Unnecessary Fights Quotes

Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings. This explains why Christians like yourself expend more "moral" energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide. It explains why you are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research. And it explains why you can preach against condom use in sub-Saharan Africa while millions die from AIDS there each year.

Ralston didn't care. He turned on his brother as the surgeon knelt next to him and inspected the wound. "She could have been killed!" And what about you?" This time, it was Callie who spoke, her own pent-up energy releasing in anger, and the men turned as one to look at her, surprised that she and found her voice. "What about you and your idiotic pland to somehow restore my honor by playing guns out in the middle of nowhere with OXFORD?" She said the baron's name in disdain. "Like children? Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, thoughtless, MALE things to do...who even FIGHTS duels anymore?!

How to Win a Fight - Step 1: Always make eye contact. Step 2: Go ahead and use henchmen - these days it's unnecessary and frowned upon to fight your own battles, especially with so many henchmen out of work. Step 3: Run lots of attack ads - I have run about 500 attack ads this year, and I expect that I will buy even more air time next year, because my enemies are getting stronger.

The trowel looked rather sinister, made out of some kind of black metal with a red sheen. It carried the wear marks of having been used as a planting tool, but also had a razor edge that seemed wholly unnecessary for gardening purposes. “Blood cult?” Jason read unhappily from the item description. “Who gardens with an evil trowel?

It's a funny thing about Americans, we love to bitch about paying too much for the things we really need and are really a bargain, like gas and postage stamps, but we willingly shell out outrageous amounts for unnecessary crap like gourmet coffee and soap to make your crotch smell good. Two dollars a gallon to go ten miles is too much, but five to the parking valet to go ten feet is okay.

Coddly slammed a fist on the table. “No one will take you seriously if you do not act decisively.” There was a beat of silence after his voice stopped echoing around the room, and the entire table sat motionless. “Fine,” I responded calmly. “You’re fired.” Coddly laughed, looking at the other gentlemen at the table. “You can’t fire me, Your Highness.” I tilted my head, staring at him. “I assure you, I can. There’s no one here who outranks me at the moment, and you are easily replaceable.” Though she tried to be discreet, I saw Lady Brice purse her lips together, clearly determined not to laugh. Yes, I definitely had an ally in her. “You need to fight!” he insisted. “No,” I answered firmly. “A war would add unnecessary strain to an already stressful moment and would cause an upheaval between us and the country we are now bound to by marriage. We will not fight.” Coddly lowered his chin and squinted. “Don’t you think you’re being too emotional about this?” I stood, my chair screeching behind me as I moved. “I’m going to assume that you aren’t implying by that statement that I’m actually being too female about this. Because, yes, I am emotional.” I strode around the opposite side of the table, my eyes trained on Coddly. “My mother is in a bed with tubes down her throat, my twin is now on a different continent, and my father is holding himself together by a thread.” Stopping across from him, I continued. “I have two younger brothers to keep calm in the wake of all this, a country to run, and six boys downstairs waiting for me to offer one of them my hand.” Coddly swallowed, and I felt only the tiniest bit of guilt for the satisfaction it brought me. “So, yes, I am emotional right now. Anyone in my position with a soul would be. And you, sir, are an idiot. How dare you try to force my hand on something so monumental on the grounds of something so small? For all intents and purposes, I am queen, and you will not coerce me into anything.” I walked back to the head of the table. “Officer Leger?” “Yes, Your Highness?” “Is there anything on this agenda that can’t wait until tomorrow?” “No, Your Highness.” “Good. You’re all dismissed. And I suggest you all remember who’s in charge here before we meet again.

Allow? Shouldn't women decide what they'll allow for their own bodies, not a government acting out an antiquated, unnecessary law?

Marx and Engels thought all of these things could be traced to one root -- private property. If they used a final revolutionary class uprising to overthrow private property, it would mean that class struggle would become unnecessary because there would be nothing to fight over!

Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feeling states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instincts.

He didn’t wear his rings while they fought. He’d come without them the first day. When she’d protested that it was an unnecessary precaution, his face had assumed a mask of innocence. “I promised Giddon, didn’t I?” he’d said, and that fight had begun with Po ducking, and laughing, as Katsa swung at his face.

Under conditions of a truly human existence, the difference between succumbing to disease at the age of ten, thirty, fifty, or seventy, and dying a "natural" death after a fulfilled life, may well be a difference worth fighting for with all instinctual energy. Not those who die, but those who die before they must and want to die, those who die in agony and pain, are the great indictment against civilization. They also testify to the unredeemable guilt of mankind. Their death arouses the painful awareness that it was unnecessary, that it could be otherwise. It takes all the institutions and values of a repressive order to pacify the bad conscience of this guilt. Once again, the deep connection between the death instinct and the sense of guilt becomes apparent. The silent "professional agreement" with the fact of death and disease is perhaps one of the most widespread expressions of the death instinct -- or, rather, of its social usefulness. In a repressive civilization, death itself becomes an instrument of repression. Whether death is feared as constant threat, or glorified as supreme sacrifice, or accepted as fate, the education for consent to death introduces an element of surrender into life from the beginning -- surrender and submission. It stifles "utopian" efforts. The powers that be have a deep affinity to death; death is a token of unfreedom, of defeat. Theology and philosophy today compete with each other in celebrating death as an existential category: perverting a biological fact into an ontological essence, they bestow transcendental blessing on the guilt of mankind which they help to perpetuate -- they betray the promise of utopia.

But one night near the end, as I was sitting at his bedside trying to entertain him with an anecdote about some nincompoop with whom I worked, out of the blue he shared a reflection which seemed such a non sequitur that I attributed it to delirium. Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice. Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger. What my father was trying to tell me, as he neared the conclusion of his own course, was that this risk should not be treated lightly: One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.

Be suspicious of an expert who tells you to cut a seemingly unnecessary moment out of your play. The soul of your play may reside there, quietly, inconspicuously, clothing in its unnecessariness, shining forth in its lack of necessity to be.

Rose was unravelling my hard exterior and helping me realize the boy I use to be was still there. I walked around like I had a death wish, taking unnecessary risks because my reason for living had vanished, but now that she was back I had to do everything I possibly could to fight for us; to fight for her.

