Winner Stands Alone Quotes

How perverse! just when everything seems to be in order and as families gather round the table to have supper,the phantom of the superclass appears,selling impossible dreams:luxury,beauty,power.And the family falls apart ~ Paulo Coelho

If his decision is correct, he will win the battle, even if it lasts longer than expected. If his decision is wrong, he will be defeated and he will have to start all over again- only this time with more wisdom.
But once he has started, a warrior of the light perseveres until the end. ~ Paulo Coelho

They know what the "perfumes" are going to say because they
always say the same thing, but they pretend to believe them anyway.
(a)"I could change your life."
(b)"A lot of women would like to be in your shoes."
(c)"You're young now, but what will become of you in a few
years' time? You need to think about making a longer-term
investment."
(d)"I'm married, but my wife ... " (This opening line can have
various endings: " ... is ill," " ... has threatened to commit
suicide if I leave her," etc.)
(e)"You're a princess and deserve to be treated like one. I didn't
know it until now, but I've been waiting for you. I don't believe
in coincidences and I really think we ought to give this relationship a chance. ~ Paulo Coelho

Some people believe that "fashion" is everything. Every six months, they spend a fortune changing some tiny detail in order to keep up their membership in the very exclusive tribe of the rich. If they were to visit Silicon Valley, where the billionaires of the IT industry wear plastic watches and beat-up jeans, they would understand that the world has changed ~ Paulo Coelho

They who laugh the hardest
are the same ones
who have fought the toughest.
The winner, though fraught with scars
stands alone,
wholly victorious. ~ Tara Estacaan

You have the lovers,
they are nameless, their histories only for each other,
and you have the room, the bed, and the windows.
Pretend it is a ritual.
Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,
let them live in that house for a generation or two.
No one dares disturb them.
Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door,
they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song:
nothing is heard, not even breathing.
You know they are not dead,
you can feel the presence of their intense love.
Your children grow up, they leave you,
they have become soldiers and riders.
Your mate dies after a life of service.
Who knows you? Who remembers you?
But in your house a ritual is in progress:
It is not finished: it needs more people.
One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber.
The room has become a dense garden,
full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known.
The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,
in the midst of the garden it stands alone.
In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,
perform the act of love.
Their eyes are closed,
as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them.
Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.
Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or received the kiss.
~ Leonard Cohen

Writing isn't about creating perfect characters. There's no such thing. It's about creating characters that are real; flawed
yet beautiful, in that they know they need another person. Needing someone else doesn't make them weak; if they believed all they needed was them self, they would be. A strong heroine isn't afraid to admit that a best friend, or soul mate, is exactly what they need at one moment or another. A strong heroine never stands alone. They stand tall; they believe in who they are. They are perfect in every human flaw, because as humans we are flawed. And in every flaw, I see the perfection of their souls. Writers breath life into simple words and create beings
flaws and all. ~ Cassandra Giovanni

Notice how they'll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once ... There's a special, insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They've got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them - because they don't exist within him and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent man. ~ Ayn Rand

There is no such thing as a beauty contest . . . Beauty is noncompetitive. Beauty of any kind stands alone, unmatched, inimitable, uncontested. ~ Edna Robinson

This is why, as a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing. Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone. ~ Ayn Rand

The narrative that Peter Jackson has put into 'The Battle of the Five Armies,' it stands alone as a film. Rather than just finishing off the story, it's like a whole new adventure all of its own. I'm very excited about it. ~ Richard C. Armitage

Fourth Meditation"

1

I was always one for being alone,
Seeking in my own way, eternal purpose;
At the edge of the field waiting for the pure moment;
Standing, silent, on sandy beaches or walking along green embankments;
Knowing the sinuousness of small waters:
As a chip or shell, floating lazily with a slow current...

Was it yesterday I stretched out the thin bones of my innocence?
O the songs we hide, singing only to ourselves!
Once I could touch my shadow, and be happy;
In the white kingdoms, I was light as a seed,
Drifting with the blossoms,
A pensive petal.

But a time comes when the vague life of the mouth no longer suffices;
The dead make more impossible demands from their silence;
The soul stands, lonely in its choice,
Waiting, itself a slow thing,
In the changing body.

