Gaining Ground Quotes

I think the public is very reluctant to get involved in more foreign wars, especially in the Middle East. And they understand, implicitly, that we go to war in the Middle East because of oil. And if we don't want to go to war in the Middle East, then we have to do something about the oil problem. And I think that view is gaining ground in the U.S. ~ Michael Klare

We applaud the great strides made through genetic identification research, however, we do not condone the use of such information for eugenics and related purposes" ... "The question of what lives are worth living is now answered in doctors' offices instead of in Nazis' T-4 programme. The forces of normalisation seem to be gaining ground. ~ Andrew Solomon

Open political and economic systems have been gaining ground and there's a good reason for it. They work better. ~ George P. Shultz

The last thing the enemy wants to see is Jesus and His tribe of twenty-first-century, Internet-savvy followers gaining ground online. So he turns up the volume, complicates the simple, and amplifies the yammering so we don't know which way is up. He is the cultivator of fear, paranoia, and intimidation. He is the master of confusion and the king of anxiety. His goal is the same as it was in the garden. He exists to silence God's message of hope and genuine relationship with His children. Don't pick up the lies the enemy is putting down. ~ Toni Birdsong

The goal of becoming a better person is within the reach of us all, at every moment. ... We need only invoke the power of mindful awareness in any action of body, speech, or mind to elevate that action from the unconscious reflex of a trained creature to the awakened choice of a human being who is guided to a higher life by wisdom. ... We may not "complete" the work in this lifetime and root out the very mechanism by which our minds and bodies manifest their hereditary karmic toxins. Yet to whatever extent we can notice them as they arise, understand them for what they are, and gently abandon our grasp of them - if only for this moment - we are gaining ground in the grand scheme of things. And even a modest moment of emancipation from the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion is a moment without suffering. ~ Andrew Olendzki

All this business of a labour to accomplish, before I can end, of words to say, a truth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end, of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in the hope it would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting lost, but somehow in the long run making headway. ~ Samuel Beckett

When the mind becomes so completely absorbed in perfect health that all sickness is forgotten, all the powers of mind will proceed to create health, and every trace of sickness will soon disappear. When the mind becomes so completely absorbed in higher attainments and in greater achievements that all thought of failure is forgotten, all the forces of mind will begin to work for the promotion of those attainments and achievements. The person will be gaining ground every day, and greater success will positively follow. ~ Christian D. Larson

It was 911 calling me. If you can believe it. Them calling me. ~ Robin Black

I'm fine."
I ground my teeth. "I swear if I hear that from you or Solange one more time I'm duct-taping your mouths shut."
"Can I duct-tape yours shut?"
I grinned. "Like that would stop me. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

It's been a long, hard day, and bit by bit you have been transformed into a single, vertical, barely ambulatory ache. All that awaits you now is another long, lonely night on the hard, cold ground. "What am I doing out here?" you ask yourself. "I must be mad!" Indeed, you are mad. Otherwise right now you could be warm and cozy and stretched out in front of your beloved TV, munching popcorn and swigging down ice-cold brew, just like a civilized person. "Oh well," you sigh to yourself. "I'd better stop and get a fire going. ~ Patrick F. McManus

I used to think that was what set me apart, you know? That I always did what I thought was right and didn't give much thought to consequences. But I think now it was just ego - that I'm no different than anybody else. Maybe everybody always does what they think is right and it's all just a matter of what you tell yourself the high ground is ~ Kyle Mills

The Winter Solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time
a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken. ~ Frederick Lenz

The sky above Belgrade is expansive and high, shifting yet always beautiful; clear with its chill splendour during the winter; turning into a single downcast cloud during summer storms, driven by the crazy winds and bearing rain mixed with the dust of the Pannonian plain; seeming to flower along with the ground during spring; and growing heavy with roils of autumnal stars during fall. Always beautiful and bountiful, it is a reward to this odd township for all that is missing and a comfort for everything that should not be. ~ Ivo Andric

Halfway home, the sky goes from dark gray to almost black and a loud thunder snap accompanies the first few raindrops that fall. Heavy, warm, big drops, they drench me in seconds, like an overturned bucket from the sky dumping just on my head. I reach my hands up and out, as if that can stop my getting wetter, and open my mouth, trying to swallow the downpour, till it finally hits me how funny it is, my trying to stop the rain.

