#commence

I at once commenced the ascent through a shower of arrows. ↗

— George Crook

#ascent #commenced #i #once #shower

I can not remember telling my parents that I was studying classics, they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard-put to name one less useful in Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys of an executive bathroom. Now I would like to make it clear in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I can not criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them, that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty, entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression, It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something by which to pride yourself, but poverty itself, is romanticized only by fools. But I feared at your age was not poverty, but failure... Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well educated, that you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence, never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates... ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#age

Commenced operations in the Valley of the Kings. ↗

— Howard Carter

#kings #operations #valley

I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#life

I have commenced my auspicious reign and am in quiet possession of the Presidential Mansion... this winter I intend to do something in the way of entertaining that shall be the admiration and talk of all Washington world. ↗

— Julia Gardiner Tyler

#am #commenced #entertaining #i #intend

The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture. ↗

— John Kenneth Galbraith

#culture #i #i think #manifestation #our

I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. ↗

— Francis W. Newman

#began #bible #books #commenced #eleven

The whole of that part of Southern Africa which is controlled by racial minorities is experiencing either consistent and regular guerilla activity or is faced with advanced preparation for its commencement. ↗

— Joe Slovo

#advanced #africa #commencement #consistent #controlled

Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated. ↗

— Garry Trudeau

#belief #college #college students #commencement #into