The river moves, wrinkled by midges,
A light wind stirs in the pine needles.
The shape of a lark rises from a stone;
But there is no song. ~ Theodore Roethke

Alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves ... mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business ... trillions apart ... yet forming white surf in unison. Ages on ages ... before any eyes could see ... year after year ... thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? ... on a dead planet, with no life to entertain. Never at rest ... tortured by energy ... wasted prodigiously by the sun ... poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves ... and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity ... living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein ... dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto the dry land ... here it is standing ... atoms with consciousness ... matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea ... wonders at wondering ... I ... a universe ~ Richard Feynman

I whisper over to myself the way of loss, the names of the dead. One by one, we lose our loved ones, our friends, our powers of work and pleasure, our landmarks, the days of our allotted time. One by one, the way we lose them, they return to us and are treasured up in our hearts. Grief affirms, them, preserves them, sets the cost. Finally a man stands up alone, scoured and charred like a burnt tree, having lost everything and (at the cost only of its loss) found everything, and is ready to go. Now I am ready. ~ Wendell Berry

It is a stubble field, where a black rain is falling.
It is a brown tree, that stands alone.
It is a hissing wind, that encircles empty houses.
How melancholy the evening is.
A while later,
The soft orphan garners the sparse ears of corn.
Her eyes graze, round and golden, in the twilight
And her womb awaits the heavenly bridegroom.
On the way home
The shepherd found the sweet body
Decayed in a bush of thorns.
I am a shadow far from darkening villages.
I drank the silence of God
Out of the stream in the trees.
Cold metal walks on my forehead.
Spiders search for my heart.
It is a light that goes out in my mouth.
At night, I found myself on a pasture,
Covered with rubbish and the dust of stars.
In a hazel thicket
Angels of crystal rang out once more. ~ Georg Trakl

No man is an island, No man stands alone; Each man's joy is joy to me, Each man's grief is my own. We need one another, So I will defend Each man as my brother, Each man as my friend. ~ Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

What's the point of a spark of light if it stands alone? The key is, and will always be, synergy. Without it, each and every light being will forever feel broken, misplaced, and internally crippled. ~ Suzy Kassem

But the disciple had the advantage over the Pharisee in that his doing of the law is in fact perfect. How is such a thing possible? Because between the disciples and the law stands one who has perfectly fulfilled it, on with whom they live in communion ... Jesus not only possesses this righteousness, but is himself the personal embodiment of it. He is the righteousness of the disciples ... This is where the righteousness of the disciple exceeds that of the Pharisees; it is grounded solely upon the call to fellowship with him who alone fulfills the law. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Let our hearts touch far horizons.
Let our love know no borders,
Draw the Circles wide until,
No one stands alone. ~ Gordon Lightfoot

I'm a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a marvelous actor. He stands alone, I think. ~ Lauren Bacall

Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars. ~ Walter Kaufmann

Economic man and the Calvinist Christian sing to each other like voices in a fugue. The Calvinist stands alone before an almost merciless God ; no human agency can help him; his church is a means to political and social organization rather than a bridge to deity , for no priest can have greater knowledge of the divine way than he himself; no friend can console him in fact , he should distrust all men; in the same fashion, Economic Man faces a merciless world alone and unaided, his hand against every other's. ~ Lionel Trilling

A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self. Every attempt to live as if he were alone is a denial of the fact that he is actually responsible. He cannot escape the responsibility, which is his because he is a father. This reality refutes the fictitious notion that the isolated individual is the agent of all ethical behavior. It is not the isolated individual but the responsible person who is the proper agent to be considered in ethical reflection. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In this world, you shouldn't rely on help from anybody. In the end, a man stands alone. ~ Alan Moore

The church has unfolded in many forms, and no one single external form stands alone as the CORRECT visible expression. As the church settled in various geographical areas and as it penetrated through a variety of cultures, it found expression in multifaceted forms. Thus, the insistence that the church must exist in a single form is a denial not only of the richness of creation, but also of the complexities of the human response. ~ Robert E. Webber

