“
Gestalt Prayer
I do my thing and you do yours.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
And if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.
”
”
Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)
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Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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Since every country stands in numerous and various relations with the other countries of the world, and many, our own among the number, exercise actual authority over some of these, a knowledge of the established rules of international morality is essential to the duty of every nation, and therefore of every person in it who helps to make up the nation, and whose voice and feeling form a part of what is called public opinion. Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just and noble.
”
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John Stuart Mill (Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 (Collected Works))
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Attaining consciousness is connected with the gradual liberation from mechanicalness, for man is fully and completely under mechanical laws.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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If one does not develop, one goes down. In life, in ordinary conditions everything goes down, or one capacity may develop at the expense of another.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
“
Maya was the most effective talker I knew. It was like she wrote essays in her brain and then recited them verbatim. She once explained to me that she thought this was part of being Black in America. “Every black person who spends time with a lot of white people eventually ends up being asked to speak for every black person,” she told me one night after it was too late to still be talking, “and I hate that. It’s really stupid. And everyone gets to respond to that idiocy however they want. But my anxiety eventually made me extremely careful about everything I said, because of course I don’t represent capital-B Black People, but if people think I do, then I still feel a responsibility to try to do it well.
”
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Hank Green (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls, #1))
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The purpose of education is to save young people from the paralyzing effects of wealth and poverty. (more or less verbatim quote)
”
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Kurt Hahn
“
Sydney: Can I ask you a question? Me: As long as you promise never again to start a question off with whether or not you can propose a question. Sydney: Okay, asshole. I know I shouldn't be thinking about him at all, but I'm curious. What did he wrote on that paper when we went to get my purse? And what did you write back that made hit you? Me: I agree that you shouldn't be thinking about him at all, but I'm honestly shocked it's taken you this long to ask me about it. Sydney: Well? Ugh. I hate writing it verbatim, but she wants to know, so... Me: He wrote "Are you fucking her?" Sydney: OMG! What a prick! Me: Yep. Sydney: So what did you say back to him that made him punch you? Me: I write, "Why do you think I'm here for her purse? I gave her a hundred for tonight, and now she owes me change." I reread the text, and I'm not so sure it sounds as funny as I thought it did.
”
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Colleen Hoover (Maybe Someday (Maybe, #1))
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Everything 'happens'. People can 'do' nothing. From the time we are born to the time we die things happen, happen, happen, and we think we are doing. This is our normal state in life, and even the smallest possibility to do something comes only through the work, and first only in oneself, not externally.
”
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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I told Vivvie what the person who’d answered had said, verbatim.
”
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Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Fixer (The Fixer, #1))
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Many things are mechanical and should remain mechanical. But mechanical thoughts, mechanical feelings—that is what has to be studied and can and should be changed. Mechanical thinking is not worth a penny. You can think about many things mechanically, but you will get nothing from it.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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Nell's husband has short-man syndrome. Eddie is one of those deadly dull people who is so upbeat that I suspect he would subconsciously like to go through the neighborhood, house by house, with a machine gun. He seems oblivious to the effect that his long, rambling monologues have on people - he doesn't notice the blank faces, the fingers flexing like those of people buried alive, the ocular tics. You could write down his words verbatim, show them to him, and he'd probably say, 'I know someone just like that!' Then he'd tell you about that person until your teeth hurt. His hostage-taking is passive-aggressive.
”
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Anne Lamott (Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith)
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Intensive mothering is the ultimate female Olympics: We are all in powerful competition with each other, in constant danger of being trumped by the mom down the street, or in the magazine we're reading. The competition isn't just over who's a good mother--it's over who's the best. We compete with each other; we compete with ourselves. The best mothers always put their kids' needs before their own, period. The best mothers are the main caregivers. For the best mothers, their kids are the center of the universe. The best mothers always smile. They always understand. They are never tired. They never lose their temper. They never say, "Go to the neighbor's house and play while Mommy has a beer." Their love for their children is boundless, unflagging, flawless, total. Mothers today cannot just respond to their kids' needs, they must predict them--and with the telepathic accuracy of Houdini. They must memorize verbatim the books of all the child-care experts and know which approaches are developmentally appropriate at different ages. They are supposed to treat their two-year-olds with "respect." If mothers screw up and fail to do this on any given day, they should apologize to their kids, because any misstep leads to permanent psychological and/or physical damage. Anyone who questions whether this is the best and the necessary way to raise kids is an insensitive, ignorant brute. This is just common sense, right?
”
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Susan J. Douglas
“
There is no question of faith or belief in all this. Quite the opposite,this system teaches people to believe in absolutely nothing. You must verify everything that you see, hear and feel. Only in that way can you come to something.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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I am making a correction to one of the quotes you guys have for Sly Stallone; It's not ethical to put " " around words saying a person said something and did not. Hence the meaning of quoting someone; means that person said exactly what you're putting quotes around-Verbatim. Here's the real quote by Sly Stallone in Rocky Balboa; "It ain't about how hard you can hit it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." Under your quote guidelines should read only enter quotes if you without a doubt are in fact quoting something someone said verbatim.
”
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Sylvester Stallone
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Q. But it seems to me there are circumstances that simply induce one to have negative emotions!
A. This is one of the worst illusions we have. We think that negative emotions are produced by circumstances, whereas all negative emotions are in us, inside us. This is a very important point. We always think our negative emotions are produced by the fault of other people or by the fault of circumstances. We always think that. Our negative emotions are in ourselves and are produced by ourselves. There is absolutely not a single unavoidable reason why somebody else's action or some circumstance should produce a negative emotion in me. It is only my weakness. No negative emotion can be produced by external causes if we do not want it. We have negative emotions because we permit them, justify them, explain them by external causes, and in this way we do not struggle with them.
”
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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After a few minutes I stopped David and asked each group to tell him what they had “heard.” The content group fed his words back to him almost verbatim. David nodded. The emotion group picked up on his frustration, embarrassment, and helplessness. David acknowledged all of this. The group listening for intent delivered the blow: “You aren’t going to do anything about this. Right now, it’s all just words.” David blanched and disagreed with their assessment. On the very next break, he helped himself to brownies. David had given us the usual rhetoric that most of us hear and even say ourselves when trying to lose weight: “I’ve got to get a handle on this. I’m going to watch what
”
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Susan Scott (Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time)
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Every individual, every plant, every animal
has only one inborn goal—to actualize itself as it is.
”
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Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)
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In true Bastien form—and keeping in mind that he’s only seven at the time—he yanks off his helmet, throws his backpack down, and lies on the ground, using the helmet for a pillow, and says to them, and I quote verbatim, ‘Later, bitches. I’m done for the day. Y'all can carry me home or call for a lift. Either way, I ain’t moving from here. My ass is too precious for this abuse.
”
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Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Vengeance (The League: Nemesis Rising, #10))
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Q. Surely it is easier to be objective about other people than about oneself?
A. No, it is more difficult. If you become objective to yourself you can see other people objectively, but not before, because before that it will all be coloured by your own views, attitudes, tastes, by what you like and what you dislike. To be objective you must be free from it all. You can become objective to yourself in the state of self-consciousness: this is the first experience of coming into contact with the real object.
”
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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Quoting someone and rewriting their words makes it a quote from you and not them any longer. To change the meaning of someone's words without permission is offensive enough, to then contact the quoted person and try to justify it to them is even worse. It's verbatim or bust!
