Kawing

“Stanley must have realized that this postponement would probably be fatal. But while he did not give up, he never for a moment thought of abandoning his African quest [...] Yet Stanley still longed for the security of marriage, and hoped he could find Livingstone and marry Katie. [...] The romantic side of his nature told him that their story ought to end in marriage: the workhouse boy, having distinguished himself beyond all expectations, weds the daughter of the respectable local gentleman, and they live happily ever afterwards in a big house
[...] But Katie had never understood his inner conviction of being chosen for a great task.”
― Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer

“For America, Britain, and the Western powers, the rise of ISIS and the caliphate is the ultimate disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion of Iraq in 2003 and their efforts to unseat Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria, run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organized than the al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden. The war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed miserably.”
― Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution

“We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further; it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow 
Across that angry or that glimmering sea, 

White on a throne or guarded in a cave 
There lies a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.”
― James Elroy Flecker

“Dear Sir

I have arrived at this place from Zanzibar with 115 souls, men, women & children. We are now in a state of imminent starvation. We can purchase nothing from the natives for they laugh at our kinds of cloth.... [he then explained that unless supplies could be sent to him within two days...] I may have a fearful time of it among the dying...' [Stanley ended with a brief postscript]”

Excerpt From: Tim Jeal. “Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer.”
― Henry Morton Stanley