Slowly But Surely Quotes

We have to be our children's powerful force. We have to be the light that beams in slowly but surely, and sooner rather than later, we will be the bright sun to help rescue our children from the darkness of the silent killer. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself. ~ Errol Morris

I thought about how houses weren't just houses. They were like relationships. They're where we unfold ourselves -- the real version of us -- the first-thing-in-the-morning, up-late-working, sick-as-a-dog, movie-watching, crying-in-a-heap version of ourselves. Slowly but surely, our places become a part of us. ~ Allison Vesterfelt

In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture. ~ Timothy Keller

As I get older, I'm slowing down and, yes, calming down in my desire to be taken seriously. That I can be entertaining and funny and high nervous energy can work against me as a serious composer, slowly but surely you'll see me be quieter just so that people will listen. ~ Marvin Hamlisch

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. ~ Emile Zola

There was an anchor, tied around both of his ankles, and it was taking him deep, into black fathomless depths, drowning him slowly but surely.
I didn't tell him that he was dragging me down with him. ~ R.K. Lilley

I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life
always growing and increasing
is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests. ~ Thomas Huxley

It seems like people need to get into the last album until they can tolerate the next one. And then, slowly but surely, by the time the new one's available, they've gotten into the last one and they really love it. ~ Rob Brown

Slowly but surely, the older I get, the fatter I get. It just goes. ~ John DiMaggio

Each sacrifice was a process of change. Your tears changed your perception and they cleansed your soul. Those were survival tears. As you were changing, slowly but surely you were forming a connection as you began to think and analyze - this isn't your life. This isn't you. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Well, here goes," said Harry, and he raised the little bottle and took a carefully measured gulp.
"What does it feel like?" whispered Hermione.
Harry did not answer for a moment. Then, slowly but surely, an exhilarating sense of infinite opportunity stole through him; he felt as though he could have done anything, anything at all...and getting the memory from Slughorn seemed suddenly not only possible, but positively easy....
He got to his feet, smiling, brimming with confidence.
"Excellent," he said. "Really excellent. Right...I'm going down to Hagrid's."
"What?" said Ron and Hermione together, looking aghast. "No, Harry - you've got to go and see Slughorn, remember?" said Hermione.
"No," said Harry confidently. "I'm going to Hagrid's, I've got a good feeling about going to Hagrid's."
"You've got a good feeling about burying a giant spider?" asked Ron, looking stunned.
"Yeah," said Harry, pulling his Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. "I feel like it's the place to be tonight, you know what I mean?" "No," said Ron and Hermione together, both looking positively alarmed now.
"This is Felix Felicis, I suppose?" said Hermione anxiously, holding up the bottle to the light. "You haven't got another little bottle full - I don't know -"
"Essence of Insanity?" suggested Ron, as Harry swung his cloak over his shoulders. ~ J.K. Rowling

In its enervating plains, far removed from the invigorating sea-breeze and the bracing cold of the mountain ranges, the keen eye, undaunted heart, and relentless arm of the successive hardy northern immigrants slowly but surely tend to change to the placid look, folded hands and brooding mind of the Eastern Sage, who, content to dream his dream of life, wearily turns from the conflict and dire struggle for existence, ~ R.W. Frazer

People are kept unaware of the reality, with the sweet and illusive candy of nationalism. They are made to believe in their bones that killing people in the name of sovereignty is the most glorious act of all - they are made to believe that the citizens of the neighboring country are their arch-enemies - they are made to believe that nationality is far greater than humanity. They are made to believe that surgical strikes against the nation across the border is a great patriotic deed - they are made to believe that raising wall and separating children from their parents are deeds of great glory. In short, politicians (not all) in the government keep doing whatever they desire, and the citizens choose to keep their mouth silent in obedience because that to them is the greatest act of patriotism. In short, to these spineless citizens, their country is always right and the neighboring country is always wrong - their country is always good and the neighboring country is always evil - their country is always on the side of ethics and morality, and the neighboring country is always on the side of moral degradation. And this has been going on since the rise of human civilization across the world. When will this change, one wonders! And the answer is now. You change - just you - you the individual - you the one human - and slowly but surely, little by little, the entire society will change. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Charlie Davis finds her voice, and her solace, in drawing. I find mine in writing. What's your solace? Do you know? Find it and don't stop doing it, ever. Find your people (because you need to talk), your tribe, your reason to be, and I swear to you, the other side will emerge, slowly but surely. ~ Kathleen Glasgow

