Peter Maass Quotes

In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood City Hall, sporting an oversized Serb flag that hung from the roof to the ground, a hundred feet tall, fifty feet wide, three horizontal stripes of blue, white and red, so large that only a strong breeze could make it flap. The flag, hanging over a building where, fifty years earlier, Kurt Waldheim worked as a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, was meant as a projection of Serb nationalism, as though size were all that mattered, rather than content. I had never thought of flags as weapons, but in Bosnia, as in the rest of Europe, they were becoming the deadliest weapons of all.

p. 80 ~ Peter Maass

I am a lawyer, and for me it is very sad to say that there is now law here. There are weapons rather than law. What did Mao say? Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. It's very true. The situation is decadent. A lot of Serbs think this is leading us nowhere but they feel powerless. How many disagree? I don't know. Perhaps thirty percent disagree, but most of them are frightened and quiet. Perhaps sixty percent agree or are confused enough to go along. They are led by the ten percent who have the guns and who have control of the television towers. That's all they need.'

p. 107 ~ Peter Maass

The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.

p. 11 ~ Peter Maass

We can do anything we want. The next time you hear yourself saying, to another-and especially yourself-I Can't, take a deep breath and say instead, My resources are otherwise engaged. ~ Peter McWilliams

The greatest revelation any believer can have is coming in a revelatory understanding of the cross of Christ. One of the greatest deceptions in the movement today is teaching central to needs of people instead of preaching the Cross, the blood and the power of walking out the way of the cross. It is by the cross of Christ that sets the captive free, heals the sick, and saves the lost. The Necessity of the Cross Living in the reality of the Cross is mandatory. ~ Peter Vandever

Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Fart and you're on your own. ~ Peter James West

We'd never talked about his parents, like he was some underwater Peter Pan. ~ Katherine McIntyre

Whether it's on top of a phone booth or a $200 million soundstage, it's about stories. ~ Peter Gallagher

So Niels grows up, and all the influences of his childhood work on the plastic clay. Everything helps to shape it; everything is significant, the real and the dreamed, what is known and what is foreshadowed - all add their touch, lightly but surely, to that tracery of lines which is destined to be first hollowed out and deepened and afterwards flattened out and smoothed away. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

The nature of a voluntary act, whose principle needs to be in itself; ~ Peter Kreeft

It's wrong to flog a man. It's against his being a man. ~ Peter Ustinov

Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed be the facts. ~ Finley Peter Dunne

In 1976, Kodak's first digital camera shot at 0.1 megapixels, weighed 3.75 pounds, and cost over $10,000. ~ Peter Diamandis

Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater can be found. ~ Peter Abelard

Yes, it would really mean something to be kissed by Jenno. ~ Peter St. John

I wanted people to believe that there could still be this little undiscovered piece of the world that survives still on Skull Island. ~ Peter Jackson

Life's not some slot machine in an arcade with a sign that flashes up saying 'I'm sorry, you have been killed. Would you like another go?' But we might get put through the same test each time, get faced with the same situations until we've learned how to cope. ~ Peter James

I think what I'm after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves - the story we carry around and think of most often - are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it? ~ Peter Orner

No, they're not starbusts." He continued to touch each mark. "They're angel kisses. It's like angels kissed your hands all over." His eyes rose to meet hers. They were filled with kindness and compassion. Something she had felt little of the past year. (Peter) ~ Angie Stanton

Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are men at the top of their game, and Jackson especially is going to change the nature of film-making. ~ John Rhys-Davies

A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God. ~ Peter Ustinov

The corporation is the "master", the employee is the "servant". Because the corporation owns the means of production without which the employee could not make a living, the employee needs the corporation more than vice versa. ~ Peter Drucker

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. ~ Peter F. Drucker

Any species possessing this kind of knowledge base is best left unannoyed. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

As the following pages deal with the practising life, they lead - in accordance with their topic - to an expedition into the little-explored universe of human vertical tensions. The Platonic Socrates had opened up the phenomenon for occidental culture when he stated expressis verbis that man is a being potentially 'superior to himself'. I translate this remark into the observation that all 'cultures', 'subcultures' or 'scenes' are based on central distinctions by which the field of human behavioural possibilities is subdivided into polarized classes. Thus the ascetic 'cultures' know the central distinction of complete versus incomplete, the religious 'cultures' that of sacred versus profane, the aristocratic 'cultures' that of noble versus common, the military 'cultures' that of brave versus cowardly, the political 'cultures' that of powerful versus powerless, the administrative 'cultures' that of superior versus subordinate, the athletic 'cultures' that of excellence versus mediocrity, the economic 'cultures' that of wealth versus lack, the cognitive 'cultures' that of knowledge versus ignorance, and the sapiental 'cultures' that of illumination versus blindness. What all these differentiations have in common is the espousal of the first value, which is considered the attractor in the respective field, while the second pole consistently functions as a factor of repulsion or object of avoidance. ~ Peter Sloterdijk

