Unbending Quotes

One thing is certain, however; whereas it has been almost commonplace among historians to attribute Adams's opposition to Franklin's style of diplomacy to simple jealousy, in fact Adams also was critical of his fellow envoy because of a genuine concern that America might be ruined by anything less than a wary, coequal, unbending relationship with its new ally.38 ~ John Ferling

I have come to be convinced that it is only the unbending observance of custom that sustains life in an urban circumstance. ~ Gordon Lish

I do not want to sound cynical or condescending, but your lips are moving, your mind unbending. ~ Fakeer Ishavardas

The word 'christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation ... If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity,decline,disgrace,honor,praise,censure,suffering, and pleasure.They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline. The heavenly gods will surely protect one who is unbending before the eight winds. ~ Nichiren

The stiff and unyielding are the companions of death, while the yielding and tender are the companions of life. Therefore we see that unbending armies cannot conquer, and the strongest tree feels the axe. The mighty will fall down low, but the humble will rise up. ~ Lao-Tzu

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

If it has been revealed to man that the Almighty made him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to tell a Christian that man was originally a speck of albumen, and passed through the stages of monads and monkeys, before he attained his present intellectual preeminence. If it be a received truth that the Creator has repeatedly interposed in the government of the universe and displayed his immediate agency in miraculous interpositions, it is an insult to any reader to tell him that the being slumbers on his throne and rules under a "primal arrangement in his counsels," and "by a code of laws of unbending operation. ~ David Brewster

Because cultures and languages are constantly changing and because the apostolic testimony must be attested in ever-new circumstances, it is a necessary feature of the apostolic tradition that it both guard the original testimony and make it understandable in new culture settings. Failing either is to default on the apostolic tradition. Far from implying unbending immobility, apostolicity requires constant adaptation of the primitive apostolic testimony to new historical challenges and languages, yet without altering or diluting the primitive witness. ~ Thomas C. Oden

Oh, I stand by that statement, little blossom. For you see, there's the chance you will break down and come between the two of you. Every night we're together, I will tempt you to the edge of madness. I will tease you to torments. You will have to earn Jebediah's happy life by being strong and unbending, as all good queens should be. Though this night, I'm giving you a lull. ~ A.G. Howard

There he was, her confidant - strong, solid, and unbending. ~ Jettie Necole

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. ~ Douglas MacArthur

The only permissible judgment in polite society is that no judgment is permissible. A century-long reaction against Victorian prudery, repression, and hypocrisy, led by intellectuals who mistook their personal problems for those of society as a whole, has created this confusion. It is as though these intellectuals were constantly on the run from their stern, unbending, and joyless forefathers - and as if they took as an unfailing guide to wise conduct either the opposite of what their forefathers said and did, or what would have caused them most offence, had they been able even to conceive of the possibility of such conduct. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

She pressed trembling fingers to her lips. Such torment, all this wondering. Where was God amidst such anguish? Would it drive Seamus away from Him? Or bring him closer? His fierce reserve left her more undone. He seemed so strong. Unbending. Or had war so hardened him that he was able to stay standing while inwardly he was coming apart?
His low voice was raked with exhaustion, 'I have known pain. But I have never known pain like this. ~ Laura Frantz

"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one relieve one's sadness," don Juan said. "Warriors are always joyful because their love is unalterable and their beloved, the earth, embraces them and bestows upon them inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings." Don Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness. "This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom." ~ Carlos Castaneda

Reagan was conservative, but he didn't approach global management with an unbending religious zeal. ~ Randall Robinson

Why can't we have those curves and arches that express feeling in design? What is wrong with them? Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles - and functional? ~ Prince Charles

To be strong enough to know when you are weak, brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.

Not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of the difficulty and challenge.

Not to substitute words for actions.

To be proud and unbending in honest failure but humble and gentle in success.

To seek out and experience a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of lift, an appetite of adventure over love of ease.

To seek a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination and to exercise a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity.

To be modest so that you will appreciate the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously; to cry, but also to laugh.