Out of all the addictions in the world, Attention is slowly but surely becoming one of the most dangerous. ~ Saahil Prem

Slowly but surely the sea is freezing over. ~ Robert Falcon Scott

Not that long ago I wrote in a poem that 'life is so filled with meaning, there is no reason to try to reduce it'. That is how I feel and have felt like for years. Some sense of meaninglessness can come from an attack from others, at times subconscious, slowly but surely eroding one's self-respect and therefore sense of self, on all the meanings, infinite as they are, that are already right there. You can even be "raised" to do this self-destructive work yourself. The so called absurdity of life is a construction that creates a template for meaninglessness in itself. Humans revolting in this way against self-made systems. Perhaps to remove some responsibility of being human, because it is, wrongly, seen as a burden. What is truly a burden is to feel as if nothing in life is important. It is also the easiest thing to do. If you don't find meaning in for instance seeing a black squirrel running up the trunk of a tree, you probably won't find any meaning in travelling to the end of the world. It is a kind of explanatory greed this "search for meaning" that can literally destroy a world, and it is the equivalent of replacing the deepest of life's mysteries with a nice looking garage. To numb before being looked at and experienced as a kind of totally lost "translation" is how the written language can be used at its worst. Meaning is already everywhere, expressing, unfolding itself, living and dying, changing and breathing. The noise distracting from that is what is meaningless bu ~ Rune Kjær Rasmussen

Time steals from us the capacity to be smitten, does it not? It slowly but surely washes away all your enthusiasm and deposits uncertainty in its place. ~ K.J. Bishop

Slowly, but surely, we are moving in the right direction. We're on the right track. The economy is getting stronger ~ Barack Obama

He was also aware that while the public was dividing and conquering itself by focusing on banal, media-driven conflicts such as Neoconservatives versus Liberals, democracy versus terrorism and the West versus the rest, destructive covert outfits were slowly but surely growing stronger. The special agent also understood how groups like Nexus fostered and benefited from the climate of fear perpetuated in television broadcasts and newspaper headlines. As long as Americans were consumed by fear of evildoers, whether these be communists, terrorists, religious extremists or any other potential enemy, he knew they would never realize the greatest enemy of all was operating within – within the West, within America, within their own Government. ~ James Morcan

I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle. ~ Zadie Smith

But after making love to him through tears and anger, I realized he was a perfect stranger to me now. How could I want something back that never existed? I couldn't unknow everything I had discovered, and I didn't want to. I liked the woman I was becoming - slowly, but surely - and I was interested in where this new road would take me. ~ Brandi Glanville

You live by yourself for a stretch of time and you get to staring at different objects. Sometimes you talk to yourself. You take meals in crowded joints. You develop an intimate relationship with your used Subaru. You slowly but surely become a has-been. ~ Haruki Murakami

I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory. ~ Jean-Dominique Bauby

...I've had a lot of time to think about this, and yes, we could go down your route. The difficult, painful one, because, let's face it, Ellie, you're a fan of the hard way through. Or, we could, slowly but surely, try to forgive each other for all the mistakes we've made and the hurt we've caused each other. None of us sitting here is innocent... ~ Harper Bliss

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul. ~ Ernest Dimnet

Every aspect of the multipronged legal system even today is dominated by males: police, prosecutors, judges, probation officers. In addition, the state legislatures that make the laws are still disproportionately male. So how does the abuser come to the far-fetched conclusion that women are somehow lurking in the shadows, pulling strings to cause him to suffer consequences for his actions when he thinks there shouldn't be any? This absurd leap occurs for two reasons. One is that he already has wellentrenched habits of blaming women for his own behavior. So when society sends him the message that he is responsible for what he does, he just widens the scope of his blame-projecting machine to target all women. The second is that if he didn't blame women, he would have to accept the fact that a large proportion of men are opposed to what he is doing. Cultural values are changing, slowly but surely, and abusers cannot always count on other men to back them up anymore - a fact that makes them feel betrayed so they close their eyes to it. ~ Lundy Bancroft

We started with entitlement programs that generously met the needs of individuals unable to provide enough for themselves. This slowly but surely created a portion of the population that became unwilling to provide for themselves and a population that learned new tactics to get more and more government assistance. ~ G.S. Kyle