”
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Stewart Stafford
“
What kind of understanding?" he murmured almost absently, his mind clearly on other, more provocative things.
The trace of amusement in his voice irritated her, as if he were merely humoring her. Savannah pushed at the solid wall of his chest to put a few inches between them. His large frame didn't budge, and she was locked in by his arm. She pushed at him again. "Forget it."
He bent his head to taste the vulnerable line of her neck, to feel her pulse in the warm, moist cavern of his mouth. His blood surged and pounded. Little jackhammers began to beat at his skull. "I am listening to every word you say, ma petite," he murmured, lost in her softness, in the scent of her. He wanted her with every fiber of his being, every cell in his body. "I could repeat each word verbatim, if you desire.
”
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Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
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7. This is a consensus view among scholars today. For one thing, Matthew used Mark as a source for many of his stories, copying out the Greek word for word in some passages. If our Matthew was a Greek translation of a Hebrew original, it would not be possible to explain the verbatim agreement of Matthew with Mark in the Greek itself.
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Bart D. Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them))
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Dialogue in the works of autobiography is quite naturally viewed with some suspicion. How on earth can the writer remember verbatim conversations that happened fifteen, twenty, fifty years ago? But 'Are you playing, Bob?' is one of only four sentences I have ever uttered to any Arsenal player (for the record the others are 'How's the leg, Bob?' to Bob Wilson, recovering from injury the following season; 'Can I have your autograph, please?' to Charlie George, Pat Rice, Alan Ball and Bertie Mee; and, well, 'How's the leg, Brian?' to Brian Marwood outside the Arsenal club shop when I was old enough to know better) and I can therefore vouch for its absolute authenticity.
”
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Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch)
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It’s true that we all construct our own knowledge, in the sense that we don’t just store facts we’ve heard verbatim. We need to interpret and synthesize to achieve true understanding.
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Natalie Wexler (The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--and How to Fix it)
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Não podemos tentar ser mais emocionais; quanto mais tentarmos, menos emocionais seremos. Podemos tentar ser conscientes e, se nos tornarmos mais conscientes, nos tornaremos mais emocionais.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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Pastor Jón: God has the virtue that one can locate Him anywhere at all, in anything at all.
Embi: In a nail, for instance?
Pastor Jón, verbatim: In school debates the question was sometimes put whether God was not incapable of creating a stone so heavy that He couldn't lift it. Often I think the Almighty is like a snow bunting abandoned in all weathers. Such a bird is about the weight of a postage stamp. Yet he does not blow away when he stands in the open in a tempest. Have you ever seen the skull of a snow bunting? He wields this fragile head against the gale, with his beak to the ground, wings folded close to his sides and his tail pointing upwards; and the wind can get no hold on him, and cleaves. Even in the fiercest squalls the bird does not budge. He is becalmed. Not a single feather stirs.
Embi: How do you know the bird is the Almighty, and not the wind?
Pastor Jón: Because the winter storm is the most powerful force in Iceland, and the snow bunting is the feeblest of all God's conceptions.
”
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Halldór Laxness (Under the Glacier)
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Thomas Jefferson thought that the United States ought to have a revolution every generation so that democracy could periodically purge itself of contaminants. He meant political revolutions; we have watered down his advice and created a succession of “lifestyle” revolutions instead. Just at the point when a radical innovation or movement might begin to elicit significant discussion within our social order, it makes the cover of Time and receives testimonials from one or two Hollywood stars. Thus elevated into harmlessness, it is soon discarded, leaving little more than a vague, residual stain on our cultural fashions.
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Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)
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I said, verbatim, ‘I go, and I try to get your brother. You help me and assist me in any way I ask you to, and you do as you’re told. You agree to this pact?’ to which you replied, ‘Yes, gods, I agree! Just get on with it!
”
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Callie Hart (Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1))
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He had the quality of mind that could read a page at a glance and commit it to memory, hear a lesson and repeat it verbatim, store the names of persons, places, characters, countries in a particular box in his brain and unlock it, when he chose, without a fault in recollection, and so astonish his company—his father in particular. Naturally left-handed, he could write equally well with either hand, and could even, in later years, write two letters at the same time, one with his right hand and one with his left.
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Daphne du Maurier (The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë)
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Because this law could mean so much or so little, it held potential for causing great mischief in the world of art and politics. We needed to reduce its uncertainty, and the best way to do that, I believed, was to force a court to interpret it, which would either void or narrow the law. To make it as broad a target as possible and to assure that someone would sue us, I reproduced the Helms amendment verbatim in the terms and conditions for grant recipients. It could not be ignored there, and if it was to be declared unconstitutional, it had to appear where the courts could not ignore it either.
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John Frohnmayer (Leaving Town Alive)
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Zachary's mother, Lucy, waylaid him on the third-floor landing and offered, unsolicited, her opinion that the Traumatics had been the kind of adolescently posturing, angst-mongering boy group that never interested her. Then she waited, with parted lips and a saucy challenge in her eyes, to see how her presence --the drama of being her-- was registering. In the way of such chicks, she seemed convinced of the originality of her provocation. Katz had encountered, practically verbatim, the same provocation a hundred times before, which put him in the ridiculous position now of feeling bad for being unable to pretend to be provoked: of pitying Lucy's doughty little ego, its floatation on a sea of aging-female insecurity. He doubted he could get anywhere with her even if he felt like trying, but he knew that her pride would be hurt if he didn't make at least a token effort to be disagreeable. (p. 194)
”
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Jonathan Franzen (Freedom)
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I sit for a few moments in the empty courtroom. If this were like old times, I would got home and tell Delia that I'd lost the hearing. I'd repeat verbatim what the judge had said, and I'd ask her to interpret it. We'd dissect my performance until she finally threw up her hands and said we were going nowhere with any of this.
She will not be back tonight, I suppose. And we're still going nowhere.
”
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Jodi Picoult (Vanishing Acts)
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Peter Drucker, in my view the father of modern management thinking, was also a master of the art of the graceful no. When Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian professor most well known for his work on “flow,” reached out to interview a series of creative individuals for a book he was writing on creativity, Drucker’s response was interesting enough to Mihaly that he quoted it verbatim: “I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th – for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative – I don’t know what that means…. I just keep on plodding…. I hope you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity (in which I believe whereas I do not believe in creativity) is to have a VERY BIG waste paper basket to take care of ALL invitations such as yours – productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.”8 A true Essentialist, Peter Drucker believed that “people are effective because they say no.
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Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
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One night when I was pregnant with Henry, I lay in bed thinking for some reason, about "Treasure Island." I realized that from the entire book there was only one sentence I remembered verbatim, something that Ben Gunn, who has been marooned for three years, says to Jim Hawkins: "Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese -- toasted mostly." I repeated the last two words over and over again, like a mantra. "Toasted, mostly. Toasted mostly.
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Anne Fadiman (Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader)
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Mario Incandenza has a severely limited range of verbatim recall. Schtitt was educated in pre-Unification Gymnasium under the rather Kanto-Hegelian idea that jr. athletics was basically just training for citizenship, that jr. athletics was about learning to sacrifice the hot narrow imperatives of the Self — the needs, the desires, the fears, the multiform cravings of the individual appetitive will — to the larger imperatives of a team (OK, the State) and a set of delimiting rules (OK, the Law).
