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1.067_-_Sovereignty

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   3 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Sri Ramakrishna

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   22 Anonymous
   16 R C Sproul
   11 Paul David Tripp
   11 J I Packer
   11 Jerry Bridges
   10 Alexis de Tocqueville
   9 John F MacArthur Jr
   8 Max Lucado
   8 John Piper
   7 William Shakespeare
   7 Mark R Levin
   7 Charles Haddon Spurgeon
   7 Brian Godawa
   6 Victor Hugo
   6 D A Carson
   5 Woodrow Wilson
   5 Vladimir Putin
   5 Timothy J Keller
   5 Sri Aurobindo
   5 Sarah Young

1:When some serve the Lord for a long time, He endows them with all His glory and attributes and raises them to His own seat of sovereignty. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,

2:Ravana's mind thought it was hungering after universal sovereignty and victory over Rama; but the aim his soul kept its vision fixed upon all the time was to get back to its heaven as soon as possible & be again God's menial. Therefore, as the shortest way, it hurled itself against God in a furious clasp of enmity. ~ Sri Aurobindo,

3:... All the works of mind and intllect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis. It is this that the evolution of consciousness in the world carries prefigured but latent in its seed and in the straining tense intention of its process; nor can that process, that evolution cease till it has evolved the instruments of a perfect in place of its now imperfect manifestation of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 149,

4:Thus slowly I lift man's soul nearer the Light.    But human mind clings to its ignorance    And to its littleness the human heart    And to its right to grief the earthly life.    Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,    Only when infinity weds the finite's thought,    Can man be free from himself and live with God.    I bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;    I bring back hope to the despairing heart;    I give peace to the humble and the great,    And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.    I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.    Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth's soil;    Man's mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth    And body bear the immense descent of God."    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:The sovereignty of the people is inalienable. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove

2:Opposition to divine sovereignty is essentially atheism. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove

3:In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove

4:The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove

5:To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove

6:When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove

7:Take a firm grasp on God's sovereignty and trust His love even when you don't understand His purpose. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove

8:A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will. ~ reinhold-niebuhr, @wisdomtrove

9:It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

10:We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove

11:God's sovereignty is not in His right hand; God's sovereignty is not in His intellect; God's sovereignty is in His love. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove

12:Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove

13:From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove

14:Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove

15:A small nation, faced with the denial of its sovereignty — indeed, of its very existence — reminded us that the price of freedom is high but never so costly as the loss of freedom. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove

16:The world political system is till based on the concept of the national sovereign state. For the first time therefore, in three hundred years economy and sovereignty are becoming divorced from each other. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove

17:Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove

18:[Tibet] never sought any territory. All it wanted is the conquest of the soul, that people should attain a kind of inner sovereignty, inner independence, inner freedom. And inner strength to attain the absolute. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

19:... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove

20:Teasdale congratulates him on his coronation and sovereignty: "The eyes of the world are upon you. Notables from every country are gathered here in your honor. This is a gala day for you." Firefly replies: "Well, a gal a day is enough for me. I don't think I could handle any more." ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove

21:There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove

22:The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony&

23:God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "0 Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove

24:Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove

25:What does a life without anxiety look like? With God as your helper, you'll sleep better tonight and smile more tomorrow. You'll reframe the way you face your fears. You'll learn how to talk yourself off the ledge, view bad news through the lens of sovereignty, discern the lies of Satan, and tell yourself the truth. You'll discover a life that's characterized by calm and will develop tools for facing the onslaughts of anxiety. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove

26:While the game of deadlocks and bottle-necks goes on, another more serious game is also being played. It is governed by two axioms. One is that there can be no peace without a general surrender of sovereignty: the other is that no country capable of defending its sovereignty ever surrenders it. If one keeps these axioms in mind one can generally see the relevant facts in international affairs through the smoke-screen with which the newspapers surround them. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove

27:Rather than seeking total control, relinquish it. You can't run the world, but you can entrust it to God. This is the message behind Paul's admonition to "rejoice in the Lord." Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord's sovereignty, as Paul did. Sovereignty gives the saint the inside track to peace. Others see the problems of the world and wring their hands. We see the problems of the world and bend our knees. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove

28:Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove

29:Sovereignty is the term the Bible uses to describe God's perfect control and management of the universe. He preserves and governs every element. He's continually involved with all created things, directing them to act in a way that fulfills his divine purpose. That's why the most stressed-out people are control freaks. They fail at the quest they most pursue. The more they try to control the world, the more they realize they cannot. Life becomes a cycle of anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure. We can't take control, because control is not ours to take. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Sovereignty, loyalty, and solitude. ~ Georges Bataille,

2:In sovereignty there are no gradations. ~ Samuel Johnson,

3:Sovereignty is not given, it is taken. ~ Mustafa Kemal Atat rk,

4:Sovereignty is not given, it is taken. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,

5:I think there really is no shortcut to sovereignty. ~ Paul Bremer,

6:The sovereignty of the people is inalienable. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte,

7:Sovereignty over any foreign land is insecure. ~ Seneca the Younger,

8:Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty. ~ Ben Jonson,

9:Liberty, then, is the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. ~ Josiah Warren,