Take a deep breath
Pick yourself up,
dust yourself off
Start all over again
And again and again and again.
May be easier said than done, but it can be done. Slowly but surely - and sometimes, not so surely, but with radical hope.
Step by precious step.Hour by hour.Day by day. ~ KERN JEROME FIELDS DOROTHY

What we used to blithely call 'wasting time' was actually a euphemism for the tenement architecture of our lives; there wasn't an ounce of waste in a ton of those lost hours. Proof of this could be seen in the fact that even as we imagined we were killing time with movies and phone calls, careers and frozen pizzas, time was slowly but surely killing us. But who knew? It ~ Adrian Barnes

Act that way and slowly but surely I will fade away. All the dawns and all the twilights will rob me, piece by piece, of myself, and before long my very life will be shaved away completely - and I would end up nothing. ~ Haruki Murakami

After two rounds of chemo, I've started to notice, slowly, but surely, my hair has started to appear more regularly in my shower drain, sink drain, pillowcase and comb. ~ Amy Robach

Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do. ~ Stefan Zweig

Don't get discouraged or compare yourself to people. Focus on improving yourself each day, slowly but surely. ~ Francis Shenstone

stick to truth and we shall succeed, may be slowly, but surely. ~ Swami Vivekananda

I never had one day that I didn't want to be on the ice, because I always had an objective for that day. I had a rigorous plan and schedule in place that I had to adhere to. It was a step-by-step process of slowly but surely inching toward the Olympic Games and using every day as a series of goals to be accomplished. ~ Apolo Ohno

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something. ~ Anthony Braxton

And slowly, but surely she was coming out of her shell. Chrysalis was much subdued and prone to long bouts of silence, but they weren't uncomfortable and he found he rather enjoyed it. ~ Marie Hall

When people bury you in the sand, what they fail to realize is that the tides come in slowly but surely. When the tides come in slowly, start wiggling your way out, so by the time the huge tides arrive, you are already out and dusting the sand off. They never take the time to look back to see how you do it, they just think you drown. When they wonder why and how you made it, it's because they made you stronger. They also don't realize - there's always a solution to a problem."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Slowly but surely, we're beginning to turn the tide on childhood obesity in America. Together, we are inspiring leaders from every sector to take ownership of this issue. ~ Michelle Obama

I thought again about the contradiction Mozambique was. On the one hand there were people like Dona Maria, compassionate and caring, and on the other hand there was those who had no concern for the people in this country.
Rita's opinion, however, was that no matter how well intentioned the Europeans were, they never quite measured up. According to her, this concern for the Mozambicans from people like Dona Maria, although commendable, was a mere drop in the ocean compared with the reality in which the blacks were tortured, burned, raped, emasculated, drowned, decapitated, disemboweled, abducted and slowly but surely decimated. [196] ~ Farida Karodia

For wasn't it just a matter of time before we crossed each other's path?
Despite all the hoopla, wasn't Manhattan just ten miles long and a mile or two wide? So in the days that followed, I kept an eye out, I looked for his figure on the street corners and in the coffee shops. I imagined coming home and having him emerge once more from the doorway across the street. But as the weeks turned into months, and the months into years, this sense of anticipation waned, and slowly but surely, I stopped expecting to see him in a crowd. ~ Amor Towles

Little by little, even with other cares, the slowly but surely working poison of the garden-mania begins to stir in my long-sluggish veins. ~ Henry James

In my lifetime, the world has become better, not worse. And the world is moving, very slowly but surely with more democracy and more liberal way of thinking, more inclusion and more diversity. ~ Isabel Allende

Who cares what the Bible means to me? We need to know what it means. That's where I have to allow God to redefine my thinking. He tells us in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. What always gets me about this verse is he's telling believers we still need to be transformed. It means I have a saved spirit but I still think with a lost brain, and slowly but surely my mind has to be transformed. Such transformation comes but one way - by truth. By his Word. ~ Mark Hall

The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practice it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies. ~ Terry Waite

When you build an audience, you don't have to buy people's attention - they give it to you. This is a huge advantage. So build an audience. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos - whatever. Share information that's valuable and you'll slowly but surely build a loyal audience. ~ Jason Fried

To see lonely, selfish, empty individuals transformed slowly but surely into warm, loving, wholesome, and happy people is to become aware of why Paul describes Christ as 'unsearchable riches'. ~ Ray Stedman