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David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
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First-century discipleship was expressed as a servant-master relationship (see Matthew 10:24). Once accepted as a disciple, a young man started as a talmidh, or beginner, who sat in the back of the room and could not speak. Then he became a distinguished student, who took an independent line in his approach or questioning. At the next level, he became a disciple-associate, who sat immediately behind the rabbi during prayer time. Finally he achieved the highest level, a disciple of the wise, and was recognized as the intellectual equal of his rabbi.'"
2. Memorizing the teacher's words: Oral tradition provided the basic way of studying. Disciples learned the teacher's words verbatim to pass along to the next person. Often disciples learned as many as
four interpretations of each major passage in the Torah.
3. Learning the teacher's way of ministry: A disciple learned how his teacher kept God's commands, including how he practiced the Sabbath, fasted, prayed, and said blessings in ceremonial situations. He would also learn his rabbi's teaching methods and the many traditions his master followed.
4. Imitating the teacher's life and character: Jesus said that when a disciple is fully taught, he "will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). The highest calling of a disciple was to imitate his teacher. Paul called on Timothy to follow his example (see 2 Timothy 3:10-14), and he didn't hesitate to call on all believers to do the same (see 1 Corinthians 4:14-16; 1 1:1; Philippians 4:9). One story in ancient tradition tells of a rabbinical student so devoted to his teacher that he hid in the teacher's bedchamber to discover the mentor's sexual technique. To be sure, this is a bit extreme, yet it demonstrates the level of commitment required to be a disciple.
5. Raising up their own disciples: When a disciple finished his training, he was expected to reproduce what he'd learned by finding and training his own apprentices. He would start his own school and call it after his name, such as the House of Hillel.
”
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Bill Hull (The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ (The Navigators Reference Library 1))
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There is no doubt that Earth Central, the planetary and sector AIs, and even some ship and drone AIs are capable, without acquiring additional processing space, of setting up synergetic systems within themselves that result in an exponential climb in intelligence (mathematically defined as climbing beyond all known scales within minutes). So why not? Ask then why a human, capable of learning verbatim the complete works of Shakespeare, instead drinks a bottle of brandy, then giggles a lot and falls over.
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Neal Asher (Polity Agent (Agent Cormac, #4))
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The pilgrimage of Italy, which I now accomplished, had long been the object of my curious devotion. The passage of Mount Cenis, the regular streets of Turin, the Gothic cathedral of Milan, the scenery of the Boromean Islands, the marble palaces of Genoa, the beauties of Florence, the wonders of Rome, the curiosities of Naples, the galleries of Bologna, the singular aspect of Venice, the amphitheatre of Verona, and the Palladian architecture of Vicenza, are still present to my imagination. I read the Tuscan writers on the banks of the Arno; but my conversation was with the dead rather than the living, and the whole college of Cardinals was of less value in my eyes than the transfiguration of Raphael, the Apollo of the Vatican, or the massy greatness of the Coliseum. It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind. After Rome has kindled and satisfied the enthusiasm of the Classic pilgrim, his curiosity for all meaner objects insensibly subsides.
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Edward Gibbon (Autobiographies; printed verbatim from hitherto unpublished MSS., with an introd. by the Earl of Sheffield. Edited by John Murray)
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Depende de como você entende essa palavra, "esotérico" significa interno. O esoterismo encerra a idéia da existência de um círculo interno da humanidade. Lembra-se de como a humanidade foi descrita como constituída de quatro círculos - o esotérico, o mesotérico e o exotérico, que formam o círculo interior, e o círculo exterior no qual vivemos? A idéia de esoterismo implica a idéia de transmissão do conhecimento; presume a existência de um grupo de pessoas a quem pertence um certo conhecimento. Não se deve compreender isso de alguma forma mística, porém mais precisamente, de forma concreta. Há muitas diferenças entre os círculos interno e externo. Por exemplo, muitas coisas que queremos descobrir ou criar só podem existir no círculo interno.
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P.D. Ouspensky (The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46)
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Heisenberg repeated his story about the German bomb program to anyone who would listen for the rest of his life. Goudsmit, who had access to the Farm Hall reports and had seen the pathetic remnants of the Nazi nuclear program firsthand, knew Heisenberg’s story was a fabrication. But, with the existence of the Farm Hall transcripts itself classified, Goudsmit could state only that Heisenberg was lying, without explaining how he knew. The first popular account of the Manhattan Project, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, written by the Swiss journalist Robert Jungk in 1958, repeated Heisenberg’s story almost verbatim. So did The Virus House, the first book dedicated solely to the history of the German bomb program, which relied heavily on interviews from Heisenberg and his fellow former Farm Hall detainees. (The author, David Irving, was later revealed to be a Holocaust denier.)
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Adam Becker (What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics)
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The memory was the only recording instrument of the great part of the population. Deeds and transfers were made permanent by beating young retainers so they would remember. The training of the Welsh poets was not practice but memorizing. On knowing 10,000 poems, one took a position. This has always been true. Written words have destroyed what must have been a remarkable instrument. The Pastons speak of having the messenger read the letter so that he could repeat it verbatim if it was stolen or lost. And some of these letters were complicated. If Malory were in prison, it is probably true that he didn't need books. He knew them. If I had only twelve books in my library I would know them by heart. And how many men had no memory in the fifteenth century? No - the book owned must have been supplemented by the book borrowed and thus by the book heard. The tremendous history of the Persian Wars of Herodotus was known by all Athenians and it was not read by them, it was read to them.
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John Steinbeck
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The earliest memory treatises described two types of recollection: memoria rerum and memoria verborum, memory for things and memory for words. When approaching a text or a speech, one could try to remember the gist, or one could try to remember verbatim. The Roman rhetoric teacher Quintilian looked down on memoria verborum on the grounds that creating such a vast number of images was not only inefficient, since it would require a gargantuan memory palace, but also unstable. If your memory for a speech hinged on knowing every word, then not only did you have a lot more to remember, but if you forgot a single word, you could end up trapped in a room of your memory palace staring at a blank wall, lost and unable to move on. Cicero agreed that the best way to memorize a speech is point by point, not word by word, by employing memoria rerum. In his De Oratore, he suggests that an orator delivering a speech should make one image for each major topic he wants to cover, and place each of those images at a locus. Indeed, the word “topic” comes from the Greek word topos, or place. (The phrase “in the first place” is a vestige from the art of memory.)
”
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Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)
“
Susannah smiled at them nervously, then looked up at the route-map. "Hello, Blaine."
"HOWDY, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK."
Her heart was pounding, her armpits were damp, and here was something she had first discovered way back in the first grade: it was hard to begin. It was hard to stand up in front of the class and be first with your song, your joke, your report on how you spent your summer vacation ... or your riddle, for that matter. The one she had decided upon was one from Jake Chambers's crazed English essay, which he had recited to them almost verbatim during their long palaver after leaving the old people of River Crossing. The essay, titled "My Understanding of Truth," had contained two riddles, one of which Eddie had already used on Blaine.
"SUSANNAH? ARE YOU THERE, L'IL COWGIRL?"
Teasing again, but this time the teasing sounded light, good-natured. Good-humored. Blaine could be charming when he got what he wanted. Like certain spoiled children she had known.
"Yes, Blaine, I am, and here is my riddle. What has four wheels and flies?"