10:I have taken a wife, I have sold my sovereignty for a dowry. ~ Plautus,

11:In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat. ~ Sun Myung Moon,

12:I think we need to de-center the idea of US sovereignty. ~ Gerald Horne,

13:SOVEREIGNTY Sovereignty is a wind of change. (Hariri) ~ Idries Shah,

14:Opposition to divine sovereignty is essentially atheism. ~ Charles Spurgeon,

15:What I'm urging people to do is trust in the sovereignty of God. ~ Max Lucado,

16:The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty. ~ Albert Pike,

17:To be truly rich is to have sovereignty over our own time. ~ Charles Eisenstein,

18:It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God. ~ John Calvin,

19:Everyone should respect the sovereignty of the EU countries. ~ Evangelos Venizelos,

20:There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, ~ Tara Westover,

21:Divine sovereignty is not a substitute for human responsibility. ~ Warren W Wiersbe,

22:God’s promises are only as good as the extent of his sovereignty. ~ Paul David Tripp,

23:I can think of no concept more abused in modern Africa than sovereignty ~ Tim Butcher,

24:There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty. ~ Edward Heath,

25:In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ Saint Augustine,

26:The presence of hope in the invincible sovereignty of God drives out fear. ~ John Piper,

27:Applied globally, political correctness obliges us to forswear sovereignty. ~ Mark Steyn,

28:Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay. ~ Tony Blair,

29:Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

30:Sadness had reigned in undisputed sovereignty over his shadowed childhood. ~ Marcel Proust,

31:For me, Europe consists of three things: sovereignty, unity and democracy. ~ Emmanuel Macron,

32:God’s sovereignty does not excuse human sinfulness or irresponsibility. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

33:What we do every time we pray is to confess our impotence and God's sovereignty. ~ J I Packer,

34:As leaders, it all comes down to trust. Do you trust the sovereignty of God? ~ Christine Caine,

35:Believing in the sovereignty of God injects courage in the act of desire. ~ Jen Pollock Michel,

36:the most valuable asset stolen from the Congo was the sovereignty of its people. ~ Tim Butcher,

37:The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union. ~ Alexander Hamilton,

38:Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live. ~ Woodrow Wilson,

39:In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

40:In the age of globalization pooled sovereignty means more power, not less. ~ Jose Manuel Barroso,

41:The sovereignty of God is the only foundation for worship in the midst of tragedy. ~ David Platt,

42:To say that God's sovereignty is limited by man's freedom is to make man sovereign. ~ R C Sproul,

43:Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man. ~ R C Sproul,

44:Our prayers are not limited to God's sovereignty, but the ultimate expression of it ~ Tim Chester,

45:For, you see, in the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ Jeff Wheeler,

46:The splitting of sovereignty into many parts amounts to there being no sovereign. ~ Walter Bagehot,

47:God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never mitigates human responsibility. ~ D A Carson,

48:From 1991 till the present, Iraq sovereignty has been trampled by the United States. ~ Vijay Prashad,

49:They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body will be argued into slavery.6 ~ Bernard Bailyn,

50:If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family? ~ Mary Astell,

51:The European nations' loss of sovereignty to the EU should be a warning to Americans. ~ Phyllis Schlafly,

52:For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts. ~ Thomas Mann,

53:I hope in time N. H. as well as the other States will feel the importance of Sovereignty. ~ William Whipple,

54:War has become a mode of sovereignty and rule, eroding the distinction between war and peace. ~ Henry Giroux,

55:To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty ~ John Keats,

56:We believe that human rights transcend boundaries and must prevail over state sovereignty. ~ Jose Ramos Horta,

57:Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one's self- sovereignty. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

58:The storms in my life have become workshops where I can practice my faith in God's sovereignty. ~ Jill Briscoe,

59:Men treat God's sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is matter for worship. ~ J I Packer,

60:Men treat God’s sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is matter for worship. ~ J I Packer,

61:To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm: That is the top of sovereignty. ~ Will Durant,

62:I'm willing to submit to the sovereignty of the consumer, but I just want to know what they say. ~ Michael Hyatt,

63:The sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. ~ Jerry Bridges,

64:Stabilize your soul with the sovereignty of God. He reigns supreme over every detail of the universe. ~ Max Lucado,

65:The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions. ~ George Soros,

66:When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head. ~ Charles Spurgeon,

67:Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty. ~ Anthony Eden,

68:I learned very early that people need to have a good grasp of God's goodness and God's sovereignty. ~ Matt Chandler,

69:I think he'll be to Rome as is the osprey to the fish, who takes it by sovereignty of nature. ~ William Shakespeare,

70:Religious belief does not do away with either natural or human law from which sovereignty is derived. ~ Timothy Brook,

71:The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. ~ Hugh MacLeod,

72:You don't defend national sovereignty with flags, cheap election rhetoric, and advertising campaigns. ~ Stephen Harper,

73:Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are. ~ Alexis Tsipras,

74:Is Wall Street the rightful master of our economic fate? Or should we choose a broader form of sovereignty? ~ Thomas Frank,

75:Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation's sovereignty. ~ Karin Slaughter,

76:We will not let you choose between being a lover of God and his sovereignty and being a lover of lost people. ~ John Piper,

77:A god who is all love, all grace, all mercy, no sovereignty, no justice, no holiness, and no wrath is an idol. ~ R C Sproul,

78:All things are ordered by God, but His providence takes in our free agency, as well as His own sovereignty. ~ Tryon Edwards,

79:A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr,

80:It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself. ~ Elie Wiesel,

81:The poet who does not revere his art, and believe in its sovereignty, is not born to wear the purple. ~ Edmund Clarence Stedman,

