Fortress Quotes

IT is not impossible that among the English readers of this book there may be one who in 1915 and 1916 was in one of those trenches that were woven like a web among the ruins of Monchy-au-Bois. In that case he had opposite him at that time the 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, who wear as their distinctive badge a brassard with ' Gibraltar ' inscribed on it in gold, in memory of the defence of that fortress under General Elliot; for this, besides Waterloo, has its place in the regiment's history.

At the time I refer to I was a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in command of a platoon, and my part of the line was easily recognizable from the English side by a row of tall shell-stripped trees that rose from the ruins of Monchy. My left flank was bounded by the sunken road leading to Berles-au-Bois, which was in the hands of the English ; my right was marked by a sap running out from our lines, one that helped us many a time to make our presence felt by means of bombs and rifle-grenades.

I daresay this reader remembers, too, the white tom-cat, lamed in one foot by a stray bullet, who had his headquarters in No-man's-land. He used often to pay me a visit at night in my dugout. This creature, the sole living being that was on visiting terms with both sides, always made on me an impression of extreme mystery. This charm of mystery which lay over all that belonged to the other side, to that danger zone full of unseen figures, is one of the strongest impressions that the wa ~ Ernst Junger

You English palisade yourselves up behind 'must nots' and I commence to think it is a barren fortress in which you wall yourselves. - Caleb ~ Geraldine Brooks

Whenever a stray thought about Aaron, Taylor, or their relationship with Molly wanders into view, I push it into the folder near the back wall so that I can quickly shove them away from Dacia's prying eyes. I visualize that inner wall as an impenetrable fortress, surrounded by a force field, encased in a Cone of Silence, and covered by a Cloak of Invisibility. ~ Rysa Walker

It so happens that the work which is likely to be our most durable monument, and to convey some knowledge of us to the most remote posterity, is a work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, not a palace, but a bridge. - MONTGOMERY SCHUYLER IN HARPER'S WEEKLY, MAY 24, 1883 ~ David McCullough

I grew up under Roman rule, although I didn't see many Romans until I was ten. The Romans mostly stayed in the fortress city of Sepphoris, an hour's walk north of Nazareth. That's when Joshua and I saw a Roman soldier murdered, but I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, assume that the soldier is safe and sound and happy wearing a broom on his head. ~ Christopher Moore

Dreams and needs tear down fortress of impossibility. ~ Toba Beta

There is a defect in us
as human beings
because we think ourselves
a fortress, a mountain, unbreakable
but at the center
in that stillness of being
there is a chasm
of love
which echoes hope, compassion, empathy
try again, it says
and though the fault lines are full of darkness
we are held together by
the optimism and foolishness
of a single spark ~ Nadia Hasan

She is a fortress build with fortitude.
She goes on when she's deadbeat.
She can't quit, because others are watching. She smiles instead. ~ Tatsiana

When I have not rage or sorrow, and you depart from me, then I am most afraid. When the belly is full, and the mind has its sayings, then I fear for my soul; I rush to you as a child at night breaks into its parents' room. Do not forget me in my satisfaction. When the heart grins at itself, the world is destroyed. And I am found alone with the husks and the shells. Then the dangerous moment comes: I am too great to ask for help. I have other hopes. I legislate from the fortress of my disappointments, with a set jaw. Overthrow this even terror with a sweet remembrance: when I was with you, when my soul delighted you, when I was what you wanted. My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terror for one who remembers the Name. ~ Leonard Cohen

The fortress of Europe with its frontiers must be held and will be held too, as long as is necessary. ~ Heinrich Himmler

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing: our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. ~ Martin Luther

Do you understand the plan?"
They all stared for a few silent moments. Then Simon pointed. "What's that wobbly thing?" he said. "Is it a tree?"
"Those are the gates," Jace said.
"Ohh," said Isabelle, pleased. "So what are the swirly bits? Is there a moat?
"Those are trajectory lines - Honestly, am I the only person who's ever seen a strategy map?", Jace demanded, throwing his stele down and raking his hand through his blond hair. "Do you understand anything I just said."
"No," Clary said. "Your strategy is probably awesome, but your drawing skills are terrible; all the Endarkened look like trees, and the fortress looks like a frog. ~ Cassandra Clare

