Resolutely Quotes

It is often said that Islam is an egalitarian religion. There is much truth in this assertion. If we compare Islam at the time of its advent with the societies that surrounded it - the stratified feudalism of Iran and the caste system of India to the east, the privileged aristocracies of both Byzantine and Latin Europe to the west - the Islamic dispensation does indeed bring a message of equality. Not only does Islam not endorse such systems of social differentiation; it explicitly and resolutely rejects them. The actions and utterances of the Prophet, the honored precedents of the early rulers of Islam as preserved by tradition, are overwhelmingly against privilege by descent, by birth, by status, by wealth, or even by race, and insist that rank and honor are determined only by piety and merit in Islam. ~ Bernard Lewis

When we refused to be forced out of Berlin, we demonstrated to the people of Europe that with their cooperation we would act, and act resolutely, when their freedom was threatened. ~ Harry S. Truman

One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We need not stride resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching orders. ~ Noam Chomsky

The immense and ever increasing sums which the state wrings from the people are never enough for it; it mortgages the income of future generations, and steers resolutely toward bankruptcy. ~ Peter Kropotkin

Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window - she looked, - she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. ~ Jane Austen

Resolutely ignoring Banu's dark mutterings, steeling herself against the barrage of harsh words that questioned her motives, her upbringing, and her morality ~ Thrity Umrigar

Anybody who really wants to abolish war must resolutely declare himself in favor of his own country's resigning a portion of sovereignty in place of international institutions. ~ Albert Einstein

One of the questions I hear most often regarding my plan to read the OED from cover to cover is "Why don't you just read it on the computer?" I usually respond as if the questions was "Why don't you just slump yourself on the couch and watch TV for the year?" which is not quite an appropriate reponse. It is not so much that I am anicomputer; I am resolutely and stubbornly pro-book. ~ Ammon Shea

All was calm and motionless in the wondrous Garden, and the marvelously brilliant flowers seemed breathless; and they suffused the Youth with a scent which made the head whirl and oppressed the heart with a sinister languor - a scent which was reminiscent of the obscure, rushing, thirsting sighs of vanilla, cyclamen, datura and lily, of evil and fateful flowers which in dying themselves destroy, bewitching with a mysterious death.
The Youth resolutely decided to make his way into the wondrous Garden, to inhale the mysterious fragrances which the Beauty inhaled, and gain her love even though the price might be life itself, even though the road to it might be a fatal road, a road of no return.
("The Poison Garden") ~ Valery Bryusov

Loving, not the beloved, is the joy of love. The beloved, knowing this, most resolutely declines to be grateful. ~ Mason Cooley

I quickly realized that friendships without tomorrows, and the little anguishes of parting, were part of the pleasures of traveling. I resolutely avoided bores, saw only those who amused me. We spent afternoons taking long walks, nights drinking and talking, and then we would leave each other, never to meet again, and there were no regrets. How simple life was. No regrets, no obligations, my acts and gestures counted for nothing, no one asked my advice, and I knew no other rule but my whims. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

I am not a Marxist, but I place myself resolutely at the left. ~ Ahmed Ben Bella

Writers allow us to see ourselves more clearly, they express spiritual signposts that assist us find ourselves. Writers' self-revelations allow us to grasp personal reflections that remain unrealized and indistinct within ourselves. Nuggets of personal perception remain veiled, until we read carefully chosen words sharing the author's crystallized perceptions. Provocative authors resolutely tap into that robust vein of common yearning and assiduously engineer their way through humankind's rampant library of collective neurosis. Reading a master's scintillating prose allows our own inchoate thoughts to shape up under the splendid beam of sunlight that they cast onto pages bearing their soul's freshly minted words. Their astutely crafted pages conveying everlasting imagery immunizes their work from the harshness of time's relentless march forward. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Here was my first lesson on the resolutely maintained untidiness and ill-health of the English upper orders. In baggy evening dress and old before their time, they displayed gapped and tangled teeth in loosely open mouths. Gently shedding dandruff, they lurched across the lawn. When they stood at the bar they looked like Lee Trevino Putting. ~ Clive James