This is so funny to me, I laugh and laugh, as loud and free as I want. Instead of hurrying to higher ground, I jump lower, down off the curb, splashing through the puddles, playing and laughing all the way home. In all my life till now, rain has meant staying inside and not being able to go out to play. But now for the first time I realize that rain doesn't have to be bad. And what's more, I understand, sadness doesn't have to be bad, either. Come to think of it, I figure you need sadness, just as you need the rain.

Thoughts and ideas pour through my awareness. It feels to me that happiness is almost scary, like how I imagine being drunk might feel - real silly and not caring what anybody else says. Plus, that happy feeling always leaves so fast, and you know it's going to go before it even does. Sadness lasts longer, making it more familiar, and more comfortable. But maybe, I wonder, there's a way to find some happiness in the sadness. After all, it's like the rain, something you can't avoid. And so, it seems to me, if you're cau ~ Antwone Quenton Fisher

Yes, perfection. it rests its full weight upon the core of the poor aunt's being, like a corpse sealed inside a glacier-a magnificent glacier made of ice like stainless steel. Only ten thousand years of sunshine could melt such a glacier. But no poor aunt can live for thousand years, of course, and so she will have to live with her perfection, die with her perfection, and be buried with her perfection.
Perfection and the aunt beneath the ground.
Ten thousand years goes by. Then, perhaps, the glacier melt in darkness and perfection thrust its way out of the grave to reveal it self on the earth's surface. Everything on earth is completely change by then, but if by any chance the ceremony known as "wedding" still exists, the perfection left behind by the poor aunt might be invited to one, there to eat an entire dinner with impeccable table manners and be called upon to deliver heartfelt words of congratulation.
But never mind. These events would not take place until the year 11,980. ~ Haruki Murakami

I took a steadying breath. "Listen, I know we have a full night ahead of us, but I wanted to give you your birthday present."

"Oh, darling, you didn't need to get me anything. Every day with you is a gift." He leaned in and kissed me.

"Well, I hadn't planned on getting you a gift, but then something presented itself, so here we are."

"All right then," he said, placing his glass on the ground. "I'm ready. Where is it?"

"That's the only problem," I started. I felt my hands begin to shake. "It won't actually arrive for another seven or eight months."

He smiled but squinted. "Eight months? What in the world could take . . ."

As his words drifted away, so did his eyes, leaving my face and making their way to my stomach. He seemed to expect me to look different, for me to be as big as a house already. But I'd done my best to hide everything: the tiredness, the nausea, the sudden distaste for foods.

He stared on and on, and I waited for him to smile or laugh or jump up and down. But he sat there, frozen to the point that it started to frighten me.

"Maxon?" I reached out and touched his leg. "Maxon, are you all right?"

He nodded, still watching my stomach. ~ Kiera Cass

Will had been taken aback in his confrontation with Arisaka to discover that his name- Chocho- meant "Butterfly" ... He was puzzled to know why they had selected it. His friends, of course, delighted in helping him guess the reason.
'I assume it's because you're such a snazzy dresser,' Evanlyn said. 'You Rangers are a riot of color, after all.' ...
'I think it might be more to do with the way he raced around the training ground, darting here and there to correct the way a man might be holding his shield, then dashing off to show someone how to put their body weight into their javelin cast,' said Horace, a little more sympathetically. Then he ruined the effect by adding thoughtlessly, 'I must say, your cloak did flutter around like a butterfly's wings. ~ John Flanagan

He shouted her name again, and in his mind he saw Chuck, falling to the ground, covered in blood, and Newt's bulging eyes. Three of the closest friends he'd ever had. And WICKED had taken them all away from him. ~ James Dashner

Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone." The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. "Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it. ~ Orson Scott Card

A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away. ~ Chinua Achebe

My expectations from the university were perhaps too idealistic. I had dreams of learning things about innovation and discovery in the field of technology, but all of it hit the ground hard, when I faced with the pathetic reality of the so-called higher education system. To my surprise, I found myself stuck behind the walls of meaningless facts, figures and rankings. It occurred to me that, it was not actually a place for education, rather it was a place where you go to get your head filled with useless undigested information, that you'd probably never use throughout your entire life. It was not education, and moreover, it was definitely not science. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Once when I was standing at the base, they started rotating the set and a big, heavy wrench fell down from the 12 o'clock position of the set, and got buried in the ground a few feet from me. I could have been killed! ~ Marvin Minsky

Not all roots are buried down in the ground, some are at the top of a tree. ~ Jinvirle

