Taste Of Victory Quotes

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For upon reaching his destination, a man with a past full of misfortunes can both taste the bitter drops of his sorrow and grin in triumph despite them. In reaching the desired end of his voyage there is an outbreak of joy. Even in a pyrrhic victory, a man of past and present tragedies experiences the sweetness of that unfamiliar emotion.
Asaad Almohammad (An Ishmael of Syria)
As the rain falls and the sun shines, they grow, grow, grow; minds so open, they go through life aware and accepting, seeing light where there's dark, seeing possibility in dead ends, tasting victory as others spit out failure, questioning where others accept. Just a little less jaded, a little less cynical.
Cecelia Ahern (The Book of Tomorrow)
There I go being critical again. Does a man have to stand on one foot and juggle for me to consider him entertaining? What am I looking for? A knight?...No, knights are all polished and shiny. I think my taste runs to something with a bit of tarnish and maybe a few scratches. Someone who can make me laugh and cry and make me angry and make my knees tremble when he touches me.
Nora Roberts (Heart's Victory)
It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment.
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
We were fond together because of the sweep of open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.
T.E. Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph)
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The 'ologies' will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego. Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured.
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
I had never thought of a tomato as a fruit—the ones I had known were mostly white in the center and rock hard. But this was so luscious, so tart I thought it victorious. So—some tomatoes tasted like water, and some tasted like summer lightning.
Stephanie Danler (Sweetbitter)
We live among ruins in a World in which ‘god is dead’ as Nietzsche stated. The ideals of today are comfort, expediency, surface knowledge, disregard for one’s ancestral heritage and traditions, catering to the lowest standards of taste and intelligence, apotheosis of the pathetic, hoarding of material objects and possessions, disrespect for all that is inherently higher and better — in other words a complete inversion of true values and ideals, the raising of the victory flag of ignorance and the banner of degeneracy. In such a time, social decadence is so widespread that it appears as a natural component of all political institutions. The crises that dominate the daily lives of our societies are part of a secret occult war to remove the support of spiritual and traditional values in order to turn man into a passive instrument of dark powers. The common ground of both Capitalism and Socialism is a materialistic view of life and being. Materialism in its war with the Spirit has taken on many forms; some have promoted its goals with great subtlety, whilst others have done so with an alarming lack of subtlety, but all have added, in greater or lesser measure, to the growing misery of Mankind. The forms which have done the most damage in our time may be enumerated as: Freemasonry, Liberalism, Nihilism, Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Imperialism, Anarchism, Modernism and the New Age.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Let no one bewail his poverty, For the universal Kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, For pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, For the Saviour's death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered When it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?
John Chrysostom
Lonny finishes his drink and stands. “So what’s our plan?” “You don’t have to go,” I tell him, shrugging out of Carmindor’s jacket. “I’m sort of going AWOL, so it’s not in your contract.” “Then as far as I’m concerned, I’m off the clock,” he says, straightening his suit. “I can do whatever I want with my time, and I want to help you out. So what’s the plan?” “First,” I say, “to the vending machines. With all this good luck, they gotta have an Orange Crush.” And holy gods of soda, Batman, by the glowing light of the great vending machines on the third floor, I spot a beautiful Orange Crush button, and when I push it an orange bottle rolls out. I crack the seal and drink to the sweet, sweet taste of victory. “That’s your plan?” Lonny says. “To drink a soda?
Ashley Poston (Geekerella (Once Upon a Con, #1))
Losing leaves a bitter taste that lingers long after the sweetness of victory has been forgotten.
Michael J. Sullivan (Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire, #2))
Victory, is like a boxer that hangs his gloves, after the consecutive losses; sometimes walking away is what builds character, than the actual fight. As humble fruit on a tree that falls to the ground and rots, never finding appreciation in the taste of mouths.
Anthony Liccione
What if the poem loses? What if it never tastes victory like the intent it was written with?
Akif Kichloo (Poems That Lose)
Verily Man shall not taste of victory Till he throws his sword away.
G.K. Chesterton (The Ballad of the White Horse)
All he is concerned with is that I am the most beautiful daughter of the Sea King. I am a prize to be won, and Zale likes the taste of victory".
Louise O'Neill (The Surface Breaks)
I will give you a few guarantees of my own, Mukthar. I guarantee that before the sun sets, even if you win, even if my cold, dead body is lying on the field, you will rue the day you ever set foot in the Plains. For every inch you advance I'll exact gallons of Mukthar blood. I guarantee that there will be not one family of the Bear Mukthars or they will mourn at least one of theirs. I guarantee that even if you are triumphant the fruits of victory will taste like dust in your mouth. I guarantee that if you fail to kill me today, you will meet me again. You will meet me at the Ximerionian border. You will meet me at every city, town, village, and hamlet. You will meet me on every Amirathan crossroad, on every hill. I will fight you with every sword at my command, with every arrow, with every dagger. I will fight you with pitchforks. I will fight you with the very rocks of the land you try to conquer. I will never, never, never give up. ~Anaxantis, before the Battle of the Zinchara (May 29th, 1453 aed)
Andrew Ashling (The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood (Dark Tales of Randamor the Recluse, #3))
Victory is very, very sweet. It tastes better than any dessert you've ever had.
Serena Williams
after these last weeks, I know I will allow nothing to keep you from me. I will not go down fighting. I will stay standing until I taste victory.
Kristen Ashley (Fantastical (Fantasyland, #3))
Some victories didn't taste as sweet as they should
Morgan Rhodes (Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms, #1))
Of Woman and Chocolate   "Chocolate shares both the bitter and the sweet. Chocolate melts away all cares, coating the heart while smothering every last ache.   Chocolate brings a smile to the lips on contact, leaving a dark kiss behind.   Chocolate is amiable, complimenting any pairing; berries, peanut butter, pretzels, mint, pastries, drinks...everything goes with chocolate.   The very thought of chocolate awakens taste buds, sparking memories of candy-coated happiness.   Chocolate will go nuts with you, no questions asked.   Chocolate craves your lips, melts at your touch, and savors the moment.   Chocolate is that dark and beautiful knight who charges in on his gallant steed ready to slay dragons when needed.   Chocolate never disappoints; it leaves its lover wanting more.   Chocolate is the ultimate satisfaction, synonymous with perfection.   Chocolate is rich, smooth pleasure.   Chocolate has finesse - the charm to seduce and indulge at any time, day or night.   Chocolate is a true friend, a trusted confidant, and faithful lover. Chocolate warms and comforts and sympathizes.   Chocolate holds power over depression, victory over disappointment.   Chocolate savvies the needs of a woman and owns her.   Simply put, chocolate is paradise.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
This was the sort of thing that happened to persons of this sort, sensitives, who fought the world and always, in the end, let it win, because there was a lot more taste to defeat than to victory.
Malcolm Bradbury (Eating People is Wrong)
It was the blue-tinged taste of a regret so deep you could never plumb its depths. It was the victory at Rajal that never came, it was his brother walking away down the long dark wood corridor, it was a life he might have had in Yhelteth if disgust and fury had not sent him away in disgrace instead. It was the slaves he could not free, the screaming women and children of Ennishmin he could not save, the piled-up, silent dead and the smashed-in, ruined homes. It was every wrong decision he'd ever made, every path he'd failed to walk, fanned out and held up for him to understand, and it hurt.
Richard K. Morgan (The Steel Remains (A Land Fit for Heroes, #1))
The hope you feel when you are in love is not necessarily for anything in particular. Love brings something inside you to life. Perhaps it is just the full dimensionality of your own capacity to feel that returns. In this state you think no impediment can be large enough to interrupt your passion. The feeling spills beyond the object of your love to color the whole world. The mood is not unlike the mood of revolutionaries in the first blush of victory, at the dawn of hope. Anything seems possible. And in the event of failure, it will be this taste of possibility that makes disillusion bitter.