We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own live, and this is right and healthy. ~ Kory Stamper

Though the house itself was a fortress, still, Isaac Penn had thought to make sure that anyone who did manage to break in would be kept busy. Thus the vault was not a vault but rather a solid plug of molybdenum steel which extended into the wall for five feet. ~ Mark Helprin

In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado sweeping across the plains - flattening everything in its path, tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing them to bits. The tornado's intensity doesn't abate for a second as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat, incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything, transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married. And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began, and where it all ended. Almost. ~ Haruki Murakami

Therefore the master of war causes the enemy's forces to yield, but without fighting ; he captures his fortress, but without besieging it ; and without lengthy fighting takes the enemy's kingdom. Without tarnishing his weapons he gains the complete advantage. This is the assault by stratagem. ~ Sun Tzu

The fate of a Nation may sometimes depend upon the position of a fortress. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

At this point the question of Ukraine is the most important. The situation in Ukraine is very bad. If we don't take steps now to improve the situation, we may lose Ukraine. The objective should be to transform Ukraine , in the shortest period of time, into a real fortress of the U.S.S.R. ~ Joseph Stalin

I don't think anyone who has followed the progress of the Islamofascist terrorists who have threatened us believe we are going to be safe if we try a fortress mentality, to step back and say no one is going to hit us, they don't care about the United States. They do. ~ Kit Bond

The greatest fortress in the universe is an ignorant mind; not even the highest thought can leap over it. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

It is unfortunate that we have to live in a fortress, but we are forced to do so given the high crime rate in the country. I travel with two bodyguards all the time and there is substantial cost involved ~ Vivian Reddy

In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress. ~ Heinrich Heine

I think the number one public-relations blunder Osama has made is that he lives in a cave-fortress and if there's one thing we've learned from it's that you can't trust a guy who lives in a cave-fortress
Lex Luther, Captain Nemo, Dr. Evil. I'm telling you the list goes on. ~ David Letterman

Sometimes when I look at them from a distance, I try and squint my eyes and clear my mind. I peer at them the way a stranger would - without any emotions, just observations. In this large fortress I had created around my heart, the one that let me enter situations easily and leave even more easily, how did they find a cat flap that allowed them to crawl into my soul? ~ Twinkle Khanna

Shelby..." Her tongue skimmed over his while he cupped the back of her neck more firmly. "Shelby," he repeated a moment later, "there was something I wanted to talk to you about earlier, and I'm in danger of becoming as ditracted now as I was then."
"Promise?" She moved her lips to his throat.
"I have a command performance this weekend."
"Oh?" She switched to his ear.
In self-defense, Aan rolled over and pinned her beneath him. "I got a call from my father this afternoon."
"Ah" Humor danced in her eyes. "The laird."
"The title would appeal to him." Alan grasped her wrists to prevent her from clouding his mind as she seemed bent on doing. "It seems he's planned one of his famous family weekends. Come with me."
One brow lifted. "To the MacGregor fortress in Hyannis Port? Unarmed?"
"We'll hoist the white flag."
She wanted to go.She wanted to say no. A visit to his family home came perilously close to that final commitment she was so carefully sidestepping. Questions, speculation-there'd be no avoiding them. Alan heard her thoughts as clearly as if it had been spoken.Pushng back frustration, he changed tactics.
"I have orders to bring that girl-" he watched her eyes narrow- "-that daughter of the thieving, murdering Campbells,with me."
"Oh,is that so?"
"Just so," Alan returned mildly.
Shelby lifted her chin. "When do we leave? ~ Nora Roberts

Faithfulness is a fortress. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Keeping The City

"Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman guardeth in vain" - John F. Kennedy's unspoken words in Dallas on November 23, 1963.

