Themes

"One uses depression as one utilizes anxiety: by blindly following its lead into -- and hopefully out of -- the daimonic labyrinth. Depression -- like anxiety -- does, when correctly related to, redirect the individual back toward his or her suppressed daimonic passions, and thus, to life."

"The daimonic needs to be directed and channeled. … Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form."

"The daimonic (unlike the demonic, which is merely destructive) is as much concerned with creativity as with negative reactions. A special characteristic of the daimonic model is that it considers both creativity on one side, and anger and rage on the other side, as coming from the same source. That is, constructiveness and destructiveness have the same source in human personality. The source is simply human potential."

"The organizing center from which the regulatory effect stems seems to be a sort of 'nuclear atom' in our psychic system. One could also call it the inventor, organizer, and source of dream images. Jung called this center the 'Self' and described it as the totality of the whole psyche, in order to distinguish it from the 'ego', which constitutes only a small part of the total psyche. Throughout the ages men have been intuitively aware of the existence of such an inner center. The Greeks called it man's inner daimon."

"In 1845, John O’Sullivan coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” to justify and celebrate America’s violent annexation of North America. “All this will be our future history,” he wrote in 1839, “to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man – the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen...” On the basis of such exalted views of its own beneficence, the US engaged in mass enslavement until the Civil War and mass apartheid thereafter; slaughtered Native Americans throughout the nineteenth century and subjugated them thereafter; and, with the closure of the Western frontier, extended Manifest Destiny overseas. Later, with the onset of the Cold War, anti-communist fervor led the US to fight disastrous wars in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) in the 1960s and 1970s, and brutal wars in Central America in the 1980s. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the evangelical ardor was directed against “radical Islam” or “Islamic fascism,” with four US wars of choice – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya – all of which remain debacles to this day. Suddenly, the supposed existential threat of radical Islam has been forgotten, and the new crusade targets the CPC."

"The concept of Manifest Destiny, with its assertion of racial superiority sustained by military power, has defined U.S. identity for 150 years. Only the Vietnam War brought a serious challenge to that concept of almightiness. Bitter debate, moral anguish, images of My Lai and the prospect of military defeat for the first time in U.S. history all suggested that the long-standing marriage of virtue and violence might soon be on the rocks."

"Manifest Destiny saw Yankee conquest as the inevitable result of a confrontation between enterprise and progress (white) versus passivity and backwardness (Indian, Mexican)."

"Teaching Native American studies, I always begin with a simple exercise. I ask students to quickly draw a rough outline of the United States at the time it gained independence from Britain. Invariably most draw the approximate present shape of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific-the continental territory not fully appropriated until a century after independence. What became independent in 1783 were the thirteen British colonies hugging the Atlantic shore. When called on this, students are embarrassed because they know better. I assure them that they are not alone. I call this a Rorschach test of unconscious 'manifest destiny,' embedded in the minds of nearly everyone in the United States and around the world. This test reflects the seeming inevitability of US extent and power, its destiny, with an implication that the continent had previously been a land without people"

"In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. Now we must embrace the next frontier, America’s manifest destiny in the stars."

"The untransacted destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent — to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean — to animate the many hundred millions of its people, and to cheer them upward — to set the principle of self-government at work — to agitate these herculean masses — to establish a new order in human affairs — to set free the enslaved — to regenerate superannuated nations — to change darkness into light — to stir up the sleep of a hundred centuries — to teach old nations a new civilization — to confirm the destiny of the human race — to carry the career of mankind to its culminating point — to cause stagnant people to be re-born — to perfect science — to emblazon history with the conquest of peace — to shed a new and resplendent glory upon mankind — to unite the world in one social family — to dissolve the spell of tyranny and exalt charity — to absolve the curse that weighs down humanity, and to shed blessings round the world! Divine task! immortal mission! Let us tread fast and joyfully the open trail before us! Let every American heart open wide for patriotism to glow undimmed, and confide with religious faith in the sublime and prodigious destiny of his well-loved country."