I took a few dragging steps toward the locker-room door. 'You're doing something to me that I wouldn't do to a dog,' I mumbled. 'What you're doing to me is worse than if you were to kill me. You're locking me up in shadows for the rest of my life. You're taking my mind away from me. You're condemning me slowly but surely to madness, to being without a mind. It won't happen right away, but sooner or later, in six months or in a year - Well, I guess that's that.'
I fumbled my way out of the locker room and down the passageway outside, guiding myself with one arm along the wall, and past the sergeant's desk and down the steps, and then I was out in the street.
("All At Once, No Alice") ~ Cornell Woolrich

Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

Most music careers slowly but surely go down. ~ Malik Bendjelloul

No will will believe it at first,' Cressida continued. 'You were right about that. But then they'll start to think, and slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. Someone will remember that they said something to you that ended up in a column. Or that you were at a particular house party. Or that they'd seen Eloise Bridgerton snooping about, and doesn't everyone know that the two of you tell each other everything?'
'What do you want?' Penelope asked, her voice low and haunted as she finally lifted her head to face her enemy.
'Ah, now, there's the question I've been waiting for. ~ Julia Quinn

I think most models fear growing old, but from a tender age I had always chosen to play someone grown up. I am slowly but surely catching up with the people that I have spent the last decade and a half trying to portray. ~ Erin O'Connor

In the absence of love, we began slowly but surely to fall apart. ~ Marianne Williamson

At some point in the future, new stars will cease being born. Slowly but surely, the stars of our universe are winking out. A day will come when the night sky will be totally black, and the day sky will be totally black as well. Solar systems will become planets orbiting dead stars. According to astrophysical calculations, in about a million billion years, plus or minus, even those dead solar systems will be disrupted from chance gravitational encounters with other stars. In about ten billion billion years, even galaxies will be disrupted, the cold spheres that were once stars flung out to coast solo through empty space. ~ Alan Lightman

The magic had started to degrade, and Rosemary had slowly but surely become thoroughly, gruesomely human. And there were few things worse in this world than humans. ~ Krystal Sutherland

We have to save our children. We have to break down our children's walls patiently with the understanding that they will come around slowly but surely. The silent killer of darkness will not win. We have to bring the light out of our brittle and fragile children. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards. ~ Thomas Huxley

Because of you I can feel myself slowly but surely becoming the me I have always dreamed of being. ~ Tyler Knott Gregson

you remind me of the way flowers bloom so furiously in the spring, like the loudest fucking declaration of survival you'll ever witness. as if to say, "i'm back. i'm here. i'm alive. i won't waste a single second dwelling on what it's like to be anywhere else." although, you also remind me of the way flowers always - without fail - wither where they stand & slowly but surely return to the earth, particle by particle, back to the home they keep most of the year. - where they know they truly belonged all along. ~ Amanda Lovelace

New affairs were exciting but they
were also hard work. The first kiss, the first fuck had some drama. People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me. ~ Charles Bukowski

Priests, ministers and rabbis are asking where the children are going. Slowly but surely, they're seeing that people are hungry for something beyond the doctrine. It isn't that they don't want religious truth. But they want the mystical core, the heart of the religious truth. ~ Marianne Williamson

That which is useless dies. Animals that fail to serve some useful purpose in the scheme of things slowly but surely become extinct. Let any part of the human body cease to perform its ordained function, and it withers-as when an arm is kept long in a sling. This same decree, that nothing useless is permitted to survive, runs through the mind of the industrial world. ~ B.C. Forbes

Even the poorest and most squalid life is an Aeschylean drama, if you think about the tragedy of the bodily functions, the whispering of the secretions, the silence of the organs, the exertions of memory, the groping of the voice, the blood that courses, the mortal miasmas, the riots among microorganisms, the spermatic wars, the cellular eruptions, the pestilences of the nerves, the biochemical predestinations, and the fate that slowly but surely introduces you to the final infection, to the sores, the exploded boils, the snakes of madness, the furious bitches of Hunger. ~ Guido Ceronetti

More people than ever are slowly but surely turning their ears toward poetry. ~ Saul Williams

Finally, when they asked him to speak, he found her gray eyes.
His voice was husky and raspy, but his words were clear. "Livia. You love me."
Beckett let her go as she climbed back onto Blake's bed. Blake moved slowly, but he seemed determined and winced only a little as he reached for her shoulders and pulled Livia against his chest. She wanted to say something, but her sobs took those words from her.
His raspy voice moved her hair with his precious, perfect words. "You're here. With me."
Livia grabbed a fistful of his hospital gown. The strength that had sustained her dissolved into gratitude. To see his light, his face, everything that was Blake again brought relief like she'd never known. He rubbed her back as her body shook with sobs. ~ Debra Anastasia

