Vikings Series Quotes

In many chapels, reddened by the setting sun, the saints rest silently, waiting for someone to love them. (This quote was the inspiration for my series of books entitled "God's Forgotten Friends: Lives of Little-known Saints" of which my latest release is Saint Magnus The Last Viking. Hope you decide to become friends with him!)

We don't know much about our hero before 325 BCE-he just sort of materialized out of thin air like a face-melting UFO or a vengeful, homicidal rainbow, but apparently he had some serious beef with people in charge...

In many chapels, reddened by the setting sun, the saints rest silently, waiting for someone to love them." These words, penned by an unknown priest, long dead,were the inspiration for my new series on the lives of saints who have fallen deep into the shadows of obscurity. My hope is that, in reading their heroic stories, you will make the acquaintance of some of God's Forgotten Friends. (From the Preface of "Saint Magnus The Last Viking")

He looked like a sexy Viking god. Well, a sexy, angry one.

pulled the dress down to her stomach, leaving her in just a linen shift. He massaged her breasts through the fabric, and she moaned her approval

When it’s dark I’ll sneak down the hill, he promised himself. Somehow Bree will slip over the side of the ship. Somehow I’ll get her away without anyone knowing. We’ll escape together. As he reached another clump

These invincible barbarian warriors committed acts of untold cruelty upon the unsuspecting citizenry, slaughtering all those before them in a frenzy of blood and fire and then drinking their chocolate milk right out of the carton.

Crucially, some people with different, equally disquieting gifts could see these aspects of others. In the poetic fragment known as the Ljóðatal, the ‘List of Spells’, Odin boasts of his magical ability with a series of individual charms, and in one of them we see the true viciousness of his power: I know a tenth [spell]: if I see sorceresses playing up in the air, I can so contrive it that they go astray from the home of their shapes [heimhama] from the home of their minds [heimhuga]. The spell is directed against the independent spirits of witches, sent out from their bodies on their mistresses’ errands. Odin’s charm is terrible in its severance of their very souls, cut away to dissipate forever.

when we passed the Hells Angels clubhouse they were giving cans of beer out to little kids. “Repeat after me,” ordered a drunken Hells Angel dressed as a Viking warrior. “When I grow up I’m going to be a badass.

Socialism is not the same as social democracy, the political system that created Sweden’s welfare state.

when Viking warrior Gunnar Dalrata ignites her desire, she must choose between duty and the man she longs for! The MacEgan Brothers Series Volume 2 The Warrior’s Touch Taming Her Irish Warrior The Warrior’s Forbidden Virgin Surrender to an Irish Warrior Pleasured by the Viking Michelle Willingham

At 1.5 children per Swedish female (The Swedish Institute 1997), the rate is so low that deaths in Sweden outpaced births in 1997; immigration, however, compensated for the population shortfall. Sweden

It is not shocking to see an ad or photograph of a nude man or woman in the daily or weekly press. To most Swedes nudity outside of a sexual context just isn’t a big deal. This

Suicide has been included in Swedish population statistics (starting in church records) since the 1600s, and this may contribute to the country’s prominent reputation concerning självmord—literally, “self-murder.” Even

Also, Swedes are often reluctant to express strong emotions, including anger or disapproval, a theme that emerges in many areas of Swedish culture. An American psychologist once noted that among his Swedish suicide cases it was “particularly difficult for them…to give open expression of anger, or a frank criticism of anyone in their immediate surroundings” (Austin 1968, 33). A

A 1970 report found that problems on the job and in one’s finances entered into the picture in at least one-half of the Swedish suicides investigated. A more recent study by the Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University (1996) found that about 10 percent of all suicides are related to unemployment.

Although Sweden’s labor party, the Social Democrats, has been in power for most of the past seventy years, state ownership of business has ranked lower than in many industrialized countries; in 1997 the state owned less than 10 percent of businesses compared with over 30 percent in France (Rekdal 1997). In

To Swedes, however, socialism refers to caring for society as a whole and extending social welfare to all. Compared with the United States, where the individual’s rights tend to come first, Sweden places more emphasis on the benefit to the group than on the benefit to the individual.

As in other cultures, alcohol acts as a social lubricant for Swedes. One of the social and psychological functions of drinking in Swedish culture, writes ethnologist Åke Daun, is “to lessen the individual’s fear of making a fool of him- or herself—for example, the anxiety people feel about saying the wrong thing” (1996, 51). Alcohol helps some Swedes relax, assume a different “identity,” and feel less inhibited. As in Japan, another culture where rigid social conformity exists, something done while intoxicated “doesn’t count.” Unfortunately, this has led to an unflattering image abroad; some Swedes on vacation in countries far from home overindulge and have been known to make fools of themselves. The

Nearly 90 percent of the price of a bottle of Swedish brännvin is tax (the more liberal EU import limits could drastically cut the state’s income). Sweden tries to justify its policies by advertising the health benefits of teetotaling in its stores. Based

(Systemets were open on Saturdays until 1982, when a four-month trial of dry Saturdays found the number of house break-ins fell by 7 percent and assaults by 8 percent.)