As president, I will take that common ground and sign the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. I will stop allowing taxpayer money to fund Planned Parenthood. And I will support those pregnancy centers and women's health clinics around the country that are actually serving their communities. ~ Carly Fiorina

stoodAloof from streets, encompass'd with a wood.Dryden.2. Applied to persons, it often insinuates caution and circumspection. Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.Shak.Henry VI. Going northwards, aloof, as long as they had any doubt of being pursued, at last when they were out of reach, they turned and crossed the ocean to Spain.Bacon. The king would not, by any means, enter the city, until he had aloof seen the cross set up upon the greater tower of Granada, whereby it became Christian ground.Bacon'sHen. VII. Two pots stood by a river, one of brass, the other of clay. The water carried them away; the earthen vessel kept aloof from t'other.L'Estrange'sFables. The strong may fight aloof; Ancaeus try'dHis force too ~ Samuel Johnson

At home the great delight is to see the clover and grass now growing on places that were bare when we came. These small healings of the ground are my model accomplishment-everything else I do must aspire to that. While I was at that work the world gained with every move I made, and I harmed nothing. ~ Wendell Berry

I watch every day when we hit and take ground balls and the way we go about our business. If I saw any lackadaisical approach, that would concern me. ~ Mike Quade

My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith. ~ Ibn Arabi

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground. ~ John Milton

You can't fix this,' she ground out.
'That is not true. There is nothing anyone could hold over you that could not be overcome.'
'By what?' she demanded. 'Rainbows and sprites and the everlasting good wishes of your family? It won't work, Gregory. It won't. The Bridgertons may be powerful, but you cannot change the past, and you cannot bend the future to suit your whims ... You don't understand. You can't possibly. You are all so happy, so perfect.'
'We are not.'
'You are. You don't even know that you are, and you can't conceive that the rest of us are not, that we might struggle and try and be good and still not receive what we wish for. ~ Julia Quinn

What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

A wet autumn morning, a garbage truck clattering down the street. The first snowfall of the season, blossom sized flakes falling languidly and melting on teh ground, a premature snow fall delicate as lace, rapidly melting. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd. ~ Paul Keating

They are living, growing, reproducing, pushing and pulling in the ground all around us at all times. We accept that without even noticing. Open your eyes, people. This is amazing. If plants made sounds, it would all be different. But they communicate with color and shape and size and texture. They don't meow or bark or tweet. We think they don't have eyes, but they see the angle of the sun and the rise of the moon. They don't just feel the wind; they change directions because of it. ~ Holly Goldberg Sloan

Gray space is fertile ground for fiction. When I can see both sides of an argument and feel strongly in both directions, then there's a story there, then I can write real characters that I care about and believe in and champion on both sides. ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

We are the rocks and reefs of the human sea, tumultuous outcrops, magnets for wrecks. The peaks of mountains you cannot see: that's us, all right. Dark even on the brightest day. Stony and defiant of the prevailing currents until we are eventually worn down and dissolved. Sometimes soaked and sometimes dry as a bone. Hammered by tides and grimly standing our ground against the pounding. Probably even secretly enjoying the pounding. ~ Brian Doyle

The virtuous to those mansions go
Where pleasures unembitter'd flow,
Where, leading up a jocund band,
Vigor and Youth dance hand in hand,
Whilst Zephyr, with harmonious gales,
Pipes softest music through the vales,
And Spring and Flora, gaily crown'd,
With velvet carpet spread the ground;
With livelier blush where roses bloom,
And every shrub expires perfume. ~ Charles Churchill

Shadow and dust shall be reclaimed, earth sealing the tomb from which you came. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, warrior return, breathe your last. Air, earth, fire, water, hear my voice, obey my order, thrice around your grave do bound, evil sink into the ground. I now invoke the law of three, this is my will, so mote it be. ~ Christine Feehan

. I wanted to hug her, to hold her and tell her that I would have killed him if he ever hurt her. I wanted to shout at her and tell her I would protect her and help her and always be there for her. In that moment I think I fell in love for the first time. I walked over to her not really comprehending what I was feeling but reaching out to her with compassion. I sat down beside Rae and put my arm around her. She hugged me back and whispered, "Thank you."
She stood up and touched my cheek with her fingers and went inside her house. I sat there awhile until the porch-light went off and then walked home, my feet about an inch above the ground. ~ Doug Hiser