Susan Griffin (What Her Body Thought)
A great blow it was,' he said in expensive tones, 'worthy of the mightiest warrior and truly struck upon the nose of the foe. The bright blood flew, and the enemy was dismayed and overcame. Like a hero, Garion stood over the vanquished, and, like a true hero, did not boast nor taunt his fallen opponent, but offered instead advice for quelling that crimson blood. with simple dignity then, he quit the field, but the bright-eyed maid would not let him depart unrewarded for his valor. hastily, she pursued him and fondly clasped her snowy arms about his neck. And there she lovingly bestowed that single kiss that is the true hero's greatest reward. Her eyes flamed with admiration, and her chaste bosom heaved with newly wakened passion. But modest Garion innocently departed and tarried not to claim those other sweet rewards the gentle maid's fond demeanor so clearly offered. And thus the adventure ended with our hero tasting victory but tenderly declining victory's true compensation.
David Eddings (Pawn of Prophecy (The Belgariad, #1))
Victory tastes sweetest in the absence of haunting memories, Bult. Savor it.
Steven Erikson (Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2))
If you can hit your opponent's nose more than he can hit yours, you too will taste victory.
Derek Landy
Her voice trailed off as she watched his tongue trace the outline of his lower lip. It was like watching a wolf taste the thrill of victory before a kill.
Grace Willows (General's Dawn)
It was like when Isabel managed not to marry the guy with the cotton mills, and it was her first taste of victory—because “she had done what she preferred.
Elif Batuman (Either/Or)
This is the art of courage: to see things as they are and still believe that the victory lies not with those who avoid the bad, but those who taste, in living awareness, every drop of the good.
Victoria Lincoln
These are lines from my asteroid-impact novel, Regolith: Just because there are no laws against stupidity doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be punished. I haven’t faced rejection this brutal since I was single. He smelled trouble like a fart in the shower. If this was a kiss of gratitude, then she must have been very grateful. Not since Bush and Cheney have so few spent so much so fast for so long for so little. As a nympho for mind-fucks, Lisa took to politics like a pig to mud. She began paying men compliments as if she expected a receipt. Like the Aerosmith song, his get-up-and-go just got-up-and-went. “You couldn’t beat the crap out of a dirty diaper!” He embraced his only daughter as if she was deploying to Iraq. She was hotter than a Class 4 solar flare! If sex was a weapon, then Monique possessed WMD I haven’t felt this alive since I lost my virginity. He once read that 95% of women fake organism, and the rest are gay. Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but ugly is universal. Why do wives fart, but not girlfriends? Adultery is sex that is wrong, but not necessarily bad. The dinosaurs stayed drugged out, drooling like Jonas Brothers fans. Silence filled the room like tear gas. The told him a fraction of the truth and hoped it would take just a fraction of the time. Happiness is the best cosmetic, He was a whale of a catch, and there were a lot of fish in the sea eager to nibble on his bait. Cheap hookers are less buck for the bang, Men cannot fall in love with women they don’t find attractive, and women cannot fall in love with men they do not respect. During sex, men want feedback while women expect mind-reading. Cooper looked like a cow about to be tipped over. His father warned him to never do anything he couldn’t justify on Oprah. The poor are not free -- they’re just not enslaved. Only those with money are free. Sperm wasn’t something he would choose on a menu, but it still tasted better than asparagus. The crater looked alive, like Godzilla was about to leap out and mess up Tokyo. Bush follows the Bible until it gets to Jesus. When Bush talks to God, it’s prayer; when God talks to Bush, it’s policy. Cheney called the new Miss America a traitor – apparently she wished for world peace. Cheney was so unpopular that Bush almost replaced him when running for re-election, changing his campaign slogan to, ‘Ain’t Got Dick.’ Bush fought a war on poverty – and the poor lost. Bush thinks we should strengthen the dollar by making it two-ply. Hurricane Katrina got rid of so many Democratic voters that Republicans have started calling her Kathleen Harris. America and Iraq fought a war and Iran won. Bush hasn’t choked this much since his last pretzel. Some wars are unpopular; the rest are victorious. So many conservatives hate the GOP that they are thinking of changing their name to the Dixie Chicks. If Saddam had any WMD, he would have used them when we invaded. If Bush had any brains, he would have used them when we invaded. It’s hard for Bush to win hearts and minds since he has neither. In Iraq, you are a coward if you leave and a fool if you stay. Bush believes it’s not a sin to kill Muslims since they are going to Hell anyway. And, with Bush’s help, soon. In Iraq, those who make their constitution subservient to their religion are called Muslims. In America they’re called Republicans. With great power comes great responsibility – unless you’re Republican.
Brent Reilly
The greatest victory in living memory – of the United States over the Soviet Union – was achieved without any major military confrontation. The United States then got a fleeting taste of old-fashioned military glory in the First Gulf War, but this only tempted it to waste trillions on humiliating military fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. China, the rising power of the early twenty-first century, has assiduously avoided all armed conflicts since its failed invasion of Vietnam in 1979, and it owes its ascent strictly to economic factors. In this it has emulated not the Japanese, German and Italian empires of the pre-1914 era, but rather the Japanese, German and Italian economic miracles of the post-1945 era. In all these cases economic prosperity and geopolitical clout were achieved without firing a shot.
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
Wow,” I said. And I meant it. I had never thought of a tomato as a fruit - the ones I had known were mostly white in the center and rock hard. But this was so luscious, so tart I thought it victorious. So - some tomatoes tasted like water, and some tasted like summer lightning.
Stephanie Danler (Sweetbitter)
This story is one for which some people will have to suspend their belief. If it wasn't me and this wasn't happening to me, I would be one of those people. Many won't struggle to believe it, though, for their minds have been opened; unlocked by whatever kind of key causes people to believe. Those people are either born that way or, as babies, when their minds are like little buds, they are nurtured until their petals slowly open and prepare for the very nature of life to feed them. As the rain falls and the sun shines, they grow, grow, grow; minds so open, they go through life aware and accepting, seeing light where there is dark, seeing possibility in dead ends, tasting victory as others spit out failure, questioning when others accept. Just a little less jaded, a little less cynical. A little less likely to throw in the towel. Some peoples' minds open later in life, through tragedy or triumph. Either thing acting as the key to unlatch and lift the lid on that know-it-all box, to accept the unknown, to say goodbye to pragmatism and straight lines. But then there are those whose minds are merely a bouquet of stalks, which bud as they learn new information - a new bud for a new fact - but yet they never open, never flourish. They are the people of capital letters and full stops, but never of question marks and ellipses...
Cecelia Ahern (The Book of Tomorrow)
It [Badger's House] seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest House with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glaces with each other; plates of the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
Mistakes are what make life worth living dangerously. If it weren't for our mistakes then our victories wouldn't taste nearly as sweet.
Justin Qwits
People who taste victory have failed more than anyone else.
Delilah S. Dawson (Forces of Destiny (Star Wars))
A carnal Christian makes his or her decisions based entirely on what can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard.
Tony Evans (Victory in Spiritual Warfare: Outfitting Yourself for the Battle)
Whenever I am faced with a challenge, I think about how winning feels, Victory is as sweet as honey, A taste which can lasts a lifetime
Charmaine J. Forde
Victory, after defeat, always tastes sweeter.
Ed Gawrys jr
But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. He did not flee from it incontinently, as one might have expected him to do. He remained, astonished at himself for remaining, since nothing could have been more repulsive to his tastes, more painful to his senses, and, so to speak, more contrary to his genius, than this rude exhibition of vigour. The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence; and that impression was so strong that it seemed marvelous to see the people sitting so quietly on their chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving no signs of distress, anger, or fear. Heyst averted his gaze from the unnatural spectacle of their indifference.
Joseph Conrad (Victory)
(Jude) had, he verily believed, overcome all tendency to fly to liquor—which, indeed, he had never done from taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind. Yet he perceived with despondency that, taken all round, he was a man of too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he could hope for was that in a life of constant internal warfare between flesh and spirit the former might not always be victorious.
