Misfiring Centurion Quotes

One episode of 'Game of Thrones' is equivalent to my film 'Centurion' in budget and scope. 'Centurion' has a longer running time, but that's kind of the only difference, and I think people now, if they want drama, they watch TV. ~ Neil Marshall

She drove her chariot like a centurion. ~ Whitley Strieber

Sir!" Alban came to rigid attention as his feet smacked the floor and saluted. "Centurion Alban reporting to the garrison commander, sir!" "I ~ Janette Oke

The young Centurion, who had been completely still throughout, said very softly, as though to himself, "Greater love hath no man
" and Justin thought it sounded as though he were quoting someone else. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff

The supposed reality of misfiring synapses, chemical imbalances, frontal lobe anomalies and the like - did not sway her desire for escape into an alternate universe - where she could discover fascinating things about her inner world - or where she could hide from the real world. ~ Kelly Proudfoot

Teach me your way of looking at people:
as you glanced at Peter after his denial,
as you penetrated the heart of the rich young man
and the hearts of your disciples.
I would like to meet you as you really are,
since your image changes those with whom you
come into contact.
Remember John the Baptist's first meeting with you?
And the centurion's feeling of unworthiness?
And the amazement of all those who saw miracles
and other wonders?
How you impressed your disciples,
the rabble in the Garden of Olives,
Pilate and his wife
and the centurion at the foot of the cross. . . .
I would like to hear and be impressed
by your manner of speaking,
listening, for example, to your discourse in the
synagogue in Capharnaum
or the Sermon on the Mount where your audience
felt you "taught as one who has authority. ~ Pedro Arrupe

At this moment,' I said, 'I think you will be surprised at what he will allow. Our centurion has just discovered what he lives for, and it is this. ~ M.C. Scott

[Jean] had the guts to kill herself, and I admire her for it, although, of course, she was quite crazy at the time, with a brain misfiring like a cross-wired laptop. Pressing the keystrokes love, the screen read die. Pressing the keystrokes survive, the screen read die. The damn thing, her mind-machine, was shot. ~ Tim Lott

Religion is nothing more than a useless and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful. ~ Richard Dawkins

George Zimmerman is a foot soldier in a rapidly privatizing country. He is a new centurion of 21st-century America. Law enforcement is tied down by the strictures of, well, the law. There is only 'so much they can do' to take care of the 'problem.' ~ Henry Rollins

Centurion! Would you like to be a cavalryman one last time? There are Venicones who escaped when your line was broken to be hunted down, and Tribune Licinius has ordered me to take the best men available in their pursuit. Leave this hairy gentleman to watch the fun, and join us in the hunt! ~ Anthony Riches

The equivalent of the moth's light-compass reaction is the apparently irrational but useful habit of falling in love with one, and only one, member of the opposite sex. The misfiring by-product - equivalent to flying into the candle flame - is falling in love with Yahweh (or with the Virgin Mary, or with a wafer, or with Allah) and performing irrational acts motivated by such love. ~ Richard Dawkins

Frank, how did you do that?" Jason yelled.
Frank's head swam with pain. He forced himself not to pass out. "I'm the ranking Roman officer," he said. "They- uh, they don't recognize you. Sorry."
Jason grimaced, but he didn't look particularly surprised. "How can we help? ~ Rick Riordan

In a word, we are like the servants of the centurion in the Gospel with regard to the bishops, insofar as when they say to us: go, we are obliged to go; if they say: come, we are obliged to come; do that, and we are obliged to do it. ~ Vincent De Paul

Carl Furillo was pure ballplayer. In his prime he stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews. His black hair was thick, and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth. He had the look of a young indomitable centurion ... I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny. ~ Roger Kahn

I wonder how many times in a given second girls are told that their guts are wrong? Told our tummies are misfiring, like wayward fireworks. No, no, no, dear, it's not like that at all. Where did you get that from? I promise you that's not the case. You are overreacting. You are crazy. You are insecure. You are being a silly little thing. And, then, days or weeks or even years later, we look back on The Bad Thing that happened to us because we ignored all the signs, and we say to ourselves I wish I had listened to my gut. ~ Holly Bourne

