Resign Quotes

and he became a communist. He was court-martialed but allowed to resign from the army. In the revolutions of 1848 he fought to overthrow his king and, failing, fled to America. There he became first a carpenter and then the editor of a German-language newspaper in Cincinnati with a slant so leftist he earned the nickname "Reddest of the Red." When the Civil War came, Willich recruited fifteen hundred Cincinnati Germans within a matter of hours and helped organize the Ninth Ohio-now marching with the XIV Corps. ~ Steven E. Woodworth

I have decided to end my participation in public affairs and to resign my role as premier of Quebec. ~ Lucien Bouchard

If there was acceptance of the mentally ill in the Catholic Church, the entire Curia would resign! ~ Sinead O'Connor

I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. ~ Charles Dickens

Jason shouted in his best drill-sergeant voice: Frank Zhang! I, Jason Grace, praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, give you my final order: I resign my post and give you emergency field promotion to praetor, with the full powers of that rank. Take command of this legion! ~ Rick Riordan

I do a show. It comes on late at night on TV. And if that means I'm a late-night talk show host, then I guess I am, but in every other regard I resign my commission, I don't care for it. ~ Craig Ferguson

Of all kinds of credulity, the most obstinate is that of party-spirit; of men, who, being numbered, they know not why, in any party, resign the use of their own eyes and ears, and resolve to believe nothing that does not favor those whom they profess to follow. ~ Samuel Johnson

To wait is to wisely resign myself to the fact that my 'timetable' is too often a 'table' with two legs that won't stand up no matter how much 'time' I give it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness ... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory ... Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping ~ Emil Cioran

To view, I had started for the first time in my adult life to live in a world without secrets. I looked at all the laughing women, hips swinging, sashaying down the wide boulevards of Paris, and as spring became summer I started to believe anything was possible. The problem with the spy business, though, is that while you can resign, you can never leave. I suppose I didn't want to acknowledge it then, but too much wreckage floats in the wake of a life like mine - people you've hurt don't forget. And at the back of your mind is the ~ Terry Hayes

A writer is essentially a man who does not resign himself to loneliness. ~ Francois Mauriac

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it
namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign. ~ Mark Twain

Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing. ~ William James

We feel the weight of the world but not the wonder, and in time we resign ourselves to one but forget the other.
Once in a while, we remember.
Once in a while, something happens...and we see the cracks in our convictions, and through them a sliver of that larger, wider world outside the one we have constructed. ~ Nate Staniforth

Flint is a city of a hundred thousand that was having a rough go of it even before its water was poisoned by lead. And when the water crisis finally grabbed national headlines this winter, the Democratic presidential candidates noticed. Hillary Clinton sent senior staff to investigate and asked her supporters to donate to a fund for Flint's kids. Bernie Sanders called on Michigan's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, to resign. ~ Tamara Keith

I come," replied he, "to thee, Manfred, usurper of the principality of Otranto, from the renowned and invincible Knight, the Knight of the Gigantic Sabre: in the name of his Lord, Frederic, Marquis of Vicenza, he demands the Lady Isabella, daughter of that Prince, whom thou hast basely and traitorously got into thy power, by bribing her false guardians during his absence; and he requires thee to resign the principality of Otranto, which thou hast usurped from the said Lord Frederic, the nearest of blood to the last rightful Lord, Alfonso the Good. If thou dost not instantly comply with these just demands, he defies thee to single combat to the last extremity. ~ Horace Walpole

Now people want Brian Williams to resign, but it could have a happy ending. Apparently what he said was such a blatant departure from the truth, today he got an offer from Fox News. ~ Bill Maher

One of the things I've learned is there's no lesson to be learned. You have to resign yourself to the fact that mistakes are going to be made at any time in the creative process. ~ Damon Lindelof

There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity. ~ John Dickinson

It seemed that the marriage had reached the traditional truce, the point at which so many resign themselves to cutting both their losses and their hopes. ~ Joan Didion

My Lord, we wish to resign. Her smile, confusingly, crept wider, as if she just said something delightful. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Nowas you all know, this week, Pope Benedict told Vatican Radio - you know, Vatican Radio, playing the hits from the 8th century, 9th century and today - Benedict told them he was going to resign because the Church needs a fresh, young face, somewhere other than a priest's lap. ~ Bill Maher

In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away. ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson

And usually [the philosopher] philosophizes either in order to resign himself to life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget his griefs, or for pastime and amusement. ~ Miguel De Unamuno