Thomas Hardy (Jude the Obscure)
The desertion of Rwanda by the UN force was Hutu Power’s greatest diplomatic victory to date, and it can be credited almost single-handedly to the United States. With the memory of the Somalia debacle still very fresh, the White House had just finished drafting a document called Presidential Decision Directive 25, which amounted to a checklist of reasons to avoid American involvement in UN peacekeeping missions. It hardly mattered that Dallaire’s call for an expanded force and mandate would not have required American troops, or that the mission was not properly peacekeeping, but genocide prevention. PDD 25 also contained what Washington policymakers call “language” urging that the United States should persuade others not to undertake the missions that it wished to avoid. In fact, the Clinton administration’s ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, opposed leaving even the skeleton crew of two hundred seventy in Rwanda. Albright went on to become Secretary of State, largely because of her reputation as a “daughter of Munich,” a Czech refugee from Nazism with no tolerance for appeasement and with a taste for projecting U.S. force abroad to bring rogue dictators and criminal states to heel. Her name is rarely associated with Rwanda, but ducking and pressuring others to duck, as the death toll leapt from thousands to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, was the absolute low point in her career as a stateswoman.
Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families)
Living is the right to exercise Freedom any time without any guilt or whatsoever. Death is living without Freedom. Resurrection is living for the Dead. Eternity is victory over death and not many will taste of it." - Freddy Schofeild Mahhumane
Freddy Sipho Mahhumane
In Russia, war will never be popular with the profound masses of people. Revolutionary ideas are more in their taste than a victory over Germany. But one does not escape one's destiny... - Russian Minister of the Interior, Nikolai Maklakov, on 29 July 1914.
Nikolai Maklakov
The two Mast Houses just within the Victory Gate of Portsmouth Dockyard are raised above the water on piloti. They are structures of remarkable grace, clinker-built, painted the palest green. They are vast, as they needed to be. Their survival is an industrial site devoted for a century to the servicing of mastless vessels is a matter for celebration. The use of which the more southerly is put is a matter for obloquy: the Mary Rose Shop is a repository of tawdry, insipid tat. It's the sort of stuff to make me wince- a dismal, timid inventory of mediocrity. Bad taste is forgivable. It's no taste which is so disheartening.
Jonathan Meades (Museum Without Walls)
In the Roman psyche the East had long been a place of danger, but also a place of plenty. The first Emperor Augustus famously said of Rome that he found a city built in brick but left it in marble – all that money had to come from somewhere. India was repeatedly described in Roman sources as a land of unimaginable wealth. Pliny the Elder complained that the Roman taste for exotic silks, perfumes and pearls consumed the city. ‘India and China [and Arabia] together drain our Empire. That is the price that our luxuries and our womankind cost us.’ It was the construction of the Via Egnatia and attendant road-systems that physically allowed Rome to expand eastwards, while the capture of Egypt intensified this magnetic pull. Rome had got the oriental bug, and Byzantium, entering into a truce with the Romans in 129 BC following the Roman victory in the Macedonian Wars that kick-started Gnaeus Egnatius’ construction of the Via Egnatia, was a critical and vital destination before all longer Asian journeys began.
Bettany Hughes (Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities)
We have not thoroughly assessed the bodies snatched from dirt and sand to be chained in a cell. We have not reckoned with the horrendous, violent mass kidnapping that we call the Middle Passage. We have not been honest about all of America's complicity - about the wealth the South earned on the backs of the enslaved, or the wealth the North gained through the production of enslaved hands. We have not fully understood the status symbol that owning bodies offered. We have not confronted the humanity, the emotions, the heartbeats of the multiple generations who were born into slavery and died in it, who never tasted freedom on America's land. The same goes for the Civil War. We have refused to honestly confront the fact that so many were willing to die in order to hold the freedom of others in their hands. We have refused to acknowledge slavery's role at all, preferring to boil things down to the far more palatable "state's rights." We have not confessed that the end of slavery was so bitterly resented, the rise of Jim Crow became inevitable - and with it, a belief in Black inferiority that lives on in hearts and minds today. We have painted the hundred-year history of Jim Crow as little more than mean signage and the inconvenience that white people and Black people could not drink from the same fountain. But those signs weren't just "mean". They were perpetual reminders of the swift humiliation and brutal violence that could be suffered at any moment in the presence of whiteness. Jim Crow meant paying taxes for services one could not fully enjoy; working for meager wages; and owning nothing that couldn't be snatched away. For many black families, it meant never building wealth and never having legal recourse for injustice. The mob violence, the burned-down homes, the bombed churches and businesses, the Black bodies that were lynched every couple of days - Jim Crow was walking through life measuring every step. Even our celebrations of the Civil Rights Movement are sanitized, its victories accentuated while the battles are whitewashed. We have not come to grips with the spitting and shouting, the pulling and tugging, the clubs, dogs, bombs, and guns, the passion and vitriol with which the rights of Black Americans were fought against. We have not acknowledged the bloodshed that often preceded victory. We would rather focus on the beautiful words of Martin Luther King Jr. than on the terror he and protesters endured at marches, boycotts, and from behind jail doors. We don't want to acknowledge that for decades, whiteness fought against every civil right Black Americans sought - from sitting at lunch counters and in integrated classrooms to the right to vote and have a say in how our country was run. We like to pretend that all those white faces who carried protest signs and batons, who turned on their sprinklers and their fire hoses, who wrote against the demonstrations and preached against the changes, just disappeared. We like to pretend that they were won over, transformed, the moment King proclaimed, "I have a dream." We don't want to acknowledge that just as Black people who experienced Jim Crow are still alive, so are the white people who vehemently protected it - who drew red lines around Black neighborhoods and divested them of support given to average white citizens. We ignore that white people still avoid Black neighborhoods, still don't want their kids going to predominantly Black schools, still don't want to destroy segregation. The moment Black Americans achieved freedom from enslavement, America could have put to death the idea of Black inferiority. But whiteness was not prepared to sober up from the drunkenness of power over another people group. Whiteness was not ready to give up the ability to control, humiliate, or do violence to any Black body in the vicinity - all without consequence.
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
Adams's diplomatic victory was Napoleonic in its magnitude and completeness, Even Caulaincourt, whom he overthrew, good-naturedly congratulated him after he had succeeded,against Caulaincourt"s utmost efforts,in saving all American ships."It seems you are great favorites here;you have found powerful protection,"said the defeated ambassador.The American minister felt but one drawback, he could not wholly believe that his victory was sure.Anxious by temperament,with little confidence in his own good fortune,fighting his battles with energy,but rather with that of despair than hope,the younger Adams never allowed himself to enjoy the full relish of a triumph before it staled, while he never failed to taste with the fullest flavor,as though it were a precious wine,every drop in the bitter cup of his defeats. In this, the most brilliant success of his diplomatic career, he could not be blamed for doubting whether such fortune could last. That the czar of Russia should persist in braving almost sure destruction in order to defend American rights which America herself proclaimed to be unassailed, passed the bounds of fiction.
Henry Adams (History of the United States During the Administrations of James Madison (1809–1817))
To Hate or Be Great To Hate or Be Great~ Which one is your fate? You're mad and I'm glad, My life won't be sad. Raging with jealousy~ Blind, yet won't see. The time you wasted, Victory never tasted. Fighting against the freed, A heart, as black as coal. Seeking to destroy the soul, That's purposed with goals. Without a "Vision" people perish, Create things that you cherish. Begin to turn your world around, Come out of the lost... Be found! Surrendering all... without cost, Knowledge, Wisdom is boss. A Life that's wonderful... No Doubt! "Be Great"... It's what, I'm about!
Singleton Tate
They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. “Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn’t do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it’s not for long!
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
Here we discover a great error, and one so much the more injurious as it is the less guarded against. Many who aspire to the spiritual life, being rather lovers of themselves than of that which is needful (although indeed they know it not), select for the most part those practices which accord with their own taste, and neglect others which touch to the quick their natural inclinations and sensual appetites, to overcome which all reason demands that they should put forth their full strength. Therefore, beloved, I advise and entreat you to cherish a love for that which is painful and difficult, for such things will bring you victory over self—on this all depends.