Many leaders get to the top of an organisation with skills less associated to leadership, but more the ability to eliminate greater competition on the way ~ Peter F Gallagher

Atmosphere" is a massive song. A lot of people say it's their favorite Joy Division song, but it's not mine; it reminds me too much of Ian, like it's his death march or something, and it figures that it's one of the most popular songs to play at funerals: Robbie Williams has got "Angels" for weddings and we've got "Atmosphere" for funerals. ~ Peter Hook

It is said that there are three sources of evil, "the world, the flesh, and the Devil"; but the world and the flesh would be innocent were it not for the Devil. ~ Peter Kreeft

That said, nothing builds reader involvement more surely than a character whose moral struggle pervades the tale. When readers hope, beg, and plead with you to let a character turn toward the light, you have readers where you want them. A character who is good is good; a character ~ Donald Maass

All life is an emergency. ~ Peter Kreeft

As individuals we tend to climb to our levels of incompetence. We behave as though up is better and more is better, and yet all around us we see the tragic victims of this mindless escalation. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Beneath the moon, chilly winds blow through the pines
as wisps of clouds arise.
So many mountain ridges layer into each other
for miles around!
The valley stream is quiet and clear --
I'm not done with this boundless joy. ~ Peter Levitt

Many an optimist has become rich simply by buying out a pessimist. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Fatally, the term 'barbarian' is the password that opens up the archives of the twentieth century. It refers to the despiser of achievement, the vandal, the status denier, the iconoclast, who refuses to acknowledge any ranking rules or hierarchy. Whoever wishes to understand the twentieth century must always keep the barbaric factor in view. Precisely in more recent modernity, it was and still is typical to allow an alliance between barbarism and success before a large audience, initially more in the form of insensitive imperialism, and today in the costumes of that invasive vulgarity which advances into virtually all areas through the vehicle of popular culture. That the barbaric position in twentieth-century Europe was even considered the way forward among the purveyors of high culture for a time, extending to a messianism of uneducatedness, indeed the utopia of a new beginning on the clean slate of ignorance, illustrates the extent of the civilizatory crisis this continent has gone through in the last century and a half - including the cultural revolution downwards, which runs through the twentieth century in our climes and casts its shadow ahead onto the twenty-first. ~ Peter Sloterdijk

People aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're - we're feeling machines that happen to think. ~ Peter Watts

Ian chuckled. "You know what the world's greatest oxymoron is?" "Happily married," Sid said wearily. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

She didn't understand why it was happening," he said. "I had to tell her she would die. Her social worker said I had to tell her. I had to tell her she would die, so I told her she was going to heaven. She asked if I would be there, and I said that I would not, not yet. But eventually, she said, and I promised that yes, of course, very soon. And I told her that in the meantime we had great family up there that would take care of her. And she asked me when I would be there, and I told her soon. Twenty-two years ago. ~ John Green

Leadership is the lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard, the building of a man's personality beyond its limitations. - PETER DRUCKER ~ Samuel Chand

Technology is often portrayed as an objective measure of development, and its advancement as something that can be examined outside of politics. But the history of technology, particularly military technology, has been deeply inflected by nationalist sentiment. ~ Peter A. Lorge

Take it easy, friend," siad Peter, regaining his balance, quickly understanding the condition Henry was in.
"Friend? You left us. In the caves." Henry's muscles tensed.
Peter stepped back cautiously. Henry didn't look like himself.
"Seems someone can't hold his drink," Peter said. He didn't go further, sensing then that Valerie might be thinking of her father.
"And now," Henry continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol on his breath, "my father, too is dead."
Valerie moved to Henry. "Please, don't do this," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."
Henry pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Peter grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Henry reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Peter's eye. The crowd laughed as Peter fell hard to the ground.
Henry scrambled on top him, held him by the collar, forced Peter to face him as he'd never done. He looked into the eyes of the man he wanted to blame for his parents' deaths, because it was a shelter from the terrible thought that everything could be lost to a simple slip of fate. "You filth," he spat out.
This really got the villagers going. But Peter didn't laugh. He pulled a knife from his boot and leapt up, thrusting it viciously in Henry's face.
"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off! ~ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

I think that you can treat a classic like a museum piece -stuffed and mounted- or you can make it a living, breathing narrative that is unfolding right then and there. ~ Peter Jackson

There, you see? I didn't curse. Don't you agree that I handled the situation demurely? ~ William Peter Blatty

That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage. ~ Peter Greenaway

Can you fall in love through a rifle scope? ~ Peter Heller

Now there is this whole terror about getting old. Today, that fascination with youth is overrated. What's so special about being young? I just say that because I'm old. ~ Peter Lindbergh

It's silence that I want to hear. That single instance where a person is bare and pure and doesn't know how to feel. the silence that follows. That's all. ~ Peter Tieryas

Film brings together framing and light and color and performance and music and all of that. To me, everything I've done in my life has been preparing me for filmmaking. ~ Peter Landesman