I'm English enough to feel something of a gut-reaction to modernism, to continental philosophising and anything that smacks of a refusal to pay attention to the forensics: the empirical facts on the ground.
School-leavers unfortunately will come away thinking the First World War consisted simply of 'going over the top' on the Western Front to slaughter in no-man's-land, when the conflict extended so much further, to the collapse of four empires and nume...
I've always felt, with 'The Iliad,' a real frustration that it's read wrong. That it's turned into this public school poem, which I don't think it is. That glamorising of war, and white-limbed, flowing-haired Greek heroes - it's become a cliched, Bri...
Carmack was of the moment. His ruling force was focus. Time existed for him not in some promising future or sentimental past but in the present condition, the intricate web ol problems and solutions, imagination and code. He kept nothing from the pas...
Darth Vader: There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. [pauses] Darth Vader: Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can...
Great persons, like great empires, leave their mark on history.
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
Eating connects us to our histories as much as it connects our souls to our bodies, our bodies to the earth.
Miles smiled. "Can you keep a secret?" Bea snorted. "Did I tell you what you were in for if you married my daughter?" "No," Miles conceded. "Well, then," she said, as if that settled the matter.
To his surprise he...discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something…that you cared about a great deal.
Father and Ivy used to go off on their excursions, never knowing that I was relieved when they were gone. That I'd wear my nightgowns all day and read from dawn till dusk.
The world always seems like it's going to hell when you're depressed. And, of course, it always is going to hell in some way. That's what makes it so hard to tell the difference between Armageddon and the blues.
Though most expect young men to be fools, I've noticed that just a little bit of age can make a man far more foolish than he was as a child.
The thanks of a weak one are but of little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way- and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great.
Men like you preach change, but I wonder. Is this a battle we can really fight?” “You’re fighting it already, Goodman Mennis. You’re just losing horribly.
My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I'm quite prone to such bouts of deplorability--take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.
I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.
Sometimes Vin imagined she was like the ash, or the wind, or the mist itself. A thing without thought, capable of simply being, not thinking, caring, or hurting. Then she could be...free.
Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills.
You live and die in the batting of my eyes. You cast a wavering shadow over the snow for a day. I cast my shadow over empires across eons." - Orm Hinn Langi the Dragon
The Golds have everything, yet they demand sacrifices even from their own. This place is sick. This empire broken. It eats its kings, its queens, as hungrily as it does the paupers who mill its earth.