Lorenzo Scupoli (The Spiritual Combat: Classic Edition)
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who 'but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.
Theodore Roosevelt
I find a preacher of the Gospel profaning the beautiful and prophetic ejaculation, commonly called “Nunc dimittis,” made on the first presentation of our Saviour in the temple, and applying it, with an inhuman and unnatural rapture, to the most horrid, atrocious, and afflicting spectacle that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity and indignation of mankind. This “leading in triumph,” a thing in its best form unmanly and irreligious, which fills our preacher with such unhallowed transports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste of every well-born mind. Several English were the stupefied and indignant spectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been strangely deceived) a spectacle more resembling a procession of American savages entering into Onondaga after some of their murders called victories,
Edmund Burke (Collected Works of Edmund Burke)
There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion. A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people.
John Stuart Mill (Considerations on Representative Government)
The dominant literary mode of the twentieth century has been the fantastic. This may appear a surprising claim, which would not have seemed even remotely conceivable at the start of the century and which is bound to encounter fierce resistance even now. However, when the time comes to look back at the century, it seems very likely that future literary historians, detached from the squabbles of our present, will see as its most representative and distinctive works books like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and also George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle, Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot-49 and Gravity’s Rainbow. The list could readily be extended, back to the late nineteenth century with H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau and The War of the Worlds, and up to writers currently active like Stephen R. Donaldson and George R.R. Martin. It could take in authors as different, not to say opposed, as Kingsley and Martin Amis, Anthony Burgess, Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Don DeLillo, and Julian Barnes. By the end of the century, even authors deeply committed to the realist novel have often found themselves unable to resist the gravitational pull of the fantastic as a literary mode. This is not the same, one should note, as fantasy as a literary genre – of the authors listed above, only four besides Tolkien would find their works regularly placed on the ‘fantasy’ shelves of bookshops, and ‘the fantastic’ includes many genres besides fantasy: allegory and parable, fairy-tale, horror and science fiction, modern ghost-story and medieval romance. Nevertheless, the point remains. Those authors of the twentieth century who have spoken most powerfully to and for their contemporaries have for some reason found it necessary to use the metaphoric mode of fantasy, to write about worlds and creatures which we know do not exist, whether Tolkien’s ‘Middle-earth’, Orwell’s ‘Ingsoc’, the remote islands of Golding and Wells, or the Martians and Tralfa-madorians who burst into peaceful English or American suburbia in Wells and Vonnegut. A ready explanation for this phenomenon is of course that it represents a kind of literary disease, whose sufferers – the millions of readers of fantasy – should be scorned, pitied, or rehabilitated back to correct and proper taste. Commonly the disease is said to be ‘escapism’: readers and writers of fantasy are fleeing from reality. The problem with this is that so many of the originators of the later twentieth-century fantastic mode, including all four of those first mentioned above (Tolkien, Orwell, Golding, Vonnegut) are combat veterans, present at or at least deeply involved in the most traumatically significant events of the century, such as the Battle of the Somme (Tolkien), the bombing of Dresden (Vonnegut), the rise and early victory of fascism (Orwell). Nor can anyone say that they turned their backs on these events. Rather, they had to find some way of communicating and commenting on them. It is strange that this had, for some reason, in so many cases to involve fantasy as well as realism, but that is what has happened.
Tom Shippey (J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century)
Dear Sawyer and Quin, If you ever read this and I'm gone I want you to know something that has been weighing on me. I watch you two play and it can be so sad sometimes. You two have been best friends since Sawyer's birth. Always inseparable. It's been adorable , but comes with its challenges. I'm worried when I watch you boys. Quinton, you are always driven by your ego. You're strong and talented, but much too determined to beat down everyone in your efforts to be the best. You push yourself to win a competition, then shove it in someone's face. I’ve rarely seen you compliment others, but you always give yourself a pat on the back. You don't play anything for the love of it, you play to win and normally do. I've seen you tear down your brother so many times just to feel good about yourself. You don't have to do that, dear. You don't have to spend your life trying to prove that you're amazing. One day you'll fail and be alone because you've climbed to the top of a pyramid with only enough room for yourself. Don't let it get to that point and if you do, learn humility from your brother. He could do without so much of it. Sawyer, just because you're most often the underdog and the peaceful introspective kid, don't think I'm letting you off the hook. Your humility has become your worst enemy. It's so intense that I wonder if it will be your vice one day, instead of your greatest virtue. It's one thing to believe you are below all men, even when you're not, but it's another thing to be crippled by fear and to no longer try. Sometimes , dear, I think you fear being good at something because you've tasted the bitterness of being the one who comes in last and you don't want to make others feel that way. That's sweet of you and I smile inside when I see you pretending to lose when you race your younger cousins , but if you always let people beat you they may never learn to work hard for something they want. It's okay to win, just win for the right reasons and always encourage those who lose. Oh, and Sawyer, I hope one day you read this. One day when it matters. If so, remember that the bottom of a mountain can be just as lonely as the top. I hope the two of you can learn to climb together one day. As I'm writing this you are trying to climb the big pine tree out back. Quin is at the top, rejoicing in his victory and taunting Sawyer. And Sawyer is at the bottom, afraid to get hurt and afraid to be sad about it. I'm going to go talk to you two separately now. I hope my words mean something. Love you boys, Mom
Marilyn Grey (When the City Sleeps (Unspoken #6))
He could feel every terrible inch of metal from the entry wound just beneath his sternum to the exit wound below his shoulder. He coughed, spitting blood onto the glass floor, and his legs threatened to fold beneath him, but he managed to stay on his feet. His body screamed, his mind screamed, but his heart kept beating stubbornly, defiantly, around the other prince’s blade. Rhy drew in a ragged breath, and raised his head. “How … dare you,” he growled, mouth filling with the copper taste of blood. The victory on Col’s face turned to shock. “Not possible,” he stammered, and then, in horror, “What are you?” “I am—Rhy Maresh,” he answered. “Son to Maxim and Emira—brother to Kell—heir to this city—and the future king of Arnes.” Col’s hands fell from the weapon. “But you should be dead.” “I know,” said Rhy, dragging his own blade from its sheath and driving the steel into Col’s chest.