Life is cruel enough without unnecessary brutality. Fight it.

I think we each have a certain number of unnecessary apologies, which we willingly dish out before we realize it's time to stand and fight. I may still have two or three left.

If we'll be going separate ways, i believe we should do so with memories of the times we spent together, not about how all we did every time was argue and fight over unnecessary issues.

Until about age ten or so, a child thrives on spending special quiet time with a parent before bed. Reading books, talking, giving back rubs, and simply being together quietly are all important prebed rituals. Actually, I find that most parents who do not have a formal bedtime routine typically spend that last hour before bed fighting with their children about going to bed—now that is unpleasant and unnecessary.

We believe that cowardice is to blame for the world's injustices. We believe that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace. We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even to our sanity. We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. We believe, not in just bold words, but in bold deeds to match them. We believe that pain and death are better than cowardice and inaction because we believe in action. We do not believe in living comfortable lives. We do not believe that silence is useful. We do not believe in good manners. We do not believe in empty heads, empty mouths, or empty hands. We do not believe that learning to master violence encourages unnecessary violence. We do not believe that we should be allowed to stand idly by. We do not believe that any other virtue is more important than bravery.

Facebook, she realized, had moved from targeting dangerous actors to targeting dangerous ideas, building systems that could quietly smother a movement in its infancy. She heard echoes of George Orwell’s thought police. To her, this was getting creepy, and unnecessary.

What I’ve come to realize I that I don’t like action for action’s sake. Mindless explosions, super close ups of combat and gore, and unnecessary effects make me zone out incredibly fast. What I do love is a fight that is well choreographed and in which I actually care about the outcome. And hopefully not riddled with cliches. Even more so, I have had a long, deep-seated appreciation for watching chicks kick ass. Watching some lone-wolf-type hero beat the crap out of the bad guys is okay, but watching a BAMF femme do it is 10000% times better.

Unless death is made a lesson for the living, the life lived is wasted. Why should life come into existence only to be destroyed? One dies and another is born—for what? A few miserable hours of life—then oblivion! With this recognition of the finality of death, no one should willingly withhold acts that would bring benefits, joy or happiness to others. In death, the hesitant act can no longer be performed—the word of praise is as impossible as yesterday's return. What perversity justified inflicting pain, suffering and death upon others who have done no wrong? If death ends all, why fight while we are living? Why shorten life with unnecessary pain and suffering? How futile are the petty problems of individuals, with their hates and jealousies, when all vanish with death? All the prayers in the world cannot wipe out one injustice. Every wrong is irreparable. The dead cannot forgive. All the tears and sighs are of no avail. Forgiveness cannot be granted when lips cannot move. Praise cannot be heard when ears cannot hear; joy cannot be experienced when the heart no longer beats; and the happiness of an affectionate embrace can no longer be felt when arms are limp and the eyes are forever closed.

The history books ever and always celebrate the daring battles, but the wars are won before and after the battles, not during. Battles lead to defeat, not victory. Hidetada, you must learn this. Fighting desperately is not glorious; it means you have already made a mistake and taken an unnecessary gamble.

Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American youth, and in exchange for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver You enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work. “Amen.

Two thousand years of Chinese history have created a strategic culture that advises against fighting unnecessary wars in distant places. The likelihood therefore is that, while China’s strategic weight and influence in the world will grow significantly, it will not behave as an aggressive and belligerent military power.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call them fawning parasites. They are the people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions. What’s important to them is only their side just to justify their means. Oh, I’ve just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

Remove this quote from your collection “No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call them fawning parasites. They are the people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions. What’s important to them is only their side just TO JUSTIFY THEIR MEANS. Oh, I’ve just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

Any mode of thought that lays out complete and final answers to great existential questions is liable to dogmatism. A great attraction of care ethics, I think, is its refusal to encode or construct a catalog of principles and rules. One who cares must meet the cared-for just as he or she is, as a whole human being with individual needs and interests. [...] At most, it directs us to attend, to listen, and to respond as positively as possible. [...] it recognizes that virtually all human beings desire not to be hurt, and this gives us something close to an absolute: We should not inflict deliberate hurt or pain. Even when we must fight to save our children, we must not inflict unnecessary or deliberate pain.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld. The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race’s most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must—never for sport. A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe. There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities” with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature.’ ” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of “Nature”—but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the “Naturist” reveals his hatred for his own race—i.e., his own self-hatred. In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women—it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly “natural.” Believe it or not, there were “Naturists” who opposed the first flight to old Earth’s Moon as being “unnatural” and a “despoiling of Nature.

Everything that is natural is moral. It is natural for humans to provide for living, to eat, drink, have sex, have fun, spawn. And to fight each other, of course. This is a pleasure too in some ways. During hostilities, our bodies are working at full strength, with rushes of adrenaline, testosterone, and other hormones. Violence allows many people to end their lives without unnecessary suffering. Is it better to die of cancer or die of a bullet? Humanists tend to forget this.

Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants—all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs. With much that was spoken and written on the subject Konyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw that there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, aroused in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not only with words but by deeds. Also there was an accompanying fact that pleased Koznyshev. It was the manifestation of public opinion. The nation had definitely expressed its wishes. As Koznyshev put it, ' the soul of the nation had become articulate.' The more he went into this question, the clearer it seemed to him that it was a matter which would attain enormous proportions and become epoch-making.