Turn resolutely to work, to recreation, or in any case to physical exercise till you are so tired you can't help going to sleep, and when you wake up you won't want to worry. ~ B.C. Forbes

Taken thus by surprise, it was several moments before she was able to decide whether to make herself known to him, or to await a formal introduction. The strict propriety in which she had been reared urged her to adopt the latter course; then she remembered that she was not a young girl any longer, but a guardian-aunt ... To flinch before what would certainly be an extremely disagreeable interview would be the act, she told herself, of a pudding-heart. Bracing herself resolutely, she got up from the writing-table, and turned, saying, in a cool, pleasant tone: 'Mr Calverleigh?'
He had picked up a newspaper from the table in the centre of the room, and was glancing through it, but he lowered it, and looked enquiringly across at her. His eyes, which were deep-set and of a light grey made the more striking by the swarthiness of his complexion, held an expression of faint surprise; he said: 'Yes? ~ Georgette Heyer

The cult of the Virgin Mary enabled the worship of the Goddess to flourish, albeit in a cauterised form. As I keep repeating in a mantra, sex is power. The Virgin was a method of turning the sexual impulse of Christians back into the Church and onto the figure of the crucified Christ. I would describe this as a particularly unsavoury form of magick. This is the use of repression and misery as a spiritual battery. This enslavement of the worshipper's natural desires is the exact opposite of the natural and healthy lust for Babalon.

With the resolutely chaste Mary in position, churches had a surrogate Goddess back in the house. Christ knows, they needed one. To sell Christianity to the fans of the God who dies and is reborn (like the crops in the fields) the Church used statues of Mary and Jesus that were rather close to those of Isis and the Child Horus. This mother/son icon propaganda was like a Pepsi taste test for the wavering pagans. They failed.

It requires other women to keep women as slaves stripped of their sexual power. The BVM did that job. She was the only role model that you could fixate upon.

As a Goddess she is a clitoridectomy. If you lift her skirt you can see the coarse black thread where she has been snipped and stitched. The thread is plaited from the beard of Jehovah himself. This is not a woman anymore. Look under the hem and learn. ~ Peter Grey

Resolutely train yourself to attain peace. ~ Gautama Buddha

Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature. ~ Morris Raphael Cohen

I shouldn't be your first. Then again, I don't think I've got honor enough to stand aside and let you give yourself to anyone else. Not now." "I want this," she whispered resolutely. "I want you. ~ Lara Adrian

I told you, in my last, that He sometimes permits bodily diseases to cure the distempers of the soul. Have courage then: make a virtue of necessity: ask of GOD, not deliverance from your pains, but strength to bear resolutely, for the love of Him, all that He should please, and as long as He shall please. ~ Brother Lawrence

The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie answers questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare. ~ Gore Vidal

I shall set down in a few lines how uptight Maldoror was during his early years, when he lived happy. There: done. He later perceived he was born wicked: strange mischance! For a great many years he concealed his character as best he could; but in the end, because this effort was not natural to him, each day the blood would rush to his head until, unable any longer to bear such a life, he hurled himself resolutely into a career of evil … sweet atmosphere! Who could guess whenever he hugged a rosycheeked young child, that he was longing to hack off those cheeks with a razor and would have done so often had not the idea of Justice and her long cortège of punishments restrained him on every occasion. ~ Comte De Lautreamont

The golden rule to apply in all such cases is resolutely to refuse to have what millions cannot. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

His wife spotted the danger in our resolutely bohemian ways.
"You have only one year left before you qualify as a doctor and yet you're going away? You have no idea when you'll be back? But why?"
We couldn't give precise answers to her desperate questions and this horrified her ... ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