There was a peculiar click, as if Blaine were mimicking the sound of a man popping his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was followed by a brief pause. When Blaine replied, most of the jocularity had gone out of his voice. "THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, OF COURSE. A CHILD'S RIDDLE. IF THE REST OF YOUR RIDDLES ARE NO BETTER, I WILL BE EXTREMELY SORRY I SAVED YOUR LIVES FOR EVEN A SHORT WHILE.
”
”
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
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Artistic license, also known poetic license, narrative license, and licentiate poetical, is a colloquial term (employed occasionally as a euphemism), which denotes a license to distort the facts, alter the conventions of grammar or language, or reword pre-existing text by an artist in the name of art. Liberal usage of an artistic license to restructure basic facts can result because of conscious or unconscious acts. Artistic embellishment or misrepresentation of the facts and distortion or alteration of the compositional text frequently is the by-product of both intentional and unintentional additions and omissions. An artistic license, employed at an artist’s discretion to fill in details or gloss over factual and historical gaps, raises some ethical issues. Many stories retold verbatim would bore an audience or require inordinate time and resources to reenact, describe, and view. A dramatic license eliminates mundane details and tedious facts, spruces up the picturesque background, and glamorizes the characters’ temperament and action scenes. Is it wrong to be inventive with the facts? What degree of embroidery of a series of events and the characters’ mannerisms and attributes is acceptable? How can anyone paste together a set of facts into an interesting or compelling narrative that has literary value without engaging in some creative organization to enhance the theatrical retelling and to create juxtaposition of ideas and values?
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
I met [Martin] Amis once, after arriving too early for a party at a bar in Manhattan. He was smaller than I expected, with a tall, handsome head... He glanced at the Roth novel I had on me, When She Was Good. ‘He stumbled there’, he said. And then he proceeded to do what’s not really done anymore at literary parties, if it ever was, and intoned verbatim:
She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise. As soon as the last bell had sounded, I would rush off for home, wondering as I ran if I could possibly make it to our apartment before she had succeeded in transforming herself. Invariably she was already in the kitchen by the time I arrived, and setting out my milk and cookies. Instead of causing me to give up my delusions, however, the feat merely intensified my respect for her powers. And then it was always a relief not to have caught her between incarnations anyway – even if I never stopped trying; I knew that my father and sister were innocent of my mother’s real nature, and the burden of betrayal that I imagined would fall to me if I ever came upon her unawares was more than I wanted to bear at the age of five. I think I even feared that I might have to be done away with were I to catch sight of her flying in from school through the bedroom window, or making herself emerge, limb by limb, out of an invisible state and into her apron.
And it went on. He had the first few pages of Portnoy’s Complaint to hand like a hip flask.
”
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Thomas Meaney
“
... family men, Claude."
"Then why aren't they home with their families?"
"You haven't been listening to me, Claude. It takes lots of honey to raise a family these days..." No, it isn't even that, these teddy bears don't like honey as much as they think they do. They think they're supposed to like it, the way they're supposed to like women and children. They think they're supposed to act like real grizzlies, but they don't feel it. You can't blame them, they just don't have it inside them. What they have, what they love most, is their memories: how the Coach used to shout niceworkpal whenever they caught the big ball or somehow hit the little one, how Dad used to wink when they caught one of his jokes, how when they repeated them he almost died laughing, so they told them and told them - if they told one really well he might do it. They memorized all the conversations verbatim, that about the pussies and the coons, the homers and the balls, the cams and the bearings. They're still memorizing. You can see them almost anytime you're out driving, there in the slow car just ahead, the young man at the wheel, the old man talking, the young man leaning a little to the right in order to hear better, the old man pointing out the properties, the young man looking and listening earnestly, straining to catch the old man's last word, the last joke verbatim, the last bit of know-how about the deals and the properties and the honey. When he thinks he's learned all he can from the old man, he'll shove him out of the car. You watch, next time you're out driving. "...these
are the cream, Claude." These are the all-American fairies.
”
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Douglas Woolf (Wall to Wall (American Literature))
“
As a younger man, I burned with enthusiasm for my work: I was to be a warrior, the champion of reviled or exiled passions. I would assail the forces marshaled to enslave these passions, the tyrannies imposed in the name of factitious moralities, the sadistic compulsions disguised as highest law. I would be, in my silent, expensive way, the apostle of a thrilling freedom. When did it abandon me, that faith? How often have I heard it repeated, nearly verbatim, that commonplace of every educated, sophisticated patient: I don’t believe in judgment, in divine judgment; I don’t believe that someone is sitting up in the sky frowning down at me. In the past I would have thought: Yes, you do— and that is your problem. In the fullness of time I would assist them in shaking free of this secret conviction. Now, though, my calling has deserted me. The premise wasn’t wrong: most patients suffer more than they know from obscure inner persecutions. What I did not realize, however, was how deeply I myself believed in such a judgment, how along with my patients I embraced with inalienable fidelity that very conviction. This conviction did not presume a personified judge— bearded, severe, enthroned. It presumed instead a law, inhuman, abstract, and implacable, the law to which we owed our lives, the law to which we owed our reckoning. Failure, worth, crisis, potential, fulfillment. Every patient returns to these words again and again. They are the words from which my profession is made, and each of these words presumes a judgment, a mark attained or missed. No one enters my office who does not believe in his very marrow that judgment, some judgment, is absolute and fixed. The person I am meant to be: that mythical creature, that being whom each patient longs and dreads to become, is itself a judgment, a standard one does not devise but to which one must account. What or who set the standard? What or who measured the body for its soul? What or who meant them to be the people they were meant to be? I am certain: belief in judgment is not what my patients reject or grow out of. The belief in judgment is what they cling to. Beneath their affections and afflictions, judgment is their one true love.
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DeSales Harrison (The Waters & The Wild)
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There is a tendency today to dismiss vaudeville comedy as unsophisticated and even simplistic. Burns himself often apologized when he quoted verbatim from old routines: “This doesn’t sound like much now” was usually the tone. But those fascinated by the history of show business cannot but be entertained. Gracie’s singing in the shows of the ’30s adds an element totally missing from the later run. In the sitcom years it all changed: the lines were perhaps funnier, but the comedy was somehow more predictable.
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John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
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and I use that term precisely. You can understand exactly one-half of what an Australian person says. Generally, it’s the first half: “You know, if I was running your Congress I’d langa danga langa danga danga.” But sometimes you can follow only the second half: “Langa danga langa danga and I woke up with a dead hooker covered in shrimp.” I’ve made six wonderful trips Down Under and have met only one local who didn’t love The Simpsons—he was my tour guide to the city of Cairns. What follows is a verbatim transcript from the long day we spent together:
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Mike Reiss (Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons)
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We’re at a point in time where we have the resources and tools available to us to break the chains of our karmic patterning. We’re in fact creating new possibilities; the universe, source, doesn’t create the same thing verbatim twice, even if it looks the same on the surface the internal makeup, the DNA, the experience is unique.
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Victoria L. White (Learning To Love: And The Power of Sacred Sexual Spiritual Partnerships)
“
Liam Deasy, who had become increasingly disenchanted with the war, after capture had issued a statement to his fellow officers deploring the conflict which he thought had reached the stage where it might lead to British being welcomed back with more enthusiasm than was shown for their departure.26 De Valera promptly drew up a statement rejecting Deasy’s initiative with a covering letter in which he argued that peace without political advantage to his side would be ‘awful’.27 Lynch issued the statement verbatim and the civil war continued uselessly for four more months.