You’re not a hero, despite what people say. You don't need to be a hero to save a life. You just need to be alive enough. A person who loves enough will have a reason to save a life. A person who is curious enough will find a way. A person who is brave enough will have things they would die for because they have discovered moments worth dying for long before their bravery was needed. Discover what matters, then be alive enough to fight for it. Be alive enough, and you’ll change the world. - Eldridge, The Five Unnecessaries

WE BELIEVE that cowardice is to blame for the world’s injustices. WE BELIEVE that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: WE BELIEVE that justice is more important than peace. WE BELIEVE in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. WE BELIEVE in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. WE BELIEVE in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. WE BELIEVE in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even our sanity. WE BELIEVE in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. WE BELIEVE, not just in bold words but in bold deeds to match them. WE BELIEVE that pain and death are better than cowardice and inaction, because WE BELIEVE in action. WE DO NOT BELIEVE in living comfortable lives. WE DO NOT BELIEVE that silence is useful. WE DO NOT BELIEVE in good manners. WE DO NOT BELIEVE in limiting the fullness of life. WE DO NOT BELIEVE in empty heads, empty mouths, or empty hands. WE DO NOT BELIEVE that learning to master violence encourages unnecessary violence. WE DO NOT BELIEVE that we should be allowed to stand idly by. WE DO NOT BELIEVE that any other virtue is more important than bravery.

Here, till our navy of a thousand sail Have made a breakfast to our foe by sea, Let us encamp to wait their happy speed.- Lorraine, what readiness is Edward in? How hast thou heard that he provided is Of martial furniture for this exploit? Lorraine To lay aside unnecessary soothing, And not to spend the time in circumstance, 'Tis bruited for a certainty, my lord, That he's exceeding strongly fortified; His subjects flock as willingly to war As if unto a triumph they were led. Charles England was wont to harbor malcontents, Bloodthirsty and seditious Catilines, Spendthrifts, and such as gape for nothing else But changing and alteration of the state. And is it possible that they are now So loyal in themselves? Lorraine All but the Scot, who solemnly protests, As heretofore I have informed his grace, Never to sheathe his sword or take a truce. King John Ah, that's the anch'rage of some better hope. But, on the other side, to think what friends King Edward hath retained in Netherland Among those ever-bibbing epicures -- Those frothy Dutchmen puffed with double beer, That drink and swill in every place they come -- Doth not a little aggravate mine ire; Besides we hear the emperor conjoins And stalls him in his own authority. But all the mightier that their number is, The greater glory reaps the victory. Some friends have we beside domestic power: The stern Polonian, and the warlike Dane, The King of Bohemia, and of Sicily Are all become confederates with us, And, as I think, are marching hither apace. [Drums within.] But soft, I hear the music of their drums, By which I guess that their approach is near. Enter the King of Bohemia, with Danes, and a Polonian Captain with other soldiers, some Muscovites, another way. King of Bohemia King John of France, as league and neighborhood Requires when friends are any way distressed, I come to aid thee with my country's force. Polonian Captain And from great Moscow, fearful to the Turk, And lofty Poland, nurse of hardy men, I bring these servitors to fight for thee, Who willingly will venture in thy cause. King John Welcome Bohemian King, and welcome all. This your great kindness I will not forget; Besides your plentiful rewards in crowns That from our treasury ye shall receive, There comes a hare-brained nation decked in pride, The spoil of whom will be a treble gain. And now my hope is full, my joy complete. At sea we are as puissant as the force Of Agamemnon in the haven of Troy; By land, with Xerxes we compare of strength, Whose soldiers drank up rivers in their thirst. Then Bayard-like, blind, overweening Ned, To reach at our imperial diadem Is either to be swallowed of the waves Or hacked a-pieces when thou com'st ashore.

When 9/11 happened, I was an observer. I mourned for the victims and felt for the people as individuals, but this wasn’t my fight. It wasn’t the victims’ fight, either, though. They were caught in the middle as always. The little people suffer for the crimes of few. This fight wasn’t between the people that flew the planes and the people in the towers. We all got played by politics we had nothing to do with. In the aftermath of 9/11, if you tuned in to television stations and watched the debates over the war in Iraq, no one had the backbone to point out the obvious. America, Inc. was running out of gas. We’d squeezed everything we could out of the rest of the world with our foreign policy. The answer was not to go into Iraq. It should have been to look at ourselves, look at our own crumbling policies, and economic mishaps. We should have lowered the debt, regulated the banks, prevented the oncoming mortgage crisis, and reevaluated our foreign policy, but we didn’t. We played on the fear of innocent Americans and spent our resources on a nameless, faceless war that tore apart Iraq, emptied our war chest, and left us with an American infrastructure screaming for help. We didn’t look at ourselves until it was too late. We spent our money on an arms race against ourself, fought an unnecessary war, and neglected the problems we had on this side of the water’s edge.

Damn it, Sir, I can’t fight a shadow. Without Your cooperation from a weather standpoint, I am deprived of accurate disposition of the German armies and how in the hell can I be intelligent in my attack? All of this probably sounds unreasonable to You, but I have lost all patience with Your chaplains who insist that this is a typical Ardennes winter, and that I must have faith. “Faith and patience be damned! You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You are on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace. “Sir, I have never been an unreasonable man; I am not going to ask You to do the impossible. I do not even insist upon a miracle, for all I request is four days of clear weather. “Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American youth, and in exchange for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver You enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work. “Amen.

To be precise, you and I pay government lawyers to fight as hard as they can to get as much Aboriginal land as possible and to give as little as possible in return. They act like rapacious divorce lawyers. Why? We must ask ourselves why they are doing this for us. First, our governments seem to be arguing that these negotiations are all about saving the taxpayer money. This is lunacy. You don’t save money by dragging out complex legal negotiations for twenty-five years. Protracted legal battles are the equivalent of throwing taxpayers’ money away. And you force Canadian citizens – Aboriginals – to waste their own money and their lives on unnecessary battles. Second, our governments more or less argue that a few thousand or a few hundred Aboriginals shouldn’t have control over land that might have great timber or mineral or energy value. They argue as if it were all about the interests of a few thousand Aboriginals versus that of millions of Canadians. As if the Aboriginals were invaders come to steal our land. The question we should be asking is quite different. If there is value in these territories, don’t you want it controlled by Canadians who feel strongly that this is their land? By people who want to live there and want their children and grandchildren to live there? Surely they are the people most likely to do a good long-term job at managing the land. And why shouldn’t they profit from it? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Is there any reason why Canadians living in the interior and in the north should profit less than urban Canadians do in the south? And if those Canadians are Aboriginal, is there some reason why they should profit less than non-Aboriginals?