Victoria E. Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
BACKYARD GARDEN SALAD In wartime, patriotic families cultivated “Victory Gardens” to promote self-sufficiency and help the war effort. 4 cups mixed greens 1/4 cup fresh sprigs of dill 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves 4 large basil leaves, rolled up and thinly sliced crosswise 1 large lemon, halved 1/4 cup fruity olive oil pinch of salt fresh ground black pepper to taste 1 cup toasted walnuts 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese 1 cup fresh edible flowers; choose from bachelor’s buttons, borage, calendulas, carnations, herb flowers (basil, chives, rosemary, thyme), nasturtiums, violas, including pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, stock Toss salad greens and herbs in a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice (without the seeds) over the greens and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss again. Add walnuts and feta and toss well. Divide salad and pansies among four serving plates and serve. (Source: Adapted from California Bountiful)
Susan Wiggs (The Apple Orchard (Bella Vista Chronicles, #1))
This reaction to the work was obviously a misunderstanding. It ignores the fact that the future Buddha was also of noble origins, that he was the son of a king and heir to the throne and had been raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit the crown. He had been taught martial arts and the art of government, and having reached the right age, he had married and had a son. All of these things would be more typical of the physical and mental formation of a future samurai than of a seminarian ready to take holy orders. A man like Julius Evola was particularly suitable to dispel such a misconception. He did so on two fronts in his Doctrine: on the one hand, he did not cease to recall the origins of the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, who was destined to the throne of Kapilavastu: on the other hand, he attempted to demonstrate that Buddhist asceticism is not a cowardly resignation before life's vicissitudes, but rather a struggle of a spiritual kind, which is not any less heroic than the struggle of a knight on the battlefield. As Buddha himself said (Mahavagga, 2.15): 'It is better to die fighting than to live as one vanquished.' This resolution is in accord with Evola's ideal of overcoming natural resistances in order to achieve the Awakening through meditation; it should he noted, however, that the warrior terminology is contained in the oldest writings of Buddhism, which are those that best reflect the living teaching of the master. Evola works tirelessly in his hook to erase the Western view of a languid and dull doctrine that in fact was originally regarded as aristocratic and reserved for real 'champions.' After Schopenhauer, the unfounded idea arose in Western culture that Buddhism involved a renunciation of the world and the adoption of a passive attitude: 'Let things go their way; who cares anyway.' Since in this inferior world 'everything is evil,' the wise person is the one who, like Simeon the Stylite, withdraws, if not to the top of a pillar; at least to an isolated place of meditation. Moreover, the most widespread view of Buddhists is that of monks dressed in orange robes, begging for their food; people suppose that the only activity these monks are devoted to is reciting memorized texts, since they shun prayers; thus, their religion appears to an outsider as a form of atheism. Evola successfully demonstrates that this view is profoundly distorted by a series of prejudices. Passivity? Inaction? On the contrary, Buddha never tired of exhorting his disciples to 'work toward victory'; he himself, at the end of his life, said with pride: katam karaniyam, 'done is what needed to he done!' Pessimism? It is true that Buddha, picking up a formula of Brahmanism, the religion in which he had been raised prior to his departure from Kapilavastu, affirmed that everything on earth is 'suffering.' But he also clarified for us that this is the case because we are always yearning to reap concrete benefits from our actions. For example, warriors risk their lives because they long for the pleasure of victory and for the spoils, and yet in the end they are always disappointed: the pillaging is never enough and what has been gained is quickly squandered. Also, the taste of victory soon fades away. But if one becomes aware of this state of affairs (this is one aspect of the Awakening), the pessimism is dispelled since reality is what it is, neither good nor bad in itself; reality is inscribed in Becoming, which cannot be interrupted. Thus, one must live and act with the awareness that the only thing that matters is each and every moment. Thus, duty (dhamma) is claimed to be the only valid reference point: 'Do your duty,' that is. 'let your every action he totally disinterested.
Jean Varenne (The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts)
All the girl could remember was the terrible, irremediable tension between wanting to be somewhere and wanting to be nowhere. And the plant, crazed by its proximity to rich familiar soil, tried repeatedly to Leap out of her. This caused her hand to lift, holding a long knife, and plummet earthward, rooting into the fleshy chest of her lover, feeling deeper and deeper for moisture. The Joshua tree’s greatest victory over the couple comes four months into their stay: they sign a lease. A bungalow on the outskirts of the national park, with a fence to keep out the coyotes and an outdoor shower. When the shower water gets into their mouths, it tastes like poison. Strange reptiles hug the fence posts, like colorful olives on toothpicks. Andy squeezes Angie’s hand and returns the gaze of these tiny monsters; he feels strangely bashful as they bugle their throats at him. Four months into his desert sojourn, and he still doesn’t know the name of anything. Up close, the bungalow looks a lot like a shed. The bloated vowels of his signature on the landlord’s papers make him think of a large hand blurring underwater.
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
Many won’t struggle to believe it though, for their minds have been opened; unlocked by whatever kind of key causes people to believe. They’re either born that way or, as babies, their little budlike minds are nurtured until their petals slowly open and prepare for the very nature of life to feed them. As the rain falls and the sun shines, they grow, grow, grow; minds so open they go through life aware and accepting, seeing light where there’s dark, seeing possibility in dead ends, tasting victory as others spit out failure, questioning when others accept. Just a little less jaded, a little less cynical. A little less likely to throw in the towel. Some people’s minds open later in life, through tragedy or triumph, either thing acting as the key to unlatch and lift the lid on that know-it-all box, to accept the unknown, to say good-bye to pragmatism and straight lines. But then there are those whose minds are merely a bouquet of stalks that bud as they learn new information—a new bud for each new fact—but yet they never open, never flourish. They are the people of capital letters and full stops but never of question marks and ellipses
Cecelia Ahern (The Book of Tomorrow)
Now, as we all know, the good field commander is the chief support of the realm. If the support is sturdy on all four sides, then the realm will be strong. But if the support is flawed, the realm will always be unstable. Therefore, there are several ways the ruler may imperil his armies: If he fails to understand when the army cannot advance or retreat, and he orders them to do so. (This is a classic case of hobbling the troops.) If he fails to understand the respective tasks of his Three Armies,7 and he governs them all in the same way, then his army officers will be confused. And if he fails to see how to balance and synchronize the operations of his Three Armies, then his officers will doubt his competence. Once the Three Armies are not only confused but also suspicious, then trouble from the local lords will surely ensue.8 (This is a classic case of “inducing chaos in the army and throwing victory away.”) To realize victory, go by five paths: (1) by figuring out whether it is possible to fight or not; (2) by recognizing how many troops are needed for the task;9 (3) by unifying the aims and ambitions of the high- and low-ranking; (4) by being prepared for the unexpected; and (5) by the ruler’s refusal to meddle with his able commanders.10 These five—they are the Way to taste victory. And so I say, “Know the enemy; know yourself, and you will meet with no danger in a hundred battles. If you do not know the enemy, but you know yourself, then you will win and lose by turns. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will lose every battle, certainly.
Sun Tzu (The Art of War: A New Translation by Michael Nylan)
Then, on a left-hand curve 2.8 kilometres from the finish line, Marco delivers another cutting acceleration. Tonkov is immediately out of the saddle. The gap reaches two lengths. Tonkov fights his way back and is on Marco’s wheel when Marco, who is still standing on the pedals, accelerates again. Suddenly Tonkov is no longer there. Afterwards Tonkov would say he could no longer feel his hands and feet. ‘I had to stop. I lost his slipstream. I couldn’t go on.’ Marco told Romano Cenni he could taste blood. His performance on Montecampione was close to self-mutilation. Seven hundred metres from the finish line, the TV camera on the inside of the final right-hand bend, looking down the hill, picks Marco up over two hundred metres from the line and follows him for fifty metres, a fifteen-second close-up, grainy, pallid in the late-afternoon light. A car and motorbike, diffused and ghostlike, pass between the camera and Marco, emerging out of the gloom. The image cuts to another camera, tight on him as he swings round into the finishing straight, a five-second flash before the live, wide shot of the stage finish: Marco, framed between ecstatic fans on either side, and the finish-line scaffolding adorned with race sponsors‘ logos; largest, and centrally, the Gazzetta dello Sport, surrounded by branding for iced tea, shower gel, telephone services. Then we see it again in the super-slow-motion replay; the five seconds between the moment Marco appeared in the closing straight and the moment he crossed the finish line are extruded to fifteen strung-out seconds. The image frames his head and little else, revealing details invisible in real time and at standard resolution: a drop of sweat that falls from his chin as he makes the bend, the gaping jaw and crumpled forehead and lines beneath the eyes that deepen as Marco wrings still more speed from the mountain. As he rides towards victory in the Giro d‘Italia, Marco pushes himself so deeply into the pain of physical exertion that the gaucheness he has always shown before the camera dissolves, and — this must be the instant he crosses the line — he begins to rise out of his agony. The torso lifts to vertical, the arms spread out into a crucifix position, the eyelids descend, and Marco‘s face, altered by the darkness he has seen in his apnoea, lifts towards the light.