For the next hour, the subject of Pandora's board game business was discarded as the group worked on the sandcastle. They paused at intervals to drink thirstily from jugs of cold water and lemonade that had been sent down from the house. Pandora threw herself into the project with enthusiasm, consulting with Justin, who had decided the castle must have a moat, square corner towers, a front gatehouse with a drawbridge, and battlement walls from which the occupants could drop scalding water or molten tar onto the advancing enemy.
Gabriel, who'd been instructed to dig the moat, stole frequent glances at Pandora, who had enough energy for ten people. Her face glowed beneath her battered straw hat, which she had managed to pry away from Ajax. She was sweaty and covered in sand, a few escaped locks of hair trailing over her neck and back. She played with the unselfconscious ease of a child, this woman of radical thoughts and ambitions. She was beautiful. Complex. Frustrating. He'd never met a woman who was so wholly and resolutely herself.
What the devil was he going to do about her? ~ Lisa Kleypas

Let us put aside resolutely that great fright, tenderly and without malice, daring to be wrong in something important rather than right in some meticulous banality, fearing no evil while the mind is free to search, imagine, and conclude, inviting our countrymen to try other instruments than coercion and suppression in the effort to meet destiny with triumph, genially suspecting that no creed yet calendared in the annals of politics mirrors the doomful possibilities of infinity. ~ Charles A. Beard

Let us go forth and resolutely dare with sweat of brow to toil our little day. ~ John Milton

In the parable of the talents, the three servants are called to render an account of how they have used the gifts entrusted to them. The first two used their talents boldly and resourcefully. The third, who prudently wraps his money and buries it, typifies the Christian who deposits his faith in an hermetic container and seals the lid shut. He or she limps through life on childhood memories of Sunday school and resolutely refuses the challenge of growth and spiritual maturity. Unwilling to take risks, this person loses the talent entrusted to him or her. "The master wanted his servants to take risks. He wanted them to gamble with his money."5 ~ Brennan Manning

We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means the grand, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising. Just like life. But absolutely, unconditionally, resolutely nothing ordinary. ~ Jennifer Niven

I couldn't think how long it had been since I had read a novel. And in the daytime! Feeling pleasantly wicked, I sat by the open window in my surgery and resolutely entered a world far from my own. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Each man had only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself ... His task was to discover his own destiny - not an arbitrary one - and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness. ~ Hermann Hesse

Comedy springs from the ludicrous; but the ludicrous is stuck in the muck of reality, resolutely hostile to what is impossible. ~ Cynthia Ozick

family structure that produces the best outcomes for children, on average, are two biological parents who remain married. Divorced parents produce the next-best outcomes. Whether the parents remarry or remain single while the children are growing up makes little difference. Never-married women produce the worst outcomes. All of these statements apply after controlling for the family's socioeconomic status.14 I know of no other set of important findings that are as broadly accepted by social scientists who follow the technical literature, liberal as well as conservative, and yet are so resolutely ignored by network news programs, editorial writers for the major newspapers, and politicians of both major political parties. In ~ Charles Murray

He shakes his head and his mouth is quirked at one corner. I can't tell if he thinks I am sort of amusing or truly pathetic. It's especially hard to tell because we are both looking resolutely at the teacher so she can't accuse us of not paying attention. We talk out of the sides of our mouths, like gangsters in those old movies my dad likes to watch. ~ Stephanie Wardrop

This will not do,' he said to himself. 'If I go on like this I shall become a crazy fool. This must stop! I promised the doctor I would not take tea. Faith, he was pretty right! My nerves must have been getting in a queer state. Funny I did not notice it. I never felt better in my life. However it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool again.'
Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy and water and resolutely sat down to his work. ~ Bram Stoker

I like the fact that New York looks a bit backwards, toward the Old World, rather than resolutely forwards. ~ Carter Burwell

The heron must be used to people, and yet it never lets you get too close. Draw parallel to it with the width of one of the marsh's holding ponds between you, and it will duck its head, eyeing you with suspicion, then fly. I cannot approach the heron, certainly could never touch it; I can only look for it, entranced.
This is how I understand the divine, and why I continue to seek it in the resolutely non-human world, with which we nonetheless recognize a numinous kinship. Sometimes, it will turn and lock eyes with you, lifting you out of yourself, changing everything. Other times, it will give you the side-eye and swoop away, leaving you longing for retreating beauty. You might not see it every single time you go looking, or where you expect to find it. No matter how common the experience, every time you stumble across mystery, or independent wild being, it is a surprise and a miracle. And every day, you can look." - Sara Amis, "A Daily Heron ~ John Halstead