I felt the ripple in the darkness without having to look up, and didn't flinch at the soft footsteps that approached me. I didn't bother hoping that it would be Tamlin. 'Still weeping?' Rhysand. I didn't lower my hands from my face. The floor rose toward the lowering ceiling- I would soon be flattened. There was no colour, no light here. 'You're just beaten her second task. Tears are unnecessary.' I wept harder, and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me, and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face. The walls weren't moving, and the room was open- gaping. No colours, but shades of darkness, of night. Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of colour and light. He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward. I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn't move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back. He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him. He smirked, sitting down against a wall. 'I figured that would get you to stop crying.' 'It was disgusting.' I wiped my face again. 'Was it?' He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm- to the place where my tattoo would be. 'Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting.' 'Get out.' 'As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming.' 'Do you want me to kiss your feet for what you did at the trial? Do you want me to offer another week of my life?' 'Not unless you feel compelled to do so,' he said, his eyes like stars.

A few years back, I had a long session with a psychiatrist who was conducting a study on post-traumatic stress disorder and its effects on reporters working in war zones. At one point, he asked me: “How many bodies have you seen in your lifetime?” Without thinking for too long, I replied: “I’m not sure exactly. I've seen quite a few mass graves in Africa and Bosnia, and I saw a well crammed full of corpses in East Timor, oh and then there was Rwanda and Goma...” After a short pause, he said to me calmly: “Do you think that's a normal response to that question?” He was right. It wasn't a normal response. Over the course of their lifetime, most people see the bodies of their parents, maybe their grandparents at a push. Nobody else would have responded to that question like I did. Apart from my fellow war reporters, of course. When I met Marco Lupis nearly twenty years ago, in September 1999, we were stood watching (fighting the natural urge to divert our gaze) as pale, maggot-ridden corpses, decomposed beyond recognition, were being dragged out of the well in East Timor. Naked bodies shorn of all dignity. When Marco wrote to ask me to write the foreword to this book and relive the experiences we shared together in Dili, I agreed without giving it a second thought because I understood that he too was struggling for normal responses. That he was hoping he would find some by writing this book. While reading it, I could see that Marco shares my obsession with understanding the world, my compulsion to recount the horrors I have seen and witnessed, and my need to overcome them and leave them behind. He wants to bring sense to the apparently senseless. Books like this are important. Books written by people who have done jobs like ours. It's not just about conveying - be it in the papers, on TV or on the radio - the atrocities committed by the very worst of humankind as they are happening; it’s about ensuring these atrocities are never forgotten. Because all too often, unforgivably, the people responsible go unpunished. And the thing they rely on most for their impunity is that, with the passing of time, people simply forget. There is a steady flow of information as we are bombarded every day with news of the latest massacre, terrorist attack or humanitarian crisis. The things that moved or outraged us yesterday are soon forgotten, washed away by today's tidal wave of fresh events. Instead they become a part of history, and as such should not be forgotten so quickly. When I read Marco's book, I discovered that the people who murdered our colleague Sander Thoenes in Dili, while he was simply doing his job like the rest of us, are still at large to this day. I read the thoughts and hopes of Ingrid Betancourt just twenty-four hours before she was abducted and taken to the depths of the Colombian jungle, where she would remain captive for six long years. I read that we know little or nothing about those responsible for the Cambodian genocide, whose millions of victims remain to this day without peace or justice. I learned these things because the written word cannot be destroyed. A written account of abuse, terror, violence or murder can be used to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, even though this can be an extremely drawn-out process during and after times of war. It still torments me, for example, that so many Bosnian women who were raped have never got justice and every day face the prospect of their assailants passing them on the street. But if I follow in Marco's footsteps and write down the things I have witnessed in a book, people will no longer be able to plead ignorance. That is why we need books like this one.

Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud…I need these               four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla.               I am sick of the unnecessary butchery of American youth, and in exchange               for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver to You enough Krauts to               keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work. Amen.”[57]

Who has anguish? Who has sorrow?    Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining?    Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? 29 ¿Quién tiene angustia? ¿Quién siente tristeza?    ¿Quién es el que siempre pelea? ¿Quién está siempre quejándose?    ¿Quién tiene moretones sin motivo? ¿Quién tiene los ojos rojos? 30 It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns,    trying out new drinks. 30 Es el que pasa muchas horas en las tabernas,    probando nuevos tragos. 31 Don’t gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is,    how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down. 31 No te fijes en lo rojo que es el vino,    ni en cómo burbujea en la copa, ni en lo suave que se desliza. 32 For in the end it bites like a poisonous snake;    it stings like a viper. 32 Pues al final muerde como serpiente venenosa;    pica como una víbora. 33 You will see hallucinations,    and you will say crazy things. 33 Tendrás alucinaciones    y dirás disparates. 34 You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea,    clinging to a swaying mast. 34 Te tambalearás como un marinero en alta mar,    aferrado a un mástil que se mueve. 35 And you will say, “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it.    I didn’t even know it when they beat me up.   When will I wake up    so I can look for another drink?” 35 Y entonces dirás: «Me golpearon pero no lo sentí.    Ni siquiera me di cuenta cuando me dieron la paliza.   ¿Cuándo despertaré    para ir en busca de otro trago?».

The highest religion of human is the identity for which he is living rest is either one of the path or unnecessary fight.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. We are all Machiavellians. It just depends on how we use its tactics to ensure we’re not bad Machiavellians. Because there are those bad ones who are acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call them fawning parasites. They are the people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions. What’s important to them is only their side just to justify their means.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call them fawning parasites. They are the people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions. What’s important to them is only their side just to justify their means. Oh, I’ve just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

The Greeks believed this to be a part of human nature. Whether it becomes a destructive or healing energy in the world depends largely on whether that spirit of fight or struggle is directed in self-centered ways at the disappointments we experience in not getting what we want, or in deeper, self-transforming ways that seek out the resources of spirit, love, and truth. It seems to be perennially true that if that spirit of fight or struggle is not directed at what distances us from God (our isolations and illusions), then it will be directed at others. Needleman suggests that the misdirection of Thumos, our spirit of fight or struggle, has been a timeless source of war, evil, and unnecessary woundedness in the world.