He looks up.
Our eyes lock,and he breaks into a slow smile. My heart beats faster and faster. Almost there.He sets down his book and stands.And then this-the moment he calls my name-is the real moment everything changes.
He is no longer St. Clair, everyone's pal, everyone's friend.
He is Etienne. Etienne,like the night we met. He is Etienne,he is my friend.
He is so much more.
Etienne.My feet trip in three syllables. E-ti-enne. E-ti-enne, E-ti-enne. His name coats my tongue like melting chocolate. He is so beautiful, so perfect.
My throat catches as he opens his arms and wraps me in a hug.My heart pounds furiously,and I'm embarrassed,because I know he feels it. We break apart, and I stagger backward. He catches me before I fall down the stairs.
"Whoa," he says. But I don't think he means me falling.
I blush and blame it on clumsiness. "Yeesh,that could've been bad."
Phew.A steady voice.
He looks dazed. "Are you all right?"
I realize his hands are still on my shoulders,and my entire body stiffens underneath his touch. "Yeah.Great. Super!"
"Hey,Anna. How was your break?"
John.I forget he was here.Etienne lets go of me carefully as I acknowledge Josh,but the whole time we're chatting, I wish he'd return to drawing and leave us alone. After a minute, he glances behind me-to where Etienne is standing-and gets a funny expression on hs face. His speech trails off,and he buries his nose in his sketchbook. I look back, b ~ Stephanie Perkins

No personality in history stands above Jesus Christ ... He alone is able to meet every need of the human race. ~ Billy Graham

Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all. ~ Otto Weininger

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you've learned about the grand themes of life. It's time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds ... Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life ... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy. ~ Carl Safina

He stands alone in hollow gloom, with the sound of his own breath whispering down unseen passages ahead and behind and to both sides, wondering how he stumbled into this blackest of all labyrinths.
He entered by choice. We all do. Whether we are mapping the heavens or skulking the lanes of the underworld, whether we are hunting the imprisoned fiend or have ourselves become the monster, whether we are searching for what is lost or hiding what must never be found, we all round that first corner by choice - and by then, we are lost.
You too. You must decide what is false and what is true, and what is true for me but not for you. We are wandering the mazes, all of us, and we cannot hope to escape until we learn to tell between what is real and what is real for someone else. There lies the madness, and the truth as well. ~ Troy Denning

The burden of all song and praise "unto the Highest" has been that God stands for justice and mercy. Yet injustice among men is ever on the increase; the outrages committed against the masses in this country alone would seem enough to overflow the very heavens. But where are the gods to make an end to all these horrors, these wrongs, this inhumanity to man? No, not the gods, but MAN must rise in his mighty wrath. He, deceived by all the deities, betrayed by their emissaries, he, himself, must undertake to usher in justice upon the earth. ~ Emma Goldman

My father says most people who say they like poetry only pretend to like it.'
'I guess you like it?'
'I love it very much.' Her long hair swirled as she shook her head to correct herself. That's redundant. The word 'love' stands alone. 'Very much' only weakens it. I love words. Most people aren't very careful with them. ~ Laird Koenig

If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Here's the thing about baseball-it's not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that.
Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter's box like a soldier and it's up to him-and him alone-what happens next.
But here's the thing I didn't understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run ...
Someone else has to pitch the ball. ~ Barry Lyga

I think Jersey stands alone, and because I'm from Jersey, I never make fun of where people are from. I'll make fun of what they look like, but I'll never make fun of where they are from. Jersey is special. ~ Jeff Ross

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost. ~ Jonathan Edwards

This is for you." i pressed the stone in Kerwyn's hand.
Kerwyn turned it over in his hands, unimpressed. "imatator's gold? It's worthless."
"No, it's real gold. I am real Kerwyn."
...
He pulled a creased and worn paper from his pocket and unfolded it. His hands shook increasingly as he read it. Then he turned to the audience and said,
"This note was given to me by King Eckbert
...
to read it only if someone ever came forward claiming to be the prince. This is what it says." He read aloud,
"'Many may one day claim to be the lost prince of Carthya.
...
You will know the Prince Jaron by one sign alone. He will give you the humblest of rocks and tell you it's gold.'"
...
"Lords and ladies of Carthya, I present to you the son of King Eckbert and Queen Erin. He is the lost royal of Carthya, who lives and stands before you. Hail, Prince Jaron. ~ Jennifer A. Nielsen