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages. ~ Samuel Johnson

There can be no doubt that these attacks are deliberate acts of terrorism, carefully planned and coordinated and as such I condemn them utterly. Terrorism must be fought resolutely wherever it appears. ~ Kofi Annan

[W]e are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters... A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana.

...

We too shall in our turn be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they are now to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

The baneful consequences which flow from inattention to health during infancy, and youth, extend further than is supposed, dependence of body naturally produces dependence of mind; and how can she be a good wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is employed to guard against or endure sickness; nor can it be expected, that a woman will resolutely endeavour to strengthen her constitution and abstain from enervating indulgences, if artificial notions of beauty, and false descriptions of sensibility, have been early entangled with her motives of action. Most men are sometimes obliged to bear with bodily inconveniences, and to endure, occasionally, the inclemency of the elements; but genteel women are, literally speaking, slaves to their bodies, and glory in their subjection. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success. ~ Thornton Wilder

Goodbye,Nick," she said, starting to close the door. "And thank you for stopping by."
He accepted her decision with a slight inclination of his head, and Lauren made herself finish closing the door. She forced herself to walk away on legs that felt like lead, reminding herself at the same time how insane it would be to let him near her. But halfway across the living room she lost the internal battle. Pivoting on her heel, she raced for the door, yanked it open and hurtled straight into Nick's chest. He was lounging with one hand braced high against the doorframe, gazing down at her flushed face with a knowing, satisfied grin.
"Hello,Lauren.I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by."
"What do you want,Nick?" she sighed, her blue eyes searching his.
"You."
Resolutely she started to close the door again, but his hand shot out to stop her. "Do you really want me to go?"
"I told you on Wednesday that what I want has nothing to do with it. What matters is what's best for me, and-"
He interrupted her with a boyish grin. "I promise I'll never wear your clothes,and I won't steal your allowances or your boyfriends either." Lauren couldn't help starting to smile as he finished, "And if you swear never to call me Nicky again, I won't bite you."
She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On secon ~ Judith McNaught

Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others. ~ Thomas Sowell

To be fearless no matter what happens-that is the root of true happiness. To move forward resolutely regardless of what lies in store-that is the spirit, the resolve, that leads to human victory. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

GENERAL MAXIMS FOR HEALTH. Rise early. Eat simple food. Take plenty of exercise. Never fear a little fatigue. Let not children be dressed in tight clothes; it is necessary their limbs and muscles should have full play, if you wish for either health or beauty. Avoid the necessity of a physician, if you can, by careful attention to your diet. Eat what best agrees with your system, and resolutely abstain from what hurts you, however well you may like it. A few days' abstinence, and cold water for a beverage, has driven off many an approaching disease. If you find yourself really ill, send for a good physician. Have nothing to do with quacks; ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child

Duty reaches down the ages in its effects, and into eternity; and when the man goes about it resolutely, it seems to me now as though his footsteps were echoing beyond the stars, though only heard faintly in the atmosphere of this world. ~ William Mountford

As Buddhist monks, our task is to bring ourselves resolutely more and more into light, to forgive and forget, to forget those who create problems for us because to remember them is only to keep problems is mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

Is it better to commit evil and attempt to balance it with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life? ~ Don DeLillo

Should a seeker not find a companion who is better or equal, let him resolutely pursue a solitary course; there is no fellowship with the fool. ~ Gautama Buddha

U.S.-based readers now account for about 52 percent of The Economist 's circulation, but the magazine continues to resolutely employ British spelling and usage. "It's part of our marketing," says the Economist correspondent Lane Greene, who originally hails from Marietta, Georgia. "We're an outside view on America, and that's signaled all the time by the style. It feels British and it reads British, and that's by design. ~ Anonymous

