves.… By proper choice of pulse characteristics, intelligible speech may be created.… Thus, it may be possible to ‘talk’ to selected adversaries in a fashion that would be most disturbing to them,” the report said. Unfortunately, none of these experiments was peer-reviewed, so millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on projects like this one, which most likely violated the laws of physics, since the human brain cannot receive microwave radiation and, more important, does not have the ability to decode microwave messages. Dr. Steve Rose, a biologist at the Open University, has called this far-fetched scheme a “neuro-scientific impossibility.” But for all the millions of dollars spent on these “black projects,” apparently not a single piece of reliable science emerged. The use of mind-altering drugs did, in fact, create disorientation and even panic among the subjects who were tested, but the Pentagon failed to accomplish the key goal: control of the conscious mind of another person. Also, according to psychologist Robert Jay Lifton, brainwashing by the communists had little long-term effect. Most of the American troops who denounced the United States during the Korean War reverted back to their normal personalities soon after being released. In addition, studies done on people who have been brainwashed by certain cults also show that they revert back to their normal personality after leaving the cult. So it seems that, in the long run, one’s basic personality is not affected by brainwashing.
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Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)