Stuart Little Book Quotes

A book is a little thing that is bigger on the inside, and makes the reader bigger inside as well, a Tardis of ink and glue and paper and words.

In his celebrated little book On Liberty, the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is “a peculiar evil.” If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the “opportunity of exchanging error for truth”; and if it’s wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in “its collision with error.” If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.

From Moses' point of view, he was now permanently separated both from what he regarded as his homeland, Egypt, and also from the people he now identified with as his own, Israel. Consider, then, the spiritual challenge that was his. He was a failure as a deliverer of his people, a failure as a citizen of Egypt, unwelcome among either of the nations he might have called his own, a wanted man, a now-permanent resident of an obscure place, alone and far from his origins, and among people of a different religion (however much or little Midianite religion may have shared some features with whatever unwritten Israelite religion existed at this time). His character, as we have seen, was clearly that of a deliverer. His circumstances, however, offered no support for any calling appropriate to that character. It would surely require an amazing supernatural action of a sovereign God for this washed-up exile to play any role in Israel's future. Moses knew this, and his statement, “I have become an alien in a foreign land,” resignedly confirms it 152

And whatever you make of the country-by-country surveys of national happiness that are now published with some regularity, it’s striking that the ‘happiest’ countries are never those where self-help books sell the most, nor indeed where professional psychotherapists are most widely consulted. The existence of a thriving ‘happiness industry’ clearly isn’t sufficient to engender national happiness, and it’s not unreasonable to suspect that it might make matters worse. Yet the ineffectiveness of modern strategies for happiness is really just a small part of the problem. There are good reasons to believe that the whole notion of ‘seeking happiness’ is flawed to begin with. For one thing, who says happiness is a valid goal in the first place? Religions have never placed much explicit emphasis on it, at least as far as this world is concerned; philosophers have certainly not been unanimous in endorsing it, either. And any evolutionary psychologist will tell you that evolution has little interest in your being happy, beyond trying to make sure that you’re not so listless or miserable that you lose the will to reproduce. Even assuming happiness to be a worthy target, though, a worse pitfall awaits, which is that aiming for it seems to reduce your chances of ever attaining it. ‘Ask yourself whether you are happy,’ observed the philosopher John Stuart Mill, ‘and you cease to be so.’ At best, it would appear, happiness can only be glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, not stared at directly.

The military policeman asked, looking at the sergeant’s damp clothes. ‘No, sir, it’s frightful weather out there. I’ve no reason to be going outside unless I have to.’ Fred said, before glancing at the men gathered in the room, the soldiers nodding in agreement. ‘What did these fellers who nicked your stuff look like, sir?’ He asked. ‘One was described as very tall and broad,’ the policeman said, as he looked at Fred. ‘Another man was of a similar size.’ The officer glanced at Ham. ‘One of them was a corporal.’ He turned to Little. ‘And the other was of an average height and build,’ the officer said, with a raised eyebrow as he considered Jack. ‘That could describe anyone, sir,’ Fred replied. The military policeman’s moustache ruffled with suppressed anger.

That’ll never hold my weight,’ Fred said. ‘HMS Warspite would struggle to carry your weight,’ Little commented, before ducking nimbly away from the sergeant’s fist. ‘Cheeky sod,

turned and watched as Reg reluctantly handed Fred a boiled sweet, the sergeant wrapping a set of grubby dentures in a greasy rag, before sucking the sweet enthusiastically against his toothless gums. ‘You should be careful eating those things, they’re bad for your teeth,’ Little said. ‘Very bloody funny,’ Fred replied.