Once,
in August,
head on your chest,
I heard wings
battering up the place,
something inside trying to fly out
and I was silent
and attentive,
the watchman.
I was your small public,
your small audience
but it was you that was clapping,
it was you untying the snarls and knots,
the webs, all bloody and gluey;
you with your twelve tongues and twelve wings
beating, wresting, beating, beating
your way out of childhood,
that airless net that fastened you down.

Since then I was more silent
though you had gone miles away,
tearing down, rebuilding the fortress.
I was there
but could do nothing
but guard the city
lest it break.

I was silent.
I had a strange idea I could overhear
but that your voice, tongue, wing
belonged solely to you.
The Lord was silent too.
I did not know if he could keep you whole,
where I, miles away, yet head on your chest,
could do nothing. Not a single thing.

The wings of the watchman,
if I spoke, would hurt the bird of your soul
as he nested, bit, sucked, flapped.
I wanted him to fly, burst like a missile from your throat,
burst from the spidery-mother-web,
burst from Woman herself
w ~ Anne Sexton

They saw how the wall around Eden stretched away on either hand, with only the one opening, as though to guard those within from hungry hordes who might wish to come inside. And next to the cherubim they saw the flaming sword. … The flaming sword turned this way, to prevent any intruder entering from the east, and that way, to prevent any intruder entering from the west. But it did not ever turn in the direction of the garden. The mouse and the beetle stood together watching it for a long time. Beyond it the country stretched away, with winding rivers and low hills and stands of trees and no moving thing in sight. The beetle said, 'These are formidable defences. No one can enter Eden. But I do not see that there is anything to prevent us leaving. ~ Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness. ~ Robin S. Sharma

For the greater the love the greater the grief, and the stronger the faith the more savagely will Satan storm its fortress. ~ C.S. Lewis

Image has to be its own fortress, in spite of the owners. People can't separate that or they don't comprehend that you can turn that on and off for each one of the different entities. ~ Todd McFarlane

With the Berlin I was able to set up a fortress that he could come near but not breach. ~ Vladimir Kramnik

In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Denied a Lenin and deprived of Napoleon, France retreated into the last and, we must hope, indestructible redoubt, the world of Astérix. The postwar vogue for Parisian thinkers barely concealed their collective retreat into Hexagonal introversion and into the ultimate fortress of French intellectuality, Cartesian theory and puns. ~ Eric J. Hobsbawm

There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode. ~ Joseph De Maistre

Having a body is in itself the greatest threat to the mind ... The body encloses the mind in a fortress; before long the mind is besieged on all sides, and in the end the mind has to give itself up. ~ Marcel Proust

Silence, sometimes my fortress, always my prison. ~ John Marsden

The Romans formed a line of mantlets and constructed a siege terrace. When they began to erect a siege tower at some distance, the defenders on the wall at first made abusive remarks and ridiculed the idea of setting up such a huge apparatus so far away. Did those pygmy Romans, they asked, with their feeble hands and muscles, imagine that they could mount such a heavy tower on top of a wall? (All the Gauls are inclined to be contemptuous of our short stature, contrasting it with their own great height.) 31. But when they saw the tower in motion and approaching the fortress walls, the strange, unfamiliar spectacle frightened them into sending envoys to ask Caesar for peace. The envoys said they were forced to the conclusion that the Romans had divine aid in their warlike operations, since they could move up apparatus of such height at such a speed. ~ Gaius Iulius Caesar