Share weight and woe, for misfortune falls with double force on him that stands alone. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Music has the ability to express in the upbeat every brilliant aspect of existence, while on the downbeat convey the anguish that a human being experiences when apprehending the fleeting nature of time, and the mysterious torture of living and dying. Music stands alone in its ability to communicate the symbols and phases of life, both being and nonbeing. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Men have presented their plans and philosophies for the remedying of earth's ills, but Jesus stands alone in presenting not a system, but His own personality as capable of supplying the needs of the soul. ~ A.C. Dixon

It is both the greatest power and potentially the greatest weakness of the hero to love and care and strive beyond reason. The hero is the one who turns back and waits for their injured friend knowing the hordes of the enemy are close on their heals, the one who stands alone on the bridge barring the progress of an overwhelming foe in order to allow their companions time to escape, the one who refuses to take one innocent life as a means to saving thousands. The hero is the one who returns to an alien infested space ship, set to self-destruct in minutes, to save the cat. ~ Mike Alsford

What if the new political spectrum has on one side those people who want to be left alone, those who want to be free, those who don't hurt people or take their stuff, and on the other extreme of this new scale stands anyone who wants to use government power to tell you how to live your life? ~ Matt Kibbe

BARBARA: Even if things don't work out with you and Marsha. BILL: Cindy. BARBARA: Cindy. BILL: Right. Even if things don't work out. BARBARA: And I'm never really going to understand why, am I? (Bill struggles ... it seems as if he might say something more, but then BILL: Probably not. (Silence. Bill heads for the door. Barbara watches him go and sobs.) BARBARA: I love you ... I love you ... (He stands for a moment, his back to her. He exits. Barbara stands, alone.) ~ Tracy Letts

No one goes anywhere alone, least of all into exile - not even those who arrive physically alone, unaccompanied by family, spouse, children, parents, or siblings. No one leaves his or her world without having been transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in a time of misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence possibly now forgotten by the one who had said it. ~ Paulo Freire

Fortunate Newton, happy childhood of science. Nature to him was an open book. He stands before us strong, certain, and alone. ~ Albert Einstein

The other mind entity is what we call the impartial observer. This mind of present-moment awareness stands outside the preprogrammed physiological determinants and is alive to the present. It works through the brain but is not limited to the brain. It may be dormant in many of us, but it is never completely absent. It transcends the automatic functioning of past-conditioned brain circuits. 'In the end,...I conclude that there is no good evidence… that the brain alone can carry out the work that the mind does."
Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate curiosity to what is happening within.
Methods for gaining self-knowledge and self-mastery through conscious awareness strengthen the mind's capacity to act as its own impartial observer. Among the simplest and most skilful of the meditative techniques taught in many spiritual traditions is the disciplined practice of what Buddhists call 'bare attention'. Nietzsche called Buddha 'that profound physiologist' and his teachings less a religion than a 'kind of hygiene'...' Many of our automatic brain processes have to do with either wanting something or not wanting something else – very much the way a small child's mental life functions. We are forever desiring or longing, or judging and rejecting. Mental hygiene consists of noticing the ebb and flow of all those automatic grasping or rejecting impulses without being hooked by then. Bare attention is directed not only toward what's happening on the outside, ~ Gabor Mate

Speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age. A little child raises a piteous cry of fright if it is left alone for only a few minutes; and later on, to be shut up by itself is a great punishment. Young people soon get on very friendly terms with one another; it is only the few among them of any nobility of mind who are glad now and then to be alone; - but to spend the whole day thus would be disagreeable. A grown-up man can easily do it; it is little trouble to him to be much alone, and it becomes less and less trouble as he advances in years. An old man who has outlived all his friends, and is either indifferent or dead to the pleasures of life, is in his proper element in solitude; and in individual cases the special tendency to retirement and seclusion will always be in direct proportion to intellectual capacity. For ~ Arthur Schopenhauer