#contra

This revolutionary idea of Western citizenship—replete with ever more rights and responsibilities—would provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the men who fought felt that they themselves in a formal and contractual sense had ratified the conditions of their own battle service. The ancient Western world would soon come to define itself by culture rather than by race, skin color, or language. That idea alone would eventually bring enormous advantages to its armies on the battlefield. (p. 122) ↗

— Victor Davis Hanson

#civilization #consent #contract-for-service #government #politics

It was a cruel city, but it was a lovely one; a savage city, yet it had such tenderness; a bitter, harsh, and violent catacomb of stone an steel and tunneled rock, slashed savagely with light, and roaring, fighting a constant ceaseless warfare of men and of machinery; and yet it was so sweetly and so delicately pulsed, as full of warmth, of passion, and of love, as it was full of hate. ↗

— Thomas Wolfe

#city #contrasts #new-york #new-york-city #love

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society. ↗

— Man Ray

#expression #liberty #nature

The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#contradiction #doctrines #paradox #practice #rules

Eres como una segunda voz dentro de mí, que me acompaña día a día. Has convertido mi monólogo interior en un diálogo. Enriqueces mi vida interior. Indagas, insistes, parodias, entras en conflicto conmigo. ↗

— Daniel Glattauer

#daniel-glattauer #vida

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#contradiction #here #hoped #involved #merely

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#dissolved #easily #friendships #general #suddenly

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness. ↗

— Thomas Aquinas

#considers #contrary #god #mainly #moral

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is. ↗

— Saint Augustine

#bathed #contradictory #experience #extracting #find

Paranoia is an illness I contracted in institutions. It is not the reason for my sentences to reform school and prison. It is the effect, not the cause. ↗

— Jack Henry Abbott

#contracted #effect #i #illness #institutions