And we need this. It could save us a year. Without it all we got is a regular manhunt. For a guy already four months AWOL, with a brand-new foreign passport. Instead of that we could have a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes lead us directly to him. Right here and now. Who wouldn't take that deal? The future means nothing if we don't live to see it." "So you broke the law, but only because you thought you had a good reason. You and everyone else. There are lots of good reasons. Too many good reasons. Which is why we have a special structure, to decide between them, when they compete one against the other. That structure is called the National Security Council. We weigh things up and we judge priorities. You just blew a year's hard work, major. You should resign. Before the after-action report comes out. You'll get a better deal that way." "OK," Reacher said. "I will, if it turns out bad. ~ Lee Child

I hereby resign this office of president of the United States. ~ Richard M. Nixon

We Orientals tend to seek our satisfactions in whatever surroundings we happen to find ourselves, to content ourselves with things as they are; and so darkness causes us no discontent, we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce, then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. But the progressive Westerner is determined always to better his lot. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light - his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow. ~ Junichiro Tanizaki

The Obama administration asked General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to step down, and he agreed. This is good news for Obama; the last time he tried to get someone to quit, it took months
and even then, he had to promise her a job as secretary of state ... According to the government, Rick Wagoner was forced to resign because of poor performance. That's embarrassing
run an organization that loses billions of dollars and then get fired by a guy who heads up an organization that loses trillions of dollars. ~ Jay Leno

From Pandora's Box, where all the ills of humanity swarmed, the Greeks drew out hope after all the others, as the most dreadful of all. I know no more stirring symbol; for, contrary to the general belief, hope equals resignation. And to live is not to resign oneself. ~ Albert Camus

Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and faults are always those of man. The man incapable of appreciating her, she despises; and only to the apt, the pure, and the true, does she resign herself and reveal her secrets. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If you will take me for your wife, Walter, I will love you dearly. If you will let me go with you, Walter, I will go to the world's end without fear. I can give up nothing for you - I have nothing to resign, and no one to forsake; but all my love and life shall be devoted to you, and with my last breath I will breathe your name to God if I have sense and memory left. ~ Charles Dickens

If you believe you are doing a good job in which you enjoy and like, then don't resign regardless of the pressures. ~ Marv Levy

[In] the realm of science, ... what we have achieved will be obsolete in ten, twenty or fifty years. That is the fate, indeed, that is the very meaning of scientific work ... Every scientific "fulfillment" raises new "questions" and cries out to be surpassed rendered obsolete. Everyone who wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this. ~ Max Weber

I joined a gym recently. I don't have the best history in the world of sticking with my fitness regimens, but I feel like this time's gonna be different. I figure one of two things is gonna happen: either I'll get into shape, or I'll just resign myself to paying an $85 a month fat tax. ~ Christian Finnegan

I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Christine Todd Whitman had to resign as the head of the EPA. You know, when the governor of New Jersey decides the environment is hopeless, you gotta really think that one through. ~ Greg Giraldo

Yes, yes, resign yourself to what you are, each on his own path. ~ Elena Ferrante

For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe. ~ Larry Eisenberg

This form, this face, this life living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, the awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships. ~ T. S. Eliot

Killing Intel, I, I just had to resign from the Apple Board. ~ Arthur Rock

The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated. Over time, the intensity and frequency of these circuits usually abate. ...Paying attention to which array of circuits we are concurrently running provides us with tremendous insight into how our minds are fundamentally wired... ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I used to think of the Christian life as a sort of achievement test in which we were supposed to hurry to figure out all the right answers, but I'm starting to wonder if these slow, hard days of growth help transform us into our eternal form, and therefore are crucial. God lets us live out our belief (and our unbelief) in such a way that the truth of ourselves rises to the surface. Sincere doubt and deflective doubt are divided. What we love most is exposed by our long days of chasing. We are shown ourselves so that we can resign more and more to the indwelling God. Those who love the light pursue the light, and those who love the darkness of self-deification are allowed to feel the gravity of this choice while time remains to make new choices. ~ Rebecca K. Reynolds

Men will have to resign themselves to the fact that the old-time saloon, for men only, will never again exist. Once a woman has felt a brass rail under her instep, there can be no more needlepoint footstools for her. ~ Alice-Leone Moats

How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Just go along with things and let your mind move freely. Resign yourself to what cannot be avoided and nourish what is within you - this is best. What more do you have to do to fulfill your mission? Nothing is as good as following orders (obeying fate) - that's how difficult it is! ~ Burton Watson

That's how we both got committed to this enormous delusion - because that's what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion - this idea that people have to resign from real life and 'settle down' when they have families. ~ Richard Yates

There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? ~ Henry David Thoreau