An unexpected sight opens in front of my eyes, a sight I cannot ignore. Instead of the calm waters in front of the fortress, the rear side offers a view of a different sea - the sea of small, dark streets and alleys - like an intricate puzzle. The breathtaking scenery visible from the other side had been replaced by the panorama of poverty–stricken streets, crumbling house walls, and dilapidated facades that struggle to hide the building materials beneath them. It reminds me of the ghettos in Barcelona, the ghettos I came to know far too well. I take a deep breath and look for a sign of life - a life not affected by its surroundings. Nothing. Down, between the rows of dirty dwellings stretches a clothesline. Heavy with the freshly washed laundry it droops down, droplets of water trickling onto the soiled pavement from its burden. Around the corner, a group of filthy children plays with a semi–deflated soccer ball - it makes a funny sound as it bounces off the wall - plunk, plunk. A man sitting on a staircase puts out a cigarette; he coughs, spits phlegm on the sidewalk, and lights a new one. A mucky dog wanders to a house, lifts his leg, and pisses on it. His urine flows down the wall and onto the street, forming a puddle on the pavement. The children run about, stepping in the piss, unconcerned. An old woman watches from the window, her large breasts hanging over the windowsill for the world to see. Une vie ordinaire, a mundane life...life in its purest. These streets bring ~ Henry Martin

Even the purest and most high-minded scientist finds it expedient sometimes to assault the fortress of truth with the blunt weapon of trail and error. sometimes it works beautifully. ~ Isaac Asimov

For I perceived that man's estate is as a citadel: he may throw down the walls to gain what he calls freedom, but then nothing of him remains save a dismantled fortress, open to the stars. And then begins the anguish of not-being. Far better for him were it to achieve his truth in the homely smell of blazing vine shoots, or of the sheep he has to shear. Truth strikes deep, like a well. A gaze that wanders loses sight of God. And that wise man who, keeping his thoughts in hand, knows little more than the weight of his flock's wool has a clearer vision of God than [anyone]. Citadel, I will build you in men's hearts.
/ Wisdom of the Sands by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Archer, is there a servant girl in my fortress you haven't taken to bed? I announce you're leaving and within minutes two of them are at each other's throats, and another is crying her eyes out in the scullery. Honestly. You've been here all of nine days."
- Roen, "Fire ~ Kristin Cashore

The fortress of books. And I think, privately, of the Three Little Pigs. I wonder if we are the big who built his house out of books and words and thoughts. What happens when the Big Bad Wolf arrives there? Does the house hold up? Or does it all fall down? ~ Andrea Cremer

You are my strong tower
Shelter over me
Beautiful and mighty
Everlasting King
You are my strong tower
Fortress when I'm weak
Your name is true and holy
And Your face is all I seek ~ Kutless

Silence, always my fortress, sometimes my prison ~ John Marsden

Unanswered vox hails requested medical aid and supply, but the line of Astartes at the top of the north ridge was grimly silent as the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their allies. A lone flare shot skyward from inside the black fortress where Horus had made his lair, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below like a madman's vision of the end of the world. And the fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns. ~ Graham McNeill

What did your mom say?"
"She said I better not be pregnant."
Janie snorts. "What the hell is wrong with our parents, anyway? Wait
you're not, are you?"
"Of course not! Sheesh, Janers! I may not have gotten the best grades in school, but I'm not stupid. You know I'm on the Pill. And his Jimmy doesn't get near me without a raincoat, yadamean? Ain't nothin' getting through my little fortress! ~ Lisa McMann

The peculiarity of prudery is to station the more sentries the less the fortress is menaced. ~ Victor Hugo

Turning the pages of this encoded codex, I realize that the books I love most are like open cities, with all sorts of ways to wander in. This thing is a fortress with no front gate. You're meant to scale the walls, stone by stone. ~ Robin Sloan

Sobriety had happened at a strange time in my sex life, and maybe I wouldn't have held onto it had it not been for both of the men involved in the transition. But sobriety made me realize, in lonely moments and long introspective jags, that while sex wasn't the only thing that I was good at, it was still something I enjoyed. The difference was choosing the people I invited to the playground, so to speak. If Eren had been any less fired up than he was, pushing firmly and slowly into me, watching my face for silent cues while I pushed my head back into the bed, stretching my neck and growling, reacquainting myself with the feeling of being filled, it wouldn't have been right.