When I was young, it was never about finding love. Love was something you cultivated. Your parents picked your life partner. Romance never entered the equation until then. People didn't marry people. Families married families. Your father liked his father, or his grandmother played cards with your grandmother. That was how it started. Marriage was a garden that grew slowly. You only got one patch, so you worked hard at it. You planted the seeds, you watered them, you waited for things to bloom - love, respect, intimacy, connection. But things are different now. Everyone expects fruits and flowers right off the bat. When those are done, it gets plain and boring. Then it's time to move on to the next patch. Relationships are more disposable now. So many people, so many choices. I look at you, I look at Isabelle, and I see both the blessing and curse that freedom brings you - so much potential for happiness, so much pressure to realize it. ~ Leylah Attar

What are you doing?" I squeak. Big, warm hands slide under the hem of my dress, slowly dragging the satin material upward. "What do you mean?" he asks innocently. Surprise makes my pulse race. "Where's my kiss?" Ignoring me, he pushes my dress all the way up to my waist, then groans so loudly that I shoot a wary glance behind me. But everyone on the lawn is completely out of sight, which means Blake and I are out of sight to them. Which means nobody but Blake can see that I'm not wearing anything under my dress. "No panties?" he croaks. "Seriously? We were walking down that aisle together and you weren't wearing panties? Are you trying to kill me? ~ Sarina Bowen

Why do we need so many people on Earth? I ask you. What are they good for? They live out ludicrous lives of pointless desperation. Ninety-nine percent of the human population is so much wasted resources. Stubborn vermin, we humans are.

Granted, in the past, the unwashed masses were necessary. We needed them to till our fields and fight our wars. We needed them to labor in our factories making consumer crap that we flipped back at them at a handsome profit.

Alas, those days are gone. We live in a boutique economy now. Energy is abundant and cheap. Mentars and robotic labor make and manage everything. So who needs people? People are so much dead white. They eat up our profits. They produce nothing but pollution and social unrest. They drive us crazy with their pissing and moaning. I think we can all agree that Corporation Earth is in need of a serious downsizing.
...
The boutique economy has no need of the masses, so let's get rid of them. But how, you ask? Not with wars, surely, or disease, famine, or mass murder. Despots have tried all these methods through the millennia, and they're never a permanent solution.

No, all we need to do is buy up the ground from under their feet -- and evict them. We're buying up the planet, Bishop, fair and square. We're turning it into the most exclusive gated community in history. Now, the question is, in two hundred years, will you be a member of the landowners club, or will you be living in some tin ~ David Marusek

I hate myself, that I cannot believe it so constantly and surely as I should; but no human creature can rightly know how mercifully God is inclined toward those that steadfastly believe in Christ. ~ Martin Luther

Ever since that first day on the beach, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you." A burst of warmth breaks free low in my abdomen. "And then later," he continues, "when you were in the pool, drifting just out of reach." His fingers dance along my hip toward my back, setting me on fire from the outside in.
I press my palms flat against the door behind me, needing to feel something but afraid to reach for him. His head drops lower and for a moment I think he's about to finally kiss me. But instead he shifts, bringing his lips slowly to my ear. "Do you know how many times I've imagined what would have happened if I'd just gone in after you? ~ Carrie Ryan

Do you think they'll target her as well
as you? Surely if you simply stay away from the gel, she'll be safe?"
"But I don't propose to stay away from her," Reynaud said.
"Ah." Vale stared at him for a moment, and then a wide smile spread across his face.
"Like that, is it?"
"That," Reynaud snarled, "is none of your business."
"Indeed?" Vale was grinning like an idiot now. "Well, well, well."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I have no idea. I just like saying it. Well, well, well. Makes one sound uncommonly
insightful. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Maybe. It's now or never." "Cameras and guards? It's a big risk." "But they have our friends." Alec nodded slowly. "Said like a true soldier. ~ James Dashner

Surely you know the feeling of infatuation. Everyone does. It's not merely physical admiration. Your mind fixes on a person, and it's as though you float through the days, singing a song that only has one word, thinking of nothing but the next time you'll see them again ~ Tessa Dare

