Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"'I want to be clear. You are an American agent pretending to be a People's Republic agent who pretended to be an American agent when we arrested you and who now wants to pretend to be a People's Republic agent for the benefit of your partner who actually is a People's Republic agent?' Turnbull took a moment to diagram it in his head. 'Yeah,' he said. 'That.'" (226).

"From the ardour of the male throughout the animal kingdom, he is generally willing to accept any female; and it is the female which usually exerts a choice" (429).

"Entraine-toi plutot a rester attache a Dieu. L'exercice physique a son utilite, certes, mais celle-ci est limitee. L'attachement a Dieu, lui, est utile a tout puisqu'il possede la promesse de la vie pour le present et pour l'avenir." - 2 Timothee 4:8

"In 1845 the Sultan of Zanzibar had declared that the export of slaves was forbidden...British & French men-of-war patrolled the coast in search of Arab dhows bringing Negroes from the mainland. But none of this had made any real difference. With a tradition of at least 2,000 years of slaving behind them none of the east coast Arab dealers had as yet dreamed of giving up the trade" (6-7).

"The Arabs stopped...Someone was shouting - no, lots of people were shouting, but Turnbull couldn't understand any of it. Now the Arabs were shouting too, and there was more shouting, and one of the Arabs raised his G36 and then there was roaring from every direction as the Arabs were caught in a hail of gunfire and shredded before they could get a round off...From the woods, men in camouflage appeared..." (216).

"'The trouble with our modern world' Dr. Robert Stadler said... 'is that too many people think too much. It is the cause of all our current fears...An enlightened citizenry should abandon the superstitious worship of logic & the outmoded reliance on reason. Just as laymen leave medicine to doctors & electronics to engineers, so people who are not qualified to think should leave all thinking to the experts..." (859).

"...il est juste aux yeux de Dieu de rendre la souffrance a ceux qui vous font souffrir, et de vous accorder, a vous qui souffrez, du repos avec nous. Cela se produira lorsque le Seigneur Jesus apparaitra du haut du ciel, avec ses anges puissants et dans une flamme. Ce jour-la, il punira comme ils le meritent ceux qui ne connaissent pas Dieu et qui n'obeissent pas a l'Evangile de notre Seigneur Jesus."- 2 Thess 1:6-7

"Age and experience by themselves don't increase your spiritual maturity. Becoming like Jesus doesn't happen incidentally or automatically with the passing of birthdays. Godliness, as 1 Timothy 4:7 says, requires a deliberate discipline. The Discipline of learning transforms accidental learners into intentional learners" (127-8).

"When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. The rich, afraid that democracy will bleed them, conspire to overthrow it; or some enterprising individual seizes power, promises everything to the poor, surrounds himself with a personal army, kills first his enemies and then his friends 'until he has made a purgation of the state,' and establishes a dictatorship" (520).

"...vous savez fort bien vous-memes que le jour de Seigneur viendra de facon aussi inattendue qu'un voleur en pleine nuit. Lorsque les gens diront: 'Maintenant regne la paix! Maintenant nous sommes en security!', alors precisement, la ruine fondra subitement sur eux, comme les douleurs saisissent la femme enciente, et aucun n'echappera." - 1 Thess 5:2-3

"'Diversity is strength,' Carter said, fuming. Turnbull, as he clenched his fist in irritation, observed that despite the Split, some Americans still retained their natural inclination to tell other people how they should live. 'Does Germany look strong to you, fraulein?' the mayor replied" (201).

"With animals of all kinds, whenever colour has been modified for some special purpose, this has been, as far as we can judge, either for direct or indirect protection, or as an attraction between the sexes" (424).

"Conduisez-vous avec sagesse dans vos relations avec ceux qui n'appartiennent pas a la famille de Dieu, en mettant a profit toutes les occasions qui se presentent a vous. Que votre parole soit toujours empreinte de la grace de Dieu et pleine de saveur pour savoir comment repondre avec a-propos a chacun." - Colossiens 4:5-6

"Fasting can be a testimony - even one directed to yourself - that you find your greatest pleasure and enjoyment in life from God. It's a way of demonstrating to yourself that you love God more than food, that seeking Him is more important to you than eating, that Jesus - the bread of heaven (see John 6:51) - is more satisfying to you than earthly bread" (111).

"There was a time, she thought, when [Reardon's] mind, his energy, his inexhaustible resourcefulness had been given to the task of a producer devising better ways to deal with nature; now, they were switched to the task of a criminal outwitting men. She wondered how long a man could endure a change of that kind" (844).

