From The Foreword For Pairs 1919 Quotes

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertent, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided. ~ Richard Holbrooke

Foreword: Life is tension or the result of tension: without tension the creative impulse cannot exist. If human life be taken as the result of tension between the two polarities night and day, night, the negative pole, must share equal importance with the positive day. At night, under the influence of cosmic radiations quite different from those of the day, human affairs are apt to come to a crisis. At night most human beings die and are born.
Sleep Has His House describes in the night-time language certain stages in the development of one individual human being. No interpretation is needed of this language we have all spoken in childhood and in our dreams; but for the sake of unity a few words before every section indicate the corresponding events of the day. ~ Anna Kavan

Such ordeals always strike one with their strangeness, their digression from the normal flow of events, and often provoke a universal protest: "Why me?" Be sure that this is not a question but an outcry. The person who screams it has been instilled with an astonishing suspicion that he, in fact, has been the perfect subject for a very specific "weird," a tailor-made fate, and that a prior engagement, in all its weirdness, was fulfilled at the appointed time and place. ~ Thomas Ligotti

If you cannot see the rainbow because your face is down, don't argue that no rainbow is up there. Lift up your passion and take your dreams off the ground! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Carlin does a rare thing for a self-help book: gives useful guidance by supplying readers with the tools necessary for change." --Barry Silverstein, "Foreword Reviews ~ Barry Silverstein

At present, however, science, spurred on by its powerful delusion, is hurrying unstoppably to its limits, where the optimism hidden in the essence oflogic will founder and break up. For there is an infinite number ofpoints on the periphery ofthe circle ofscience, and while we have no way of foreseeing how the circle could ever be completed, a noble and gifted man inevitably encounters, before the mid-point of his existence, boundary points on the periphery like this, where he stares into that which cannot be illuminated. When, to his horror, he sees how logic curls up around itself at these limits and finally bites its own tail, then a new form ofknowledge breaks through, tragic knowledge, which, simply to be endured, needs art for protection and as medicine."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Foreword to Richard Wagner" in The Birth of Tragedy, ed. R. Geuss & R. Speirs, Cambridge, 2007, 163. (p.114) ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

What is the use of the colon? What is a colon? Generally it opens onto an explanation, but it is always done with the help of an interruption. It can be said that the colon is not the period, it is the period of the period, the canceling of the period. It is a moment mute and marked; it is the most delicate tattoo of the text. It is also in place of, instead of, everything that would be causal. For example, when we read: "It's simply that: secret." "Secret," is a sentence, it is the shortest sentence perhaps. But it is a sentence in one word. It is a sentence that is secret and that at the same time says its name. One could invert and say: "Secret: it is simply that." This is secret, the secret is the secret of this, it is a word which makes infinite sense all by itself, it is a sentence which performs the secret itself [Clarice Lispector, The Stream of Life, trans Elizabeth Lowe & Earl Fitz, Foreword by Hélène Cixous trans Verena Conley, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989] ~ Helene Cixous

arrow goes foreword after being pulled backward. A bullet goes forward after the trigger being pulled backwards. Every human being will be happy only after they face their difficulties in their path...So don't be afraid to face them for they will push you forward ~ Unknown

(Taken from the Foreword of 'Do Hard Things') One of my life's principles is to develop myself to the maximum of my potential in all ways and to help others do the same. ~ Chuck Norris

God's given me a fierce passion for teaching girl's my age and younger, maybe even older, about purity, and the fact that it is not a physical thing but in fact that of the heart. ~ Abigail Ford

We are the voices in the shadows,
Between the light and shade,
Betwixt life and restful death,
In the dark periphery of the unseen.

We're here,
At the edges.
We are the villainous punished,
The innocent murdered or abandoned,
Our lives ended by foul means, or unspeakable deeds.
We are your lovers long gone; your siblings forsaken.

Can you hear us?
At the edges

From the Foreword of Cautionary Tales - by Emmanuelle de Maupassant ~ Emmanuelle De Maupassant

For me personally, The Organic Creative Process helped me to discover what kind of actor I want to be; but this is a process that goes beyond acting. It actually revealed to me what I want to do in my life and that I have to work hard to make it real. ~ Giovanni Morassutti

For what else is nostalgia but this? That immense ache in the heart that seems immeasurable, massive, spilling over the future that longs for things that can no longer be. (Foreword to Exie Abola's Trafficking in Nostalgia) ~ Rica Bolipata-Santos

When we are reading, a voice comes to us as in the dark and whispers, "Imagine!" Samuel Beckett
as told by Bill Moyer in the Foreword he wrote for, The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. Afterword by Ann Patchett ~ Samuel Beckett