But surely "Argh" is the sound of a sort of strangulated scream.
"Aargh" is the sound of a stabbing, or a falling off a cliff.
"Arr" is, I think, the noise you're looking for. It's the noise pirates make when they don't have anything better to do. "Arr, Jim Lad" = Pirate noise. "Aargh, Jim Lad" = sound of pirate falling off a cliff. ~ Neil Gaiman

It was like listening to the universe in motion. Planets spinning on their appointed courses, the lives of men intersecting and parting, the unimaginable harmony of the human body itself in hierarchy and order, were all implied in the song, but something greater as well: the genius of the composer, which must surely approach the miraculous. Perceval closed his eyes and was lost in the weaving music. ~ Suzannah Rowntree

But we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown-up games are known as 'business' and even though boys' games are much the same, they are punished for them by their elders. No one pities either the boys or the men, though surely we deserve pity, for I cannot believe that a good judge would approve of the beatings I received as a boy on the ground that my games delayed my progress in studying subjects which would enable me to play a less creditable game later in life. ~ Saint Augustine

There have been ample opportunities since 1945 to show that material superiority in war is not enough if the will to fight is lacking. In Algeria, Vietnam and Afghanistan the balance of economic and military strength lay overwhelmingly on the side of France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, but the will to win was slowly eroded. Troops became demoralised and brutalised. Even a political solution was abandoned. In all three cases the greater power withdrew. The Second World War was an altogether different conflict, but the will to win was every bit as important - indeed it was more so. The contest was popularly perceived to be about issues of life and death of whole communities rather than for their fighting forces alone. They were issues, wrote one American observer in 1939, 'worth dying for'. If, he continued, 'the will-to-destruction triumphs, our resolution to preserve civilisation must become more implacable...our courage must mount'.

Words like 'will' and 'courage' are difficult for historians to use as instruments of cold analysis. They cannot be quantified; they are elusive of definition; they are products of a moral language that is regarded sceptically today, even tainted by its association with fascist rhetoric. German and Japanese leaders believed that the spiritual strength of their soldiers and workers in some indefinable way compensate for their technical inferiority. When asked after the war why Japan lost, one senior naval officer replied th ~ Richard Overy

The dogma of cultural relativism is challenged by the very people for whose moral benefit the anthropologists established it in the first place. The complaint the underdeveloped countries advance is not that they are being westernized, but that the westernization is proceeding too slowly. ~ Claude Levi-Strauss

Insight doesn't happen often on the click of the moment, like a lucky snapshot, but comes in its own time and more slowly and from nowhere but within. ~ Eudora Welty

Oh, he was the sun burning bright and brittle And she was the moon shining back his light a little He was a shooting star She was softer and more slowly He could not make things possible But, she could make them holy. ~ Harry Chapin

To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising very slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Every once in a bestseller list, you come across a truly exceptional craftsman, a wordsmith so adept at cutting, shaping, and honing strings of words that you find yourself holding your breath while those words pass from page to eye to brain. You know the feeling: you inhale, hold it, then slowly let it out, like one about to take down a bull moose with a Winchester .30-06. You force your mind to the task, scope out the area, take penetrating aim, and ... read.
But instead of dropping the quarry, you find you've become the hunted, the target. The projectile has somehow boomeranged and with its heat-sensing abilities (you have raised a sweat) darts straight towards you. Duck! And turn the page lest it drill between your eyes. ~ Chila Woychik

He saw then that there was a lens at one end, disguised as a dewdrop in the throat of an asphodel. Gently he took the egg in his hands, closed one eye, and looked. The light of the interior was not, as he had half expected, gold tinted, but brilliantly white, deriving from some concealed source. A world surely meant for Earth shone within, as though seen from below the orbit of the moon - indigo sea and emerald land. Rivers brown and clear as tea ran down long plains. His mother said, "Isn't it pretty?" Night hung at the corners in funereal purple, and sent long shadows like cold and lovely arms to caress the day; and while he watched and it fell, long-necked birds of so dark a pink that they were nearly red trailed stilt legs across the sky, their wings making crosses. ~ Gene Wolfe