82:“The only freedom the gods grant usIs this: to submitOf our own free will to their sovereignty.” ~ Ricardo Reis/ Fernando Pessoa,

83:True strength isn’t about sovereignty. It’s about knowing when you need help and having the courage to accept it. ~ Ren e Ahdieh,

84:The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small. ~ Nikita Khrushchev,

85:Reason and reality are the only means to just laws; mindless wishes, if given sovereignty, become deadly masters. ~ Terry Goodkind,

86:The determination of the Chinese side to safeguard our own sovereignty and territorial integrity is as firm as a rock, ~ Anonymous,

87:The development of the Internet has posed new challenges to national sovereignty, security and development interests. ~ Xi Jinping,

88:A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. ~ Walter Bagehot,

89:but if the bank is stronger than the sword or the sceptre of popular sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. ~ Anonymous,

90:God’s sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to pray, but rather makes it possible to pray with confidence. ~ Jerry Bridges,

91:Popular sovereignty has to be given by a people to itself, and this is the important meaning of self-determination. ~ Judith Butler,

92:The fusion (of economic functions) would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State. ~ Jean Monnet,

93:Respect for sovereignty means to not allow unconstitutional action and coup d'états, the removal of legitimate power. ~ Vladimir Putin,

94:[T]he sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are principles natural to man. ~ Blaise Pascal,

95:The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India. ~ B R Ambedkar,

96:. . .but he'd seen elite warriors go down in flames enough times to struggle with the sovereignty of God yet yield to it ~ Ronie Kendig,

97:the biblical King both reigns and rules. And He carries out His rule not by referendum but by His personal sovereignty. AN ~ R C Sproul,

98:We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future. ~ Saint Augustine,

99:Always turn to God in the midst of your struggle and view people who offended you as an instruments of divine sovereignty. ~ John C Maxwell,

100:There is no buying the night flight with its hundred thousand stars, its serenity, its few hours of sovereignty. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

101:Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided - not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing. ~ Golda Meir,

102:God's sovereignty is not in His right hand; God's sovereignty is not in His intellect; God's sovereignty is in His love. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,

103:The emblem of equal rights. It means free hands, free lips, self- government, and the sovereignty of the individual. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,

104:Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

105:Human fallibility recognised, Gods sovereignty trusted; these are also the only stable foundations for human beings in society. ~ Justin Welby,

106:Jewish sovereignty and governance over our ancestral home are, I believe, important goals that every Jew ought to support. ~ Edgar Bronfman Sr,

107:The knowledge of His sovereignty is meant to be an encouragement to pray, not an excuse to lapse into a sort of pious fatalism. ~ Jerry Bridges,

108:No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step. ~ Sidney Hook,

109:Davis and Stephens hewed to the same line: Southern states seceded not to protect slavery but to vindicate state sovereignty. ~ James M McPherson,

110:For me, Jerusalem was united, will be under Israel sovereignty, will be the capital of Israel and the heart of the Jewish people. ~ Yitzhak Rabin,

111:The Electoral College protects state sovereignty. It actually is one of the most brilliantly conceived electoral mechanisms ever. ~ Rush Limbaugh,

112:If thou be more than hate or atmosphere Step forth in splendor, mortify our wolves. Or we assume a sovereignty ourselves. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks,

113:There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God's sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience. ~ John Owen,

114:Accepting federal funding undermines state sovereignty as states become beholden to federal requirements in order to keep the money flowing. ~ Bob Barr,

115:As long as Christianity is treated as “moral poetry” and “tales of consolation,” it poses no threat to the sovereignty of secularism. ~ Nancy R Pearcey,

116:[Brazil] went to the UN and said, "We need new standards for this." We need to take a look at what they're calling "data sovereignty." ~ Edward Snowden,

117:Sovereignty is a question of principle. We must tell the Iraqis: you are a sovereign people. And you are in charge of your own future. ~ Jacques Chirac,

118:Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states. ~ George Soros,

119:He now subjected the Articles of Confederation to a searching critique. He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union. ~ Ron Chernow,

120:The Lord’s sovereignty over Israel is not an abstract concept. He speaks to the will of Israel, summoning its people to follow him. ~ Thomas R Schreiner,

121:There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God’s sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience... ~ John Owen,

122:Sovereignty is not negotiated in exchange for anything; to maintain the achievements of the revolution does not depend on a foreign power. ~ Fidel Castro,

123:Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people. ~ Woodrow Wilson,

124:Actually, as a Muslim, we believe sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God. And therefore, we believe in submitting to the commands of God. ~ Anjem Choudary,

125:Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King. ~ Megan Whalen Turner,

126:Tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a... you're a... you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. ~ George W Bush,

127:Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual. ~ Walter E Williams,

128:If I complain about the difficult circumstances of my life, I impugn the sovereignty and goodness of God and tempt my listener to do the same. ~ Jerry Bridges,

129:I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina ... but for that peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina I would not sacrifice sovereignty. ~ Alija Izetbegovic,

130:Warriors like Alexander the Great seek sovereignty over the soil; masters like Sri Yukteswar win a farther dominion—in men’s souls. It ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

131:To damage the sovereignty of the individual is to replace a community inspired by love, benevolence, and beauty by another based solely on power. ~ Anwar Sadat,

132:Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa,

133:Science has made unrestricted national sovereignty incompatible with human survival. The only possibilities are now world government or death. ~ Bertrand Russell,