To discover the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what is next, and the joy and inspiration of life. ~ Mark Weber

In the Congress of the United States, Cromwell had known a good many men who were possessed of absolute certainty, and this he feared so much that he felt the only real and enduring evil on the face of the earth was unbending certainty, unshakable orthodoxy. ~ Howard Fast

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case? ~ Zhuangzi

A tree that is unbending, is easily broken. ~ Laozi

I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mi ~ George Eliot

We all know that any emotional bias
irrespective of truth or falsity
can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value ... If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Life has a way of forcing us to grow in one way or another, constantly. We sometimes try to stem the growth by being unbending..yet, look what happens to the branches of a tree, if they refuse to bend to whims of the weather? They snap and break...If one starts to learn to be flexible and not resist life.... one steps into the kind of Mastery that is able to walk on the waters of time ~ Angie Karan

Before a community can prosper, the people must believe in their leaders. They must know that at the core of every decision is careful planning, hard work, and unbending integrity rather than partisanship or self-gain. They must trust that the awesome power of government is not being abused. ~ Linda Lingle

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times. ~ Everett Dirksen

Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone. ~ John Calvin

Even as the stupid dwarves cut down a few of my lesser fighters, more warriors swarm to join the ranks of my army! Doom is upon you all, Drizzt Do'Urden! Akar Kessell is come!" The fog cleared. With a thousand fervent warriors behind him, Wulfgar approached the unsuspecting monsters. The goblins and orcs who were closest to the charging barbarians, holding unbending faith in the words of their master, cheered at the coming of their promised allies. Then they died. The barbarian horde drove through their ranks, singing and killing with wild abandonment. Even through the clatter of weapons, the sound of the dwarves joining in the Song of Tempos could be heard. Wide-eyed, jaw hanging open, trembling with rage, Kessell waved the shocking image away and swung back on Drizzt. "It does not matter!" he said, fighting to keep his tone steady. "I shall deal with them mercilessly! And then Bryn Shander shall topple in flames! ~ R.A. Salvatore

Know this: I, Mercurius, have here set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar, unless you heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God's laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faint-heartedness, read no farther lest I prove fatal to you. For I am the watery venomous serpent who lies buried at the earth's centre; I am the fiery dragon who flies through the air. I am the one thing necessary for the whole Opus. I am the spirit of metals, the fire which does not burn, the water which does not wet the hands. If you find the way to slay me you will find the philosophical mercury of the wise, even the White Stone beloved of the Philosophers. If you find the way to raise me up again, you will find the philosophical sulphur, that is, the Red Stone and Elixir of Life. Obey me and I will be your servant; free me and I will be your friend. Enslave me and I am a dangerous enemy; command me and I will make you mad; give me life and you will die. ~ Patrick Harpur

Hard edges make truth and by necessity, truth is unbending. Unlike truth's absolutism, justice is a qualitative substance; it is not an absolute tenet. Justice must be pliable in order to meet the needs of more than one person or one group. Justice goes against separation; it is a form of human superglue. Justice is what binds us as people. No human is capable of measuring out or dispensing unqualified justice. Justice naturally seeks conciliation and demands compromise. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

There's not a lot in this world as motivational as a firm belief in an unbending universal morality which just happens to place you on the side of the angels. ~ Jeff Mach

It's really an orchestral piece featuring a group and it was quite revolutionary at the time and it in fact, it kicked Deep Purple off as a name in Great Britain because it made all the newspapers. Everyone was writing about us. And there was some confusion as to what kind of band we were after that, which is why Deep Purple in Rock is such a hard unbending album of really furious hard heavy rock. Heavy metal hadn't been invented at that point. ~ Roger Glover

As you watch the Gary Condit interview, three words come to mind: stiff, unbending and impenetrable. And that's just his hair. ~ David Letterman

World in Peril (The Sonnet)

The world is in peril and security is out of the window.
If now we don't be humans, what's the point of us!
Humankind is in turmoil and anxiety is running amok.
If now we don't be responsible what's the point of us!
Neighborhoods are wailing in fear and desperation.
If now we don't lend a hand what's the point of us!
Communities are struggling in crippling uncertainty.
If now we don't break narrowness what's the point of us!
Nations are panting to sustain health and sanity.
If now we don't rush to rescue what's the point of us!
Nature is revolting to reclaim her kingdom.
If now we don't make peace with her what's the point of us!
Now is not the time for theorizing and criticizing.
Forgetting argumentation we must stand as one people unbending. ~ Abhijit Naskar

A man is born gentle and weak. At death, he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At death, they are withered and dry. Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death, and the gentle and yielding is the disciple of life. ~ Laozi