As a general, and as a leader of this team, whatever I've got to do get my guys going I'll do it every time. If I have to be the bad guy sometime, I'll guess I'll take that. That's what a leader and a general and a chief of police does. Everybody is not going to like it, but I don't care if they like or not. I'm Bush, so if they don't like it resign. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

And when people are unhappy, they can never bring joy to anyone else. They become nothing but tenants in their own lives, with no possibility of moving anywhere bigger or more luxurious. They resign themselves to their three-rooms-and-a-kitchen under the eaves, and then escape into the pages of luxury magazines offering sensational apartments with incredible services that they will never be able to buy. They torment themselves by imagining the life they do not have. ~ Antoine Laurain

Surrender is the ultimate sign of strength and the foundation for a spiritual life. Surrendering affirms that we are no longer willing to live in pain. It expresses a deep desire to transcend our struggles and transform our negative emotions. It commands a life beyond our egos, beyond that part of ourselves that is continually reminding us that we are separate, different and alone. Surrendering allows us to return to our true nature and move effortlessly through the cosmic dance called life. It's a powerful statement that proclaims the perfect order of the universe.

When you surrender your will, you are saying, "Even though things are not exactly how I'd like them to be, I will face my reality. I will look it directly in the eye and allow it to be here." Surrender and serenity are synonymous; you can't experience one without the other. So if it's serenity you're searching for, it's close by. All you have to do is resign as General Manager of the Universe. Choose to trust that there is a greater plan for you and that if you surrender, it will be unfolded in time.

Surrender is a gift that you can give yourself. It's an act of faith. It's saying that even though I can't see where this river is flowing, I trust it will take me in the right direction. ~ Debbie Ford

No, I'll repine at death no more, But with a cheerful gasp resign To the cold dungeon of the ground These dying, withering limbs of mine. Let worms devour my wasting flesh, And crumble all my bones to dust:
My God shall raise my frame anew, At the revival of the just. ~ Isaac Watts

I am apparently gentle, unstable, and full of pretenses. I will die a poet killed by the nonpoets, will renounce no dream, resign myself to no ugliness, accept nothing of the world but the one I made myself. I wrote, lived, loved like Don Quixote, and on the day of my death I will say: 'Excuse me, it was all a dream,' and by that time I may have found one who will say: 'Not at all, it was true, absolutely true. ~ Anais Nin

If I were in the President's place, I would not get a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood
hearing Mrs. Armey, standing over me, saying, 'How do I reload this damn thing?' ~ Dick Armey

In a democracy, when you get 20 million people in the street, you resign. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

Ladies and Gentlemen. I should like to inform you on behalf of the nation state of Guyana, that we are going to resign from being a country. We can't make it work. We have tried. We have done our best. It is not possible. The problems are insoluble. From midnight tonight, we shall cease trading. The country is now disbanded. We will voluntarily liquidate ourselves. The nation will disperse quietly, a little shamefaced but so what. We had a go.

Different people have suggested different solutions. Do it this way. Try that. Let me have a go. Nothing works. We are at the mercy of the rich countries. A team of management consultants from the United States could not find the answer, and for not finding the answer, we had to pay them an amount that substantially increased our national debt. We give in, gracefully, but we give in."

And then he imagined himself, quietly and with dignity, putting his papers in his briefcase, bowing to the hushed assembly, returning to clear out his office and going for a walk with his wife along the sea wall. (The Ventriloquist's Tale ~ Pauline Melville

I follow nature as the surest guide, and resign myself with implicit obedience to her sacred ordinances. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

You can't go anywhere if you just resign yourself to being attacked. A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person. ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm sure that was the right step, even though, formally speaking, it may seem disadvantageous for a president to resign. But, looking into what is happening today and what is going to happen in the future, I think history will show I made the right decision. ~ Eduard Shevardnadze

If I had to resign every time the Cabinet disagrees with me, I could not last as a Defense Minister one week. ~ Moshe Dayan

If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign, ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

We're not breaking up because you want to do the noble thing for me," he said, his voice dropping low in warning, the edge there, dark and twisted. "You will never get away from me; you should resign yourself to that now."
"Lan––"
"I'll kill you and then myself, that's a promise."
The way he said it, so matter-of-fact, I really should have worried. ~ Mary Calmes

A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.' And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? "Resign, Resign" is a much more likely response! ~ Richard Dawkins

I forgot Dumbledore trashed Hogwarts, refused to resign and ran off to the forest to make speeches to angry trolls. ~ J.K. Rowling

I resign," says Velvel. He takes off his glasses, slips them into his pocket, and stands up. He forgot an appointment. He's late for work. His mother is calling him on the ultrasonic frequency reserved by the government for Jewish mothers in the event of lunch. ~ Michael Chabon