"Je sais vivre dans le denuement, je sais aussi vivre dans l'abondance. C'est le secret que j'ai appris: m'accommoder a toutes les situations et toutes les circonstances, que je sois rassasie ou que j'aie faim, que je connaisse l'abondance ou que je sois dans le besoin. Je peux tout, grace a celui qui me fortifie." - Philippiens 4:12-13

"Ahead, it was wooded and hilly, even mountainous. Other signs pointed to Zurich and southeast to Basel, both in Switzerland and both off-limits to most travelers these days. The Swiss, as was their habit - a habit that had kept them free for centuries - was (sic) hunkering down again and largely shutting the world out. Of course, they did not exclude the world's money..." (192).

"The world of science and philosophy is composed not of individual things, but of Ideas; history, as distinct from biography, is the story of man; biology is the science not of specific organisms, but of life; mathematics is the study not of concrete things but of number, relation, and form independently of things and yet as valid for all things. Philosophy is the science if Ideas" (516).

"Pour conclure: puisez votre force dans le Seigneur et dans sa grande puissance. Revetez-vous de l'armure de Dieu afin de pouvoir tenir ferme contre toutes les ruses de diable. Car nous n'avons pas a lutter contre des etres de chair et du sang, mais contre les Puissances, contre les Autorites, contre les Pouvoirs de ce monde des tenebres, et contre les esprits du mal dans le monde celeste." - Ephesiens 6:10-12

"When you consider how God has given you the greatest possible gift in His Son, Jesus Christ, when you recall the mercy and grace He applies to you, when you reflect on how He provides all you have, and when you remember that you are actually giving to God, you should be able to give thankfully and cheerfully" (97).

"The two sexes of another lamellicorn beetle, the Ateuchus cicatricosus, live in pairs, and seem much attached to each other..." (417).

"Maintenant, par la foi en Jesus-Christ, nous etes tous fils de Dieu. Car vous tous qui avez ete baptises pour le Christ, vous vous etes revetus du Christ. Il n'y a donc plus de difference entre les Juifs et les non-Juifs, entre les esclaves et les hommes libres, entre les hommes et les femmes. Unis a Jesus-Christ, vous etes tous un." - Galates 3:26-28

"He sat still and silent, listening. He learned that in the service, the power of listening. At first, the wood seemed silent. But soon he was picking out noises - crickets, wind, bird calls, perhaps a dog, and off in the distance, cars passing in the night. He watched and listened, the weapon on his lap. For hours" (179).

"There, she thought, was the ultimate goal of all that loose academic prattle which businessmen had ignored for years, the goal of all the slipshod definitions, the sloppy generalities, the soupy abstractions all claiming that obedience to objective reality is the same as the obedience to the State, that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat's directive..." (838-9).

"...Satan lui-meme ne se deguise-t-il pas en ange de lumiere? Il n'est donc pas surprenant que ses agents aussi se deguisent en serviteurs de ce qui est juste. Mais ils auront la fin que meritent leurs oeuvres." - 2 Corinthiens 11:14-15

"I can understand why the person who serves God in an attempt to earn his way to heaven doesn't serve with gladness. But the Christian who gratefully acknowledges what God has done for him or her for eternity should be able to serve God cheerfully and with joy" (80).

"Compared with the bold advance of the 5th century, & the revolutionary achievements of the 3rd, science in the 4th marked time, & contented itself...with recording its accumulations...The problems of religion, morals, & politics, appearing to be more vital & pressing than the problems of nature, men turned with Socrates from the objective study of the material world to a consideration of the soul & the state" (500).

"Car les armes avec lesquelles nous combattons ne sont pas simplement humaines; elles tiennent leur puissance de Dieu qui les rend capables de renverser des forteresses. Oui, nous renversons les faux raisonnements ainsi que tout ce qui se dresse pretentieusement contre la connaissance de Dieu, et nous faisons prissonniere toute pensee pour l'amener a obeir au Christ." - 2 Corinthiens 10:4-5

"Come now, Louise, we all understand that the socialism we all praise on television is utter nonsense. The People's Republic's flirtation with it will go on the list of the times socialism was tried but was never actually tried. Everyone sentient understands that this country needs reform. I don't propose we return to the pre-Split days. I prefer my capitalism controlled, harnessed, and obedient" (175).

"...insects belonging to this order [Hymenoptera] have the power of recognising each other after long intervals of time, and are deeply attached" (412).