Reminders ‘The peace garden is opposite the War Memorial,’ Said the old soldier. ‘We had to fight to make peace Back in the good old days.’ ‘No, the War Memorial is opposite the peace garden,’ Said the old pacifist. ‘You’ve had so many wars to end all wars, Still millions are dying from the wars you left behind.’ ‘Look,’ said the old soldier. ‘You chickens stuck your peace garden In front of our War Memorial to cause non-violent trouble. This War Memorial is necessary, It reminds us that people have died for our country.’ ‘Look,’ said the old pacifist, ‘In the beginning was peace And the peace was with God And the peace was God, This peace garden is unnecessary but It reminds us that people want to live for our country.

She sat on the wall, opened her book, and paid him no mind. After a few minutes the sounds of clipping stopped, and she felt his gaze on her. She turned a page. “Jane,” he said with a touch of exasperation. “Shh, I’m reading,” she said. “Jane, listen, someone warned me that another fellow heard my telly playing and told Mrs. Wattlesbrook, and I had to toss it out this morning. If they spot me hanging around you..” “You’re not hanging around me, I’m reading.” “Bugger, Jane…” “Martin, please, I’m sorry about your TV but you can’t cast me away now. I’ll go raving mad if I have to sit in that house again all afternoon. I haven’t sewn a thing since junior high Home Ec when I made a pair of gray shorts that ripped at the butt seam the first time I sat down, and I haven’t played pianoforte since I quit from boredom at age twelve, and I haven’t read a book in the middle of the day since college, so you see what a mess I’m in.” “So,” Martin said, digging in his spade. “You’ve come to find me again when there is no one else to flirt with.” Huh! thought Jane. He snapped a dead branch off the trunk. Huh! she thought again. She stood and started to walk away. “Wait.” Martin hopped after her, grabbing her elbow. “I saw you with those actors, parading around the grounds this morning. I hadn’t seen you with them before. In the context. And it bothered me. I mean, you don’t really go in for this stuff, do you?” Jane shrugged. “You do?” “More than I want to, though you’ve been making it seem unnecessary lately.” Martin squinted up at a cloud. “I’ve never understood the women who come here, and you’re one of them. I can’t make sense of it.” “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say, ‘Ah.’” “Ah. I mean, aha! is what I mean.” Crap. She’d hoped he would laugh at the Colin Firth thing. And he didn’t. And now the silence made her feel as though she were standing on a seesaw, waiting for the weight to drop on the other side. Then she smelled it. The musty, acrid, sour, curdled, metallic, decaying odor of ending. This wasn’t just a first fight. She’d been in this position too many times not to recognize the signs. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked. “Were we ever together enough to require breaking up?” Oh. Ouch. She took a step back on that one. Perhaps it was her dress that allowed her to compose herself more quickly than normal. She curtsied. “Pardon the interruption, I mistook you for someone I knew.” She turned and left, wishing for a Victorian-type gown so she could have whipped the full skirts for a satisfying little cracking sound. She had to satisfy herself with emphatically tightening her bonnet ribbon as she marched. You stupid, stupid girl, she thought. You were fantasizing again. Stop it! It had all been going so well. She’d let herself have fun, unwind, not plague a new romance with constant questions such as, What if? And after? And will he love me forever? “Are you breaking up with me…?” she muttered to herself. He must think she was a lunatic. And really, he’d be right. Here she was in Pembrook Park, a place where women hand over scads of dough to hook up with men paid to adore them, but she finds the one man on campus who’s in a position to reject her and then leads him into it. Typical Jane.

THE DISLODGING OF THE CARNAL MIND The rule of the carnal mind begins to be dislodged when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, and when we read the Word of God, pray, receive truth when confronted by brothers and sisters in Christ, minister to others in the Spirit, choose sound thinking in Christ, and so forth. Therefore, our carnal mind fights back. It seeks any pretext to break out against sound judgment (Prov. 18:1, RSV). It casts up seemingly wise thoughts, objections, and skepticisms, trying to involve us in unnecessary reasoning, clever sophistries, and “foolish . . . speculations” (2 Tim. 2:23). “It isn’t logical to believe that.” “You aren’t making sense.” “You have no business trying to help anyone else when you’re a mess yourself.” Anything will do—any thought, any seeming contradiction that must be resolved, any feelings that have to be settled. The most brilliant create the most clever smoke screens.

we have now begun a wide range of case involvement at religiously connected hospitals and universities that are already exempt from having to cover contraception, in my view a completely unnecessary accommodation this administration doled up to such entities.

Ma and Aunt Rose are in the kitchen. Johnny and Papa are watching TV.” “Hockey?” She hung her coat on the hall tree. “No, synchronized swimming. Of course, hockey. They’re watching the pregame stuff; you know, the male version of Oprah.” They walked through the empty living room and into the dining room. Rosalie gave herself a mental head slap. She should have asked Nick to tape the game for her. “Yeah, I like the part where Dr. Phil discusses their feelings about the fight in last night’s game. Stay tuned for a very special Sports Talk—The Cause of Unnecessary Roughness.

Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice. Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger. What my father was trying to tell me, as he neared the conclusion of his own course, was that this risk should not be treated lightly: One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.

We are trained to look superficially at ourselves. But when you better understand and love yourself, looking inward is key to fighting off all the negativity, the unnecessary opinions and the hurtful words that don't represent you.

Paul worked hard. He did not say that God's grace made his work unnecessary. He said God's grace made his work possible.

the peak efficiency of knowledge and strategy is to make conflict altogether unnecessary: “To overcome others’ armies without fighting is the best of skills.

As we saw earlier, when a difficulty comes to mind, the brain’s habitual reaction is to treat it as a real enemy, so it tends to shut down its creative “approach” systems. For some difficulties, it might be necessary to shut down playfulness, but when you are remembering the past or anticipating the future, the difficulty is playing out in our heads and not for real, so this is unnecessary. In fact, it ends up locking things down and blocking creativity: we either feel trapped and the body slumps into submission or the body gears up to fight or flee.