Man wants but little, nor that little long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour! ~ Edward Young

It is easy at any moment to resign the possession of a great fortune; to acquire it is difficult and arduous ~ Livy

Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

Sometimes, the greatest safety can be found in taking the right risk. Whether it be an individual, a community or a country, when faced with tragedy or fearful uncertainty, we either become bigger and enter life more fully, or else we accept a diminished life and resign ourselves to a smaller way of being. ~ Michael Meade

Big part of the challenge to innovation is that people too easily resign themselves to dying. ~ Peter Thiel

Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them. ~ Gustave Le Bon

For all the things I'm losing I might aswell resign myself to try and make a change. ~ Adam Duritz

Let it all go to waste…
For what I long for, I'm bound to resign!
Bittersweet is, like the taste of wine,
This Love's captivating taste.

Let my heart be tormented by wonder
It will never manage to attain.
On my window symphony of rain,
Open seas resound in strikes of thunder.

Let my soul be lost, 'til Sun is set,
And be found reborn within its death,
I surrender the very last breath,
Confessing my sins with no regret.

Let it all go to waste, indeed.
For with or without it, the sentence is pain.
Therefore, in my stillness, silenced will remain,
Everlasting dream and consuming need. ~ Aleksandra Ninkovic

It's pretty clear that there's a relationship between return and risk - you enjoy high returns only by taking substantial risk. If you want to earn high returns, be prepared to suffer grievous losses from time to time. And if you want perfect safety, resign yourself to low returns. ~ William J. Bernstein

Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage. ~ Samuel Johnson

The important thing is to adopt a sense of always being deadly serious about protecting yourself. You can't go anywhere if you just resign yourself to being attacked. A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at the person. ~ Haruki Murakami

I will resign as party leader to take full responsibility for troubling the public and party supporters. ~ Seiji Maehara

If I could get my membership fee back, I'd resign from the human race. ~ Fred Allen

Barbara felt lightheaded, almost dizzy with what she was about to say. But she said it anyway. "As you wish, Your Majesty. In that case, I am afraid I must resign my position as Baba Yaga. If I am forced to choose between the work I was destined to do and the man I was destined to love, I choose the man. ~ Deborah Blake

There are not many places left in the United States where people can get off the computer, stop filing tax returns, and in effect become invisible. The rain forests in the Cascades and parts of West Montana come to mind, and perhaps the 'Glades still offer hope to those who wish to resign from modern times. The other place is the Atchafalaya Basin. ~ James Lee Burke

What did we do wrong?' The Physicists cry. But in exasperation, they are forced to give up. Their feelings border on despair. The more they search for the controlling factors, the more the factors elude them. Finally, they resign themselves--they cannot manipulate the universe; they are just victims of the universe. ~ Fred Alan Wolf

Every so often, the gods stop laughing long enough to do something terrible. There are few facts that are not brutal. The bitter, insufficient truth is that God recovered, but fun is dead.
Alcohol: the antidote to civilization. Alcoholism is a fatal disease. But then I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, because I don't want to be cured. Alcoholism is suicide with training wheels. I watch myself sinking, an inch at a time, and I spit into the eye of fate, like Doc Holliday, who died too weak to lift a playing card. My traitorous and degenerate attitude is sort of my book review of the world we live in. I resign from the human race. I declare myself null and void; folded, spindled, and mutilated.
. . .This bar is an oasis for the night people, the street people, the invisible tribe, the people who simply do not exist in the orderly world we see in Time - the weekly science fiction magazine published by the Pentagon - an orderly world which is a sanitized Emerald City populated by contented Munchkins who pay taxes to buy tanks, nerve gas, and bombers and not a world which is a bus-station toilet where the air is a chemical cocktail of cancer-causing agents, children are starving, and the daily agenda is kill or be killed.
When the world demands that you be larger than life, and you are finding it hard enough just being life-size, you can come here, in the messy hemorrhaging of reality, let your hair down, take your girdle off, and not be embarrassed by your ~ Gustav Hasford

No doubt my books too, like my mortal being, would eventually die, one day. But one has to resign oneself to dying. One accepts the thought that in ten years oneself, in a hundred years one's books, will not exist. Eternal duration is no more promised to books than it is to men. ~ Marcel Proust

When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the outward rules of Fate and to recognise that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multiform facts of the world--in the visual shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death--the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this way mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of Nature. The more evil the material with which it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire, the greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of its triumph. Of all the arts, Tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant; for it builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacl ~ Bertrand Russell