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Tim Pat Coogan (Michael Collins: A Biography)
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What I want y’all to take from Rhythm and my story is that love is not always easy. Shit, love is hard. Now bitches, don’t let any nigga just play with your heart and emotions because he throw around the love word, but know that we make fucking mistakes. And niggas, stop chasing these thot ass bitches when you know that your soul mate is at home praying that you make it in safely. When Rhy gave me a second chance, I promised her and God himself that another chick could never even feel like she had a chance at conversing with me. So ladies, get you a Hood. A nigga who’s a little bit of crazy, nasty as hell, and madly in love with you. And niggas, well, you couldn’t find another Rhythm even if you followed the manual verbatim. Thank you all for rooting for us though. Rhythm was definitely a dope boy’s heart beat! The
”
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Niqua Nakell (Rhythm & Hood (A STAND ALONE NOVEL): A Dope Boy's Heartbeat)
“
information that my husband had archived—things I had done, he had done, words I had said, he had said, verbatim sentences he could remember spoken by himself or others or me, things we’d seen or done or places we’d been, verbatim places, verbatim people, exactly precisely factually factual things he could remember that I could not or could not quite, completely, remember. So my husband was this constant fact-checker of my life and the idea of him making things up, intentionally or not, had occurred to me, that maybe many of the things he had told me had happened, had, perhaps, never happened— Elyria, when did it occur
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Catherine Lacey (Nobody Is Ever Missing)
“
Youth in our Sunday school class can repeat almost verbatim some obscure parable we dramatized last year, and yet they forget the core doctrinal statement we taught last week. Why is this? Why does story stick with us for so long?
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Sarah Arthur (The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry)
“
It may help you to jot down a few notes to alleviate any fear of becoming tongue-tied—your name, the position or company you are interested in, how you can be reached, any questions you may have. You won’t be reading it verbatim, but it may be comforting to refer back to it now and then as your conversation progresses. Know your message clearly. Have a plan for exactly what information you want to convey and what you intend to find out. It helps to visualize your success in the call beforehand, and if you feel anxious, to do relaxation exercises before you get on the phone.
The importance of your image continues with any subsequent contact you make prior to the interview, such as your cover letter and resume.
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Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
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During this period, I served many celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Rob Lowe, Colin Farrell, Tom Selleck, David Spade, Thomas Haden Church, Sharon Osbourne, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tara Reid, Toby Maguire and Diane Keaton. You know all of them, so no explanation needed. The hardest thing about serving such famous Hollywood icons, at least for the first time, is trying not to stare at them. It’s so otherworldly to see someone like Selleck, who’s not just huge -he’s bigger than life- and who you´ve watched on big screen and small for years… they are, invariably, taller or shorter than you’d imagined. And the women are either spectacularly beautiful or very ordinary without screen makeup. But you can’t stare. It’s verbatim by ownership.
Brad Pitt was cool and very humble. He had a few Pyramid beers with a producer friend, and then took off on his motorcycle down Sunset Boulevard, heading West towards the Palisades. Am I saying that he was driving drunk? No. He was there for two hours and had two beers, so he wasn’t breaking the law. At least not with my assistance. He had been there many times before, I just hadn’t been the one serving him. I remember when he came in during his filming of Troy. He had long hair and a cast on his leg. Ironically, he had torn his Achilles’ tendon while playing Achilles in the epic film.
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Paul Hartford (Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server)
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Memory Verse Study Guide Jesus’ mission statement for the church is to make disciples. These pivotal verses (Matthew 28:18-20) are commonly referred to as the Great Commission. Putting it in context: Read Matthew 28. What key events precede Jesus’ giving the Great Commission, and how would this have affected the disciples? The memory verses are Matthew 28:18-20. Copy these verses verbatim. What do these verses teach us about Jesus? Why does Jesus stress his authority (v. 18) as a backdrop to his command to “make disciples”? How is disciplemaking to be carried out? When is a disciple made? How have these verses spoken to you this week?
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Greg Ogden (Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ (The Essentials Set))
“
And that’s exactly why your ass is pregnant now. You know my mama heard you and Jah in the bedroom before too? She told me that a few weeks ago, but I kept forgetting to tell you,” Shaniqua said laughing. I stopped laughing and my face turned beet red with embarrassment. “Oh my God. That is so fuckin’ embarrassing. When was this? And what did she say?” I asked her, popping off question after question. I hope Mrs. Carter wasn’t mad at me and felt some type of way about me having sex with her son at her house. “Tonia, chill! She wasn’t mad or nothing. In fact, she thought it was funny as hell. She said something about how you were over there one day so that she could teach you how to make a red velvet cake, since that’s Jah’s favorite. I guess he came over, and all of a sudden she said she heard these weird ass noises coming from the bedroom, and that’s when she realized what the hell y’all were in there doing. You got to hear her impersonate you though because the shit was too funny,” Shaniqua said. I guess I had to laugh at it too when I thought about it. I remember that day verbatim and now I understood why Mrs. Carter gave me and Jah the side eye when we had come back inside the kitchen.
”
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Diamond D. Johnson (Little Miami Girl 3: Antonia & Jahiem's Love Story)
“
The last couple months since I’d turned heel … a change I once hoped would be my salvation … had been the lowest, most disappointing, infuriating, frustrating, agonizing period of my career. Vince was very hands-on with my new heel persona, whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, writing scripts I was to follow verbatim. They all sucked. He even went so far as to script my matches. They all sucked. He had begun to infiltrate the house shows now too, sending detailed formats to the stressed-out producers 30 minutes before bell time, and demanding I cut cheesy heel promos to the audience as I walked to the ring.
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Jon Moxley (MOX)
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Two essential principles of investigation came into play here. First, it is important to interview witnesses as soon after an incident as possible, in order to get the freshest possible memories of the events and to lock witnesses into their stories. Second, since guilty parties frequently coerce or persuade their friends to collaborate on a story, persons with potentially probative information are quickly split up and interviewed separately so that they can't agree on a common version of the story. Experienced detectives know that it is difficult to maintain a lie. If you didn't live it, it didn't happen, and therefore the details aren't hardwired into your mind. Liars have a hard time keeping a story straight, which is why subsequent versions are often verbatim recitations of the first telling, with very specific details offered to make the story seem truthful, while a truthful version may vary or be more vague. For this reason, it is important to lock in the details early and then keep pressure on suspected liars to see how they behave when telling their stories and how their stories hold up over time.
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Joseph K. Loughlin (Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine)
“
Another classic case in point is the reconstructive origins of the canonical Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, which is attributed to the seventh-century Chinese Zen master Huineng but in fact seems to have first appeared around 780 ce, "over a century after the events it describes were supposed to have taken place." The earliest versions of the autobiography and teachings of Huineng included in this text were in fact composed by Shenhui and other purported successors in the Southern School in order to differentiate their teachings from, and elevate them over, those of Shenxiu and other teachers of the rival Northern School. While the teachings
presented in the Platform Sutra— the only Zen text to be audaciously designated a "sutra"—are indeed a "brilliant consummation" and "wonderful mélange of early Chan [i.e., Chinese Zen] teachings," they can hardly be attributed verbatim to the historical person Huineng. However spiritually inspiring and philosophically rich such classical texts of the Zen tradition may be, we cannot read them as unbiased and unembellished historical records or as innocent of sectarian politics and other mundane motives.
