Czech Resistance Quotes

Why should I be frightened of dying? I did not know what death truly was; no one did. Who had made dying a bad word? Yes, it was universally considered awful - unwanted, painful, feared - because when it happened it stopped us from moving and being, and we interpreted that as if something had ended. But what if it were actually a beautiful experience? What if, with death, something actually began instead? ~ Charles Novacek

Mussolini is quite humiliated because our troops have not moved a step forward. Even today they have not succeeded in advancing and have halted in front of the first French fortification which put up some resistance. ~ Galeazzo Ciano

In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past - sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories. ~ George Eliot

All of them were arrayed against the usual resistance of entrenched power and privilege and the economic system encoding these same, but now with the food panic reminding everyone that mass death was a distinct possibility, some progress was possible, for ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

It was strange to us that none of these three victims made any attempt to resist the attack. Indeed, not one inhabitant in any of these worlds considered for a moment the possibility of resistance. In every case the attitude to disaster seemed to express itself in such terms as these:
To retaliate would be to wound our communal spirit beyond cure. We choose rather to die. The theme of spirit that we have created must inevitably be broken short, whether by the ruthlessness of the invader or by our own resort to arms. It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be. We die knowing that the promise of further glory outlives us in other galaxies. We die praising the Star Maker, the Star Destroyer. ~ Olaf Stapledon

The necessity of political struggle especially means confronting and contradicting those on the left who say that resistance is futile. Such people have no place in a movement for justice. For actionists who choose to work aboveground, this confrontation with detractors - and some of these detractors reject the idea of resistance of any kind - is one of the small, constant actions you can take. Defend the possibility of resistance, insist on a moral imperative of fighting for this planet, and argue for direct action against perpetrators. Despite what much of the left has now embraced, we are not all equally responsible. There are a few corporations that have turned the planet into a dead commodity for their private wealth, destroying human cultures along with it. ~ Lierre Keith

Advance towards socialism cannot but cause the exploiting elements to resist the advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to the inevitable sharpening of the class struggle. ~ Joseph Stalin

Although he was not concerned, the Maestro had taught him to use his head in any threatening situation. Always take the line of least resistance. Never let useless emotions cloud your judgment. "'Twould ~ Elliott Baker

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. ~ Maya Angelou

I think the invitation offered the non-black reader is to join us in this expression of our familiarity and via that joining, come to understand that when black people come together to celebrate and rejoice in black critical thinking, we do so not to exclude or to separate, but to participate more fully in world community. However, we must first be able to dialogue with one another, to give one another subject-to-subject recognition that is an act of resistance that is part of the decolonizing, anti-racist process. ~ Bell Hooks

Nevertheless the joy of being with Dinah would triumph - it was like the influence of climate, which no resistance can overcome. ~ George Eliot

They understood freewill wasn't about physically resisting. Physical resistance isn't always possible ... it is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually withstanding the pressure to forget humanity's potential for kindness over cruelty. Choosing to accept consequences while still holding your head high, vulnerable and naked ... you are stronger for the pain. ~ Elyse Draper

A new degree of anger came over him. What did it all matter? What did it matter if the mother talked Polish and cried in labour, if this child were stiff with resistance, and crying?Why take it to heart?Let the mother cry in labour, let the child cry in resistance, since they would do so. Why should he fight against it, why resist? Let it be, if it were so. Let them be as they were, if they insisted. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Rebellion is not going to go away ... What has been unleashed, I think, can't be stopped ... The importance of continuing acts of resistance is that it keeps this narrative alive ... We speak a fundamental truth about this system that terrifies them. ~ Chris Hedges

Resistance is NOT futile. ~ Jay Inslee

Women are foils to men in South Korea. It is hard for women to take a lead role even in NGOs for political resistance. Men think women should do trivial things on the margins. They think women should be merely a seasoning for a dish. I feel anger and sorrow seeing this. ~ Kim Hyesoon

A match as a pen
Blood on the floor as ink
The forgotten gauze cover as paper
But what should I write?
I might just manage my address
This ink is strange; it clots
I write you from a prison
in Greece ~ Alexanderos Panagoulis

What can a state institution teach us? In what way can I be reformed by a penal colony and you by, say, Russian TV Channel 1? In his Nobel lecture, Joseph Brodsky said, 'The more substantial an individual's aesthetic experience is, the sounder his taste, the sharper his moral focus, the freer - though not necessarily the happier - he is.' We in Russia once again find ourselves in a situation where resistance, especially aesthetic resistance, becomes the only viable moral choice as well as a civic duty." Nadya ~ Masha Gessen

I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance ... and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance ... to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth. Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money ... as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts. ~ Isaac Asimov

Shall this nectar Run useless, then, to waste? or ... these lips, That open like the morn, breathing perfumes, On such as dare approach them, be untouch'd? They must
nay, 'tis in vain to make resistance
Be often kissed and tasted. ~ Philip Massinger