134:I think to trust in the sovereignty of God does not excuse my personal responsibility. Just the opposite - it equips me to be personally responsible. ~ Max Lucado,

135:However, the erosion of individual sovereignty, free will, and self-sufficiency necessarily give way to dependence, conformity, and finally tyranny. ~ Mark R Levin,

136:Violating Pakistani sovereignty in the hunt for terrorists, we predicted, would create tensions in our relationship with the Pakistani government, ~ Michael McFaul,

137:Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte,

138:It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. ~ James Monroe,

139:to elevate the race of humankind. To endow each individual with sovereignty over his own heart and to lift the state as a whole to govern itself. ~ Steven Pressfield,

140:When we disobey God we defy His authority and despise His holiness. But when we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness. ~ Jerry Bridges,

141:The issue of God’s sovereignty likely was a hot-button topic in Isaiah’s day, since that was one of the more chaotic times in the history of God’s people. ~ Anonymous,

142:From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty ~ Victor Hugo,

143:Learn to recognize God's sovereignty. Learn to rejoice in God's pleasure. This was Abraham's first lesson, namely that God, not himself, was the Source. ~ Watchman Nee,

144:God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about. ~ Jerry Bridges,

145:True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. ~ Marquis de Lafayette,

146:It’s that blasted Independent Province!” the fourth said. “It’s been chaos since they gained sovereignty. I’ve felt it in my roots since.  A war is coming. ~ Lucian Bane,

147:One of the most dangerous delusions for each of us is the delusion of our own sovereignty. And one of our most dangerous idols is the idol of control. ~ Paul David Tripp,

148:Some countries of Europe have to free themselves from the US Empire. They are not going to frighten us because we are a people with dignity and sovereignty. ~ Evo Morales,

149:A transitional government is the beginning of a transfer of sovereignty. It's a question of Iraqi security and moving forward with the political process. ~ Joschka Fischer,

150:But then is no one at home any longer?” No, as a matter of fact. Neither state sovereignty nor inviolable borders can take the place of politics any longer. ~ Bruno Latour,

151:If any of the socialist chiefs had tried to earn his living by selling hot dogs, he would have learned something about the sovereignty of the consumers. ~ Ludwig von Mises,

152:O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting. ~ Bah u ll h,

153:Truth stands revealed on its own without proclamation or need of aggrandizement. Its Absolute Sovereignty shines forth without need of acclaim or praise. ~ David R Hawkins,

154:If my words don't flow out of a heart that rests in God's control, sovereignty, then they come out of the heart that seeks control so I can get what I want. ~ Mark Driscoll,

155:Kings come and go, but sovereignty remains. Kings are men, and men may fall to vice and corruption, but sovereignty is pure and undefiled at its source. ~ Stephen R Lawhead,

156:Sovereignty no longer resides in the territory itself, but in the control of the territory. And localisation is an inherent part of that territorial control. ~ Paul Virilio,

157:Ireland is not in a good place at the moment. We have our own humiliation of losing our economic sovereignty, and we're now regaining it slowly and painfully. ~ Mary Robinson,

158:Keep in mind that God's sovereignty allows Him to even use that which is not cooperating with Him (the bad) in order to move things to where He wants them to go. ~ Tony Evans,

159:Recall that Ukraine gave up more than 1,800 nuclear warheads in exchange for that bogus commitment from Russia back in 1994 to respect its sovereignty and borders. ~ Anonymous,

160:The little compulsions and drives we have not only chip away at our freedom and sovereignty, they cloud our clarity. We think we’re in control—but are we really? ~ Ryan Holiday,

161:One's sovereignty over the land is expressed most powerfully in the act of banishment. Perhaps the first eviction recorded in human history was Adam and Eve's. ~ Matthew Desmond,

162:The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant. ~ Theodor Adorno,

163:The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty. ~ Lyndon B Johnson,

164:The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries. ~ David Rockefeller,

165:Jordan recognizes that east Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state and Jordan rejects foreign sovereignty -- Israeli sovereignty -- over the holy sites ~ Yasser Arafat,

166:The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union. ~ Gerry Adams,

167:Our first object is... the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements. ~ Theodor Herzl,

168:We will continue to work together to implement the Minsk accord and doing all we can to return to peace with the respect of the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. ~ Matteo Renzi,

169:If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body will be argued into slavery. ~ Bernard Bailyn,

170:As far as the sovereignty of Bosnia-Hercegovina is concerned we agreed to have limited sovereignty for a limited time and that is clear from the Dayton Agreement. ~ Alija Izetbegovic,

171:Individuals in Western states are sovereign over their own households; they enjoy consumer sovereignty through the market and political sovereignty through elections. ~ Roger Scruton,

172:And the Lord added to their number is again an affirmation of God’s sovereignty in salvation, since he alone can change the human heart to enable true repentance and faith. ~ Anonymous,

173:Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive sign of sovereignty and strength. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

174:Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope. ~ John F Kennedy,

175:THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT rests on three political ideas—“these truths,” Thomas Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ~ Jill Lepore,

176:What an incredible witness it is to a lost and fearful society when the Christian acts like a child of God, living under the loving sovereignty of the Heavenly Father. ~ Henry Blackaby,

177:Im saying that an editorial process that is preparing the material for publication counts as part of the inspiring process whereby God, in his sovereignty, gave every word. ~ J I Packer,

178:The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. -Ronald Reagan In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ Saint Augustine,