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Bret W. Davis (Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism)
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He said that?” “Verbatim.” “Holy shit.” “That was pretty much my reaction, too.” Sloane pauses. “And you didn’t throw yourself to your knees, rip open his zipper, and latch on to him like a sucker fish?” Rolling my eyes, I sigh. “And they say romance is dead.
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J.T. Geissinger (Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1))
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I’ve liked Brandon since seventh grade, and that’s a long time. I think I fell for him when he complimented the grand slam I hit during gym. He said, because I remember it verbatim, “Hey, Dell, killer hit. You have a good swing.”
He said it in the nicest voice. I remember my stomach had flip-flopped, and I’d bumbled out a thank-you. Then he smiled and bit his lip, and I blushed.
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K.M. Walton (Empty)
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The oral (agraphous) traditions of the papists, for they speak diversely of them. Sometimes tradition is used by them for the 'act of tradition' by which the sacred books were preserved by the church in an uninterrupted series of time (also a perpetual succession) and delivered to posterity. This is formal tradition and in this sense Origen says 'they learned by tradition that the four gospels were unquestioned in the church universal.' Second, it is often taken for the written doctrine which, being at first oral, was afterward committed to writing. Thus Cyprian says, 'Sacred tradition will preserve whatever is taught in the gospels or is found in the epistles of the apostles or in the Acts' (Epistle 74 'To Pompey'). Third, it is taken for a doctrine which does not exist in the Scriptures in so many words, but may be deduced thence by just and necessary consequence; in opposition to those who bound themselves to the express word of the Scriptures and would not admit the word homoousion because it did not occur verbatim there. Thus Basil denies that the profession of faith which we make in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be found in the Scriptures meaning the Apostles’ Creed, whose articles nevertheless are contained in the Scriptures as to sense (On the Spirit 8:41, 43). Fourth, it is taken for the doctrine of rites and ceremonies called 'ritual tradition.' Fifth, it is taken for the harmony of the old teachers of the church in the exposition of any passage of Scripture which, received from their ancestors, they retained out of a modest regard for antiquity because it agreed with the Scriptures. This may be called 'tradition of sense' or exegetical tradition (of which Irenaeus speaks, Against Heresies 3.3, and Tertullian often as well, Prescription Against Heretics 3:243–65). Sixth, they used the word tradition ad hominem in disputing with heretics who appealed to them not because all they approved of could not be found equally as well in the Scriptures, but because the heretics with whom they disputed did not admit the Scriptures; as Irenaeus says, 'When they perceived that they were confused by the Scriptures, they turned around to accuse them' (Against Heresies, 3.2). They dispute therefore at an advantage from the consent of tradition with the Scriptures, just as we now do from the fathers against the papists, but not because they acknowledged any doctrinal tradition besides the Scriptures. As Jerome testifies, 'The sword of God smites whatever they draw and forges from a pretended apostolic tradition, without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures' (Commentarii in prophetas: Aggaeum 1:11).
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Francis Turretin (Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Vol. 1))
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Start a running list of useful anecdotes, and keep adding new ones so your material doesn't get stale. You can also safely inject humor into your stories. And whatever you do, never read text bullets verbatim from a PowerPoint slide—that's the fastest way to lose everyone's attention.
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Frank Slootman (Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity)
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IN 1922, THE new League of Nations issued its Mandate for Palestine, which formalized Britain’s governance of the country. In an extraordinary gift to the Zionist movement, the Mandate not only incorporated the text of the Balfour Declaration verbatim, it substantially amplified the declaration’s commitments.
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Rashid Khalidi (The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017)
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how much is creativity under conscious control? To what extent do unconscious processes predispose to the creation of a poem or an idea? Alternatively, how important is careful preparation, logical planning, and detailed thinking-through of a sequence or a topic in advance of the act of creation? By all accounts, Kubla Khan was literally created as “a vision in a dream,” which was later recalled verbatim. It was not a consequence of any conscious effort. In fact, when Coleridge attempted to finish the poem using conscious effort, he failed completely. We have to ask how typical this is, and what other writers, artists, mathematicians, musicians, or scientists have to say about how they get their best ideas. How important is reason? How important is inspiration
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Nancy C. Andreasen (The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius)
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Mark was certainly written after 70 (the year the Jerusalem temple was destroyed), but how long after is an open question We really have no evidence that Mark was written any earlier than 100, in fact, so it's simply presumption really that puts his Gospel in the first century. [...] Nothing is known of the author. Late tradition claims he was Peter's secretary, but there is no reason to trust that information, and it seems most unlikely. Mark is advocating against Torah-observant Christianity (see Chapter 10, §5) and thus would have been Peter's opponent, not representative. There is no evidence really that Matthew was written in the 80s. Nothing is known of the author. We know 'Matthew' was not an eyewitness, because he copies Mark verbatim and just modifies and adds to him [...], which is not the behavior of a witness, but of a late literary redactor. [...] John wrote after Luke-as almost everyone agrees [...] It could have been written as late as the 140s (some argue even later) or as early as the 100s (provided Luke was written in the 90s). [...] John was redacted multiple times and thus had multiple authors. 32 Nothing is known of them.
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Richard C. Carrier (On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt)
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It was eerie hearing my conversation with another person quoted back to me verbatim.
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Ana Huang (King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4))
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The creative process is imagination, memories, nightmares, and dismantling certain aspects of this world and putting them back together in the dark. Songs aren’t necessarily verbatim chronicles or necessarily journal entries, they’re like smoke, it’s like it’s made out of smoke. The stuff that makes a song … well, usually a song will remind you of something, it will take you back somewhere and make you think of somebody or someplace. They’re like touchstones, or a mist.
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Paul Maher Jr. (Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters (Musicians in Their Own Words))
“
Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all written in Greek. But Jesus probably did not speak Greek. He was a Jewish peasant. He might have known a little Greek, but his normal tongue would have been the Semitic dialect commonly spoken by the peasants of Palestine in the first century CE, Aramaic. The original oral tradition associated with Jesus would have been communicated among the peasants of Galilee also in Aramaic. Now, here is the problem. When we compare the same stories in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they agree not just in general or in gist, but often word for word, verbatim. Not 100 percent verbatim, but often as much as 80 percent, and sometimes even more. How shall we explain this?
Does a theory of oral transmission work? Say a set of stories circulated orally in Aramaic; they were told and retold in great variety. They usually communicated the gist but were never word for word the same. Then, gradually, bilingual listeners began to repeat the stories, now sometimes in Aramaic, sometimes in Greek. Greek versions began to circulate orally, told and retold in great variety, usually communicating the gist but never being told word for word the same. Imagine the various ways in which any particular story might have been told, in two different languages, by dozens of different people, in myriad different contexts. Now imagine a story from this oral tradition beginning with Jesus, spreading around in Aramaic, then trickling over into Greek, and spreading around again in the new language; finally one particular version falls on the ears of, say, the author of Matthew, who includes it in his gospel. Now imagine that a different author, say, the author of Luke, hears the same story, but a version of it that has taken a different route through that complex process of being passed on, and he also decides to include it in his gospel. What are the chances that these two versions of the story will agree with one another, in Greek, nearly verbatim? A clever mathematician could perhaps compute the odds. Let us just say, they would be astronomical.