Animals are locked in a perpetual present. They can learn from recent events, but they are easily distracted by what is in front of their eyes. Slowly, over a great period of time, our ancestors overcame this basic animal weakness. By looking long enough at any object and refusing to be distracted - even for a few seconds - they could momentarily detach themselves from their immediate surroundings. In this way they could notice patterns, make generalizations, and think ahead. They had the mental distance to think and reflect, even on the smallest scale.
These early humans evolved the ability to detach and think as their primary advantage in the struggle to avoid predators and find food. It connected them to a reality other animals could not access. Thinking on this level was the single greatest turning point in all of evolution - the emergence of the conscious, reasoning mind. ~ Robert Greene

Surely you do not think that criticism is like the answer to a sum. The richer the work of art the more diverse are the true interpretations. There is not one answer only, but many answers. I pity that book on which critics are agreed. It must be a very obvious and shallow production. ~ Oscar Wilde

To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do; whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness.
I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind? ~ Murasaki Shikibu

A shapeless figure bent over him, he smelt the fresh leather of the revolver belt; but what insignia did the figure wear on the sleeves and shoulder straps of its uniform - and in whose name did it raise the dark pistol barrel?

A second, smashing blow hit him on the ear. Then all became quiet. There was the sea again with its sounds. A wave slowly lifted him up. It came from afar and travelled sedately on, a shrug of eternity. ~ Arthur Koestler

Singaporeans seemed generally quite loathe to discuss these more intimate policies of government with a curious foreign visitor who was more than twice as tall as the average human, and who sweated slowly but continuously, like and aged cheese. ~ William Gibson

People are not sophisticated. They see dark, they think "bad," "shady," "untrustworthy." They see light, they think "clean," "pure," "fresh." Jason tells me this is racist. So sue me: I'm just saying what I've observed. In the ice cream industry, you always want your chocolate-based flavors to appear creamy, not earthy or bitter. Our Devil's Food Cake, our Molten Fudge, our Cocoa-Loco. Marvelous flavors, all of them, but most of them sat in the cases for weeks, slowly crystallizing. Vanilla, meanwhile, is the number-one-selling flavor in America. You can't tell me this is simply because of the taste. Not when you have rum raisin available. Or mint chip. Yet Aryanism still carries the day, darlings, even in the ice cream freezer. I don't like this any more than you do. But there it is. ~ Susan Jane Gilman

Rap was slowly becoming one of my hustles, but it wasn't my main hustle. But I come from a family of hustlers, so once I figured the hustle out and mastered it, I took it to my brothers like ... "we can flip this just like we flip anything else" ... and they were with it but also sort of slow to come all the way on board. ~ Yo Gotti

Surely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die. But we don't have a technology to solve that, right? So the point is not to prioritize problems; the point is to prioritize solutions to problems. ~ Bjorn Lomborg

But when oxidation nibbles more slowly - more delicately, like a tortoise - at the world around us, without a flame, we call it rust and we sometimes scarcely notice as it goes about its business consuming everything from hairpins to whole civilizations. ~ Alan Bradley

Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process. ~ Hermann Hesse

The Owl thinks slowly, but the Owl thinks long. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I suppose your boobs are all squished under that green lace, your nipples crushed. They're going to need some consolation. I'll suck on them until they're happy again. And then afterwards, when your nipples are stiff and throbbing and wondering if that's all there is, I'll give them something else to think about. I'll spread your legs wide open and put my hard dick inside you so slowly you'll be begging me to shove it in. But I won't – I'll make you wait until I give you permission to come. ~ C.C. Gibbs

Guiding him between her thighs, she rubbed the head of his sex over soft feminine layers and pleats, circling the most sensitive part of him against her until it was glossed with moisture and they were both shaking.
Rhys pushed against the swollen opening, stretching her, coaxing her flesh to yield. She arched, helpless and overtaken, aware of nothing but the pleasure of him filling her. He grasped her hips, pushing and pulling her slowly on his hard shaft, and she made sounds she'd never made in her life, moaning and purring at the intense delight of his possession. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I wish I could be hard and cynical. That I could take things slowly, not give too much of myself, because I'd be so frightened of getting hurt that there wouldn't be any other way. But no. every time I meet someone I dive in headfirst, showering them with love and attention, and hoping that this time they're going to be different. ~ Jane Green

And when you try to live there, to live in a place where you're betraying yourself over and over, not only do you grow to resent the hell out of it, and resent the hell out of whomever you're betraying and censoring yourself for, but the very idea of your self begins slowly and inexorably to erode. Until you realize one day out of the clear blue that you have no idea who your self is, anymore. ~ Ron Currie Jr.