#ene

He finds he cannot think of the dying men at all. Into his mind instead strays the picture of More on the scaffold, seen through the veil of rain: his body, already dead, folding back neatly from the impact of the axe. The cardinal when he fell had no persecutor more relentless than Thomas More. Yet, he thinks, I did not hate him. I exercised my skills to the utmost to persuade him to reconcile with the king. And I thought I would win him, I really thought I would, for he was tenacious of the world, tenacious of his person, and had a good deal to live for. In the end he was his own murderer. He wrote and wrote and he talked and talked, then suddenly at a stroke he cancelled himself. If ever a man came close to beheading himself, Thomas More was that man. ↗

— Hilary Mantel

#reflection #men

Four men killed that day. The phrase sat up in Willie's head like a rat and made a nest for itself there ↗

— Sebastian Barry

#realization #war #men

So the women would not forgive. Their passion remained intact, carefully guarded and nurtured by the bitter knowledge of all they had lost, of all that had been stolen from them. For generations they vilified the Yankee race so the thief would have a face, a name, a mysterious country into which he had withdrawn and from which he might venture again. They banded together into a militant freemasonry of remembering, and from that citadel held out against any suggestion that what they had suffered and lost might have been in vain. They created the Lost Cause, and consecrated that proud fiction with the blood of real men. To the Lost Cause they dedicated their own blood, their own lives, and to it they offered books, monographs, songs, acres and acres of bad poetry. They fashioned out of grief and loss an imaginary world in which every Southern church had stabled Yankee horses, every nick in Mama's furniture was made by Yankee spurs, every torn painting was the victim of Yankee sabre - a world in which paint did not stick to plaster walls because of the precious salt once hidden there; in which bloodstains could not be washed away and every other house had been a hospital. ↗

— Howard Bahr

#southerners #forgiveness

When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights a government is men's deadliest enemy. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#intellect #men

Businesses, like babies and books, need nurturing, time, energy, love, planning and, yes, money to develop, grow and prosper. ↗

— Rachael Bermingham

#business #development #energy #growth #inspirational-quotes

As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved. ↗

— Henry L. Stimson

#approved #before #general #getting #had

God comes right out and tells us why he gives us more money than we need. It's not so we can find more ways to spend it. It's not so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children. It's not so we can insulate ourselves from needing God's provision. It's so we can give and give generously (2 Corinthians 8:14; 9:11) ↗

— Randy Alcorn

#excess #generosity #giving #less #money

That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous. ↗

— George R. Gissing

#generousity #money #poverty #money

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#does #man #motives #noblest #stupid

So," he said as we turned onto the main road, the muffler rattling, "I've been thinking." "Yeah?" He nodded. "You really need to go out with me." I blinked. "I'm sorry?" "You know. You, me. A restaurant or movie. Together." He glanced over, shifting gears. "Maybe it's a new concept for you? If so, I'll be happy to walk you through it." "You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I though saying that might scare you off. ↗

— Sarah Dessen

#love #sarah-dessen #what-happened-to-goodbye #love