But it was right. I'd chosen well. I almost laughed when he was completely inside of me and I got swept up in the truth of the matter, the reasonably overwhelming knowledge that yeah, this was something I might not fuck up. And god, I loved sex. God, I loved not having to feel like I was hiding inside of its fortress. ~ Vee Hoffman

You don't need armor if your skin is thick.
You don't need a sword if your mind is sharp.
You don't need a shield if your heart is strong.
You don't need a fortress is your soul is secure. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Father and daughter stand before the ship. She looks like a naval vessel. The red star glitters on the funnel. I look immediately at the lettering Proleterka. Blackened, patches of rust, forgotten. Sovereign lettering. The dusk is falling. The ship is large, she hides the sun that is about to sink into the water. She is darkness, pitch and mystery. A privateer built like a fortress, she has survived stormy weather and shipwreck. We go up the gangplank. The officers are waiting for us. We are the last. ~ Fleur Jaeggy

Her spirit is hurting, weak and in need, and so is mine. I don't know much either. I'm confused and blinded by the fog we've stumbled into, but Violet is real and warm and a fortress by which I fall to my knees whenever I come into contact. I need her, she needs me and tonight we just need to hold each other. ~ Katie McGarry

The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and He intends that no authority shall be known in it except His own. A soul thus kept in possession by the heavenly agencies is impregnable to the assaults of Satan. ~ Ellen G. White

Be my lover between two wars waged in the mirror, she said.
I don't want to return now to the fortress of my father's house.
Take me to your vineyard.
Let me meet your mother.
Perfume me with basil water.
Arrange me on silver dishes, comb me,
imprison me in your name,
let love kill me. ~ Mahmoud Darwish

Tomorrow is the day of the yearly election of the Well-Doer. Tomorrow we shall again hand over to our Well-Doer the keys to the impregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly this in no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election days of the ancients, on which (it seems so funny!) they did not even know in advance the result of the election. To build a state on some non-discountable contingencies, to build blindly - what could be more nonsensical? Yet centuries had to pass before this was understood! ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

On the whole, the best fortress you can have, is in not being hated by your subjects. If they hate you no fortress will save you ... ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Extraordinary Achievement October 12 Encourage yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness. This is your birthright. ~ Robin S. Sharma

When it comes to developing a worldview, we tend to face this false division: Either you are a realist who says the world is terrible, or a naïve optimist who says the world is wonderful and turns a blind eye. [Jack] Gilbert takes this middle way, and I think it's a far better way: he says the world is terrible and wonderful, and your obligation is to joy. . . . A real, mature, sincere joy - not a cheaply earned, ignorant joy. He's not talking about building a fortress of pleasure against the assault of the world. He's talking about the miraculousness of moments of wonder and how it seems to be worth it, after all. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I love you Lord, you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior. And my God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold. I will call on the Lord who is worthy of praise. I praise the Lord, my God, my best friend, for giving me the ability, the desire, the love and the guidance that brought me here today. Without you, I would be nothing. ~ Gary Carter

God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks. ~ William Shakespeare

A big part of the fun of working on Superman has been coming up with new characters and concepts to toss in, helping to design their costumes, things like that. And I spent ages coming up with the name 'Fortress of Solidarity,' so I want to get as much use out of it as I can! ~ Chris Roberson

These things were in the past now, many long years ago, though the memory remained as solid and present as his heartbeats. Time's passage had made the events seem almost crazed, hyper-real, stretched across a surreal dreamscape that felt more like a skjald's embellished saga than the intact past. Perhaps it had not happened like that. Perhaps the Lion had taken his Stormbirds to the Tyrant's fortress, and he himself had teleported in. Perhaps it had not been Ogvai there, but Gunn, or someone else. Had Bjorn been there too? It was a long time ago, so doubtful, but Bjorn seemed to always have been there, right from the start, just waiting for his time to come to maturity. ~ Chris Wraight

"You cannot believe what you are saying." "Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal nymph, only to plumb with his words the depths of passion. The philosopher tests the coldness of his gaze, to see how far he can undermine the fortress of bigotry." ~ Umberto Eco