Soldiers of the Ninth Century, I am your new centurion, Marcus Tribulus Corvus. From this moment I formally assume command of this century, and become responsible for every aspect of your well-being, discipline, training and readiness for war.'
He paused, looking to Dubnus, who drew a large breath and spat a stream of his native language at the troops.
'One fucking smile, cough or fart from any one of you cock jockeys, and I'll put my pole so far up that man's shithole that it won't even scrape onthe floor. This is your new centurion and you will treat him with the appropriate degree of respect if you don't want to lead short and very fucking interesting lives.'
He turned to Marcus and nodded, indicating that the Roman should continue.
'I can see from the state of your uniforms that you've been neglected, a state of affairs that I intend to address very shortly. I have yet to see your readiness for battle, but I can assure you that you will be combat ready in the shortest possible time. I do not intend to command a century that I would imagine is regarded as the laughing stock of its unit for any longer than I have to.'
Dubnus cast a pitying sneer over the faces in front of him before speaking again, watching their faces lengthen with the understanding of his methods, passed by whispered word of mouth from his previous century.
'You're not soldiers, you're a fucking waste of rations, a disgrace to the Tungrians! You look like shit, you smell lik ~ Anthony Riches

Part of their problem was Percy. He fought like a demon, whirling through the defenders' ranks in a completely unorthodox style, rolling under their feet, slashing with his sword instead of stabbing like a Roman would, whacking campers with the flat of his blade, and generally causing mass panic. Octavian screamed in a shrill voice - maybe ordering the First Cohort to stand their ground, maybe trying to sing soprano - but Percy put a stop to it. He somersaulted over a line of shields and slammed the butt of his sword into Octavian's helmet. The centurion collapsed like a sock puppet. Frank ~ Rick Riordan

If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with that child a couple of miles. Look into the eys of tax collectors as they sue you in court; see their poverty and give them your coat. Look in to the eys of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. For God loves good and bad people. ~ Shane Claiborne

To more applause and whistling, Lavinia approached the rostrum and got her new badge of office. She hugged Frank and Hazel, which wasn't the usual military protocol, but no one seemed to care. Nobody clapped louder or whistled more shrilly than Meg. I know because she left me deaf in one ear.
'Thanks, guys,' Lavinia announced. 'So, Fifth Cohort,, first we're going to learn to tap-dance. Then -'
'Thank you, Centurion,' Hazel said. 'You may be seated.'
'What? I'm not kidding -'
'On to our next order of business!' Frank said, as Lavinia skipped grumpily (if that's even possible) back to her seat. ~ Rick Riordan

As a Jew, keeping kosher was tantamount to Peter's very faith and identity, but when following Jesus led him to the homes and tables of Gentiles, Peter had a vision in which God told him not to let rules - even biblical ones - keep him from loving his neighbor. So when Peter was invited to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, he declared: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean" (Acts 10:28). Sometimes the most radical act of Christian obedience is to share a meal with someone new. ~ Rachel Held Evans

The Petriana's tribune dismounted a dozen paces short of the gate and stalked up to the palisade wall with a grim smile, squinting up at Scaurus and his officers and then glancing back at the men building the pyre on the plain below the fortress. He called up to them, shielding his eyes with a raised hand.
'Well now, colleague, I see you've accomplished your orders with the usual efficiency. Perhaps you ought to come down here and join me, though. I've something to tell you that will give you some pause for thought.'
Scaurus climbed down from the wall after instructing Julius to keep the men inside the Dinpaladyr at their tasks.
'You'd better come with me, Centurion Corvus, I suspect I'm going to need someone to take notes of whatever it is my brother tribune has to tell me. I may well be too busy banging my head on the palisade in frustration. ~ Anthony Riches

Because we don't know, do we? Everyone knows . . . How what happens the way it does? What underlies the anarchy of the train of events, the uncertainties, the mishaps, the disunity, the shocking irregularities that define human affairs? Nobody knows, Professor Roux. "Everyone knows" is the invocation of the cliche and the beginning of the banalization of experience, and it's the solemnity and the sense of authority that people have in voicing the cliché that's so insufferable. What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything. You can't know anything. The things you know you don't know. Intention? Motive? Consequence? Meaning?

All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.