Muslims pursued knowledge to the edges of the earth. Al-Biruni, the central Asian polymath, is arguably the world's first anthropologist. The great linguists of Iraq and Persia laid the foundations a thousand years ago for subjects only now coming to the forefront in language studies. Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the first true scientific historian, argued hundreds of years ago that history should be based upon facts and not myths or superstitions. The great psychologists of Islam known as the Sufis wrote treatise after treatise that rival the most advanced texts today on human psychology. The great ethicists and exegetes of Islam's past left tomes that fill countless shelves in the great libraries of the world, and many more of their texts remain in manuscript form.
In the foreword of "Being Muslim. A Practical Guide" by Dr. Asad Tarsin. ~ Hamza Yusuf

Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?"
- from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Serial murders are a bit like natural disasters: in the scheme of things they are quite rare, but when they happen they demand our attention. They interest us for several reasons, but especially because they are so dramatically threatening, and they profoundly challenge our sense of our own everyday safety.

[Todd R. Clear, Foreword] ~ Eric W. Hickey

...unless you value yourself, you won't have the motivation to exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthfully, and care for yourself. ~ Doreen Virtue

We are living in a time where the hearing from God is bombarded by many frequencies and voices. This noise, corrosive in nature, makes it difficult to hear God's voice ... living with more noise means we live less like a disciple. We need a prism. Eric Samuel Timm is a prism. ~ Mark Batterson

This book by Dr. Yasuda, while ostensibly about haiku, in reality penetrates deeply into the totality of this living spirit of Japan. It deals with those aspects which have produced and maintained haiku into the present day. The important key to understanding comes with the realization that in Japanese art one strives always for the absolute. Of the absolute there is no question of degree; it is either attained or lost. Most often, to be sure, it is not attained, but it is the constant striving toward and awareness of that high goal which gives strength and vitality to this living aesthetic spirit which has so impressed me in Japan.

(Robert B. Hall, Foreword, p. x) ~ Kenneth Yasuda

The walk liberating, I was released from forms, from the perpendiculars, straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds of thought into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends of sight ... ~ A.R. Ammons

There is no such thing in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual may possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and constitute even the rudest of society, self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support ... ~ Edward Bellamy

You're following the Lord wholeheartedly, yet you're missing out on the forgiveness part. God's not just in the business of saving us from our sins. He's also in the business of forgiving those sins and putting them as far as the east is from the west. ~ Jody Hedlund

In the meantime," Phane said,his mismatched eyes suddenly bright,his tone heavy with sarcasm,"Lucian needs to decide if he's going to change his balas's diaper or let the rest of us pass out from the scent."Bronwyn burst out laughing,but a growl emanated from Lucian's throat."I'll change her diaper after I change yours,little birdie."
"My 'Little birdie' isn't so little," Phane returned."Want to see?"
Lucian sniffed."And make my eyes bleed?Fuck no! ~ Laura Wright

The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. ~ John C. Bogle

This is so my favorite time of day to make house calls," Mendoza announced from the backseat of Wyatt's SUV as they cruised the Soyopango gangland territory. "Nothing says sneak attack like waltzing in under the cover of the noon-fucking-sun. ~ Cindy Gerard

Many white children in this city never set foot in a public school. They follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents, attending private schools from the moment they hit kindergarten. This private school pipeline contributes to the racial disparity of the public schools, the same way my alma mater does in Farmville. Richmonders, like many in Prince Edward and around the country, have effectively given up on public school education. And the abandonment of Richmond's public schools by white and middle-income parents creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of schools that continue to perform poorly. ~ Kristen Green

A very high fraction of America's economic problems come not from our difficulties with education or globalization or competition with the Chinese or whatever. But they come from the fact that a small number of wealthy and powerful people who run dangerous and/or inefficient companies are able, through the use of money in the political process, to prevent the government from regulating them properly. ~ Charles Ferguson

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within. ~ Plutarch

On Saturday Ben and I drove to Johns Island to see Skyfall."
"You did?" Hi asked sharply. "Thanks for the invite, jerks."
Shelton raised his palms. "You were at temple. We're supposed to just wait around? Plus, you've seen that move like five times."
"You still could've asked," Hi grumbled.
"I don't - "
"Guys!" I clapped my hands once. "The story, please."
"An hour in, I go for a popcorn refill." Shelton shuddered. "When I get back, Ben's sitting in the dark, flaring away, and he's not even wearing his sunglasses! I almost wet myself. He said he wanted to watch the movie in HD. Man, I don't remember a single minute from the rest of the film."
"In a theater!?" My temper exploded. "That stupid mother - "
"Hiram!"
Our heads whipped. Ruth Stolowitski was standing on her front stoop.
"Get back in here this instant! You're not dressed."
Ruth wore a fuzzy pink bathrobe, her free hand vising the garment closed. Her eyes darted, as if worried that cagey perverts were surveilling our remote island, waiting for just this opportunity to get an eyeful. ~ Kathy Reichs