179:Let sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the earth's surface large enough to satisfy our rightful requirements as a nation. The rest we shall manage for ourselves. ~ Theodor Herzl,

180:Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance. ~ Lester R Brown,

181:Those who understand God's sovereignty have joy even in the midst of suffering, a joy reflected on their very faces, for they see that their suffering is not without purpose. ~ R C Sproul,

182:England, so long mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear And reign the sovereign of the conquered air. ~ Thomas Gray,

183:Man-made death became epidemic in the twentieth century because increasingly efficient killing technologies made the extreme exercise of national sovereignty pathological. ~ Richard Rhodes,

184:Transferring our sovereignty and decisionmaking power to the WTO, to the United Nations, or any other international body is not in the long-term interests of our people. ~ Dana Rohrabacher,

185:The e-mails [from WikiLeaks] show that behind closed doors speaking to these international bankers, Hillary Clinton's pledged to destroy the sovereignty of the United States. ~ Donald Trump,

186:You can be a thousand different women. It's your choice which one you want to be. It's about freedom and sovereignty. You celebrate who you are. You say, 'This is my kingdom.' ~ Salma Hayek,

187:I sincerely hope that the difficulties that are there in Iraq and Iran can be resolved, that Iraq will see a new era of hope in which its people will enjoy a full sovereignty. ~ Manmohan Singh,

188:The state sovereignty is key here in the Electoral College - and if you're going to start divvying up the power of each state's elections, you are destroying state sovereignty. ~ Rush Limbaugh,

189:Sovereignty unconditionally belongs neither to the people of the nation nor to some supernatural power but to the human mind, to the science and to the high ethical values! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

190:Abram and Antonia Chayes even redefined sovereignty itself to mean not the right to be left alone but the right to participate in international organizations and networks. ~ Anne Marie Slaughter,

191:Anybody who really wants to abolish war must resolutely declare himself in favor of his own country's resigning a portion of sovereignty in place of international institutions. ~ Albert Einstein,

192:Of all complexions the culled sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek, Where several worthies make one dignity, Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek. ~ William Shakespeare,

193:For the US, GPS are a form of sovereignty! It is hardly surprising, then, that the EU has proposed its own GPS in order to be able to localize and to compete with the American GPS. ~ Paul Virilio,

194:A small nation, faced with the denial of its sovereignty — indeed, of its very existence — reminded us that the price of freedom is high but never so costly as the loss of freedom. ~ Ronald Reagan,

195:I don’t know how people pray who don’t believe in the sovereignty of God to do the impossible. Because all the things I want to happen are impossible. If they’re possible I’ll do them. ~ John Piper,

196:If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. ~ R C Sproul,

197:In Cuba, taking into account the long fight for our independence and sovereignty, we will defend the one-party system in the face of the games, demagogy and the marketing of politics. ~ Raul Castro,

198:The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations. ~ Arthur Henderson,

199:Respecting the sovereignty means preventing coups, unconstitutional actions and illegitimate overthrowing of the legitimate government. All these things should be totally prevented. ~ Vladimir Putin,

200:The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian sovereignty, as was suggested by someone in the Prime Minister's office, is very dangerous and reflects an irrationality of values. ~ Naftali Bennett,

201:Hoping doesn’t mean I put myself in harm’s way. It doesn’t mean I ignore reality. No, hoping means I acknowledge reality in the very same breath that I acknowledge God’s sovereignty. ~ Lysa TerKeurst,

202:Zeal implied a strict adherence to the Torah and the Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master—to serve any human master at all—and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God. ~ Reza Aslan,

203:Sovereignty and the right to rule cannot be conferred on anyone no matter who ... as a result of an academic discussion. Sovereignty is acquired by force and power and violence. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,

204:When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

205:I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. ~ John Perry Barlow,

206:Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord’s sovereignty, as Paul did. ~ Max Lucado,

207:Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers. ~ Bhagat Singh,

208:This is not about trade, no one is a stronger supporter of capitalism and trade than I am. This is about sovereignty and whether a country has the right to set its own public health policies. ~ Bill Gates,

209:Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. ~ Edward Gibbon,

210:Within the next hundred years...nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority... National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all. ~ Strobe Talbott,

211:Nuclear weapons and other weapons are the means to protect our sovereignty and legitimate interests, not the means to behave aggressively or to fulfil some non-existent imperial ambitions. ~ Vladimir Putin,

212:Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. ~ Edward Gibbon,

213:When I was young, I was all about personal sovereignty and that junk, because there was no privacy and the available ideologies were collective, both socialism/communism and nationalism. ~ Aleksandar Hemon,

214:With what sovereignty we have retained, we choose to decide for ourselves our needs in accordance with our values, exerting our rights of empowerment under those articles of the treaties. ~ Leonard Peltier,

215:A human being is like a television set with millions of channels.... We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty. ~ Nhat Hanh,

216:Our trip to Moscow opens new prospects for peace in the Middle East. Our people want simple things: to be free and to have sovereignty. All this is impossible without an end to the occupation. ~ Khaled Mashal,

217:The sovereignty of God deals not only with abstract principles but with real lines of authority. God has the right to issue commands, to impose obligations, and to bind the consciences of men. ~ R C Sproul,

218:The sovereignty of God is often questioned because man does not understand what God is doing. Because He does not act as we think He should, we conclude He cannot act as we think He would. GOD ~ Jerry Bridges,