Villanelle for my valentine
Old love, I thought I'd never see the time
because of all we've done and often said
when I'd be yours, my dear, and you'd be mine.
And what relief to soften, and resign
the battle of the heart over the head.
old love, I thought I'd never see the time
when qualms and cold feet that could undermine
all we've held out for, dissipate instead
now that I'm yours, my dear and you are mine.
I'm still amazed how our two lives align
the two of us! A pair! Take it as read,
old love, I thought I'd never see the time
The tangle of our jumpers in the line,
the battle for the blankets in our bed
confirm that I am yours, and you are mine.
So then, this is my pledge, my valentine:
my hand's in yours for all that lies ahead.
Oh love, there's never been a better time
now that I'm yours, and finally, you're mine. ~ Elise Valmorbida

I know how ingratitude burns, how falsehood tortures, for I have been deceived in friendship and in love; I have learned to lose and to resign myself. ~ Franz Grillparzer

As we leave our youth, there's a pull toward complacency. We can start to coast, settle for what's familiar and lose the juicy desire to expand our frontiers. We adopt the paradigm of a victim. We make excuses and then recite them so many times we train our subconscious mind to think they are true. We blame other people and outer conditions for our struggles, and we condemn past events for our private wars. We grow cynical and lose the curiosity, wonder, compassion and innocence we knew as kids. We become apathetic. Critical. Hardened. Within this personal ecosystem the majority of us create for ourselves, mediocrity then becomes acceptable. And because this mindset is running within us each day, the viewpoint seems so very real to us. We truly believe that the story we are running reveals the truth - because we're so close to it. So, rather than showing leadership in our fields, owning our crafts by producing dazzling work and handcrafting delicious lives, we resign ourselves to average. ~ Robin S. Sharma

The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt that she would prevail. As soon expect Julius Caesar to apply for a job at a crank school as Miss Brodie. She would never resign. If the authorities wanted to get rid of her she would have to be assassinated. ~ Muriel Spark

As an SS officer said to the guards at Dachau: "Any of the comrades who can't see blood should resign. The more of these bastards go down, the fewer of them we'll have to feed."4 ~ Timothy Snyder

My mother's death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul. ~ Salvador Dali

Annabelle's eyes stung as she stared at him, while need and inexhaustible tenderness gathered like an ache in her body. "I realized something," she said huskily, "when I was standing outside the foundry, watching it burn and knowing you were inside." She swallowed hard against the thickness in her throat. "I would rather have died in your arms, Simon, than face a lifetime without you. All those endless years ... all those winters, summers ... a hundred seasons of wanting you and never having you. Growing old, while you stayed eternally young in my memories." She bit her lip and shook her head, while her eyes flooded. "I was wrong when I told you that I didn't know where I belonged. I do. With you, Simon. Nothing matters except being with you. You're stuck with me forever, and I'll never listen when you tell me to go." She managed a tremulous smile. "So you may as well stop complaining and resign yourself to it. ~ Lisa Kleypas

In my view, any government whose state is perpetually at war, and remains so in spite of initiatives to make peace, is incompetent and unfit and should resign. ~ Christina Engela

If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him, speak well of him, and stand by the institution he represents. Remember, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must growl, condemn, and eternally find fault - resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content - but as long as you are part of the institution, do not condemn it. If you do, the first high wind that comes along will blow you away, and probably you will never know why. ~ Elbert Hubbard

For the president to resign now would be wrong. President Clinton may have debased himself with his behavior, but we shouldn't debase the office with an impulsive overreaction. ~ George Stephanopoulos

Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins. ~ Samuel Adams

You don't respect me, George," said Mrs. Morland indignantly. "You never have. And I don't respect you. We are just friends."
"Well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign," said George Knox with a voice rather unlike his own.
"I know why you are talking like that, George," said Mrs Morland. "You've been reading Browning. But I am not your Lost Mistress."
There was a moment's silence from her slightly stunned audience.
"And I have never been anyone's mistress," the gifted writer continued. "Nobody ever asked me and I should have been furious if they had. Stoker would have given notice. And it would have been most awkward for my boys; especially the married ones. I mean, my boys wouldn't have taken much notice but my daughters-in-law, whom I am devoted to, would think it not a good thing. ~ Angela Thirkell

It was beyond him to resign himself to some simple, cynical generality about life. Had he been able to do so, he would have been more comfortable. But because he could not, the heaviness in his heart persisted. ~ Naoya Shiga

I've got at least two major project ideas that I've been chewing on for several years in my head and I've been trying to resist them both. But I have learned over the years that when they don't go away and they're still in there, you probably have to resign yourself to the fact that you're going to do something about them. ~ James Balog

I resign myself to apologizing to the miniature goth monster. ~ Lauren Layne