Matt Rendell
I have often tried in dreams to be the kind of imposing individual the Romantics imagined themselves to be, and whenever I have, I’ve always ended up laughing out loud at myself for even giving house-room to such an idea. After all, the homme fatal exists in the dreams of all ordinary men, and romanticism is merely the turning inside out of our normal daily selves. In the most secret part of their being, all men dream of ruling over a great empire, with all men their subjects, all women theirs for the asking, adored by all the people and (if they are inferior men) of all ages … Few are as accustomed to dreaming as I am and so are not lucid enough to laugh at the aesthetic possibility of nurturing such dreams. The most serious criticism of romanticism has not yet been made, namely, that it represents the inner truth of human nature, an externalization of what lies deepest in the human soul, but made concrete, visible, even possible, if being possible depends on something other than Fate, and its excesses, its absurdities, its various ploys for moving and seducing people, all stem from that. Even I who laugh at the seductive traps laid by the imagination often find myself imagining how wonderful it would be to be famous, how gratifying to be loved, how thrilling to be a success! And yet I can never manage to see myself in those exulted roles without hearing a guffaw from the other “I” I always keep as close to me as a street in the Baixa. Do I imagine myself famous? Only as a famous bookkeeper. Do I fancy myself raised up onto the thrones of celebrity? This fantasy only ever comes upon me in the office in Rua dos Douradores, and my colleagues inevitably ruin the effect. Do I hear the applause of the most variegated multitudes? That applause comes from the cheap fourth-floor room where I live and clashes horribly with the shabby furnishings, with the surrounding vulgarity, humiliating both me and the dream. I never even had any castles in Spain, like those Spaniards we Portuguese have always feared. My castles were built out of an incomplete deck of grubby playing cards; and they didn’t collapse of their own accord, but had to be demolished with a sweeping gesture of the hand, the impatient gesture of an elderly maid wanting to restore the tablecloth and reset the table, because teatime was calling like some fateful curse. Even that vision is of little worth, because I don’t have a house in the provinces or old aunts at whose table, at the end of a family gathering, I sit sipping a cup of tea that tastes to me of repose. My dream failed even in its metaphors and figurations. My empire didn’t even go as far as a pack of old playing cards. My victory didn’t even include a teapot or an ancient cat. I will die as I lived, among the bric-a-brac of my room, sold off by weight among the postscripts of things lost. May I at least take with me into the immense possibilities to be found in the abyss of everything the glory of my disillusion as if it were that of a great dream, the splendor of my unbelief like a flag of defeat — a flag held aloft by feeble hands, but dragged through the mud and blood of the weak and held on high as we sink into the shifting sands, whether in protest or defiance or despair no one knows … No one knows because no one knows anything, and the sands swallow up those with flags and those without … And the sands cover everything, my life, my prose, my eternity. I carry with me the knowledge of my defeat as if it were a flag of victory
Fernando Pessoa
I have often tried in dreams to be the kind of imposing individual the Romantics imagined themselves to be, and whenever I have, I’ve always ended up laughing out loud at myself for even giving house-room to such an idea. After all, the homme fatal exists in the dreams of all ordinary men, and romanticism is merely the turning inside out of our normal daily selves. In the most secret part of their being, all men dream of ruling over a great empire, with all men their subjects, all women theirs for the asking, adored by all the people and (if they are inferior men) of all ages … Few are as accustomed to dreaming as I am and so are not lucid enough to laugh at the aesthetic possibility of nurturing such dreams. The most serious criticism of romanticism has not yet been made, namely, that it represents the inner truth of human nature, an externalization of what lies deepest in the human soul, but made concrete, visible, even possible, if being possible depends on something other than Fate, and its excesses, its absurdities, its various ploys for moving and seducing people, all stem from that. Even I who laugh at the seductive traps laid by the imagination often find myself imagining how wonderful it would be to be famous, how gratifying to be loved, how thrilling to be a success! And yet I can never manage to see myself in those exulted roles without hearing a guffaw from the other “I” I always keep as close to me as a street in the Baixa. Do I imagine myself famous? Only as a famous bookkeeper. Do I fancy myself raised up onto the thrones of celebrity? This fantasy only ever comes upon me in the office in Rua dos Douradores, and my colleagues inevitably ruin the effect. Do I hear the applause of the most variegated multitudes? That applause comes from the cheap fourth-floor room where I live and clashes horribly with the shabby furnishings, with the surrounding vulgarity, humiliating both me and the dream. I never even had any castles in Spain, like those Spaniards we Portuguese have always feared. My castles were built out of an incomplete deck of grubby playing cards; and they didn’t collapse of their own accord, but had to be demolished with a sweeping gesture of the hand, the impatient gesture of an elderly maid wanting to restore the tablecloth and reset the table, because teatime was calling like some fateful curse. Even that vision is of little worth, because I don’t have a house in the provinces or old aunts at whose table, at the end of a family gathering, I sit sipping a cup of tea that tastes to me of repose. My dream failed even in its metaphors and figurations. My empire didn’t even go as far as a pack of old playing cards. My victory didn’t even include a teapot or an ancient cat. I will die as I lived, among the bric-a-brac of my room, sold off by weight among the postscripts of things lost. May I at least take with me into the immense possibilities to be found in the abyss of everything the glory of my disillusion as if it were that of a great dream, the splendor of my unbelief like a flag of defeat — a flag held aloft by feeble hands, but dragged through the mud and blood of the weak and held on high as we sink into the shifting sands, whether in protest or defiance or despair no one knows … No one knows because no one knows anything, and the sands swallow up those with flags and those without … And the sands cover everything, my life, my prose, my eternity. I carry with me the knowledge of my defeat as if it were a flag of victory
Fernando Pessoa
The taste of victory, knowing she’ll be responsible for the predator’s demise.
Ilse V. Rensburg (Sleight of Hand)
Barbelo's curiosity and fascination to experiment and experience death through subconciously entering the Mindplant vacationers minds whilst she executed the bodies they inhibited, had created consequential dilemna's and obstacles she'd had to overcome. Relief settled her mind as she savoured the taste of victory. Her desires and her work had prevailed and could continue. The lifeforce of the Mindplant program had not been extinguished and had been successfully salvaged from the claws of it's adversity's. She embraced the thought of the future and all the unrealized opportunities it presented. Opportunities for her, the Mindplant program and the continuation of her journey towards breaking the limitations of scientific knowledge and boundaries.
Jill Thrussell (Mindplant: Trimorphia (Glitches #3))
Danes express their strongest feelings in conjunction with food. That became clear to me the first time I was out visiting friends with Moritz. When I took a third helping of cookies, he looked straight at me. "Keep on taking until you're ashamed of yourself," he said. I wasn't confident about my Danish, but I understood what he meant. I helped myself three more times. Without taking my eyes off him. The room disappeared, the people we were visiting disappeared, I didn't taste the cookies. Only Moritz existed. "I'm still not ashamed," I said. I helped myself three more times. Then he grabbed the platter and put it out of my reach. I had won. The first of a long series of small, important victories over him and Danish manners.
Peter Høeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow)
the fight to last this long, but those darn boxes are able to self-replicate or something. I whack one down and three more takes its place. Finally, I finished the last of them. No more boxes. Victory was mine. I continued to gather materials. I returned to the village to build the crafting table. I was surprised to see some of the villagers had taken upon themselves to try to complete the wall that Joe and I had started. It was a touching effort. I made a bow and some arrows, another wooden sword, a pickaxe, and some other tools. Later that night, high up upon the rooftop I made my stand. Arrow upon arrow I let loose upon those zombies. I showered them with vengeance and laughed maniacally throughout the night. “Taste my fury, you brain leeches!
Steve the Noob (Diary of Steve the Noob)
Lifting my hand to my mouth, I lick the blood and rain off them. “Tastes like victory,” I mock. Wiping the blood from his busted face, he stumbles, eyes blinking rapidly. I clocked him pretty good. “You …” he chokes out. “You …
Shantel Tessier (The Ritual (L.O.R.D.S., #1))
Instead of him savoring imminent victory, his mind swept back to the taste of her sauce on his tongue—woodsmoke and black pepper, sweet heat. Much better than he was giving her credit for. But what knocked him flat was the smoothness of her finger—delicate, pliable, soft. So unlike her rigid poise, the angular cut of her high cheekbones. The slash of her pointed chin. Sharp edges that matched the cut of her words. Sharp edges at odds with the supple curve of her fingertip. For a moment, when he’d slipped his mouth around her pinky, he’d felt a jolt. An awakening. An awareness that maybe the hardness on her outside didn’t match the woman inside.