219:The European peninsula was occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, its sovereignty compromised. Over the next decades its empire would disintegrate and its global power disappear. ~ George Friedman,

220:Certainly our goal is to leave Iraq, but we can't leave Iraq with our forces until we know that the Iraqi security forces are capable and efficient enough to defend the sovereignty of the nation. ~ John Abizaid,

221:It takes more than a casual curtsy or head-tip toward God’s sovereignty to let go; it will take a face on the floor, heart-cry of relinquishment before most of us tend to hand over our scepter. ~ Patsy Clairmont,

222:A human being is like a television set with millions of channels.... We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,

223:Aesthetic criticism returns us to the autonomy of imaginative literature and the sovereignty of the solitary soul, the reader not as a person in society but as the deep self, our ultimate inwardness. ~ Harold Bloom,

224:[T]he transference by a successful rising of the unlimited authority, commonly called sovereignty, from one set of hands to another does not increase liberty, but merely shifts the burden of slavery. ~ Isaiah Berlin,

225:Our servants (weaker nations) are becoming our masters. You have my word: As long as there is life in me, I will spend the rest of my days fighting to restore the lost sovereignty of the United States. ~ Pat Buchanan,

226:We're going to capture the lost sovereignty of our country... And when we get there, my friends, we will only be obedient to one sovereign America, and that is the sovereign of God Himself and His laws. ~ Pat Buchanan,

227:If we believe, though, in the sovereignty of God, then we believe that we were not born at this time, and in this culture, by accident. If we belong to Christ, then this is our assigned mission field. ~ Russell D Moore,

228:In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then he is not sovereign at all. The term sovereignty too easily becomes a chimera. If God is not sovereign, then he is not God. ~ R C Sproul,

229:The world political system is till based on the concept of the national sovereign state. For the first time therefore, in three hundred years economy and sovereignty are becoming divorced from each other. ~ Peter Drucker,

230:Together, America and the United Kingdom are a beacon for prosperity and the rule of law. That is why the United States respects the sovereignty of the British people and their right of self-determination. ~ Donald Trump,

231:A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United STates was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia ~ Mercy Otis Warren,

232:Now what is Judge Douglas Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. ~ Abraham Lincoln,

233:Slavery, the expropriation of indigenous peoples, imperial expansion, armed trade, and the assertion of sovereignty over people and land by entrepreneurs were at its core. I call this system war capitalism. ~ Sven Beckert,

234:In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together. ~ J I Packer,

235:In the treatment of anxiety, a proper understanding of sovereignty is huge. Anxiety is often the consequence of perceived chaos. If we sense we are victims of unseen, turbulent, random forces, we are troubled. ~ Max Lucado,

236:We will never agree to give up Jerusalem, a united city under Israeli sovereignty, and only Israeli. We will not accept a terrorist Palestinian state, we will not accept an agreement based on the 67 lines. ~ Naftali Bennett,

237:Where is democratic process or popular sovereignty for the endangered population? It cannot be "given" or "allocated" by some other power without that same power claiming the right to withdraw what it gives. ~ Judith Butler,

238:In 1946, Bertrand Russell, a friend of Einstein, said it was necessary to use the fear of nuclear weapons to force all nations to give up their sovereignty and submit to the dictatorship of the United Nations.11 ~ David Icke,

239:We have fought for our land, we have fought for our sovereignty, small as we are we have won our independence and we are prepared to shed our blood... So, Blair keep your England, and let me keep my Zimbabwe. ~ Robert Mugabe,

240:Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? ~ C S Lewis,

241:No national sovereignty rules in outer space. Those who venture there go as envoys of the entire human race. Their quest, therefore, must be for all mankind, and what they find should belong to all mankind. ~ Lyndon B Johnson,

242:[Tibet] never sought any territory. All it wanted is the conquest of the soul, that people should attain a kind of inner sovereignty, inner independence, inner freedom. And inner strength to attain the absolute. ~ Elie Wiesel,

243:Courts have long recognized the federal government's robust power to inspect people and goods entering the country. After all, the very foundation of national sovereignty is a nation's ability to protect its borders. ~ Bob Barr,

244:If the choice were made, one for us to lose our sovereignty and become a member of the Commonwealth or remain with our sovereignty and lose the membership of the Commonwealth, I would say let the Commonwealth go. ~ Robert Mugabe,

245:A system of world order-preferably a system of world government -is mandatory... The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty. ~ Walter Cronkite,

246:However, if we overstress “importunity,” if we engage in petitionary prayer without a foundation of settled acceptance of God’s wisdom and sovereignty, we will become too angry when our prayers are not answered. ~ Timothy J Keller,

247:The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do with work. Besides, what better way of healing than to find our center of self-sovereignty? Isn't that the whole point of healing? ~ Steven Pressfield,

248:Job’s friends had no room for any complexity in God’s dealings with human beings, no place for the Lord’s sovereign right to allow suffering even for the righteous. By robbing God of His sovereignty, they spoke ill of Him. ~ Anonymous,

249:The suffering of the Christian or anyone else in this world is never ultimately an accident. All suffering is within the pale of divine sovereignty. All suffering comes within the broader context of the sovereignty of God. ~ R C Sproul,

250:ACCEPT EACH DAY exactly as it comes to you. By that, I mean not only the circumstances of your day but also the condition of your body. Your assignment is to trust Me absolutely, resting in My sovereignty and faithfulness. ~ Sarah Young,