But that’s not all. Jesus was an aphorist and a storyteller. How many times would he have told one of his parables, a good one like the Sower? Dozens of times? Probably. But when a gospel writer includes a parable in his narrative, he can only really use it once. If he were to repeat it as Jesus actually had done, over and over again, that would be tedious. He has to choose one place to put it and one way to tell it. Now, when the authors of Matthew and Mark include the Parable of the Sower in their gospels, they both just happen to portray Jesus telling it right after a scene in which Jesus is accused of having a demon, Beelzebul, so that his family must come to try and take him away. And that story, in both gospels, follows close after a story in which Jesus is healing and exorcizing multitudes. And that story, in both gospels, follows one in which Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. And before that, in both gospels, there is a story about Jesus and his disciples passing through the grain fields of Galilee, feeding themselves from the gleanings. It is not just that Matthew, Mark, and Luke share a large number of stories, sayings, and parables, or that these common traditions often agree almost verbatim from gospel to gospel. They also present these things in the same order. Could oral tradition account for all of that? Never.
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Stephen J. Patterson (The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins)
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Iconic hybridity, on the other hand, is the product of representing the self-translation performed by a character or an embodied narrator and therefore represents hybridity as object. The representation of this self-translation is immediate, or rather, it purports to be immediate. This verbatim reproduction is of course an illusion, as all speech and thought presentation is mediated by the narrator (see also Fludernik 2009:65). Furthermore,
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Susanne Klinger (Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View (Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies Book 7))
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Muslims believe that every single word of the Quran was dictated verbatim by Allah, through the Archangel Gabriel, to Muhammad. The Quran is therefore not only inspired at the level of meaning but at the deeper level of the words themselves. For this reason, Muslims do not consider the Quran translatable. If it is rendered in any language other than Arabic, it is not Quran but rather an interpretation of the Quran. A book can be a true Quran only if written in Arabic.
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Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity)
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Most ambassadors would be surprised to learn that some of the staff messages that are proposed to them for authorization to transmit were received from the ST almost verbatim in the form which his “staff ” have given him to send back to Washington. This is a useful device for the ST because it gets a message of unquestioned authority from the ambassador into the Department of State and usually into Defense via attach channels.
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L. Fletcher Prouty (The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World)
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Indian philosophy separates what a man is from what he possesses. We are a set of thoughts and we have a set of things. Ram derives his strength from his thoughts, what he is, while Ravana derives his strength from his possessions, what he has. Ravana has knowledge; he may be learned, but he is not wise. Through Ravana, the bards draw attention to the learned brahmin priest who spouts hymns verbatim but fails to appreciate their meaning or transform himself because of them.
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Devdutt Pattanaik (Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana)
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Survival Movement in Hostile Areas,” most of which he could have quoted verbatim if somebody asked him, but really all you had to know was the acronym BLISS: B—Blends in with the surroundings L—Low in silhouette I—Irregular in shape S—Small in size S—Secluded
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T. Coraghessan Boyle (The Harder They Come)
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Hadn’t the poet Carl Sandburg written about this very thing? Ethan couldn’t recall the verse verbatim, knew only that it had something to do with the voice of the last cricket across the frost. A splinter of singing.
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Blake Crouch (Pines (Wayward Pines, #1))
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When Karel Gott, the Czech pop singer, went abroad in 1972, Husak got scared. He sat right down and wrote him a personal letter (it was August 1972 and Gott was in Frankfurt). The following is a verbatim quote from it. I have invented nothing.
Dear Karel,
We are not angry with you. Please come back. We will do everything you ask. We will help you if you help us …
Think it over. Without batting an eyelid Husak let doctors, scholars, astronomers, athletes, directors, cameramen, workers, engineers, architects, historians, journalists, writers, and painters go into emigration, but he could not stand the thought of Karel Gott leaving the country. Because Karel Gott represents music minus memory, the music in which the bones of Beethoven and Ellington, the dust of Palestrina and Schonberg, lie buried.
The president of forgetting and the idiot of music deserve one another. They are working for the same cause. “We will help you if you help us.” You can’t have one without the other.
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Milan Kundera
“
The initial answers are the intuitively appealing ones, the ones that come quickly and naturally to mind if we don’t pause to reflect. We let the salience of certain elements (and they were framed to be salient on purpose) draw us away from considering each element fairly and accurately. We use mindless verbatim strategies—repeating an element in the prior answer and not reflecting on the actual best strategy to solve the present problem—instead of mindful ones (in essence, substituting an intuitive question for the more difficult and time-consuming alternative, just because the two happen to seem related)
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Anonymous
“
Everything is going wrong with my relationship. I know that it’s all my fault. I try everything I know to fix it, but it doesn’t work. I’m not even sure if I love him/her. Maybe I don’t know what love is. I’m so confused.” Sound familiar? It should. It is almost verbatim the story I hear when an Adult Child of an Alcoholic enters therapy because an intimate relationship is souring.
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Janet Geringer Woititz (Struggle for Intimacy)
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Apple is the Ferrari of the computer world. I’m not sure if the “engine” is superior, however, but the frame sure is sleek. That’s all I got it for, so I could say, “Look at how sophisticated I am with my shiny iMac.” And I did say that, verbatim, on multiple occasions. I’d meet someone for the first time and immediately pull out a picture of me sitting in front of my computer as I’d say, “Hi, I’m Jarod. Look how sophisticated I am with my shiny iMac.” Looking back, I should have plugged in my computer and turned it on before taking the picture.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Gosh, I probably shouldn't publish this.)
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We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go.
At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?”
Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help.
“Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured.
“Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card.
I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto.
Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here.
As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?”
“Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.”
But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand.
“Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible.
Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc.
“I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off.
“Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too.
When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim.
“Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.”
The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?”
“Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.”
But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand.
“Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible.
Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc.
“I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off.
“Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too.
When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim.
“Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.”
The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
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I see ye’ve told her what it means for a Keith to claim a woman,” he said to Darcy. Looking at her across the desk, he said, “Dinna be hard on the lad. If he hadna done it, I would have, and me with three daughters for you to become second mother to. I would ha’ been good to ye, lass, but Darcy, he will worship you.” He winked at Darcy, then spread some papers on the desk and reached for the black-feathered quill. “I have the contract ready, Steafan. Begin when ye wish.” Steafan smirked at her. “What’ll it be, lass, the stocks tonight, or a wedding?” “The stocks,” she said without hesitation, relieved she seemed to have some choice in the matter. What was a night of discomfort compared to the stripping away of one’s choice? Darcy surged around the desk and shook her by the shoulders. His eyes blazed with desperation. “Dinna do this,” he said close by her ear, his voice urgent and low, private from all but perhaps Aodhan, who stood near the desk. “A person in the stocks must be stripped to their skin and placed in the courtyard for the entire clan to laugh at and spit on. I’d sooner defy my uncle and be banished from Ackergill than see you dishonored so. Dinna make me do that, I beg you.” Fear kicked her heart into her throat at Darcy’s manhandling. But as his words penetrated, she stopped fighting his hold. He was serious. He’d abandon his home, his mill, Edmund and Fran, everything he had, all to keep her from a night’s humiliation. He might be a manipulative, lying brute, but he seemed to care for her on some level. She looked hard in his eyes and saw vulnerability glowing behind a glaze of very real fear. Fear for her and for what her actions might cause him to suffer. She shoved away the sympathy he didn’t deserve. He projected an air of absolute honor, but honorable men didn’t trick women into marrying them. “You lied to me,” she seethed. “You told me you’d help me get home.” “And I will,” he said. “Do ye nay remember what I told you before Steafan came in?” She remembered the words verbatim. “Whatever happens tonight, Malina, ye need no’ fash that I’ll keep my word to you.” Malina. The mere memory of her name spoken that way softened her, damn her romantic heart. “Trust me,” he urged.