Were I to personify Justice, instead of presenting her blind, I would denominate her the goddess of fire ... Of unbending integrity Justice should feel, hear and see; but truth alone should be the polar star by which she should shape her movements, and equity only should constrain her determinations. ~ Judith Sargent Murray

Much bending breaks the bow; much unbending the mind. ~ Francis Bacon

Oh yes that's right, you're man of principle aren't you?' Jim said, somewhat tetchily. 'Made of unbending rock with no room for compromise. Heart of oak, nerves of steel, a will of iron … and a knob of butter. ~ Tony Rattigan

Skeins of mist like translucent silk, bending and unbending in the headlight tunnels ... ~ John Geddes

The entrepreneurs are only about my age, probably younger, but they don't seem so. Their tailored clothes and unbending hairdos, their clipboards and laser pointers, make them seem like real grown-up people in a way I have never been. ~ Sara Baume

An unbending and absolute acceptance of any idea is a sure sign of a small mind, no matter the greatness of intellect possesed by the one accepting that idea. ~ Derek R. Audette

Good sense avoids all extremes, and requires us to be soberly rational. This unbending and virtuous stiffness of ancient times shocks too much the ordinary customs of our own; it requires too great perfection from us mortals; we must yield to the times without being too stubborn; it is the height of folly to busy ourselves in correcting the world. ~ Moliere

You must achieve the confidence of knowing that you possess absolute, unbending, unimpeachable integrity. Everyone must know that. Above all else, it is integrity that defines your character. ~ Dave Calhoun

Truth is the most unbending and uncompliable, the most necessary, firm, immutable, and adamantine thing in the world. ~ Ralph Cudworth

There is a law in the Archipelago that those who have been treated the most harshly and who have withstood the most bravely, who are the most honest, the most courageous, the most unbending, never again come out into the world. They are never again shown to the world because they will tell tales that the human mind can barely accept. Some of your returned POW's told you that they were tortured. This means that those who have remained were tortured ever more, but did not yield an inch. These are your best people. These are your foremost heroes, who, in a solitary combat, have stood the test. And today, unfortunately, they cannot take courage from our applause. They can't hear it from their solitary cells where they may either die or remain for thirty years like Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who was seized in 1945 in the Soviet Union. He has been imprisoned for thirty years and they will not give him up. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Her soul felt at rest, for now she knew the true power of love, the unbending strength of loyalty, and the eternal beauty of forgiveness. (page 338) ~ Sarah E. Ladd

THERE ARE ... ENEMIES, said Death, as Binky galloped through icy mountains. "They're all dead - " OTHER ENEMIES. YOU MAY AS WELL KNOW THIS. DOWN IN THE DEEPEST KINGDOMS OF THE SEA, WHERE THERE IS NO LIGHT, THERE LIVES A TYPE OF CREATURE WITH NO BRAIN AND NO EYES AND NO MOUTH. IT DOES NOTHING BUT LIVE AND PUT FORTH PETALS OF PERFECT CRIMSON WHERE NONE ARE THERE TO SEE. IT IS NOTHING EXCEPT A TINY YES IN THE NIGHT. AND YET ... AND YET ... IT HAS ENEMIES THAT BEAR ON IT A VICIOUS, UNBENDING MALICE, WHO WISH NOT ONLY FOR ITS TINY LIFE TO BE OVER BUT ALSO THAT IT HAD NEVER EXISTED. ARE YOU WITH ME SO FAR? "Well, yes, but - " GOOD. NOW, IMAGINE WHAT THEY THINK OF HUMANITY. ~ Terry Pratchett

Not many people can imagine a president of the Parlement of Aix - it is a species of beast of which people have often spoken without knowing it well: strict and unbending by profession, and pernickety, credulous, stubborn, vain, cowardly, garrulous and stupid by character; with a beaky little face, rolling his 'r's like a Punchinello, commonly as thin as a rake, lanky and skinny and stinking like a corpse... ~ Marquis De Sade

To find one's purpose is to discover one's worth, discern one's direction, wholly dedicate oneself to the journey, and forge an unbending determination that I will not leave the world the way I found it. This week's blog outlines the finding of our purpose. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Unfortunately, some churches are now so worried about being arrogant and unbending like certain other Christians that they fail to stand for anything at all. They hang question marks over all the major doctrines of the faith or throw them out entirely. Bit by bit, they lose the things that set them apart as Christians. ~ Justin Lee