Summer 2010 Marley raced into the beach hut, cheeks flushed, sand clinging to his bare feet. 'We need to make a flag pole for the sand fortress,' he told me breathlessly, salt-mussed hair wild around his face. I rummaged at the back of a cupboard, pulling out a pack of wooden skewers that we used for toasting marshmallows. 'Would one of these ~ Lucy Clarke

In our five thousand years of civilization, our history has often been the handmaid of geography. We lie exactly midway between the North Pole and the Equator. We are the gateway between the Fertile Crescent and Europe, between landlocked Central Asia and the Mediterranean world and beyond that, the Atlantic. Peoples and empires have ebbed and flowed across this land. Even today sixty per cent of Europe's gas supply either passes down the Bosphorus or runs under our very feet through pipelines. We have always been the navel of the world. Yet our favoured location by its very nature surrounded us with historical enemies; to the north, Russia to the south, the Arabs; to the east, Persia and to the west, the Red Apple itself, Europe.'
The Red Apple, the myth of Ottoman imperialism. When Mehmet the Conqueror looked out from the parapets of his fortress of Europe at Constantinople, the Red Apple had been the golden globe in the open palm of Justinian's statue in the Hippodrome, the symbol of Roman power and ambition. Mehmet rode through the crumbling Hippodrome, the decaying streets of dying Byzantium and the Red Apple became Rome itself. The truth of the Red Apple was that it would always be unattainable, for it was the westering spirit, the globe of the setting sun itself.
'Now we find ourselves caught between Arab oil, Russian gas and Iranian radiation and we found that the only way we could take the Red Apple was by joining it.'
This is poor stuff, Georgios thin ~ Ian McDonald

The best prayer is repentance.
The best sermon is character.
The best mirror is reality.
The best shield is faith.
The best hammer is will.
The best ammunition is truth.
The best fortress is reason.
The best school is life.

The best attorney is justice.
The best counselor is experience.
The best warrior is courage.
The best teacher is patience.
The best student is humility.
The best prophet is tomorrow.
The best general is strategy.
The best priest is piety.

The best physician is nature.
The best herb is peace.
The best medicine is forgiveness.
The best wealth is happiness.
The best angel is mercy.
The best companion is prudence.
The best light is wisdom.
The best religion is love. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The duke nodded, his beautiful face full of catlike satisfaction. "But since then I have conquered a sterner fortress." His eyes mocked me. "And now I enter it freely. ~ Teresa Denys

Israel is becoming a fortress. Fences along the borders with Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria. ~ Richard Engel

That's the Rookery. It is hidden from the eyes of the populace, a secret fortress that protects the normal people even as they remain ignorant of it. It is a testament to the willingness of humanity to ignore the obvious. ~ Daniel O'Malley

Making the decision to leave Valve strikes me as right up there with turning down the throne to Narnia, but then call me an idealist, and I guess I probably wouldn't want to spend my whole life making new hats for Team Fortress 2 either. ~ Yahtzee Croshaw

Tolerance is our safest refuge and our fortress against the handicaps that arise from schism, factions, and the difficulties inherent in reaching mutual agreement ~ Fethullah Gulen

A mighty fortress is our God, and in Him we are safe for time and for eternity. Shall we murmur if we have less of time than we expected? The less of time, the more of heaven. The briefer life, earlier mortality. ~ Edith E. Searell

That space. It begins in the middle of my forehead and ends in the middle of my groin. It is, variously, as wide as my body, as narrow as a slit in a fortress wall. On days when thought flows freely or better yet clarifies with effort, it expands gloriously. On days when anxiety and self-pity crowd in, it shrinks, how fast it shrinks! When the space is wide and I occupy it fully, I taste the air, feel the light. I breathe evenly and slowly. I am peaceful and excited, beyond influence or threat. Nothing can touch me. I'm safe. I'm free. I'm thinking. When I lose the battle to think, the boundaries narrow, the air is polluted, the light clouds over. All is vapor and fog, and I have trouble breathing. ~ Vivian Gornick