Let us imagine a coming generation with such intrepidity of vision, with such a heroic penchant for the tremendous; let us imagine the bold stride of these dragon-slayers, the proud audacity with which they turn their back on all the weakling's doctrines of optimism in order to 'live resolutely' in wholeness and fullness: would it not be necessary for the tragic man of such a culture, in view of his self-education for seriousness and terror, to desire a new art, the art of metaphysical comfort, to desire tragedy as his own proper Helen, and to exclaim with Faust:

Should not my longing overleap the distance
And draw the fairest form into existence?"

"Would it not be necessary?"--No, thrice no! O you young romantics: it would not be necessary! But it is highly probably that it will end that way, that you end that way--namely, "comforted," as it is written, in spite of all self-education for seriousness and terror, "comforted metaphysically"--in sum, as romantics end, as Christians. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgement. Allow me to laugh respectfully. I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgement of men. For them, no extenuating circumstances; even the good intention is ascribed to crime. Have you at least heard of the spitting cell, which a nation recently thought up to prove itself the greatest on earth? A walled-up box in which the prisoner can stand without moving. The solid door that locks him in the cement shell stops at chin level. Hence only his face is visible, and every passing jailer spits copiously on it. The prisoner, wedged into his cell, cannot wipe his face, though he is allowed, it is true. to close his eyes. Well, that, mon cher, is a human invention. They didn't need God for that little masterpiece. ~ Albert Camus

Remember that I will be here', he said resolutely. 'For an eternity ( ... ). I would wait for you for an eternity. ~ P.C. Cast

Men don't want to be brothers - they may someday, but they don't now. My belief in the brotherhood of man died the day I arrived in London last week, when I observed the people standing in a Tube train resolutely refuse to move up and make room for those who entered. You won't turn people into angels by appealing to their better natures just yet awhile - but by judicious force you can coerce them into behaving more or less decently to one another to go on with. I will still believe in the brotherhood of man, but it's not coming yet awhile. Say another ten thousand years or so. It's no good being impatient. Evolution is a slow process. ~ Agatha Christie

Prayer should be done regularly, persistently, resolutely, and tenaciously at least daily, whether we feel like it or not. ~ Timothy Keller

As I took off the rumpled sheets, the smell of the people who had slept in them would lift up into the air. There was the round, almost sweet sweat smell of a child who had spent a day happily exploring, or the sharper-edged odor of one who'd gone to bed unhappy. With the bigger beds, I came to understand the way the scents of two people could mingle as effortlessly as rainwater, and to recognize the times they stayed apart, the smells resolutely separate. Sometimes there were those unreal perfumes, jumbling and talking too loudly- but underneath them I could always find the person. Sadness, like the dark purple juice of a blackberry. Fear, like the metallic taste of an oncoming storm. Love, which smelled like nothing so much as fresh bread. In an odd way, the game wasn't that different from reading the smells of our island. Scents were always about what was growing and what was dying. What would last through the next season. This was just with people instead of trees or flowers or dirt. ~ Erica Bauermeister

It is rare that we use our thinking faculty as resolutely as an irishman his spade. To please our friends and relatives we turn out our silver ore in cartloads, while we neglect to workour mines of gold known only to ourselves far up in the Sierras, where we pulled up a bush in our mountain walk, and saw the glittering treasure. Let us return thither. Let it be the price of our freedom to make that known. ~ Henry David Thoreau

In our nation masses of people are concerned about violence but resolutely refuse to link that violence to patriarchal thinking or male domination. Feminist thinking offers a solution. And it is up to us to make that solution available to everyone. ~ Bell Hooks

( ... )- for it does take greatness, I think, to stand resolutely against your own people, especially when you are alone, and especially when you that even history will not be kind to you, since you will have forever given the lie all the claims with which the High and the Mighty will try to exonerate themselves. ~ Amitav Ghosh

The invisible are always so resolutely invisible, until you see them. ~ Jonathan Lethem