"I've been inspired by José Saramago's extraordinary blogs, which he posted when he was 85 and 86 years old. They were published this year in English as The Notebook. I read them with amazement and delight. I never wanted to blog before. I've never liked the word blog — I suppose it is meant to stand for bio-log or something like that, but it sounds like a sodden tree-trunk in a bog, or maybe an obstruction in the nasal passage... But seeing what Saramago did with the form was a revelation. Oh! I get it! I see! Can I try too? My trials/attempts/efforts (that's what "essays" means) so far have very much less political and moral weight than Saramago's and are more trivially personal. Maybe that will change as I practice the form, maybe not. Maybe I'll soon find it isn't for me after all, and stop. That's to be seen. What I like at the moment is the sense of freedom."

"I remember. I blogged the whole thing."

"The New York Times is going to quote Bernadette so that the people can be heard, and the Times can demonstrate they're not the media elite. I prefer when they were elite — I'm a fan of credentials. It's like we've all spent the last five years living a Roger Corman film called Revenge of the Hack. I have to care about the Internet, Sim — you know why? Because everybody else does."

"Skimmability, write like an idiot. Skimability: definitely a real word. People are lazy. People online are even lazier. So don't write like your turning in your AP English paper - write like an idiot. Keep your sentences short, and your paragraphs shorter. Short Paragraphs help people read, skim & enjoy articles."

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".… You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."

"The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered."

"Victory belongs to those that believe in it the most and believe in it the longest. We're going to believe."

"If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words — our lives — our pains — nothing! The taking of our lives — lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler — all! That last moment belongs to us — that agony is our triumph."

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting."

"Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love and magnanimity."

"You win the victory when you yield to friends."

"If I win, lose or draw? It's a victory for all!"

"With each loss, new buds of victory unfold in our hearts."

"I will appoint captains to rule my cities, for it is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys."

"An attitude of moderation is apt to be misunderstood when passions are greatly excited and when victory is apt to rest with the extremists on one side or the other; yet I think it is in the long run the only wise attitude."

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. … Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

"Et primo ferri motu prosternite mundum; sitque palam, quas tot duxit Pompeius in urbem curribus, unius gentes non esse triumphi."

"Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone."

"Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories."

"There are two kinds of defeat. Whether in chains or in laurels, Liberty knows nothing but victories."

"O Death where is thy sting, O Grave where is thy victory?"

"The problem after a war is the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay."

"God willing, when Allah has granted us victory, our halt tomorrow will be at Khaif, where they (the unbelievers of Mecca) had taken an oath on unbelief."

"On the day of Khaibar, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Tomorrow I will give this flag to a man through whose hands Allah will give us victory. He loves Allah and His Apostle, and he is loved by Allah and His Apostle." The people remained that night, wondering as to who would be given it. In the morning the people went to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and everyone of them was hopeful to receive it (i.e. the flag). The Prophet said, "Where is `Ali bin Abi Talib?" It was said, "He is suffering from eye trouble O Allah's Apostle." He said, "Send for him." `Ali was brought and Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) spat in his eye and invoked good upon him. So `Ali was cured as if he never had any trouble. Then the Prophet (ﷺ) gave him the flag. `Ali said "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! I will fight with them till they become like us." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Proceed and do not hurry. When you enter their territory, call them to embrace Islam and inform them of Allah's Rights which they should observe, for by Allah, even if a single man is led on the right path (of Islam) by Allah through you, then that will be better for you than the nice red camels."

"None has the right to be worshipped but Allah; He is One and has no partner. All the kingdoms is for Him, and all the praises are for Him, and He is Omnipotent. We are returning with repentance, worshipping, prostrating, and praising our Lord. He has kept up His promise and made His slave victorious, and He Alone defeated all the clans of (nonbelievers)."

"There is no god but Allah, the One Who conferred upon His armies the honour of victory and helped His servant rout the clans; there is nothing after that."

"I have been sent with Jawami al-Kalim (i.e., the shortest expression carrying the widest meanings), and I was made victorious with awe (caste into the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the earth were brought to me and were put in my hand."

"I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand."

"I have been given the keys of eloquent speech and given victory with awe (cast into the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping last night, the keys of the treasures of the earth were brought to me till they were put in my hand."

"Some of my followers will remain victorious (and on the right path) till the Last Day comes, and they will still be victorious."

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

"Who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe."

"In war there is no substitute for victory."

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

"Not in the clamour of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat."

"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived."

"Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories."

"Easy victories aren’t worth winning."