Raising both of her glowing palms, she beckoned him with wiggling fingers. "Come on, then. I'll go another round. Though by now even an amoeba would've learned not to fuck with me."
Everyone grew still, silent. Then Cade started back down for her, redoubling his speed.
"No, Cade, I've got this," she said evenly, never looking away from Bowe.
Meanwhile, Bowe had subtly pulled his head back, feeling as if he'd just been presented with a species of creature he had never seen. Then he caught Rydstrom's look of amusement - the demon was obviously loving this - and he found himself . . . grinning. "Kitten's quick to bear those claws, is she no'?"
Rydstrom ruefully shook his head at Bowe, as if sorry for his unavoidable and imminent demise, then got everyone, including a reluctant Cade, moving again.
As Bowe passed Mariketa, he leaned in close. Not bothering to hide his surprise, he murmured to her, "And damn if she does no' have them sunk into me."
Her gray-eyed gaze was wary. He noted that she kept her palms fired up for some time after they continued on.
Even after her blatant show of magick, he felt so proud she'd held her ground that he wanted to stand tall and point her out as his female. That's my lass. Mine. But his heart was also thundering because he realized that in the heart of the full moon, when he was completely turned, she might not run from him. He still intended to get her away from him before this full moon, but for the future . ~ Kresley Cole

I decided the map was clearly written by masochistic-doodling ancient Egyptians because everything was hieroglyphics and unreadable doodads.

I cursed the map.

"BY MOTHRA'S NIPPLES! I FUCKING HATE THIS MAP!"

Irrational anger bubbled to the surface and all I could think about was murdering the map. I would show the map who was boss.

I was boss.

Not some evil, wrong map from hell. I had no choice but to hit the map against the steering wheel several times, grunting and releasing a string of curses that would have made my sailor father proud. And maybe blush.

Then I opened my driver's side door, still grunting and raging, and slammed the map against the car, threw it on the ground, stomped on it, kicked it, and just generally assaulted it in every way I could think of. I'm a little embarrassed to admit, in my mindlessness I was also taunting the map, questioning its virility, flipping it the bird, and cursing now in Spanish as well as English.

It was the most cardio I'd done in over twelve months.

Stupid map, making me do cardio. I'll kill you! ~ Penny Reid

We had been getting some bad results, now it is up to us to make up the ground and catch Manchester United. ~ Robbie Fowler

At the end of the world there lies a mountain so high it makes you dizzy even to think about it. It is as black as soot, as smooth as silk, terribly steep, and where there should be a bottom, there are only clouds. But high up on the peak stands the Hobgoblin's House, and it looks like this." And Snufkin drew a house in the sand.
"Hasn't it got any windows?" asked Sniff.
"No," said Snufkin, "and it hasn't got a door either, because the Hobgoblin always goes home by air riding on a black panther. He goes out every night and collects rubies in his hat."
"What did you say?" asked Sniff, with his eyes popping out of his head. "Rubies! Where does he get them from?"
"The Hobgoblin can change himself into anything he likes," Snufkin answered, "and then he can crawl under the ground and even down onto the sea bed where buried treasure lies. ~ Tove Jansson

Right here, with your feet firmly on the ground, is the place where the world remembers clearly what a wonderful human being you are; remarkable moment for both of you. ~ Isabella Koldras, Right Place The Right Time.

Though trodden beneath the shepherd's heel, the wild hyacinth blooms on the ground. ~ Gene Wolfe

Gaining energy is accomplished by meditating, by right actions, right thoughts, right deeds, by studying with a real teacher or by just studying the teachings, by creating happiness in your life, and by never giving up. ~ Frederick Lenz

Fate demands that we continue suffering, until we willingly seek out and discover the sacred path of righteousness. Until we surrender to the sameness of life, we are unable to experience the absolute ground zero of reality. Only by surrendering our desires, by readjusting our consciousness to a state undefined, unbound, and unmotivated by passion and desire, will we experience life transformed. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire. ~ Alain De Botton

I think every player enjoys praise and I have to work extremely hard on the training ground to bring my game together. ~ Frank Lampard

What I'm hoping to do though is to ground my extrapolations in specificity, and to make sure that the story I tell is deliberately and honestly told. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

Never give up: There are certain times that you think, 'OK, you have beaten me down to my knees. And now the challenge is, I am on my knees and you keep on beating me down. And the question is, are you going to keep beating me all the way to the ground or will I find a way to struggle my way back on to my feet. ~ Randy Pausch