Mysterious Benedict Society Quotes

I'm an orphan!" Constance cried gleefully. "I'm an orphan!" ~ The Prisoner's Dilemma ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Au contraire..."
"What?" Constance demanded.
Curtain blinked.
~ The Perilous Journey ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Reynie's fce fell. 'It's not funny, Kate.'
For a moment - a fleeting moment - Kate looked desperately sad. 'Well, of course it's not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry? ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

One problem with being a leader, is that even among your friends you are alone, for it is you
and you alone
to whom the others look for final guidance. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Listen, just do what you think is right, and we'll support it." ~ Sticky Washington, The Prisoner's Dilemma ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Out from behind the desk where he'd been sitting, hidden by the piles of books, appeared a bespectacled, green-eyed man in a green plaid suit. His thick white hair was shaggy and mussed, his nose was rather large and lumpy like a vegetable, and although it was clear he had recently shaved, he appeared to have done so without benefit of a mirror, for here and there upon his neck and chin were nicks from a razor, and occasional white whiskers that he'd missed altogether. This was Mr. Benedict. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Rules and school are tools for fools! I don't give two mules for rules. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

No one seems to realize how much we are driven by FEAR, the essential component of human personality. Everything else - from ambition to love to despair - derives in some way from this single powerful emotion. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

You are the smartest children i know. You just don't beleive it. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone? ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Good grief! They're going to call us inside soon, and Sticky hasn't even met Madge yet!"
"Who's Madge?" Sticky asked.
"Her Majesty the Queen! ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

So what's your team called?" asked Kate, twisting her legs into a pretzel-like configuration, "We're called the Winmates because we're inmates who win." Kate looked back and forth at Reynie and Constance, searching their expression for signs of delight.
"You gave yourselves a name?" asked Constance.
Now it was Kate's turn to be baffled. "You didn't? How can you have a team without a name? ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Kate seemed to have doubled in size. She had drawn back her broad shoulders and set her jaw, and something in the stance called to mind the contained ferocity of a lioness. But it was the fierceness in Kate's bright blue eyes that had the most striking effect. The sort of look that made you thankful she wasn't your enemy. "It's not going to be over," Kate said firmly "Until we say so. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

In other words, you are our last possible hope. You are our only hope. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Why, then, do you think the white player might have done it?"
Reynie considered. He imagined himself moving out his knight only to bring it right back to where it started. Why would he ever do such a thing? At last he said, "Perhaps because he doubted himself. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!' And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

Daddy, will you take me to the mill, again? ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right
it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

It is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations. ~ Ruth Benedict

Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different from ours; it embraces simply everything, ... There is a very marked subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Children truly are the family's greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion. In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself. Politicians and legislators, therefore, as servants of the common good, are duty bound to defend the fundamental right to life, the fruit of God's love. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Today, the need to avoid confusing marriage with other types of unions based on weak love is especially urgent. It is only the rock of total, irrevocable love between a man and a woman that can serve as the foundation on which to build a society that will become a home for all mankind. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Authentic love is obviously something good. When we love we become most fully human. But people often consider themselves loving when actually they are possessive or manipulative. People sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs. How easy it is to be deceived by the many voices in our society that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality, without regard for modesty, self-respect or the moral values that bring quality into human relationships! This is worship of a false god; instead of bringing life, it brings death. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ! ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Material possessions in themselves are good. We would not survive for long without money, clothing, shelter and food. Yet if we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them. ~ Ruth Benedict

We live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment must be 'filled' with initiatives, activity, sound; often there is not even time to listen and dialogue ... Let us not be afraid to be silent outside and inside ourselves, so that we are able not only to perceive God's voice, but also the voice of the person next to us, the voices of others. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Society today is being fragmented by a way of thinking that is inherently short-sighted because it disregards the full horizon of truth - the truth about God and about us. By its nature, relativism fails to see the whole picture. It ignores the very principles that enable us to live and flourish in unity, order and harmony. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Society as a whole must defend the conceived child's right to life and the true good of the woman who can never, in any circumstances, find fulfilment in the decision to abort. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Concern for the fate of the great rivers of the earth must lead us to reflect soberly on the model of development which our society is pursuing. A purely economic and technological understanding of progress, to the extent that it fails to acknowledge its intrinsic limitations and to take into consideration the integral good of humanity, will inevitably provoke negative consequences for individuals, peoples and creation itself. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

We do not know what the future of Europe will be. Here we must agree with Toynbee, that the fate of a society always depends on its creative minorities. Christian believers should look upon themselves as just such a creative minority, helping Europe to reclaim what is best in its heritage and thereby to place itself at the service of all humankind. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

I'm in the loners' society. I don't want to classify myself as anything. ~ Benedict Wong

John's was not a glum, negative, insulting attack on society but a sharp-witted, entertaining, cock-a-snook approach that encouraged young people to express themselves as individuals and to reject the stifling rigidity of a lot of the older social traditions. Thanks to John, to give one example, regional dialects were no longer looked upon as a hindrance. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpool accent (indeed, he exaggerated it) and this encouraged others to follow suit. Previously, without cut-glass Oxford English, it was impossible for anyone to make progress in the media. John changed all that, and a great deal more as well. (Desmond Morris) ~ Yoko Ono

We can all deliver the final hit needed to break the glass ceiling in order to achieve complete gender liberation. ~ Scarlett Curtis

Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society. ~ Vladimir Putin

If you tell me bad things about someone, you're telling bad things about me behind me ~ Miguel El Portugues

Although changing our society by calling it back to a safer morality is a noble goal, that has never been Christ's goal for His church. The church has but one mission in this world: to lead people destined to spend eternity in hell to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and an eternity in heaven. If people die in a communist government or a democracy, under a tyrant or a benevolent dictator, believing homosexuality is right or wrong, or believing abortion is a woman's fundamental right to choose or simply mass murder, that has no bearing on where they will spend eternity. If they never knew Christ and never embraced Him as their Lord and Savior, they will spend eternity in hell. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

Ladies did not allow fear to master them. Ladies did not abjure society merely because they were embarrassed and unhappy, merely because they felt unattractive and unwanted. Ladies did not give in to self-pity. ~ Mary Balogh

Be careful," Zitora said. "He's armed."
"I'm a Stormdancer! Mere metal is nothing compared with the power of a storm." Kade made his voice boom and spread his arms wide. His eyes sparked with humor. "I. Am. Invincible."
"Until a happy wind blows," I said.
"Curse those sunny days."
"The bane of your existence."
"The scourge of society."
"The downfall of decency."
"And boring, too. Nothing like a good gale to put a spring in your step. ~ Maria V. Snyder

We can and should create a happy society,
simply because we care. Unfortunately, I have found, this is not obvious to many professors of psychology, theologians, philosophers, economists and the like. Pond scum. ~ Hanzi Freinacht

The one prejudice it had proved hardest to root out of a society was the one towards people whose social skills were limited. ~ Alex Lamb

Business is the most important institution on the planet for furthering human flourishing. ~ Paul Gibbons

I believe that the major operating ethic in American society right now, the most universal want and need is to be on TV. I've been on TV. I could be on TV all the time if I wanted to. But most people will never get on TV. It has to be a real breakthrough for them. And trouble is, people will do almost anything to get on it. You know, confess to crimes they haven't committed. You don't exist unless you're on TV. Yeah, it's a validation process. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

A society of 'children first' is a society that nurtures smiling faces in everyone. ~ Yoshihiko Noda

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. ~ G. Michael Hopf

This desperate act was inevitable. This act is a direct result of the oppression, both political and economic, imposed by our government. You crush hope. Yes, you! You destroy opportunity. You eradicate dignity. You do all that so you may maintain your filthy bigoted anti-democratic society. You leave the rest of us no choice. We are not allowed to protest. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and there was no old man, no girl any more. No mysterious fun and games. The whole place locked up forever. ~ John Fowles

We live in a society today where these children can be wanted children. Even if you don't want to keep this child after you've had it, there's plenty of young couples out there, that want children. ~ Norma McCorvey

No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics. ~ Paulo Freire

In our current society, it is considered a weakness to be female and a treason to protest this. Highlighting inequality results in aggressive insults and threats, all of which are propped up by the repeated narrative now that women are 'playing the gender card'. And this is the final insult. That of all the unfair things associated with women - the violence and insults, the financial oppression, the very undermining of our worth as human beings - it is the acknowledgement of these inequalities that gives us some kind of unfair advantage over the men who benefit from them. ~ Clementine Ford

The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation-th at is to say, in crime. It originated for the purpose of maintaining the division of society into an owning and exploiting class and a property-less dependent class - that is, for a criminal purpose. ~ Albert J. Nock

An American Badass doesn't start fights, but knows if he must fight, he can with courage and conviction. An American Badass doesn't steal, lie, or subvert the society that he lives in. He lives by a code of unwavering morality, and ethics that are tempered with honor, honesty, integrity, leadership, and loyalty to family, friends, and America. ~ Dale Comstock

But first let me mention the second aid to understanding provided by science. We know today that in a physical experiment the observer himself enters into the experiment and only by doing so can arrive at a physical experience. This means that there is no such thing as pure objectivity in in physics, that even here the result of the experiment, nature's answer, depends on the question put to it. In the answer there is always a bit of the question and a bit of the questioner himself; it reflects not only nature in itself, in its pure objectivity, but also gives back something of man, of what is characteristically ours, a bit of the human subject. This too, mutatis mutandis, is true of the question of God. There is no such thing as a mere observer. There is no such thing as pure objectivity. One can even say that the higher an object stands in human terms, the more it generates the center of individuality; and the more it engages the beholder's individuality, then the smaller the possibility of the mere distancing involved in pure objectivity. Thus, whenever an answer is presented as unemotionally objective, as a statement that finally goes beyond the prejudices of the pious and provides purely factual, scientific information, then it has to be said that the speaker has here fallen victim to self-deception. This kind of objectivity is quite simply denied to man. He cannot ask and exist as a mere observer. He who tries to be a mere observer experiences nothing. Even the reality ~ Benedict XVI

Our founders did not believe that our society could thrive without this kind of moral social structure. In fact, it was our second president, John Adams, who said of our thoroughly researched and developed governing document, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ~ Ben Carson

The meaning of economic freedom is this: that the individual is in a position to choose the way in which he wants to integrate himself into the totality of society. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Any society that is silencing its women has no future. ~ Hafsat Abiola

Have I done anything for society? I have then done more for myself. Let that question and truth be always present to thy mind, and work without cessation. ~ William Gilmore Simms