”
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Jessi Gage (Wishing for a Highlander (Highland Wishes Book 1))
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Imagination and recollection of cherished memories of the pastimes are closely related. We do not recall memories verbatim. As our perspective changes regarding our place in the world, we shift through our recollections and revise our memories. People possess the ability to edit their memories by repressing unbearable episodes and highlighting incidences that generate fond memories. How we perceive and comprehend ourselves in the past, the present, and the future shapes our evolving sense of self. Humankind’s ability to repress unpleasant events and humankind’s ability to act as the solo editors of our germinating awareness of the world that we occupy is ultimately responsible for activating our metamorphosing sense of identity.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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My memorization skills were so well honed at Korean school that it's now become an involuntary and automatic reflex. I have almost perfect recall of conversations I've had going back about twenty years or so. If required, I can recite an entire thirty-minute exchange verbatim. Sometimes this is useful, as when I'm arguing with a male companion about whether one of us did or did not break some previously made promise. However, my gift of recall is very annoying to other people. They forgot to tell us at Korean school that memory does not lead to a happy life.
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Euny Hong (The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture)
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Scott Moncrieff seems to have wanted to hear the French read aloud first, whether by himself or by one of his friends; he would think about it for a moment or two, and he would suddenly jot down the translation, which he would then read aloud to himself. What this modus operandi reveals is how important the rhythms of language were to him, more important than verbatim accuracy. For he clearly wanted to capture the feeling of the original as well as the meaning. As he once put it, “the question is to write a line that you know the original author would approve.
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Anonymous
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It would be revealed years later that the language had been lifted almost verbatim from an ad that had appeared in the New York Times and other papers over the names of isolationist congressmen, written and paid for by Nazi agents.
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Richard Moe (Roosevelt's Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War (Pivotal Moments in American History))
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Perhaps illiterate people have particularly good memories to compensate for being unable to write things down, just as the blind are popularly believed to have especially keen ears or sensitive fingers. Such arguments must be rejected…. And while it would be logically possible to argue that literacy and schooling make memory worse, the fact of the matter is that they don’t. On the contrary: cross-cultural studies have generally found a positive relation between schooling and memory…. Skilled performances by oral poets are found only in nonliterate societies because the concept of poetry itself changes when literacy appears…. Literal, verbatim memory does exist, nevertheless. It makes its appearance whenever a performance is defined by fidelity to a particular text. Ulric Neisser, Memory Observed, pp. 241–242
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John Dominic Crossan (The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set: Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, The Birth of Christianity, The Power of Parable, and The Greatest Prayer)
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John's master, in allowing his slaves to marry, was much more liberal than most slave owners, who allowed their slaves no such liberty.
As a rule negro men were not allowed to marry at all, any attempt to mate with the negro women brought swift, sure horrible punishment and the species were propagated by selected make negroes, who were kept for that purpose, the owners of this provileged negro, charged a fee of one out of every four of his offspring for his services.
(Misspellings verbatim as written)
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Born In Slavery: Slave Narratives from The Federal Writers Project
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Muslims believe that every single word of the Quran was dictated verbatim by Allah, through the Archangel Gabriel, to Muhammad. The Quran is therefore not only inspired at the level of meaning but at the deeper level of the words themselves. For this reason, Muslims do not consider the Quran translatable. If it is rendered in any language other than Arabic, it is not Quran but rather an interpretation of the Quran. A book can be a true Quran only if written in Arabic. This is why it is such an important belief for Muslims that the Quran has always been exactly the same — word for word, dot for dot.
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Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity)
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so obvious on large sections of the cyber-atheist community. Cyber-Atheism is the veritable North Korea of the internet, and if you intend to interfere in any way shape or form with the minds of their people, you can expect a reaction. And a new atheist reaction is something to behold indeed. Any shard of religious identity you would dare express shall be ripped asunder, sections of your brain will be ridiculed beyond reason, well-rehearsed choruses from the sacred scriptures of Hitchens and Harris will be recited verbatim in your general direction, you will be laden with the burdens of every remotely god-believing human being for the last two thousand years, reviled as an advocator of terrorism, genital mutilation and human sacrifice, but most incongruously and insultingly of all- you will be called irrational and oppressive. And I am to believe that all this is some rather eccentric attempt at courteous discourse? But do not assume for one moment that atheism has kept to itself. Oh no. The level of dedication to the atheist cause has permeated through every single major public gathering in cyberspace; video sharing websites, social networking, wiki-sites, blogs, forums, you name it. There is no mass internet-based domain wherein the territory of new atheism has not been asserted. Videos are created, posted, shared, rated and promoted, hundreds of venerated blogs and websites consistently updated with surveys, statistical analyses, all the latest updates of religious scandal and hopeful omens of the decline of faith all woven across a large, intricate and efficient social network with totalitarian tenacity. New atheism is a well-oiled digital
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Bō Jinn (Illogical Atheism: A Comprehensive Response to the Contemporary Freethinker from a Lapsed Agnostic)
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Several times a session—and we had twenty-one of them in the general—just as he had warned, Philippe-as-Trump would say something so outlandish, none of us could quite believe it. Then he’d tell us it was almost verbatim from a Trump rally, interview, or primary debate.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
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I realized I was actually in some Hilton Garden Inn somewhere in the middle of America, and I had to remind myself of what I had been doing for the last ten months. Literally, step by step, campaign stop by campaign stop, I had to rebuild my memory. Think about that for a second. I had to remind myself of breaking up with my boyfriend, leaving my home, and following a man some call a maniac around, trying to keep up with the daily lies and outrages. He lies a lot. That sounds overly negative. But you have to understand something. Most people, even those who would qualify as political junkies, have other things going on in their lives. They follow politics—but they also go to work, pick up their kids, exercise, shop for groceries, daydream, and live a full life. I do not. I live the Trump campaign. That means I live every lie. And I live every controversy. And they pile up daily. Every time Trump opens his mouth in public, I get a verbatim log of it sent to my e-mail.
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Katy Tur (Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History)
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I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped.
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Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt therapie verbatim)
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The general definition of what ethnic cleansing consists of applies almost verbatim to the case of Palestine.
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Ilan Pappé (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine)
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The past is past. And yet — in the now, in our being, we carry much of the past with us. But we carry much of the past with us only as far as we have unfinished situations. What happened in the past is either assimilated and has become a part of us, or we carry around an unfinished situation, an incomplete gestalt. Let me give you an example. The most famous of the unfinished situations is the fact that we have not forgiven our parents. As you know, parents are never right. They are either too large or too small, too smart or too dumb. If they are stern, they should be soft, and so on. But when do you find parents who are all right? You can always blame the parents if you want to play the blaming game, and make the parents responsible for all your problems. Until you are willing to let go of your parents, you continue to conceive of yourself as a child. But to get closure and let go of the parents and say, “I am a big girl now,” is a different story. This is part of therapy — to let go of parents, and especially to forgive one’s parents, which is the hardest thing for most people to do.
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Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)