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Deng had been publicly denounced as "the number-two capitalist roader" after Liu Shaoqi and excluded from his state and Party positions. His brother was publicly tortured and died by suicide, his eldest son was paralyzed from the chest down after jumping from a window when terrorized by Red Guards at Peking University, and a brother-in-law died while being persecuted.

„In jener Stunde sah ich Aragorn an und dachte, was für ein großer und entsetzlicher Gebieter er mit seiner Willensstärke hätte werden können, wenn er den Ring für sich genommen hätte. Nicht umsonst fürchtet Mordor ihn. Aber edler ist seine Seele, als Sauron sich vorstellen kann; stammt er denn nicht von Lúthiens Kindern ab?“

On such an occasion we are apt not only to forget our scepticism, but even our modesty too; and make use of such terms as these, 'tis evident, 'tis certain, 'tis undeniable; which a due deference to the public ought, perhaps, to prevent. I may have fallen into this fault after the example of others; but I here enter a caveat against any objections, which may be offer'd on that head; and declare that ...

..reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy... . I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; tho' such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection...

Methinks I am like a man who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd ship-wreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances. My memory of past errors and perplexities, makes me diffident for the future.

As long as our attention is bent upon the subject, the philosophical and study'd principle may prevail; but the moment we relax our thoughts, nature will display herself, and draw us back to our former opinion. Nay she has sometimes such an influence, that she can stop our progress, even in the midst of our most profound reflections, and keep us from running on with all the consequences of any philosophical opinion.

Und in dieser Stunde war die große Schlacht auf dem Feld von Gondor vorüber ... Alle wurden erschlagen außer jenen, die flohen, um zu sterben oder in den roten Fluten des Flusses zu ertrinken. Wenige kamen jemals wieder in den Osten nach Morgul oder Mordor; und in das Land des Haradrim gelangte nur eine Erzählung von weit her: ein Gerücht von dem Zorn und Schrecken von Gondor.

Like Yegong of Chinese lore—an old man who loved dragon paintings but recoiled in horror when he met real dragons—Mao liked revolution in principle but not when it interfered with his own plans.

In November 1966 a group of Red Guards traveled from Beijing to Confucius's hometown, Qufu, in Shandong, where they set out to wreck temples and memorial halls. But toppling statues and burning books were not enough for their energetic vandalism. First, they dynamited the tomb of the ancient sage himself. Then they proceeded to dig up the coffins of the thousands of Confucius's descendants who had been buried there.

The latter position, at least if one argues for unintended consequences, may have some truth to it, though its claims do rather remind us of the old Polish joke that Communism is the longest possible road from capitalism to capitalism.

We've largely ignored Darwin's scribbled note to himself not to use the words 'higher' or 'lower' in discussions. This is especially true of mental processes,which we routinely label as 'higher order' or 'lower order'. Many of us now assume that only one kind of thinking has intrinsic value.[...]that there's only one kind of thinking, and only humans can do it. This is not only wrong;it impoverishes the living world.

Brand
(knuger hænderne mod brystet)
Sjæl, vær trofast til det sidste!
Sejrens sejr er alt at miste.
Tabets alt din vinding skabte; —
evigt ejes kun det tabte!

Agnes
(rejser sig og siger langsomt)
Ind i natten. Gennem døden. —
Bagom dæmrer morgenrøden.
(Hun følger efter, hvor Brand gik. Ejnar ser en stund som fortabt efter hende, bøjer hovedet og går udover mod fjorden igen.)

Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endow'd with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant.

I'd not go behind scripture but it may be that there has been sinners so notorious evil that the fires coughed em up again and I could well see in the long ago how it was little devils with their pitchforks had traversed that fiery vomit for to salvage back those souls that had by misadventure been spewed up from their damnation onto the outer shelves of the world. Aye. It's a notion, no more. ...

Statt zu antworten, rief Gandalf dem Pferd laut zu: "Voran, Schattenfell! Wir müssen eilen. Die Zeit ist knapp. Siehe! Die Leuchtfeuer von Gondor sind angezündet und rufen Hilfe herbei! Der Krieg ist entbrannt. Schau, da ist das Feuer auf Amon Dîn und die Flamme auf Eilenach; und dort ziehen sie sich eilends nach Westen: Nardol, Erelas, Min-Rimmon, Calenhad und Halifirien an den Grenzen von Rohan."

He was tapping the flat of the sword lightly against the horn of his saddle and he seemed to be forming words in his mind. He leaned slightly to them. When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf.

The second corporal was from Texas and spoke a little Spanish and he meant to trade his mule. The other boy was from Missouri. They were in good spirits, scrubbed and combed, clean shirts and all. Each foreseeing a night of drink, perhaps of love. How many youths have come home cold and dead from just such nights and just such plans.

Die großen Türen schlugen zu. Bum. Die eisernen Riegel schnappten ein. Klong. Das Tor war geschlossen. Sam warf sich gegen die verriegelten ehernen Torflügel und fiel besinnungslos auf den Boden. Er war draußen in der Dunkelheit. Frodo war am Leben, aber vom Feind gefangen.

How people in the Assyrian Empire cursed and swore can be gauged from a small tablet from Nineveh inscribed with invectives against a certain Bel-etir. "Bel-etir, you fucked hostage, doubly so, with runny eyes, doubly so, with bulging eyes, doubly so, son of Ibâ, that missed period, that shit bucket of a fart factory, of a vile family, lackey of a dead god, of a house whose star has vanished from the heavens,...

The eldest daughter of King Esarhaddon and sister of his successor Ashurbanipal, Sherua-etirat never suffered from a lack of self-confidence. Druing the period when Ashurbanipal was still crown prince, she wrote a bullying letter to Ashurbanipal's wife Libbali-sharrat, making it quite clear that, as a blood relation of the Assyrian royal family, she - Sherua-etirat - held a far higher rank than her sister-in-law.

The history of religious thought is full of strange turns, but few new ideas in this sphere have been as serendipitous as the emergence of the devil from a dubious interpretation of a cosmological metaphor used in the Hebrew Bible to characterize an unlucky Near Eastern king killed on the battlefield - a king who, in all likelihood, was none other than Sargon II.