Rather than the opportunity to succeed, the chance to be self-sufficient is what is important. One might say the American wants the freedom to do, while the Swede wants the freedom to be. Insistence

As Americans maintain their privacy by protecting their space (e.g., big cars, privacy fences, gated communities), Swedes maintain their privacy by remaining quiet. Swedes are generally slow to divulge personal information, particularly when it comes to sharing problems.

Duktig is a word that carries strong emotional overtones: children who behave well are duktig; adults who are talented and independent are duktig. Someone who locks himself out of his own apartment or has to ask others for help in general is not duktig.

Sweden’s position of neutrality during World War II put the country in the position of not defending its neighbors against German invasion. This was not forgotten in Norway and Denmark and caused animosity in the past, but the nations have put the past behind them. Some

Unlike the American Stars and Stripes or the British Union Jack, it has no particularly exciting or symbolic history.

Some 50 percent of Swedes retreat to summer homes, rented or owned, in the country each year.

Swedes are raised with the idea that people derive a strong sense of security from being part of a group, which in turn allows them to develop into strong and independent individuals.

In Sweden, everyone is assumed to have similar resources, so it seems inappropriate to pay for someone else.

Slavery was abolished in 1355 because of church teachings stating that all men are equal in the eyes of God.§

However, it is well known that, especially during the early medieval period, many Irish scholars left their native land – sometimes on pilgrimage pro amore Die, sometimes to avoid the dire effects of Viking attack and settlement, sometimes simply to seek better libraries …. Among these Irish peregrini of exiles were some of the most brilliant scholars of the Europe of that time: Columbanus, Dicuil, Dungal, Sedulius Scottus, John Scottus Eriugena, to name only a few. These men left their impress on every aspect of European learning, not only in the works they composed themselves but in the manuscripts they brought from Ireland and those they acquired in Europe. Any attempt to assess the contribution to mediaeval thought and learning, therefore, must not only take account of Latin learning in Ireland, but must also attempt to trace the careers of the Irish peregrini on the continent, as these can be reconstructed from the works they composed and the manuscript they copied

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” —Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), mathematician and philosopher

Presently we discovered two or three villages, and the people all came down to the shore, calling out to us, and giving thanks to God. Some brought us water, and others victuals: others seeing that I was not disposed to land, plunged into the sea and swam out to us, and we perceived that they interrogated us if we had come from heaven. An old man came on board my boat; the others, both men and women cried with loud voices—‘Come and see the men who have come from heavens. Bring them victuals and drink.’ There came many of both sexes, every one bringing something, giving thanks to God, prostrating themselves on the earth, and lifting up their hands to heaven . . . I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.” —Christopher Columbus, from his journal entry of October 14, 1492

The plunderers of the world, they have laid waste to the land till there is no more left, and now they scour the sea. If a people are rich they are worth robbing, if poor they are worth enslaving; and not the East nor the West can content their greedy maw. They are the only men in all the world whose lust of conquest makes them find in wealth and in poverty equally tempting baits. To robbery, murder, and outrage they give the lying name of government, and where they make a desert they call it peace.” —The native Scottish rebel Galgacus, speaking of the Romans, as quoted by the Roman historian Tacitus (56–120)

The fall of the short-lived Weimar Republic, and the subsequent rise of Nazi power, tells us that there is a danger to whittling down the power of our institutions when we cannot yet foresee what will replace them.

The Chinese people have only family and clan groups; there is no national spirit. Consequently, in spite of four hundred million people gathered together in one China, we are in fact but a sheet of loose sand . . . Our position is extremely perilous; if we do not earnestly promote nationalism and weld together our four hundred million into a strong nation, we face a tragedy—the loss of our country and the destruction of our race.” —Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), president of the Republic of China

People are always shouting that they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone . . . . The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.” —Milan Kundera (1929–), author

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

The subsequent wars in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and Iraq (2003–2011) have collectively claimed the lives of more than 200,000 civilians, based on the most conservative credible estimates—more than sixty-five times as many civilians as were killed in the September 11 attacks themselves. Emerging regional terrorist groups have, in turn, cited these casualties as a rationale for years of horrific attacks that they have perpetrated against other innocent civilians, and so on. As the Nigerian proverb puts it: “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

Athens is probably what you think of when you envision ancient Greece. The Parthenon, Socrates and Plato, most of the well-known works of Greek poetry and plays—all are the legacy of the city-state of Athens. Occupied off and on for the better part of five thousand years, Athens was a world of its own. But when educated Europeans rediscovered Greek political philosophy in the eighteenth century (as we’ll discuss later) they began to see classical Athens as a peaceful utopia. In reality, however, it was neither peaceful nor particularly utopian.