Man is very well defended against himself ... The actual fortress is inaccessible, even invisible to him, unless his friends and enemies play the traitor and conduct him in by a secret path. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The body, then, is one's animal fate that has to be struggled against in some ways. At the same time, it offers experiences and sensations, concrete pleasure that the inner symbolic world lacks. No wonder man is impaled on the horns of sexual problems, why Freud saw that sex was so prominent in human life-especially in the neurotic conflicts of his patients. Sex is an inevitable component of man's confusion over the meaning of his life, a meaning split hopelessly into two realms-symbols (freedom) and body (fate). No wonder, too, that most of us never abandon entirely the early attempts of the child to use the body and its appendages as a fortress or a machine to magically coerce the world. We try to get metaphysical answers out of the body that the body-as a material thing-cannot possibly give. We try to answer the transcendent mystery of creation by experiences in one, partial, physical product of that creation. This is why the mystique of sex is so widely practiced-say, in traditional France-and at the same time is so disillusioning. It is comfortingly infantile in its indulgence and its pleasure, yet so self-defeating of real awareness and growth, if the person is using it to try to answer metaphysical questions. It then becomes a lie about reality, a screen against full consciousness. If the adult reduces the problem of life to the area of sexuality, he repeats the fetishization of the child who focuses the problem of the mother upon her genitals. Sex then becomes a scree ~ Ernest Becker

PSALM 18 I love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my i rock and my j fortress and my deliverer, my God, my i rock, in k whom I take refuge, my l shield, and m the horn of my salvation, my n stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is o worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. ~ Anonymous

When I was in Colditz, that impenetrable fortress, whittling away my life, I wanted to know this."
"Looks like you're still there, Shura."
"No," he said. "I'm in New York, a fly on the wall, trying to see you without me. ~ Paullina Simons

The library is every child's lighthouse. It is every person's
sanctuary. It is every town and county's fortress in the face of
ignorance, intrusion and bad behavior. ~ Amy Bloom

Faith is a strong fortress. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgment by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. Its usurps the revelation of God's purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. ~ Walter Wink

There certainly can and will be plenty of external difficulties in life; nevertheless, the soul that comes unto Christ dwells within a personal fortress, a veritable palace of perfect peace. 'Whoso hearkeneth unto me,' Jehovah says, 'shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil' (Prov. 1:33). ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

1Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[241] 2I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 3Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. ~ Anonymous

The Pashtun tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian Every large house is a real feudal fortress ... Eve ry family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud ... Nothing is ever forgotten and very few debts are left unpaid. ~ Winston Churchill

The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of the cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo - a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black again the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold.
The colours of their profession. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The fighting was horrendous. Bloodshed and death lie everywhere around us. It was not exciting, Vindhya. It is fearsome, and we were all scared out of our wits. There is no honour in battle but to protect you, my love. We have won the gates of Grilsom and lost the fortress of Loare...but we've gained allies from the Knights of Scrivehrim, and enemies of the dark elves of Scryire. There is no winning in War, my sweet...only loss. People die on
every side. How can any battle be won with such consequence and loss? I do not understand war. It's so unfair, so...unjustified.

We take innocent lives, yet we gain medals of highest honour and divine, sacred blessings. What is the sense of it? And even much less do I understand Andsar's concept of celibacy in soldiers, and that they choose to stay alone their entire lives. I might understand, were the reasoning that we would leave no one behind to suffer...but there is no reason for it. They tell us we are wrong to love one another, and so they justify our love by sending me to my assured death. If anyone were to find out about us, we'd both surely be killed. Love like this, though…I believe it is worth the cost of my life, if I could only be with you one moment. ~ Jennifer Megan Varnadore