Then she spoke with Yolanda, her eldest child, with whom she'd been shopping all afternoon for an Easter dress. "Mommy, I'm not going to cry," Yoki said resolutely. "I'll see him again in heaven."
But something was bothering her, something clearly nagged at her young conscience. "Should I hate the man who killed my father?" she asked.
Coretta shook her head. "No, darling, your daddy wouldn't want you to do that. ~ Hampton Sides

They told tales as they sat at their work, and every one related what wonderful things he had seen or experienced. One afternoon I heard an old man among them say that God knew every thing, both what had happened and what would happen. That idea occupied my whole mind, and towards evening, as I went alone from the court, where there was a deep pond, and stood upon some stones which were just within the water, the thought passed through my head, whether God actually knew everything which was to happen there. Yes, he has now determined that I should live and be so many years old, thought I; but, if I now were to jump into the water here and drown myself, then it would not be as he wished; and all at once I was firmly and resolutely determined to drown myself. I ran to where the water was deepest, and then a new thought passed through my soul. "It is the devil who wishes to have power over me!" I uttered a loud cry, and, running away from the place as if I were pursued, fell weeping into my mother's arms. But neither she nor any one else could wring from me what was amiss with me. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

I see I have made myself a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr. Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting for what I do for my private satisfaction or leave to come out after me. For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or to become a slave to defend it. ~ Isaac Newton

After slipping on a negligee and making herself comfortable on the lounge, she became conscious that she was miserable and that the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She wondered if they were the tears of self-pity, and tried resolutely not to cry, but this existence without hope, without happiness, oppressed her, and she kept shaking her head from side to side, her mouth drawn down tremulously in the corners, as though she were denying the assertion made by some one, somewhere. She did not know that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never answers - this force intangible as air, more definite than death. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I simply don't understand. I have not the remotest clue what the nature or extent of my neighbor's woes can be. Practical troubles, griefs that can be assuaged if only there is enough to eat - these may be the most intense of all burning hells, horrible enough to blast to smithereens my ten misfortunes, but that is precisely what I don't understand: if my neighbors manage to survive without killing themselves, without going mad, maintaining an interest in political parties, not yielding to despair, resolutely pursuing the fight for existence, can their griefs really be genuine? Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their way of life that they have never once doubted themselves? ~ Osamu Dazai

Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome! - and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

See first that the design is wise and just: that ascertained, pursue it resolutely; do not for one repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to effect. ~ William Shakespeare

We [must] hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

let us learn to withstand it resolutely, and to fight it. And to start to rid it of its greatest advantage over us, let us take a completely different route from the usual one. Let us rid it of its strangeness, get to know it, become accustomed to it. Let us have nothing so often in our minds as death. Let us picture it in our imagination constantly, in all its aspects. ~ Michel De Montaigne

No [movie is really worth watching] which does not either impart valuable knowledge; or set before us some ideal of beauty, strength, or nobility of character. There are enough [great movies] to occupy us during all our short and busy years. If we are wise, we will resolutely avoid all but the richest and the best. ~ J.R. Miller

I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not. ~ Abraham Lincoln

A customer at 11.15 a.m. asked for a copy of Far from the Maddening Crowd. In spite of several attempts to explain that the book's title is actually Far from the Madding Crowd, he resolutely refused to accept that this was the case, even when the overwhelming evidence of a copy of it was placed on the counter under this nose: 'Well, the printers have got that wrong.' Despite the infuriating nature of this exchange, I ought to be grateful: he has given me an idea for the title of my autobiography should I ever be fortunate enough to retire. ~ Shaun Bythell

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it. ~ John Ruskin

The dangerously high level of stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back to the safer ground of uniformed stupidity. ~ Jasper Fforde

