#ions

Sanctions make a substantial contribution to power based on privation, and they have never hurt a single despot in the whole history of their use. ↗

— Roger Scruton

#international-sanctions #iraq #iraq-sanctions #kim-jong-il #north-korea

I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all. ↗

— Nick Hornby

#energy

No one was to blame for what happened, but that does not make it any less difficult to accept. It was all a matter of missed connections, bad timing, blundering in the dark. We were always in the right place at the wrong time, the wrong place at the right time, always just missing each other, always just a few inches from figuring the whole thing out. That's what the story boils down to, I think. A series of lost chances. All the pieces were there from the beginning, but no one knew how to put them together. ↗

— Paul Auster

#blame

She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make? ↗

— Toni Morrison

#relationships #women #pleasure

In Africa we having a saying, 'If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.' ...Before I go back home, I want you to consider us, Katie. Ponder what it would be like if we went together. Not alone and fast but together and far. ↗

— Robin Jones Gunn

#coming #eli #gunn #jones #katie

As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#analysis #discoveries #greatness #intellect #intellectual-thought

Kitten, you need to make a decision. Either we stay here and behave or we leave now and I promise you”—his voice dipped lower and the words fell against my lips—“if we leave, I won’t behave. ↗

— Jeaniene Frost

#decisions

Being in command means making tough decisions. Not being in command means shutting up and doing what you're told. --Artemis Fowl ↗

— Eoin Colfer

#decisions

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#gandalf #steadfastness #truths #decisions

You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. ↗

— Michelle Obama

#decisions #fear #decisions