The Stoics define wisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the being hurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dull and inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and made us up, put into the composition of our humanity more than a pound of passions to an ounce of reason; and reason he confined within the narrow cells of the brain, whereas he left passions the whole body to
range in.
Farther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand
perpetually on guard, that reason might make no assault,
surprise, nor inroad ; anger, which keeps its station in
the fortress of the heart ; and lust, which like the signs
Virgo and Scorpio, rules the appetites and passions. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

And just like magic, the Isle of the Lost began to form before their eyes, including the hidden and forbidden zones. The Forbidden Fortress appeared, a menacing-looking castle of spiky walls and twisty towers, located on the edge of the island. Right in the middle of Nowhere. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

Despite the sisters' pretend rivalry and occasional squabbles, they were each other's staunchest ally and closest friend. Few people in Lillian's life had ever loved her except Daisy, who adored the ugliest stray dogs, the most annoying children, and things that needed to be repaired or thrown out altogether.
And yet for all their closeness, they were quite different. Daisy was an idealist, a dreamer, a mercurial creature who alternated between childlike whimsy and shrewd intelligence. Lillian knew herself to be a sharp-tongued girl with a fortress of defenses between herself and the rest of the world- a girl with well-maintained cynicism and a biting sense of humor. ~ Lisa Kleypas

There is no number so unlucky as thirteen. Once, in Valhalla, there was a feast for twelve gods, but Loki, the trickster god, went uninvited and he played his evil games, persuading Hod the Blind to throw a sprig of mistletoe at his brother, Baldur. Baldur was the favorite god, the good one, but he could be killed by mistletoe and so his blind brother threw the sprig and Baldur died and Loki laughed, and ever since we have known that thirteen is the evil number. Thirteen birds in the sky are an omen of disaster, thirteen pebbles in a cooking pot will poison any food placed in the pot, while thirteen at a meal is an invitation to death. Thirteen spears against a fortress could only mean defeat. Even the Christians know thirteen is unlucky. Father Beocca told me that was because there were thirteen men at Christ's last meal, and the thirteenth was Judas. ~ Bernard Cornwell

No doubt Pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. ~ C.S. Lewis

Perhaps there never was a monument more characteristic of an age and people than the Alhambra; a rugged fortress without, a voluptuous palace within; war frowning from its battlements; poetry breathing throughout the fairy architecture of its halls. ~ Washington Irving

It was my grandfather's island. Looming and bleak, folded in mist, guarded by a million screeching birds, it looked like some ancient fortress constructed by giants.
As I gazed up at its sheer cliffs, tops disappearing in a reef of ghostly clouds, the idea that this was a magical place didn't seem so ridiculous. ~ Ransom Riggs

However tortured the rationalizations we prefer, the thirst of one human being for another can be so--humbling--but I preferred to think of it as fate. And then mad desire. Anything but a fortress built on the back of a whim...How much easier to say there is no coincidence, and certainly no mistakes, and carry on to our destruction in defense of...how shall I put it? My idea of myself. One will sacrifice anything for that. ~ Laura Dietz

My distinguishing feature is the gap between my teeth. I had to wear a brace because my teeth used to stick out like guns from a fortress. ~ Jane Birkin

For the Word created heaven and earth and all things [Ps. 33:6]; the Word must do this thing, and not we poor sinners.

In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing.

And while I slept [cf. Mark 4:26–29], or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.

The Second Sermon, March 10, 1522, Monday after Invocavit. [Luther, M. (1999, c1959). Vol. 51: Luther's works, vol. 51: Sermons I. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (51:III-78). Philadelphia: Fortress Press] ~ Martin Luther

Each one's no longer conscious
Of the high wall, or the rest:
Since the one enduring fortress,
Is the soldier's iron breast.
If you'd live unconquered,
Quickly arm, and fight the real foe:
Every wife an Amazon bred,
And every child a hero. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The imaginary fortress in your head you seek refuge in; never has, & never will protect your physical being from harm. ~ Mamur Mustapha

In horror of death, I took to the mountains - again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death, capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind. Now all fear of death is over and done. ~ Milarepa