To hear some thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries say it, the people of Greece had it all figured out two millennia ago. That’s not even remotely true, but what ancient Greece did accomplish in terms of science, architecture, literature, art, and philosophy is certainly enough to explain why so many people have come away with the impression.

But a cursory review of ancient Egyptian literature suggests that the Egyptians of three thousand years ago were already keenly aware of the insubstantial nature of human achievement. These monuments, these tombs, these mummies were not necessarily meant to escape the passage of time but rather to provide future generations with a past they could find, a past whose shadow would loom over them and offer them guidance. As archaeologists continue to study ancient Egypt thousands of years later, the pharaohs continue to guide posterity and provide humanity with permanent symbols of history, in more impressive and far-reaching ways than even they could have planned.

Legends of the Ancient Giants As is a common characteristic of ancient myths, Aztec stories of the Quinametzin echo similar stories told in other parts of the world. In Genesis 6:4, its ancient Israeli writers tell us about the Nephilim, a race of giants said to have walked the earth prior to the Great Flood.

Civilizations never start off as civilizations. Like Sumer, Egypt sprouted from a cluster of river settlements. Sumer had the Tigris and Euphrates, and Egypt had the Nile.

The United States of Ancient Persia While ancient Persia could be best understood as an absolute divine right monarchy, in many other respects it better conforms to the values we associate with modern liberal democracies than most of its rivals. The Persian Empire prohibited slavery, allowed women to own property, granted considerable local autonomy to conquered states, prioritized education and trade, and permitted an unprecedented level of religious freedom. In terms of basic human rights it is a far more accurate precursor to modern states than ancient Greece could ever have been.

Although historians often describe Akhenaten as a monotheist, that wasn’t exactly right; he believed other gods existed. They just didn’t hold a candle to Aten. Aten was something special, something fundamental to the nature of reality itself. This belief in the supremacy of one god over other gods is generally called henotheism

As you may remember from an earlier chapter, in all likelihood we owe the existence of the Hebrew Bible to the oppression of the Babylonians, who forced early Jewish communities to write down their oral histories before they were lost. These communities anxiously awaited a messiah, or rescuer, whom they identified with the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great (ca. 600–530 B.C.E.). This isn’t historical speculation; Isaiah 45 specifically calls Cyrus the messiah and identifies him as the divinely-anointed savior of the Jewish people.

The Arda Viraf (“Viraf the just”), which was probably written during the Sassanid period, tells the story of a devout Zoroastrian who travels to heaven and hell and returns to Earth to report what he found. Several centuries later, Dante Alighieri (1265–1341) would write a similar but much longer work, the Divine Comedy, from a Christian perspective.

If you are reading this fact then you are related to Julius Caesar, The Vikings and Charlemagne

Babil tutsaklığı döneminde İsraillilerin yaptığı gibi, yüzyıllar boyunca sözlü gelenekle yaşamını sürdürmüş bir uygarlık alelacele geleneklerini yazmaya başladıysa, bu genellikle kaygı verici bir işarettir ve toplumun kültürel soykırımdan korktuğunu ve hikayelerinin bir daha anlatılma fırsatı bulacağından emin olmadığını gösterir. Yazı, bu hikâyeler için bir zaman kapsülü görevi görür.

As the great German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) put it, kisses leave no traces but wounds leave scars.

The men on the ramparts watched in horror as they realized that the first wave of soldiers was actually comprised entirely of captured villagers from the outlying settlements—poor, imprisoned farmers forced under pain of death to push forward massive siege engines, catapults, and ballistae, assigned the cruel task of bringing destruction and mayhem to their own kinsmen. The soldiers reluctantly opened fire on these wretched saps, but even an endless stream of arrows couldn’t stem the tide of heavy equipment being brought up to the massive moat surrounding the city. To their amazement, the defenders then saw the invading barbarians shoving their prisoners into the moat—using their bodies as a living bridge over which they rolled their infernal contraptions.

Gunnar Randulf was descended from the Norse Vikings, his last name meaning ‘Shield-wolf,’ and he left a trail of broken hearts wherever he walked.

One account exists of how a French soldier disarmed one of the warriors only to have her take him down with a judo shoulder throw and tear out his jugular with her teeth.

off.

History isn't something we study; it's the story people collectively tell about themselves, both by their words and by their actions.