251:It was the French Revolution that served as the catalyst of this renovation. Its impact was to make the concept of popular sovereignty the new moral justification for the political system of historical capitalism. ~ Immanuel Wallerstein,

252:Free trade is the serial killer of American manufacturing and the Trojan Horse of world government. It is the primrose path to the loss of economic independence and national sovereignty. Free trade is a bright, shining lie. ~ Pat Buchanan,

253:[Sovereignty] would break the American monopoly, but it would also break Internet business, because you'd have to have a data center in every country. And data centers are tremendously expensive, a big capital investment. ~ Edward Snowden,

254:Was all of Stephen A. Douglas's promotion of 'popular sovereignty' a plausible device for getting him elected president? With his death in June, 1861, any possible answer to that question went to Douglas's grave with him. ~ Allen C Guelzo,

255:Many Muslims in Saudi Arabia believe that the core values of Islam, namely acknowledgement of God's sovereignty and basic human equality before God, are themselves compatible with liberty, equality and free political choice. ~ Noah Feldman,

256:... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured. ~ Virginia Woolf,

257:It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'. ~ Richard A Falk,

258:Remember, Resistance wants us to cede sovereignty to others. It wants us to stake our self-worth, our identity, our reason-for-being, on the response of others to our work. Resistance knows we can't take this. No one can. ~ Steven Pressfield,

259:But in America the sovereignty of the people is neither hidden nor sterile as with some other nations; mores recognize it, and the laws proclaim it; it spreads with freedom and attains unimpeded its ultimate consequences. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

260:So that the executive and legislative branches of the national government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national sovereignty, as such, has no representation. ~ Joseph Story,

261:Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance into His straight Path.... ~ Bah u ll h,

262:United States Government needs to acknowledge and respect our sovereignty, treaties, traditional Native American values, and our human rights as a people, which under the law as written we deserve, and which should be protected. ~ Leonard Peltier,

263:There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death. ~ Richard Holmes,

264:What seems to be one of the disasters of our time is that we all appear to agree that the nation-state is the norm... Whether the state be Marxist or capitalist, it makes no difference. The dominant ideology is that of sovereignty. ~ Jacques Ellul,

265:I'd really love to go for a fourth trip into space with maybe Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Boisclair, and I am convinced, I am convinced that after such a trip, Quebec sovereignty will no longer be an issue. Space travel affects us that much. ~ Marc Garneau,

266:Some pastors believe in divine sovereignty but do not think that the doctrine should be preached, since it is controversial. This is a tragic mistake, for it provides strength to the people of God and was revealed for our good. ~ Thomas R Schreiner,

267:Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune. ~ Sallust,

268:When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No-body will be argued into slavery. ~ Edmund Burke,

269:Bad things happen to everyone. No one by their behavior can store up any immunity from disaster or tragedy. All any of us can control is how we respond when tough times come. This does not diminish God or his sovereignty in my mind. ~ Janice Cantore,

270:If we want to avoid the disaster of one-world-government, if we wish to preserve our priceless national sovereignty and live through all time as free men, then it is imperative that the American people read The Shadows of Power. ~ Meldrim Thomson Jr,

271:In the Bible, God's utter sovereignty does not diminish human responsibility; conversely, human beings are moral agents who choose, believe, obey, disbelieve, and disobey, and this fact does not make God's sovereignty finally contingent. ~ D A Carson,

272:This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept. ~ Zbigniew Brzezi ski,

273:When globalisation means that many of the services that individual governments used to have direct power over are privatised, in education and health, even prison services, nonetheless national sovereignty still needs to be exercised. ~ Mary Robinson,

274:Yes—God is sovereign. And in his sovereignty he created a world in which the choices of men and angels matter. Tremendously. He has granted to us “the dignity of causation,” as Pascal called it. Our choices have enormous consequences. ~ John Eldredge,

275:An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns. ~ Terry Eagleton,

276:A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

277:Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure. ~ Terry Eagleton,

278:So though there are many things I would have done differently, I submit to God's sovereignty and His purpose in my life and I thank Him that He brought me the way He brought me and gave me what He gave me when He thought I could handle it. ~ T D Jakes,

279:We already have a federation. The 11, soon to be 12, member States adopting the euro have already given up part of their sovereignty, monetary sovereignty, and formed a monetary union, and that is the first step towards a federation. ~ Joschka Fischer,

280:All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

281:I have made it quite clear that a unified Ireland was one solution that is out. A second solution was a confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out-that is a derogation of sovereignty. ~ Margaret Thatcher,

282:One primary reason many believers today have a hard time accepting the role of suffering in their lives or in the lives of friends and loved ones is that they have failed to understand and accept the reality of divine sovereignty. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

283:There is no one else we can run to whose opinion is higher—or holier—than the Lord’s. He, alone, has the answers to what we face, and His sovereignty assures us that we can trust Him, even when everything around us is whirling out of control. ~ Various,

284:There is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (…) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation. ~ Jean Monnet,

285:We believe that big nations should not bully smaller nations, and that the sovereignty of nations must be respected. And we have long urged that disputes be resolved peacefully, including through mechanisms like international arbitration. ~ Barack Obama,

286:You have to consider that countries have now joined the EU that had no sovereignty for decades, countries like Poland, or others that weren't even countries, like the Baltic states. Independence is especially important for these states. ~ Lech Kaczynski,

287:Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile. ~ William Lyon Mackenzie King,