Another favorite: We spend $85.9 billion trying to treat back pain, which is as much as we spend on all of the country’s state, city, county, and town police forces. And experts say that as much as half of that is unnecessary.

And if the emperor were supposed to destroy the unbelievers and non-Christians, he would have to begin with the pope, bishops, and clergy, and perhaps not spare us or himself; for there is enough horrible idolatry in his own empire to make it unnecessary for him to fight the Turks for this reason. There are entirely too many Turks, Jews, heathen, and non-Christians among us with open false doctrine and with offensive, shameful lives. Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live. The emperor’s sword has nothing to do with the faith; it belongs to physical, worldly things, if God is not to become angry with us. If we pervert his order and throw it into confusion, he too becomes perverse and throws us into confusion and all kinds of misfortune, as it is written, “With the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse” [Ps. 18:26]. We can perceive and grasp this through the fortune we have had up to now against the Turk. Think of all the heartbreak and misery that have been caused by the cruciata, 84765 by the indulgences,84776 and by crusade taxes.84787 With these Christians have been stirred up to take the sword and fight the Turk when they ought to have been fighting the devil and unbelief with the word and with prayer.

When 9/11 happened, I was an observer. I mourned for the victims and felt for the people as individuals, but this wasn’t my fight. It wasn’t the victims’ fight, either, though. They were caught in the middle as always. The little people suffer for the crimes of few. This fight wasn’t between the people that flew the planes and the people in the towers. We all got played by politics we had nothing to do with. In the aftermath of 9/11, if you tuned in to television stations and watched the debates over the war in Iraq, no one had the backbone to point out the obvious. America, Inc. was running out of gas. We’d squeezed everything we could out of the rest of the world with our foreign policy. The answer was not to go into Iraq. It should have been to look at ourselves, look at our own crumbling policies, and economic mishaps. We should have lowered the debt, regulated the banks, prevented the oncoming mortgage crisis, and reevaluated our foreign policy, but we didn’t. We played on the fear of innocent Americans and spent our resources on a nameless, faceless war that tore apart Iraq, emptied our war chest, and left us with an American infrastructure screaming for help. We didn’t look at ourselves until it was too late. We spent our money on an arms race against ourself, fought an unnecessary war, and neglected the problems we had on this side of the water’s edge.

You don’t need to control everything that’s happening. You don’t need to push, struggle, fight, force things or try to manipulate people in order to make things the way you want them to be. It’s exhausting and unnecessary.

Rich and poor, strong and weak gave their help in this difficult fight. All this without hate, notoriety, or malice. Finally, Alaska pulled herself out of her deep unnecessary sleep and the laws began to change. Why? Because people were awakened to their obligation to their fellow men. A few times some people tried to discriminate against us but that is almost impossible to do when the object of such action feels no inferiority.

AILBHE SMYTH: While I admire the work of GLEN, for example, in relation to the civil partnership issue, and I do think they worked very, very hard on that, that would not have been my chosen route. Their argument as I understand it has always been that civil partnership is a route to marriage. Whereas I felt it was an unnecessary route to go. I think you’re always better to go for 100 per cent. Certainly my own background in left-wing politics and human rights issues, I’m not prepared to go for less. If I’m going to be out there fighting for something, I’m going to fight for 100 per cent. I’m always going to fight for rights, and indeed probably for revolution. My politics have never been reformist politics. Inevitably I would have been always drawn towards Marriage Equality’s politics rather than those of GLEN. That being said, I do admire GLEN for the work that they do on a very broad spectrum, and would certainly always stay with that and continue to respect and admire their work and to support their work. On the issue of marriage and civil partnership, I’m for marriage. I just don’t want to do it myself, by the way, but I am for everybody’s right to marry.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call them fawning parasites. They are the people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions. What’s important to them is only their side just to justify their means. Oh, I’ve just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call it a fawning parasite. The are people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions, what’s important to them is only their side- TO JUSTIFIY THEIR MEANS. Oh, I just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

No one is perfect. This is the naked truth we all have to accept. And who the hell has said there are perfect ones, by the way? We won’t ever be perfect. There are Machiavellian aspects (not that worse kind of malicious behavior) in us. One of these aspects is acting obsequiously towards others in order to gain advantage and then backstabbing them in return. I call it a fawning parasite. The are people who are fond of picking unnecessary fights and they don’t care about their actions, what’s important to them is only their side- TO JUSTIFY THEIR MEANS. Oh, I just realized that the world is full of competition and others want to be just perfect jerks.

Cassian. I forgot you can mind-speak. Her laugh sounded. I can't decide whether I should be insulted or not. Perhaps I should be using the daemati gifts more often. She paused before saying, Are you all right? I should be asking you that. Rhys overreacted. He completely and utterly overreacted. Cassian shook his head, though Feyre couldn't see it. I'm sorry you had to learn of it. I'm not. I'm furious with all of you. I understand why you didn't tell me, but I'm furious. Well, we're furious with Nesta. She had the courage to tell me the truth. She told you the truth to hurt you. Perhaps. But she was the only one who said anything. Cassian sighed through his nose. She... He thought it over. I think she saw the parallels between your situations and, in her own way, decide to avenge both of you. That's my feeling, too. Rhys disagrees. I wish you'd found out a different way. Well, I didn't. But we'll face it together. All of us. How can you be so calm about this? The alternative is fear and panic. I will not let my son feel those things. I will fight for him, for us, until I no longer can. Cassian's throat tightened. We'll fight for you, too. I know. Feyre paused again. Rhys had no right to chase you from the city, or to threaten Nesta. He has realised that, and apologised. I want you to come back home. Both of you. Where did you even head off to? The wilderness. Cassian looked over a shoulder, to where Nesta had been asleep for the past few hours, curled into a tight ball against the wall of rock. I think we'll stay out here for a few days. We're going to hike. Nesta has never been on a hike in her life. I guarantee she will hate it. Then tell Rhys this is her punishment. Because Rhys, despite apologising for his threats, would still be furious. Tell him that Nesta and I are going to hike, and she's going to hate it, but she comes home when I decide she's ready to come home. Feyre was quiet for a long moment. He says that he knows he's supposed to say that's unnecessary, but to tell you he's secretly delighted. Good. I am secretly glad to hear that. Feyre laughed, and the sound was proof that she might have been hurt, startled by the news, but she was indeed adapting to it. Would not let it make her cower and cry. He didn't know why he'd expected any less of her. Feyre said, Please take care of her, Cassian. And yourself. Cassian glanced to the sleeping female nearly hidden in the shadows of the rock. I will.