Exemplary friendship embraces, in a resolutely unrequited way, an unwearied capacity for loving generously without being loved back. Marking the limit of possibility - the friend need not be there - this structure recapitulates in fact the Aristotelian values according to which acts and states of loving are preferred to the condition of being-loved, which depends for its vigor on a mere potentiality. Being loved by your friend just pins you to passivity. For Aristotle, loving on the contrary, constitutes an act. To the extent that loving is moved by a kind of disclosive energy, it puts itself out there, shows up for the other, even where the other proves to be a rigorous no-show. Among other things, loving has to be declared and known, and thus involves an element of risk for the one who loves and who, abandoning any guarantee of reciprocity, braves the consequences when naming that love. ~ Avital Ronell

The ruby is meant to represent a drop of blood. It is the symbolic representation of the way of the primary edict. It means only one thing and everything. Cut. Once committed to the fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut. The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gap in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit. It's the balance of life: death. It is the dance with death. ~ Terry Goodkind

No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed. ~ Francis Bacon

The witch mania is shameful. How could we do it? How could we be so ignorant about ourselves and our weaknesses? How could it have happened in the most "advanced," the most "civilized" nations then on Earth? Why was it resolutely supported by conservatives, monarchists, and religious fundamentalists? Why opposed by liberals, Quakers and followers of the Enlightenment? If we're absolutely sure that our beliefs are right, and those of others wrong; that we are motivated by good, and others by evil; that the King of the Universe speaks to us, and not to adherents of very different faiths; that it is wicked to challenge conventional doctrines or to ask searching questions; that our main job is to believe and obey - then the witch mania will recur in its infinite variations down to the time of the last man. Note Friedrich von Spee's very first point, and the implication that improved public understanding of superstition and skepticism might have helped to short-circuit the whole train of causality. If we fail to understand how it worked in the last round, we will not recognize it as it emerges in the next. ~ Carl Sagan

As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we? ~ Hugh Laurie

Don't feel ashamed, girl," she said, answering my thoughts. "The truth is a noble grail to seek. But if you're after it, you must imagine, first, what it will mean to get it. The truth is neither good nor bad. It is above evil. Above morality. It doesn't offer anything besides itself." She nodded resolutely. "I'm proud I told Jackson the truth. I'm glad he died knowing who he was. ~ Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation are among the wiles we use to keep ourselves from dispelling every illusion that keeps us up and running. Without this cognitive double-dealing, we would be exposed for what we are. It would be like looking into a mirror and for a moment seeing the skull inside our skin looking back at us with its sardonic smile. And beneath the skull - only blackness, nothing. Someone is there, so we feel, and yet no one is there - the uncanny paradox, all the horror in a glimpse. A little piece of our world has been peeled back, and underneath is creaking desolation - a carnival where all the rides are moving but no patrons occupy the seats. We are missing from the world we have made for ourselves. Maybe if we could resolutely gaze wide-eyed at our lives we would come to know what we really are. But that would stop the showy attraction we are inclined to think will run forever.8 ~ Thomas Ligotti

Abruptly, she yanked the covers over her crippled one, hiding it from him.
Tohr marched right back over to her, and resolutely pulled the duvet back where it had been. Tracing the badly healed wounds with his fingertips, he met her squarely in the eye.
"You're beautiful. Every inch of you. Don't think for a moment there's anything wrong with you. We clear?"
"But-"
"Nope. I'm not hearing that." Bending down he pressed his lips to her shin, her calf, her ankle, tracing the scars, caressing them. "Beautiful. All of you."
"How can you say that," she whispered blinking back tears.
"Because it's the truth."Straightening, he gave her a final squeeze. "No hiding from me, okay. And after I feed you, I think I'm going to have to show you just how serious I am."
That made her smile ... then laugh a little.
"That's my girl." he murmured. ~ J.R. Ward

That there needed neither art nor science for going to GOD, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love Him only. ~ Brother Lawrence

No guest rooms." I shake my head resolutely. "I want to be in a room room. A lived-in room. ~ Lauren Oliver

Perry, I love you," he said, voice gruff and full of conviction. "I love you absolutely, resolutely. There is no question, no doubt. This love just is. It exists and because it exists, I exist ...
"You, only you, just you as you are, are my reason for being. ~ Karina Halle