Chandra Blumberg (Stirring Up Love (Taste of Love, #2))
I looked expectantly to the window but there were no plates lined up. Instead Scott, the young, tattooed sous chef, passed me a sliver of tomato. The insides were tie-dyed pink and red. "A Marvel-Striped from Blooming Hills Farm," he said, as if I had asked him a question. I cupped it while it dripped. He pinched up flakes of sea salt from a plastic tub and flicked it on the slice. "When they're like this don't fuck with them. Just a little salt." "Wow," I said. And I meant it. I had never thought of a tomato as a fruit----the ones I had known were mostly white in the center and rock hard. But this was so luscious, so tart I thought it victorious. So----some tomatoes tasted like water, and some tasted like summer lightning.
Stephanie Danler (Sweetbitter)
My body is a mere vessel. You cannot kill the real me. So shoot, enjoy the brief taste of victory.
Yukito Kishiro
He shushed her quietly as he slipped his fingers into her hair, his thumb resting at the hollow of her ear as he cradled her head in his hand. He tilted her up to look at him. It felt incredible. It felt wrong. It was overwhelming. She couldn’t do anything except feel him. His hand, his touch, his nails against her scalp. But then, there was what came with it. The feeling of dark wings spreading out against a night sky. The joy of the hunt. The beauty of the stars painted behind a crimson moon that followed him wherever he went. Beneath it was the taste of sand. The taste of an old sun, burning him. Blood. Hunger. The joy of victory. The coldness of the grave. Him.
Kathryn Ann Kingsley (Heart of Dracula (Immortal Soul, #1))
Satan often tries to prevent you from taking the spiritual realm seriously. If he can divert your attention away from the spiritual realm, he can keep you away from the only place where your victory is found. If he can distract you with people or things you can see, taste, touch, hear, or smell, he can keep you from living a life of victory.
Tony Evans (Victory in Spiritual Warfare: Outfitting Yourself for the Battle)
I've always prided myself on being the best. I had to be number one. I had to win. I collected prizes and awards because I saw them as a reflection of my self-worth, and I thought nothing tasted better than victory. Then I met you." .... "And everything else...faded. We've been through some dark times, but you were always the brightest part of my life. Even when we broke up. Even when I walked out. Just knowing you existed somewhere in this world was enough."...."I never really lived before you. And I don't want to imagine living without you.".... "Stay with me, love. Please.
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
Every battle taste the sweat of victory
© Gino Norris
You have to lose a few times before you win. The more you risk and the more you lose, the sweeter the success will taste when you claim your victories. You’ll never know how that feels if you play it safe. Put it all out there.
Elvis Duran (Where Do I Begin?: Stories (I Sort of Remember) from a Life Lived Out Loud)
Alessandra, you are the most important thing to me. Being your husband will always be my greatest honor and accomplishment. No victory will ever taste as sweet as the press of your lips against mine. I lost you, and I don’t deserve you.” I swallowed hard against the memories of what we’d overcome. “But I vow to always hear you over the sound of my ambition. I will always be
Ana Huang (King of Greed (Kings of Sin, #3))
That power he had to deplete things before getting them, that stark premonition he had of "afterward" ...Before taking the first step toward action, he had already tasted the saturation and sorrow that follow victories...
Clarice Lispector (The Complete Stories)
They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added.
Leo Tolstoy
The heavenly principalities and powers cannot touch you. But the earthly humans over which we rule can.” Though they had no authority to touch Yahweh’s anointed, they might do so through their human vessels. Jesus trembled with the weight of responsibility that now overwhelmed him. But the pain was lessened when he heard the familiar sound of his favorite angel echo in his mind. Jesus, be strong and courageous. “Jesus, be strong and courageous.” It wasn’t in his mind, it was being spoken to him from behind. “Sound familiar?” Jesus turned. He looked up into the smiling face of Uriel the smallest of three angels now standing before him. Uriel finished his thought, “The words you spoke to Joshua at the threshold of the Promised Land. Funny how it all comes full circle.” Gabriel, the second angel, and Uriel’s constant bickering companion, responded, “Uriel, I think your humor is once again in incredibly poor taste considering his suffering. Where is your compassion?” “Nonsense,” said Uriel. “Jesus has done it. Victory is a cause for celebration, not sadness. He made it forty days without food, which is more than I can say for you, chubby.” Uriel patted Gabriel’s stomach. Gabriel moved away annoyed at the jab. Sure, he was heavier than the lightweight Uriel, but he certainly didn’t see himself as “chubby.” Mikael, the largest and best groomed of the three, was the guardian prince of Israel, and tended to be protective of his ward. He offered a wineskin to Jesus, who took it and gulped with gratitude. After a moment of silence, Jesus wiped his beard of the wine and said, “You need a better sense of humor, Gabriel.” Gabriel pouted with frustration at being ganged up on. Uriel, his perpetual nemesis was one thing. But being teased by the Master was quite another. Jesus said, “And Uriel, you had better deliver on that bread you promised.” Uriel smiled again and held out a loaf of Mary’s best bread. “Baked two hours ago by your mother.” Jesus grabbed it. Mikael said, “Remember, do not eat too quickly. It is bad for your digestion after fasting.” “Thank you for your ministering spirits,” said Jesus, and took a big hungry bite out of the loaf. Uriel muttered, “Your mother should open a bakery. Can I have a bite?” Mikael was not so lighthearted. He knew that the challenge had been declared. The road to war had begun.
Brian Godawa (Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim, #8))
This is not what I had planned for dessert, Louisa Windham.” Sir Joseph murmured the words near Louisa’s ear, though she was too enchanted with the feel of his weight above her to argue. “I’ve never wrestled with a grown man before.” “You had the element of surprise to aid you. When you are my wife, I will not be so easily subdued as to end up on my own hearth rug, regardless of the astonishing pleasures to be found there.” Louisa concluded she’d subdued him thoroughly, for he did not move off her where she lay on that rug. “Joseph, did you just use your tongue—?” “I’m tasting you, seeing if you savor of the Christmassy scent you’ve teased my nose with on so many occasions.” His voice had taken on a purring quality, the sound of it curling straight down beneath Louisa’s belly to places low and sweet. “I believe I will enjoy being married to you, sir.” “Hush.” He traced the curve of her ear with his nose, which made her shiver wonderfully. “I’m wrestling with my conscience—and, madam, I intend to emerge victorious from at least one struggle this evening—though be assured you shall enjoy certain parts of being married to me a great deal.” “One hoped that would be the—oh, Joseph…” He’d shifted, wedged his body more tightly into hers so she could feel his arousal. “The lady falls silent. Surely, the season of miracles is upon us.” Louisa
Grace Burrowes (Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (The Duke's Daughters, #3; Windham, #6))
He smoothed a little hair off her forehead. “I’m proud of you.” “It was so awesome.” “See? I knew you’d find something here to sink your teeth into.” He reached down, crossed his arms under her bottom and lifted her straight up so that her face was even with his. “Nowwww, what did we decide?” she asked, but her tone was teasing. Her smile was playful. “We decided that I would not kiss you.” “That’s right.” “I haven’t,” he said. “Maybe we should have talked about this,” she added, but she certainly didn’t struggle. In fact, this seemed oddly right. Celebratory. Like being picked up and swung around after the win of a big game. And that was how she felt—as though she’d just scored a touchdown. Arms resting on his shoulders, she clasped her hands behind his head. “We further decided that if you kissed me, I would let you,” he said. “You’re fishing.” “Does this look like fishing to you?” “Begging?” “Doing exactly as I’ve been told. Waiting.” What the hell, she thought. Absolutely nothing could feel better after the night she’d just spent than to plant a big wet one on this guy—a guy who’d keep his business open all night just in case they needed something. So she laid one on him. She slid her lips over his, opening them, moving over his with wicked and delicious intent, getting her tongue involved. And he did nothing but hold her there, allowing this. “Did you not like that?” she asked. “Oh,” he said. “Am I allowed to respond?” She whacked him softly in the head, making him laugh. She tried it again, and this time it was much more interesting. It made her heart beat faster, made her breathe hard. Yes, she thought. It is okay to feel something that doesn’t hurt sometimes. This wasn’t because she was grief-stricken or needy, this was because she was victorious. And all she could think about at the moment was his delicious mouth. When their mouths came apart, she said, “I feel like a total champ.” “You are,” he said, enjoying her mood more than she would ever guess. “God, you taste good.” “You don’t taste that bad,” she said, laughing. “Put me down now,” she instructed. “No. Do it again.” “Okay, but only one more, then you have to behave.” She planted another one on him, thoroughly enjoying his lips and tongue, the strength of the arms that held her. She refused to worry about whether this was a mistake. She was here, she was happy for once, and his mouth felt as natural to hers as if she’d been kissing him for years. She let the kiss be a little longer and deeper than she thought prudent, and even that made her smile. When it was over, he put her on her feet. “Whew,” she said. “We don’t have nearly enough births in this town.” “We have another one in about six weeks. And if you’re very, very good…” Ah, he thought. That gives me six weeks. He touched the end of her nose. “Nothing wrong with a little kissing, Mel.” “And you won’t get ideas?” He bellowed. “You can make me behave, it turns out. But you can’t keep me from getting ideas.” *
Robyn Carr (Virgin River (Virgin River #1))
The truth of my identity as a child of God empowers me to believe that living in victory tastes sweeter than any unhealthy delicacy.