The Dayaks had once been known as the headhunters of Borneo. They believed that if you chopped off the head of your enemy and ate his liver, you received his strength. That old, traditional, animistic belief still flourished—never addressed because under Suharto, discussing issues of race, religion, or ethnicity was banned. It was too “emotional,” too contentious, and in a society where order was largely imposed by the military, it was “unnecessary” to discuss and debate contentious issues because it only made things worse.

There is no room in my life for drugs, fights, divorce, adultery, sadism, unnecessary fuss and sex.

Surveillance capitalism’s drive toward certainty fills the space once occupied by all the human work of building and replenishing social trust, which is now reinterpreted as unnecessary friction in the march toward guaranteed outcomes.

That's where you're wrong, Princess.' His eyes glowed a fiery amber as he glared down at me. 'You don't have options when it comes to your own well-being and your own foolish stubbornness.' 'Excuse me?' 'I won't let you weaken or starve yourself because you're mad. And i do get it. I get why you're upset. Whey you want to fight me on everything, every step of the way.' He took that step toward me, and my spine locked up as I refused to back away. His eyes burned brighter. 'I want you to, Princess. I enjoy it.' 'You're twisted. 'Never said I wasn't,' he retorted. 'So, fight me. Argue with me. See if you can actually injure me next time. I dare you.' My eyes widened as I lowered my arms. 'You're... there's something wrong with you.' 'That may be true, but what is also true, is the fact that I will not let you put yourself in unnecessary danger.' 'Maybe you've forgotten, but I can handle myself.' 'I haven't forgotten. I won't ever prevent you from lifting a sword to protect your life or those you care about,' he said. 'But I won't let you shove that sword through your own heart to prove a point.

Why is success so ephemeral? Ego shortens it. Whether a collapse is dramatic or a slow erosion, it’s always possible and often unnecessary.

Arguments are going to happen, but the more you can do to prevent unnecessary arguments or to bring arguments to a productive conclusion, the less damage your fighting is going to do.

The professionals were heroes. The physicians and nurses and medical students and student nurses who were all dying in large numbers themselves held nothing of themselves back. And there were others. Ira Thomas played catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics. The baseball season had been shortened by Crowder’s “work or fight” order, since sport was deemed unnecessary labor. Thomas’s wife was a six-foot-tall woman, large-boned, strong. They had no children. Day after day he carried the sick in his car to hospitals and she worked in an emergency hospital.

Aaron was never shy about getting into fights before this incident and even after.

You cannot absorb losses!” Mazer shouted at him after one battle. “When you get into a real battle you won’t have the luxury of an infinite supply of computer-generated fighters. You’ll have what you brought with you and nothing more. Now get used to fighting without unnecessary waste.

A final form of intra-societal violence that is very significant is the collective killing of one male by the other males of the group. The rationale for such killings seems to be that the male singled out for killing has become so violent and dangerous that he must be eliminated in order to protect the group from further episodes of unnecessary intra-group violence or dominating behaviour. As far as one can tell, such individuals are typically very good warriors. They seem to authenticate their value to the community by displaying their fighting ability. They bully and injure or kill other males in the group, they likely access other men’s women (although that is likely played down in the accounts of such incidents to the recorders), and their behaviour is so intolerable that they become more dangerous to the community than their value as a good warrior warrants. Because they are dangerous, killing them needs to be done carefully. Moreover, if not done properly, their relatives may feel it was unjust and seek revenge. In some cases, the community instructs the individual’s close relatives to kill him in order to eliminate any basis for revenge. In others, it is a community act. There is one account given to me directly by a Yanomamo tribesman visiting the United States of a Yanomamo dangerous warrior who, it is decided, must be killed. He is tricked into climbing a tree, and by necessity leaves his weapons behind. As he climbs down, weaponless, he is beset by all the males and killed." (Steven Leblanc)

BLOW FROM THE BOTTOM LEFT INTO THE TORSO Unlike other blows from the bottom, this blow can be fully used in an attack, because it easily reaches the target. The right hand of the opponent, usually covering the torso, is not difficult to bring from the defensive position a marked left blow to the head. At that moment, the left hand, changing direction, quickly strikes the bottom The blow from the bottom left in the torso differs from the same blow in the head only by the direction of the striking hand (the inclined line to the target). All other body movements are the same as with the previous stroke. The blow from the bottom left in the torso, in the close-up fight, is dealt with at the moment when the opponent's torso tilts forward. The speed of the blow increases as you approach the target. The blow ends with a sharp jerk, resulting from the work of the abdominal, back, leg and hand muscles that strikes. When striking a blow, the whole body of the attacker should be free from unnecessary stress.

She would walk away from fights she deemed unnecessary, while never shying away from the important ones. She knew when to tease, when to flatter, and when to punch the bully in the nose.

At Google, different teams tried declaring “No-Meeting Wednesday” or “No-Meeting Thursday.” None was ever able to stick to it. Greg Badros, an engineering leader at Google and Facebook, set a goal of ending 25 percent of his meetings early. I loved that, but I don’t think he ever hit the goal. I have found that the most effective solution is simply to fight fire with fire. For the same reason, I blocked off think-time in calendar; I also found it necessary to block off time in my calendar to be alone and execute. I encouraged others to do the same. This helped them say “no” to more unnecessary meetings.

Collin sighed, looking at the door frame instead of me now. As if to himself, he said, “It’s a good story. I like Jack.” “Why?” “Get the eggs out. Save the goose. Sneak them away from the Giant. It’s like what we do.” “Well… I guess so. It is what we do,” and I paused, sinking into his words. The last thing I heard was my own voice, a thought that escaped my mind, spoken right before sleep overtook me. “But this is such a strange way to fight a war.

