#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

There is only one hopeful suggestion that I can give you: By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an inventor of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner--check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#existence #philosophy #nature

I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that inevitably will be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay. ↗

— Sheri S. Tepper

#doctrine #narrow-mindedness #orthodoxy #prophecies #religion

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

Our combination of great research universities, a pro-risk business culture, deep pools of innovation-seeking equity capital and reliable business and contract law is unprecedented and unparalleled in the world. ↗

— Marc Andreessen

#capital #combination #contract #culture #deep

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

— Thomas Aquinas

#considers #contrary #god #mainly #moral

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line. ↗

— Ibrahim Babangida

#course #destination #distance #historical #line