Lysa TerKeurst (Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food)
As pointed out by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey: We seekers look at one another with growing smiles. We’ve won the right to be called heroes. For the sake of the home tribe we faced death, tasted it, and yet lived. From the depths of terror we suddenly shoot up to victory. It’s time to fill our empty bellies and raise our voices around the campfire to sing of our deeds. Old wounds and grievances are forgotten. The story of our journey is already being woven. You pull apart from the rest, strangely quiet. In the leaping shadows you remember those who didn’t make it, and you notice something. You’re different. You’ve changed. Part of you has died and something new has been born. You and the world will never seem the same.
Steve Kamb (Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story)
When he came to earth as the Redeemer, it was given into his hands, and all men are responsible unto him. He took the burden of humanity that he might save men from the consequences of their sins. He is in one their Advocate and Judge. Having tasted the very dregs of human affliction and temptation, he is qualified to understand the frailties and sins of men, and to pronounce judgment upon them. Therefore, the Father has given this work into the hands of his Son, knowing that He who victoriously withstood the temptations of Satan, in behalf of man, will be all-wise, just, and gracious in his dealing with him. 
Ellen Gould White (Ellen G. White Signs of the Times Articles, Book I of III)
Luncheon was usually at about two o’clock, often at someone else’s house in a small party. In the afternoon they attended concerts or drove to Richmond or Hurlingham, or else made the necessary, more formal calls upon those ladies they knew only slightly, perching awkwardly around withdrawing rooms, backs stiff, and making idiotic chatter about people, gowns, and the weather. The men excused themselves from this last activity and retired to one or another of their clubs. At four there was afternoon tea, sometimes at home, sometimes out at a garden party. Once there was a game of croquet, at which George partnered Sybilla and lost hopelessly amid peals of laughter and a sense of delight that infinitely outweighed Emily’s, who won. The taste of victory was ashes in her mouth. Not even Eustace, who partnered her, seemed to notice her. All eyes were on Sybilla, dressed in cherry pink, her cheeks flushed, her eyes radiant, and laughing so easily at her own ineptitude everyone wished to laugh with her.
Anne Perry (Cardington Crescent (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt, #8))
The sustaining taste of victory can never be replaced by the cold metal of a trophy.
M.T. Bass
Because being a fan is not all about the good times when victory makes life better. Dealing with defeat helps mold you as a fan. If you didn’t experience the bitter taste of losing, then you wouldn’t have any humility. You wouldn’t have a heart. You’d be a New York Yankees fan.
Mark Tye Turner (Notes from a 12 Man: A Truly Biased History of the Seattle Seahawks)
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Too many Christians have known the agony of defeat without tasting the thrill of victory. One of your great learning experiences will be to see how quickly satan flees when you fire God’s Word at him.
Terry Law (The Power of Praise and Worship)
not one in twenty was ever rich enough to own a real sword.” His look was grim. “So how do you like the taste of your victories now, Lord Snow?
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues: The Complete 5 Books (A Song of Ice and Fire #1-5))
The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias, rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithæ. Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassæ in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south instead of, as was usual, east and west. Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple portico known as the Propylæa that gives access to it on the western side. It was designed about 430 by Mnesicles, and in it the Doric and Ionic styles are admirably combined, whilst in the Erectheum, sacred to the memory of Erechtheus, a hero of Attica, the Ionic order is seen at its best, so delicate is the carving of the capitals of its columns. It has moreover the rare and distinctive feature of what is known as a caryatid porch, that is to say, one in which the entablature is upheld by caryatides or statues representing female figures. Other good examples of the Ionic style are the small Temple of Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, situated not far from the Propylæa and the Parthenon of Athens, the more important Temple of Apollo at Branchidæ near Miletus, originally of most imposing dimensions, and that of Artemis at Ephesus, of which however only a few fragments remain in situ. Of the sacred buildings of Greece in which the Corinthian order was employed there exist, with the exception of the Temple of Jupiter at Athens already referred to, but a few scattered remains, such as the columns from Epidaurus now in the Athens Museum, that formed part of a circlet of Corinthian pillars within a Doric colonnade. In the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, designed by Scopas in 394, however, the transition from the Ionic to the Corinthian style is very clearly illustrated, and in the circular Monument of Lysicrates, erected in 334 B.C. to commemorate the triumph of that hero's troop in the choric dances in honour of Dionysos, and the Tower of the Winds, both at Athens, the Corinthian style is seen at its best. In addition to the temples described above, some remains of tombs, notably that of the huge Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in memory of King Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., and several theatres, including that of Dionysos at Athens, with a well-preserved one of larger size at Epidaurus, bear witness to the general prevalence of Doric features in funereal monuments and secular buildings, but of the palaces and humbler dwelling-houses in the three Greek styles, of which there must have been many fine examples, no trace remains. There is however no doubt that the Corinthian style was very constantly employed after the power of the great republics had been broken, and the Oriental taste for lavish decoration replaced the love for austere simplicity of the virile people of Greece and its dependencies. CHAPTER III
Nancy R.E. Meugens Bell (Architecture)
If victory had a taste, today would be very sweet.
Wendy Darling (Breeding Discontent (Storm Constantine's Wraeththu Mythos))
...and I thought nothing tasted better than victory. Then I met you.
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
The type of poison that Havoc bestows is the kind that tastes oh so very sweet indeed.
C.M. Stunich (Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #5))
I hit the button that brings down the top of the convertible. As it folds back with a mechanical purr, I can feel the crisp night air crawling down my throat. When I laugh, I swear, I can taste stars.
C.M. Stunich (Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #5))
I hit the button that brings down the top of the convertible. As it folds back with a mechanical purr, I can feel the crisp night air crawling down my throat. When I laugh, I swear, I can taste stars. About a half mile from Kay’s,
C.M. Stunich (Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #5))
We tell people,” he said, “to follow their dreams. We tell them that they won’t be complete until they do, that they’ll be miserable until they start reaching for that brass ring. They never tell you how good it feels to give up on a dream. That it’s a…” “Relief?” Lucy said. “A relief, exactly,” Jack said, nodding. “I decided one day that kids weren’t ever going to happen for me, that I was going to be single and childless and that was that. And I awoke the next morning and the sun was dancing on the water and the coffee tasted better than it ever had. It tasted like one less thing to worry about. One less promise to keep. One less fight to fight. One less heart to break. And it was sweet. Almost as sweet as victory. The sweetness of giving up.
Meg Shaffer (The Wishing Game)