My mother’s lips stopped trembling right before she spoke. “Because that means they lose something they aren’t willing to: their power. Everyone protects what they aren’t willing to lose.” As I looked out at the horizon and the Circles and realized how true it was. We weren’t willing to lose the lives the Republic stole. The Protectors risked their lives for the chance to steal them back.

Being a victim of poisoning by others triggers a secondary self-destructive self-poisoning. The persecution and lack of respect for one's autonomy, combined with helplessness and nihilism. Nietzsche used the French resentment, rather than the German equivalent, probably to add to anger and enviousness, the nuance rehashing of hurt feelings. This is unnecessary in English, which has two senses in one word He was suggesting that a child's powerlessness, the inability to resist the abuse inflicted by adults, is at least as damaging as the abuse itself. When Nietzsche was fighting resentment and nihilism in his writings, he was fighting something he knew personally very well and tried to overcome: 'Choose the good solitude, the free, wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you the right still to remain good in any sense whatsoever! How poisonous, how crafty, how bad, does every long war make one, which cannot be waged openly by means of force!

I closed my eyes and laughed, feeling that at least that made them a little more human than I imagined. But only a little. I kept my eyes focused on the door, not moving as he spoke again. “People find what they are looking for, Aislyn. See if you find it. See if it makes your heart beat faster and makes your soul fight for something. Be curious enough to find a reason to be brave, and bravery will find you.

I do not want casual pain. I want all of it or none of it. If I must have pain, then give me tragedy, give me outright suffering, give me everything horrible so I may find salvation in the hurt of it all and have a story to tell. Casual pain does not warrant sympathy, nor great art. That is our tragedy- that we are forced into mediocrity. Greatness and destitution are forced upon people as unwilling as us, but they make something of themselves. The great want to preserve their greatness, the destitute want to earn greatness, and we, us folk in the middle, are cursed to never feel or experience as much as the others. We are numb, we are average, we are nothing, in the end. We are not terribly dissatisfied with mediocrity, but we still wish for more. Wishing does nothing, and in the end we must fight through the pains of work if we want anything in this world. That is the most unfair thing about society, I think; that we try to be fair, failing where we shouldn't and succeeding where it is unnecessary. Do any of us deserve this pain? Not at all. Will we still recieve it? Without a doubt. And that is the greater pain, I believe, never having a tragic enough story, but still feeling pain nonetheless. We are not remembered for our mediocrity. We are remembered for our greatness, and our greatness only. Men and women, families and children, they will forget your name in years to come. But write the pages of history, and you are a legend.

Fear freezes the heart of your adversary, so he doesn't even pull out his sword, and someone fights out of fear with you, although he would be opponent. On the other side, respect is like a chalice with mead, decorated with jewels, or a specially decorated cover of prayer book - an unnecessary splendor, and that's why it's better to feel ear.

A journey like this has so many challenges and discomforts that you can’t avoid. Between my body being sore and tired, dealing with the elements, fighting with gear . . .  it would be awesome if I could at least get good sleep.” “You’re thinking in the right direction, Misplaced. Yes, there are difficulties that you cannot avoid on this kind of journey. You simply have to endure them. In the Rangers, one of our mottos was to ‘adapt and overcome.’ We have to do a lot of that on the trail. If you can remove some unnecessary difficulties, you’ll have more stamina to overcome the ones you have to face. But to remove those challenges, you sometimes have to think beyond the usual expectations, to try stuff that is outside of the norm. When people think of camping, they think of tents. But if you ask most folks how they sleep in a tent, the answer is not usually very positive. So why not try something different?” “Yeah, it’s that old ‘But we’ve never done it that way,’ rut that folks get into. If you keep doing the same things, you keep getting the same results. If I keep sleeping in a tent because that’s what you do when you camp, then I’ll keep sleeping poorly and waking up sore. I really want to try and change that.” Misplaced liked the way his new friend was willing to challenge established norms.

Pierson is in the Nether. They are still fighting the Dragons.” I replied. “Oh, I see.” Valerian said. “I sent only a handful of my men to join the fray. There is no point in leaving our village completely empty and taking any unnecessary risks at the moment.” “This war shouldn’t have started to begin with. I am doing my best to stop it…” I said. “Very well, then you have my full support, war between humans and dragon is completely useless, and have no real advantage for any side. I’d rather keep peace in the world.” “Yes, I have come all the way to ask you a question. I would like to know if you will allow me to speak to your villagers who witnessed a dragon flying by Boster village?” “What, can you say that again?” “There has been a rumor that a Nether Dragon was seen with a group of Endermen in this area. I really need to know

[And conversely, Woodrow Wilson finishes dead last.] Yes [...] I think World War I was avoidable for the United States, certainly; we kind of look back on Germany as being 'evil' (because of World War II), but back in World War I it was much more ambiguous who was at fault - and the allies, including our French and British allies and the Russians also were at fault - and after World War I there was a revulsion because the Bolsheviks released their correspondences with Britain and France: Britain and France were trying to grab colonies, and so the American people said, 'We were fighting...we lost all these people in this massive war just to help these people grab territory?' So there was a revulsion at that time; we don't hear that now because we're distant from it. Woodrow Wilson has been elevated as one of the better presidents but I think if you go back and look at it, the war was avoidable...and of course Woodrow Wilson helped bring Hitler to power by insisting on the abdication of the Kaiser after World War I - which was totally unnecessary. Germany was a constitutional monarchy before the war, and was vilified. It was actually the most aggressive state in Europe [...] and there were many things wrong with the Kaiser's personality, but I think Germany is unnecessarily vilified for that war.

A wise man discerns battles worth fighting and shuns unnecessary battles. He only fights battles whose victories crown him with greatness.

Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger. What my father was trying to tell me, as he neared the conclusion of his own course, was that this risk should not be treated lightly: One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.

Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that we can endure the oppressions and unfairnesses by which we profit. The conventional conception of what constitutes success leads most men to live a life in which their most vital impulses are sacrificed, and the joy of life is lost in listless weariness. Our economic system compels almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to secure a certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor of the community, the expansive affections of individuals, and the power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary and can be ended by wisdom and courage.