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All A Quotes

“A mind wanders, thoughts flee and memories fade. But tattoos, tattoos are forever. And if it is true to say that we carry ourselves with when we travel - then the body may very well be a beautiful canvas for the timeless lessons we learn and will learn when we travel.”

“A mindful leader looks at his being (witnessing consciousness or awareness) as the substratum on which he plays his leadership role. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he does not. Sometimes he is the manager, then he might become a follower. But his awareness remains unchanged.”

“A mine is anonymous, a crude weapon. Partisans like using mines because of the peculiar nature of their struggle, which makes the landscape uncertain. The anarch is not tempted by them, if only because he is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one inadequacy supplant another and a new regime triumph over the old one. In this sense, he is closer to the philistine; the baker whose chief concern is to bake good bread; the peasant, who works his plough while armies march across his fields. The anarch is a forest rebel, the partisans are a collective. I have observed their quarrels as both a historian and a contemporary. Stuffy air, unclear ideas, lethal energy, which ultimately puts abdicated monarchs and retired generals back in the saddle – and they then show their gratitude by liquidating those selfsame partisans. I had to love certain ones, because they loved freedom, even though the cause did not deserve their sacrifice; this made me sad. If I love freedom above all else, then any commitment becomes a metaphor, a symbol. This touches on the difference between the forest rebel and the partisan: this distinction is not qualitative but essential in nature. The anarch is closer to Being. The partisan moves within the social or national party structure, the anarch is outside of it. Of course, the anarch cannot elude the party structure, since he lives in society. The difference will be obvious when I go to my forest shack while my Lebanese joins the partisans. I will then not only hold on to my essential freedom, but also gain its full and visible enjoyment. The Lebanese, by contrast, will shift only within society; he will become dependent on a different group, which will get an even tighter hold on him. Naturally, I could just as well or just as badly serve the partisans rather than the Condor – a notion I have toyed with. Either way, I remain the same, inwardly untouched. It makes no difference that it is more dangerous siding with the partisans than with the tyrant; I love danger. But as a historian, I want danger to stand out sharply. Murder and treason, pillage and fire, and vendetta are of scant interest for the historian; they render long stretches of history – say, Corsican – unfruitful. Tribal history becomes significant only when, as in the Teutoburger Wald, it manifests itself as world history. Then names and dates shine. The partisan operates on the margins; he serves the great powers, which arm him with weapons and slogans. Soon after the victory, he becomes a nuisance. Should he decide to maintain the role of idealist, he is made to see reason. In Eumeswil, where ideas vegetate, the process is even more wretched. As soon as a group has coalesced, ‘one of Twelve’ is bound to consider betrayal. He is then killed, often merely on suspicion. At the night bar, I heard the Domo mention such a case to the Condor. ‘He could have gotten off more cheaply with us,’ he commented. ‘Muddle heads – I’ll take the gangsters anytime: they know their business.’ I entered this in my notebook. In conclusion, I would like to repeat that I do not fancy myself as anything special for being an anarch. My emotions are no different from those of the average man. Perhaps I have pondered this relationship a bit more carefully and am conscious of a freedom to which ‘basically’ everybody is entitled – a freedom that more or less dictates his actions.”

“A minha mãe pousou a mão sobre a minha. Sentir a sua mão nas costas da minha mão, o peso e o calor da sua mão, foi sentir que também eu gostava muito dela. Levantei a cabeça para a olhar e, nesse momento, sentimos tanta vontade de nos abraçarmos, porque soubemos mesmo que éramos duas pessoas a ser a mesma pessoa, porque soubemos que a beleza do amor que sentíamos, o afecto, era sentido exactamente da mesma maneira, com as mesmas formas, pelo outro. A minha mãe e eu sentíamos exactamente a mesma coisa quando nos olhámos a ser mãe e filho. E eu, como se descobrisse, senti toda força infinita do amor, que nunca muda, do amor que permanece igual depois de anos e anos.”

“A minha vida durante esses vinte e tal anos foi rio correndo, saltando, descendo montanhas, se espraiando nos vales, o rio rindo de si, da sua vida errante, do seu andar vagueante, o rio rindo farto, caudaloso, riomando, às vezes se apoucando nas suas miudezas, um fiozinho riando, riachando, o quase nonada, a se anular no seu corpo franzino, assim, corregando, a minha vida foi isso mesmo, o muito e pouco, a tempestade e a bonança, a vida não é o constante zizuezaguear? Mas, meu amigo, agora te conto esse rio correndo que sou eu, essas águas que não se cansam de parar, esse sempre em movimento em que vivo. Eu vou te contar meu vaguear com as minhas palavras , pensadas por mim mesmo, cavadas no chão movediço da memória.”

“A minimal level of sportsman ethics afield is mandated by written law. Beyond that, say, when an action is legal but ethically questionable, or when (as Aldo Leopold long ago pointed out) no one is watching, hunter ethics is an individual responsibility. As the existentialists would have it, we determine our own honor minute by minute, action by action, one decision at a time.”

“A minimum required standard to obtain a massage license is quite a different matter from a voluntary certification evidencing higher-level skills. Licensing standards should be set at a level sufficient to assure safe practice, but low enough to avoid screening out those individuals who choose to perform basic work”

“A minimum-wage law, a law that prevents employers and employees from entering into mutually beneficial economic exchanges, is as far from a free market or free enterprise as one can get. That's why it causes so much damage and destruction, especially to black teenagers and others whose labor, for one reason or another, is valued by employers at less than the government-established minimum wage.”

“A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect.”