The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience. ~ Ninon De L'Enclos

But I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others; we retain much of their language; we retain more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

The Chief smiled. In his eyes, there was no resistance, no remorse, no sadness, no fear, no pain. Nothing. There was no soul ~ Jennifer Hillier

D'Artagnan obeyed like a child, without resistance or even objection, which proves that he was very positively in love. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Many women do not join organized resis­tance against sexism precisely because sexism has not meant an absolute lack of choices. They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppres­sion. Under capitalism, patriarchy is structured so that sexism restricts women's behavior in some realms even as freedom from limitations is allowed in other spheres. The absence of extreme re­strictions leads many women to ignore the areas in which they are exploited or discriminated against; it may even lead them to imagine that no women are oppressed. ~ Bell Hooks

It is no accident that this homeplace, as fragile and as transitional as it may be, a makeshift shed, a small bit of earth where one rests, is always subject to violation and destruction. For when a people no longer have the space to construct homeplace, we cannot build a meaningful community of resistance. ~ Bell Hooks

It is not the first duty of the novelist to provide blueprints for insurrection, or uplifting tales of successful resistance for the benefit of the opposition. The naming of what is there is what is important. ~ Ian McEwan

We write history with our feet and with our presece and our collective voice and vision. And yet, of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless, or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. These are the forces that prefer the giant remain asleep. ~ Rebecca Solnit

S/M is about emotion, the erotic tension between my impulse toward something and my resistance against it. ~ Virginia Baker

It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period. Fossils of these ancients have been found dating from the Cretaceous era while in the Eocene and Miocene they were spread over England and Europe and America. And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left
a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it? ~ John Steinbeck

Resistance to change is our fine ability to create reasons to crib and criticize. ~ Sukant Ratnakar

Respect existance or expect resistance. ~ Unknown

Writing a novel about World War II and the French Resistance was a challenge both sobering and thrilling. ~ Bobbie Ann Mason

Despite long-standing claims by elites that Blacks, women, Latinos, and other similarly derogated groups in the United States remain incapable of producing the type of interpretive, analytical thought that is labeled theory in the West, powerful knowledges of resistance that toppled former social structures of social inequality repudiate this view. Members of these groups do in fact theorize, and our critical social theory has been central to our political empowerment and search for justice. ~ Patricia Hill Collins

When you love a problem, its contours, obstacles and resistances are all just part of its character. ~ Steven Strogatz

I have chosen to use the terms lesbian existence and lesbian continuum because the word lesbianism has a clinical and limiting ring Lesbian existence suggests both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence I mean the term lesbian continuum to include a range - through each woman's life and throughout history - of woman-identified experience; not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman. If we expand it to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support; if we can also hear in it such associations as marriage resistance and the 'haggard' behavior identified by Mary Daly (obsolete meanings 'intractable,' 'willful,' 'wanton,' and 'unchaste' a woman reluctant to yield to wooing') - we begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology that have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical, definitions of 'lesbianism.'

Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life It is also a direct or indirect attack on male right of access to women But it is more than these, although we may first begin to perceive it as a form of nay-saying to patriarchy, an act or resistance It has of course included role playing, sel ~ Adrienne Rich

Her voice carried the voices of a hundred thousand souls in it; a whole history of resistance and rage moved with her. ~ Daniel Jose Older

If I were to arrive at a foreign country like Czech Republic, I don't have to speak Czech to understand the feeling of the local sensations through architecture. That is a kind of communication that no language can perform. ~ Jimenez Lai

Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries because it will be a war. The battle falls into two categories: outside resistance we get from others and the resistance we get from ourselves. ~ Henry Cloud

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Reading is an act of resistance. Against what? Against all constraints. ~ Daniel Pennac

...release resistance...allow acceptance...just Be ~ Joanna Gawn

Some time after dinner a newsboy rushed into the lobby of the Ambassador with extra editions of a German-language paper, the only one I can read since I do not know Czech. The headlines said: Chamberlain to fly to Berchtesgaden tomorrow to see Hitler! The Czechs are dumbfounded. They suspect a sell-out and I'm afraid they're right. ~ William L. Shirer

To every man of us, Tobruk was a symbol of British resistance and we were now going to finish with it for good. ~ Erwin Rommel

Counterwill is an instinctive, automatic resistance to any sense of being forced. It is triggered whenever a person feels controlled or pressured to do someone else's bidding. ~ Gabor Mate

Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite. ~ Michel Foucault

Many fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals are racist because religion and racism are two sides of the same coin. Both are nothing more than primitive tribalism: Us vs Them thinking. That's why religious nuts and racists can so easily be manipulated into hating someone who is different from them. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

If you want a robot to maneuver aggressively, it has to be small. As you scale things down, the 'moment of inertia' - the resistance to angular motion - drops dramatically. ~ Vijay Kumar