I don’t know,’ Jack whispered, before kneeling beside a young woman, her blonde locks matted with dried blood. He could see that she had been shot in the side of her head, the back of her skull blown open by the bullet. ‘Their hands are tied,’ Jack said, as he looked down and saw that the woman’s arms had been bound behind her back with a length of rope. ‘They’ve been executed,’ Reg said, his face white as he looked at the bodies that had been laid out neatly on the floor. ‘A whole bloody family lined up and...’ He shook his head. A cry echoed from the street and Jack turned to where a window overlooked the road. He looked outside and saw a soldier stood in a doorway, the man waving his arm as he called out to where Fred was stood beside a shop. ‘What’s going on?’ the sergeant asked. ‘You’d best come and have a look,’ the man replied. Jack glanced down the street, his eyes staring at the deserted houses that lined the road. He felt a cold chill creep up his spine as he looked at the empty windows from which no lights shone. ‘Wait here,’ Jack said, before making his way out onto the road. He turned as a door swung open, his hand reaching for his rifle, before relaxing as Little stepped out onto the pavement, the corporal’s face a mask of wild anger. ‘The fucking pigs,’ he cursed, before kicking the wall in frustration. ‘Wait until I get my hands on ‘em.’ Jack glanced into the house that Little had searched, his throat catching as he saw the body of a woman on the floor. Beside her a baby lay on the hearth, the child motionless as it lay wrapped in a blanket. ‘The fucking animals,’ Little hissed, as he looked at the deserted houses. ‘Who could do such a thing?’ Ivor asked, his cheeks ashen as he stepped from the house. Jack shook his head, his eyes staring along the road as the men searched the buildings; the cry of alarm echoing along the street. ‘A whole bloody village.’ Jack turned and saw Fred pacing along the road, the battle hardened sergeant shaking his head in confusion as he looked at the houses as if unable to understand what he had seen. ‘What are we going to do?’ Jack asked. ‘Do?’ Little asked, his face possessed with rage. ‘I’m going to kill every fucking one of the evil bastards I can get my hands on.’ The men murmured in agreement, their eyes dark with anger. Jack stood in the street and watched as the first light of a new day shone above the rooftops, the sun casting a gentle warmth over the dead village as the men prepared to move once more.

stopped in his tracks, his eyes transfixed by the sight of the burning sails as they turned in the wind like a giant Catherine Wheel, the sparks shooting across the slope as the flames swept above the building. ‘What are you gawping at?’ Little shouted, his words tailing away as he caught sight of the windmill. ‘Well, you don’t see that everyday,’ he muttered, as he watched the sparks fizzing into the black sky.

few hundred men isn’t going to make a sodding blind bit of difference,’ Little said. ‘What can we hope to do that a whole bloody division can’t manage?’ ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing,’ Sid said. ‘Something doesn’t smell right to me.’ ‘That’s probably Fred,

Whatever yow do, don’t get lost and go strolling in front of another section, the last thing I bloody want is losing some of the lads to friendly fire.’ ‘You don’t need to worry about me, I was a Boy Scout,’ Little replied, his tone light. ‘Boy Scout,’ Fred spluttered, his face going red. ‘You shouldn’t worry so much, at your age you could have a heart attack.

This little book aims to introduce the Thai language. It is intended for those who know nothing about it, but are keen to learn. We use the method of selecting 100 key words, and using these to make up sentences and present a range of expressions, so that you can “say 1000 things.

2:5–6 There was surely no attempt to place Moses in his little ark at a location where he was likely to be discovered. The whole intent was just the opposite. Yet he was discovered—and by an Egyptian! In the story's surprising twist, however, the discovery by an Egyptian, under other conditions likely to lead to the boy's death, leads instead to a perfect protection of his life. This is God at work, providing deliverance in an unanticipated yet wonderful way.

Indeed, they embraced a tradition that was notorious for its incompatibility with American law and liberty. The connection between absolute and administrative power was not a secret. In the most prominent book on constitutional law of the late nineteenth century, Dicey began by observing that “the views of the prerogative maintained by Crown lawyers under the Tudors and the Stuarts bear a marked resemblance to the legal and administrative ideas which at the present day under the Third Republic still support the droit administratif of France.”82 The Americans who espoused administrative power, however, had little patience for history and even less for law. As has been seen, they preferred to speak in German-derived sociological terms about functional realities and about the historical inevitability of administrative power in modern society. Like their German intellectual forbears, moreover, they dismissed constitutional obstacles as mere formalities, usually with a tone of contempt. It is a style that has not altogether passed.83 That governments seek power, including absolute power, should be no surprise. What is disappointing is that so many Americans drew upon absolutist ideas without pausing to consider the significance of their civilian and German heritage or why such ideas had been rejected by Anglo-American constitutional law.

As the movement’s co-founder Stuart Basden wrote in a recent article, Extinction Rebellion is also about defeating white supremacy, the patriarchy, Eurocentrism, heteronormativity and class hierarchy. So if your parents claim that they find it too difficult to be green, tell them that they can still show their support by having gay sex with a few African peasants.

He’d done his best to ignore the angry, veiled invitation in the little virgin’s eyes, the one she didn’t even know she’d issued. But now she’d delivered herself to him, he could hardly resist, now, could he?