The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life ... one must become externalised; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one's character, living in the brain. ~ Virginia Woolf

The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of the latter set free the elements of the former ... [T]he historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. ~ Karl Marx

Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others' reasons for action, or the basis of others' emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers. ~ Terri E Apter

Our mental health depends on a mechanism for editing the moment-by-moment ocean of sensory data flowing into our consciousness down to a manageable trickle of the noticed and remembered. The cannabinoid network appears to be part of that mechanism, vigilantly sifting the vast chaff of sense impression from the kernels of perception we need to remember if we're to get through the day and get done what needs to be done.* Much depends on forgetting. ~ Michael Pollan

The more I hear of ban-the-gun legislation forming in Washington, and the more I hear it advocated from the editorial pulpit of the New York Times, the more I want my own .45 holstered within easy reach of this typewriter. ~ Patrick Bedard

When I was six, I discovered a terrible truth: I was the only human being on the planet. I was the seed and the sower and I made myself several seconds from the event horizon at the end of time - at the x before time began. Indeed, there were six billion other carbon-based sapient life forms moiling in the earth, but none of them were the real McCoy. I'm the real McCoy. The rest? Cardboard props, marionettes, grist for the mill. After I made me, I broke the mold under my heel. ~ Laird Barron

I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the System, if only I can manage to set eyes on it. Hitherto I have had no success; and though I have young legs, I am almost weary from running back and forth ...
Once or twice I have been on the verge of bending the knee. But at the last moment, when I already had my handkerchief spread on the ground, to avoid soiling my trousers, and I made a trusting appeal to one of the initiated who stood by: "Tell me now sincerely, is it entirely finished; for if so I will kneel down before it, even at the risk of ruining a pair of trousers (for on account of the heavy traffic to and from the system, the road has become quite muddy)," - I always receive the same answer: "No, it is not yet quite finished." And so there was another postponement - of the system, and of my homage.
System and finality are pretty much one and the same, so much so that if the system is not finished, there is no system. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I remember the years I had been too afraid to dream of sitting on the ledge of a humble yellow house, chatting with a family that wasn't my own, chatting in a language that wasn't my own, in a part of the world so far away from the one I grew up in and yet not that different. ~ Shivya Nath

In Beijing, the joke among hacks is that, after the drive in from the airport, you are ready to write a column; after a month, you feel the stirrings of an idea-book; but after a year, you struggle to write anything at all, because you've finally discovered just how much you don't know. ~ Evan Osnos

I had just come off doing a lot of commercials when I did 'Go,' so a part of the fast pace and efficiency comes from the discipline I had to learn from telling stories in 25-second increments, and that type of discipline is insane. ~ Doug Liman

One of more cruel punishment methods, if not the most cruel one, to any woman is to completely keep her out of attention, to constantly disconnect her eye connection, or simply not to listen to her. It could automatically destroy her Ego so badly that she could even prefer, from the bottom of her heart, any severe physical punishment to that 'mild' punishment, which would mean to be killed by inches for female brain. ~ Elmar Hussein

Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Rain comes from the east one night
We watch it come
To hang like beaded curtains
Till the morning sun
Water dripping from our clothes
You with raindrops on your nose
Ask me sadly "Please don't go away now"
Till the rain is done, I say
"I'll stay now"

Rain outside but inside we don't mind at all
Shadows by the fire slowly climb and fall
Kisses fade and leave no trace
Whispers vanish into space
The dawn will send me on a chase to nowhere
Why cry as if I were the first to go there

And I know I shouldn't be here
Yes, I know I should go home
But that eastern rain drones in my brain
And I'm so all alone, so all alone

Morning comes up from the east
We watch it come
And far away now rolls the ancient rain God's drum
You with daybreak in your eyes
Afraid to speak for telling lies
I watch you search for some reply to lend me
But when the rain is done
There's no pretending

"Eastern Rain" from Second Fret Sets ~ Joni Mitchell

Taking the long view, we need to teach our kids street smarts, like the importance of walking with a friend instead of alone, and how to discern bad strangers from the overwhelming majority of good ones. If we prevent our children from learning how to navigate the world beyond our front yard, it will only come back to haunt them later on when they feel frightened, bewildered, lost, or confused out on the streets. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

Technically, the last number of years, partially from the injury, it's been difficult to push forward but I felt even before the injury that I still could do more and was sort of at a stalemate. ~ Elvis Stojko

Facebook draws from the public and public-interest sphere, a simultaneously bold and modest step towards acknowledging that our new networked technologies deeply affect our lives in ways not always captured or best shaped by the typical template of consumer and seller. ~ Jonathan Zittrain