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. ~ Abraham Lincoln

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is till wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best. ~ John Hall Gladstone

The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had means, time, influence and educational advantages; the question is what he will do with the things he has. The moment a young man ceases to dream or to bemoan his lack of opportunities and resolutely looks his conditions in the face, and resolves to change them, he lays the corner-stone of a solid and honorable success. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated and must not be condemned by genetic speculation. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Clary shut her eyes. You didn't say no to an angel, no matter what it had in mind. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Jace. But his face appear against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway - not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the scar at his temple, the uneven curl at the corner of his mouth, and the silver line on his throat where Simon had bitten him - all the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Jace. A bright light lit her vision to scarlet, and she fell back against the sand, wondering if she was going to pass out - or maybe she was dying - but she didn't want to die, not now that she could see Jace's face so clearly in front of her. She could almost hear his voice, too, saying her name, the way he'd whispered it at Renwick's, over and over again. Clary. Clary. Clary.
"Clary," Jace said. "Open your eyes. ~ Cassandra Clare

Each man cannot judge except by himself," he said, blushing. "There will be entire freedom when it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live. That is the goal to everything."
"The goal? But then perhaps no one will even want to live?"
"No one," he said resolutely.
"Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that's how I understand it," I observed, "and that is what nature tells us."
"That is base, that is the whole deceit!" his eyes began to flash. "Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That's how they've made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dammit, Michael, get out of my room, you pervert!" Could you even be a pervert if you were dead? She supposed you could, if you had a working body half the time. "I swear, I'm going to start taking my clothes off!"
The cold spot stayed resolutely put until she got the hem of her T-shirt all the way up to her bra line, and then faded away. "Chicken," she said, and paced the room, back and forth. ~ Rachel Caine

If you're only sceptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything. You become a crochety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) Since major discoveries in the borderlines of science are rare, experience will tend to confirm your grumpiness. But every now and then a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you're too resolutely and uncompromisingly sceptical, you're going to miss (or resent) the transforming discoveries in science, and either way you will be obstructing understanding and progress. Mere scepticism is not enough. ~ Carl Sagan

We are always coming into being. If our beings are subject to chances and choices, then there are numerous potential permutations for each one of us. We are capable of many things, and of those tasks within the scope of our innate reach, we will probably only realize a small percentage of successes. It is crucially important that we make the best decisions we can and efficiently utilize our allotted time to make the most out of our lives. While we do not control every aspect of our ultimate destiny, we can certainly waste our life on frivolities. Alternatively, we can work resolutely with passion and purpose and by doing so place a premium value upon a life that is otherwise utterly absurd. Human beings can use thoughts to direct free will in order to exert control over our personal attitude and behavior, monitor what we say and how we behave, and determine whom we associate with and whom we avoid. Human free will allows us deliberately to determine what subjects we wish to study and what theories we desire actively to integrate into our lives. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It is true that historic Christianity is in conflict at many points with the collectivism of the present day; it does emphasize, against the claims of society, the worth of the individual soul. It provides for the individual a refuge from all the fluctuating currents of human opinion, a secret place of meditation where a man can come alone into the presence of God. It does give a man courage to stand, if need be, against the world; it resolutely refuses to make of the individual a mere means to an end, a mere element in the composition of society. It rejects altogether any means of salvation which deals with men in a mass; it brings the individual face to face with his God. ~ J. Gresham Machen

What are you going to do, Luca?' I clenched my fists at my sides. 'Pull a gun on me?'
'If that's what it takes.'
'How brave!' I exploded. We were so close to one another now. 'You can't use your words. but you're more than happy to use your gun.'
'I'm not going to be responsible for ruining your innocence!'
I tilted my face towards him to show I wasn't afraid, or as innocent as he clearly thought. 'Go ahead,' I whispered. 'Shatter it.' We were nose to nose. 'It almost worked last time, when you told me about my dad.'
'I don't care,' he replied resolutely. 'I'm not punching Bambi in the face. ~ Catherine Doyle