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P Quotes

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All P Quotes

“Putin saw the Ukrainian revolution as a challenge to him personally, and I think that's why he, in fact, over-reacted. I think his occupation of Crimea and then annexation for him was actually a mistake from Russia's point of view. And then his invasion of Eastern Ukraine was also a mistake. He imagined that he would invade Eastern Ukraine and then eventually split the country in half, and he discovered that in fact, Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not Russians, and they didn't support him.”

“Putin was a former KGB intelligence officer who’d been stationed in East Germany at the Dresden headquarters of the Soviet secret service. Putin has said in interviews that he dreamed as a child of becoming a spy for the communist party in foreign lands, and his time in Dresden exceeded his imagination. Not only was he living out his boyhood fantasy, he and his then-wife also enjoyed the perks of a borderline-European existence. Even in communist East Germany, the standard of living was far more comfortable than life in Russia, and the young Putins were climbing KGB social circles, making influential connections, networking a power base. The present was bright, and the future looked downright luminous. Then, the Berlin wall fell, and down with it crashed Putin’s world. A few days after the fall, a group of East German protestors gathered at the door of the secret service headquarters building. Putin, fearing the headquarters would be overrun, dialed up a Red Army tank unit stationed nearby to ask for protection. A voice on the other end of the line told him the unit could not do anything without orders from Moscow. And, “Moscow is silent,” the man told Putin. Putin’s boyhood dream was dissolving before his eyes, and his country was impotent or unwilling to stop it. Putin despised his government’s weakness in the face of threat. It taught him a lesson that would inform his own rule: Power is easily lost when those in power allow it to be taken away. In Putin’s mind, the Soviet Union’s fatal flaw was not that its authoritarianism was unsustainable but that its leaders were not strong enough or brutal enough to maintain their authority. The lesson Putin learned was that power must be guarded with vigilance and maintained by any means necessary.”

“Putin's survival depends on land grabs of foreign territories. He needs new annexations. The annexation of Crimea has gained him much applause at home. But that will not last forever. The Western sanctions are beginning to take hold and the people are suffering. In order to maintain his popularity, Putin has to commit further international crimes. Otherwise he will be dead politically.”

“Putriku, bagaimana kau tahan sedemikian banyak penderitaan dan kepedihan? Bagaimana aku menahannya bersamamu dulu? Selalu kurasa, putriku, bahwa engkau mampu melakukan apa saja, memindahkan gunung atau menghancurkan batu-batu karang, walaupun tubuhmu kecil dan lemah seperti juga diriku. Namun ketika kaki-kakimu yang kecil mungil menendang-nendang dinding lambungku, aku berkata kepada diriku: Tuhan, kekuatan yang apa ada dalam tubuhku ini? Gerakanmu kuat ketika kau masih sebuah janin dan mengguncangku dari dalam, sebagaimana gunung berapi yang mengguncang bumi. Namun kutahu bahwa engkau sekecil diriku, tulang-tulangmu kecil seperti tulang-tulang ayahmu, setinggi dan serampingnenekmu, sedangkan kedua kakimu sebesar kaki para nabi. Ketika kau lahir, nenekmu mengatupkan bibirnya dalam kesedihan dan berkata: Ah, seorang anak perempuan dan jelek lagi! Bencana ganda! Kutegangkan otot-otot lambungku untuk menahan rasa sakit di rahimku dan menghentikan darah dan sambil bernafas dengan sulit karena kelahiranmu sukar dan aku menderita seakan-akan kulahirkan sebuah gunung, kukatakan kepada nenekmu: Bagiku ia lebih berharga daripada seisi dunia ini! Kudekap engkau ke dadaku dan aku pun tertidur nyenyak. Dapatkah aku, Putriku, kembali menikmati saat tidur nyenyak ketika engkau berada di dalam diriku atau setidak-tidaknya dekat denganku sehingga dapat kuulurkan tanganku untuk menyentuhmu? Atau ketika engkau berada di kamarmu di sebelah kamarku sehingga aku dapat berjingkat untuk menjengukmu waktu kau tidur?”

“Putting a man in space is a stunt: the man can do no more than an instrument, in fact can do less. There are far more serious things to do than indulge in stunts. . . . I do not discard completely the value of demonstrating to the world our skills. Nor do I undervalue the effect on morale of the spectacular. But the present hullabaloo on the propaganda aspects of the program leaves me entirely cool.”

“Putting a woman on the team would be a nightmare, you know that," he said as he started the engine and put the SUV in gear. "We're werewolves. How the hell do you think we're going to be able to hide that from her and do our job at the same time? And don't even get me started on the whole pheromone thing." They might be men first, and wolves second, but if there was one thing that could bring the whole Pack to its knees, it was the scent of a woman. "We won't have to hide what we are if the female cop I bring in is a werewolf," Gage said.”

“Putting an end to feelings of insignificance is quite significant. Work on your development and find validation from the right environment. Establish a healthy sense of self. Get into the habit of appreciating your accomplishments. Remind yourself that you are an exceptional human.”

“Putting aside all the things that are said about Hillary [Clinton], my main difference with her is on the vision of what kind of society will make people's lives better. So this is a vision of society in which people are too evil or stupid to run their own lives, but those in power are perfectly capable of running everybody else's lives because they're so much smarter.”

“Putting down the book, I said: "Listen, it revolts me to think that God sent His Son to say to us: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life,' with the fine result then that all of us find ourselves in the situation of those blind men, each with a wretched little fragment of the truth in his hand, each fragment different from the others. We know the truth of the faith only by analogy, yes; but blind to this degree, no! It seems to me unworthy both of God and of our reason!" This unexpected theology based on elephants' tails and backs did not completely convince my guest, but it shook him, making him say: "Well, nobody had ever said this to me!”

“Putting flow-prone kids into high-flow environments means a lot of flow. Arming them with advanced flow-hacking techniques means even more. All this flow makes the activity deeply rewarding, both fulfilling a child’s innate need for autonomy, mastery, and purpose and further increasing their sense of intrinsic motivation. When Tom Schaar says, “I love being with my friends at the skate park — that’s the greatest feeling,” what he’s saying is no one has to force him to practice, the autotelic nature of the activity — the fact that it drives him into flow — is the source code of his motivation.”