As the audience filed back in, I began, cartoonishly, to envisage the fatal malady that, without anyone's recognizing it, was working away inside us, within each and every one of us: to visualize the blood vessels occluding under the baseball caps, the malignancies growing beneath the permed white hair, the organs misfiring, atrophying, shutting down, the hundreds of billions of murderous cells surreptitiously marching this entire audience toward the improbable disaster ahead. I couldn't stop myself. The stupendous decimation that is death sweeping us all away. Orchestra, audience, conductor, technicians, swallows, wrens - think of the numbers for Tanglewood alone just between now and the year 4000. Then multiply that times every ~ Philip Roth

For Dawkins, atheism is a necessary consequence of evolution. He has argued that the religious impulse is simply an evolutionary mistake, a 'misfiring of something useful', it is a kind if virus, parasitic on cognitive systems naturally selected because they had enabled a species to survive.

Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism, originally formulated by d'Holbach, that has now become a major worldview among intellectuals. More moderate versions of this "scientism" have been articulated by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Daniel Dennett, who have all claimed that one has to choose between science and faith. For Dennett, theology has been rendered superfluous, because biology can provide a better explanation of why people are religious. But for Dawkins, like the other "new atheists" – Sam Harris, the young American philosopher and student of neuroscience, and Christopher Hitchens, critic and journalist – religion is the cause of the problems of our world; it is the source of absolute evil and "poisons everything." They see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness.

But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that s ~ Karen Armstrong

Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?"
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,
Cursed, battered on the table. "No," he said,
"Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion's dead,
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign -
The Legion's dead, dead, and won't rise again.
Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
But we need pity also, you and I,
Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,
Who live to see the Legion come to this,
Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,
Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.
O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh!
Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by,
The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine.
Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!"
"Strabo," said Gracchus, "you are strange tonight.
The Legion is the Legion; it's all right.
If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,
God damn it! you'll not better them by drinking.
They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.
The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,
And these same men before the autumn's fall
Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul. ~ Robert Graves

The Hamians!'
The centurion‟s voice was little better than a squeak. Julius snorted his disdain.
'What about the Hamians? Useless bow-waving women. All they‟re good for is hunting game. There‟s a war on, in case you hadn‟t noticed. We need infantrymen, big lads with
spears and shields to strengthen our line. Archers are no bloody use in an infantry cohort.'
He raised his meaty fist.
'No, mate, you‟re going to get what‟s coming your way.'
The other man gabbled desperately, staring helplessly at the poised fist.
'There‟s two centuries of them, two centuries. Take them and the Tungrians and that‟s two hundred and fifty men.'
Marcus spoke, having stood quietly in the background so far.
'So we could make a century of the best of them, dump the rest on the Second Cohort when we catch up with them and take back the century he sold them in return.'
Julius turned his head to look at the younger man, keeping the transit officer clamped in
place with seemingly effortless strength.
'Are you mad? There won‟t be a decent man among them. They‟ll be arse-poking,
make-up-wearing faggots, the lot of them. All those easterners are, it‟s in the blood. They‟ll mince round the camp holding hands and tossing each other off in the bathhouse. ~ Anthony Riches

Roman Centurion's Song"

LEGATE, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!

I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.

Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?

For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?

You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!

You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's ne ~ Rudyard Kipling

I ask him if he tried to rape Nyla.

"Laws are silent in times of war," Tactus drawls.

"Don't quote Cicero to me," I say. "You are held to a higher standard than a marauding centurion."

"In that, you're hitting the mark at least. I am a superior creature descended from proud stock and glorious heritage. Might makes right, Darrow. If I can take, I may take. If I do take, I deserve to have. This is what Peerless believe."

"The measure of a man is what he does when he has power," I say loudly.

"Just come off it, Reaper," Tactus drawls, confident in himself as all like him are. "She's a spoil of war. My power took her. And before the strong, bend the weak."

"I'm stronger than you, Tactus," I say. "So I can do with you as I wish. No?"

He's silent, realizing he's fallen into a trap.

"You are from a superior family to mine, Tactus. My parents are dead. I am the sole member of my family. But I am a superior creature to you."

He smirks at that.

"Do you disagree?" I toss a knife at his feet and pull my own out. "I beg you to voice your concerns." He does not pick his blade up. "So, by right of power, I can do with you as I like."

I announce that rape will never be permitted, and then I ask Nyla the punishment she would give. As she told me before, she says she wants no punishment. I make sure they know this, so there are no recriminations against her. Tactus and his a ~ Pierce Brown