#tar

… the river sliding along its banks, darker now than the sky descending a last time to scatter its diamonds into these black waters that contain the day that passed, the night to come. — Excerpt from the poem “The Mercy ↗

— Philip Levine

#diamonds #rivers #stars #water #change

Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent — the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#freedom #change

...I decided I'd changed my mind about home. Home was not Pensacola San Diego Guam or any of the other places we might have lived. In fact home wasn't any particular place at all. Home was my family. Even if they didn't get my jokes sometimes. ↗

— Kimberly Willis Holt

#home #military-family #change

The Howeitat spread out along the cliffs to return the peasants' fire. This manner of going displeased Auda, the old lion, who raged that a mercenary village folk should dare to resist their secular masters, the Abu Tayi. So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: 'Dogs, do you not know Auda?' When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them, and an hour later Sherif Nasir in the town-house was sipping tea with his guest the Turkish Governor, trying to console him for the sudden change of fortune. ↗

— T.E. Lawrence

#humourosly-inspirational #military-leaders #tribal #change

if Germany won it would change the course of our civilization and make the United States a military nation [and] it would check his policy for a better international ethical code ↗

— Woodrow Wilson

#militarism #world-war-i #change

No matter how much it hurts now, someday you will look back and realize your struggles changed your life for the better. ↗

— POB Bismark

#perseverance #startups #struggle #change

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us. ↗

— Patti Davis

#america #country #father #feeling #gradually

I wanted to know that he would be okay if I died. I wanted to not be a grenade, to not be a malevolent force in the lives of people I loved. ↗

— John Green

#john-green #the-fault-in-our-stars #love

A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key. ↗

— Bret Easton Ellis

#mouth #star #communication

One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone. ↗

— Gregory David Roberts

#courage