288:Democratic regimes may be defined as those in which, every now and then, the people are given the illusion of being sovereign, while the true sovereignty in actual fact resides in other forces which are sometimes irresponsible and secret. ~ Benito Mussolini,

289:Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty...a cknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. ~ J I Packer,

290:The time and intelligence that our ancestors spent on understanding the sovereignty revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are directed by our contemporaries in affirming and validating the sovereignty of our needs, wants, and feelings. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

291:God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, O LORD, thou knowest. ~ A W Tozer,

292:There has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.… The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. JONATHAN EDWARDS ~ John Piper,

293:In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several states, a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. ~ James Madison,

294:It was modesty that invented the word "philosopher" in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneselfwise to the actors of the spirit--the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

295:In Maidan Square right now, you see thousands of Ukrainians protesting the Russian occupation of Crimea. So this is a Russian protest by Ukrainians who want their sovereignty. They want their freedom and they're protesting what Russia did in Crimea. ~ Kelly Ayotte,

296:We can always hope and pray diligently for a miracle. If, in God’s sovereignty, He chooses to accomplish His purposes another way, let it not be that we have not because we asked not (James 4:2) or that we have not because we believed not (Matt. 9:29). ~ Beth Moore,

297:The biblical writers do not finally and fully resolve the tension between divine sovereignty and human freedom. They affirm the authenticity of human decisions, and yet they see God’s sovereign hand behind all that occurs (Prov. 16:33; 21:1).161 ~ Thomas R Schreiner,

298:Change no man’s religion, change no man’s politics, interrupt the sovereignty of no nation. Instead, teach Man to use what he has and what he knows to the factual creation, within any political reference, of a civilization on Earth for the first time. ~ L Ron Hubbard,

299:Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost. ~ Josiah Warren,

300:Then let us have our libertyagain, And challenge to yourselves no sovereignty. You came not in the world without our pain, Make that a bar against your cruelty; Your fault being greater, why should you disdain Our being your equals, free from tyranny? ~ Emilia Lanier,

301:We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan. The Administration has yet to put forward a strategy for achieving stability in Iraq, ending the conflict, and handing over sovereignty to the people of Iraq and the new Iraqi government. ~ Dennis Cardoza,

302:James warns against the pride of presumption in speaking of the simplest plans in life without a due submission to the overarching sovereignty of God over the day’s agenda. Man’s plans might be interrupted by God’s decision to take the life he gave. ~ John Piper,

303:A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples. ~ David Platt,

304:Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. ~ David Brin,

305:Prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires, but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and Glory ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

306:prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and glory. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

307:I think that we have refined greatly our notions of sovereignty in the EU. Its members consider themselves to be sovereign governments, but they have ceded a part of their sovereignty to the Union level, and their sovereignty is now penetrated by EU law. ~ Mary Robinson,

308:Honestly facing your lack of sovereignty over your own life produces either anxiety or relief. Anxiety is God-forgetting. It is the result of thinking that is life is on your shoulders, that it is your job to figure it all out and keep things in order. ~ Paul David Tripp,

309:These are the decisions that I and many other tribal judges try to make. Solid decisions with no scattershot opinions attached. Everything we do, no matter how trivial, must be crafted keenly. We are trying to build a solid base here for our sovereignty. ~ Louise Erdrich,

310:Europe is my home, Europe is my continent. Europe is where we live. The European Union is a political bureaucratic organization that took away our identity and our national sovereignty. So, I would get rid of the European Union and be a nation-state again. ~ Geert Wilders,

311:The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

312:All the sovereignty issues [in the Arctic region] stem from the same desires and fears -- the desire to safeguard routes for military and comercial shipping, the desire to own the natural riches of the region, and the fear that others may gain where you lose. ~ Tim Marshall,

313:But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. ~ Alexander Hamilton,

314:To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government. . . The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt,

315:Give all your mental attention to recognizing the absolute sovereignty of the Spiritual Power, knowing that the God-Power has the answer and is now showing you the way. Trust It, believe in It, and walk the earth in the Light. Your prayer is already answered. ~ Joseph Murphy,

316:I tell you the truth, a man may not make himself king; only the blessing of him who holds the kingship can elevate a man to that high place. For sovereignty is a sacred trust that may not be bartered or sold; still less may it be stolen or taken by force. ~ Stephen R Lawhead,

317:The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition. ~ Lord Acton,

318:The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of sovereign joy is that their hunger and thirst for God is so small. ~ John Piper,

319:Protecting the sovereignty of the United States, putting a wall on the southern border, making sure that criminals are not part of our process. These are all things that 80 percent of Americans agree with, and these are all things that President Trump is doing. ~ Reince Priebus,

320:The sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God. ~ Margaret Clarkson,

321:The Russians always base their policies on values, and these values are the sovereignty of other countries, the international law, respecting other people, other cultures, so they don't interfere in whatever is related to the future of Syria or the Syrian people. ~ Bashar al Assad,

322:The Republic in the sovereignty of civil right restored to the masses, the Empire in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe; he beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, and the grand figure of France spring forth from the Empire. ~ Victor Hugo,

323:If we really want to achieve a healthy world economy, what is needed at this juncture of history is a more efficient way of interacting which, with due regard for the sovereignty of each nation, ensures the economic well-being of all countries, not just of a few. 207. ~ Pope Francis,

324:Quite simply, there can be no popular sovereignty without a real belief in the value of government. If government does not assume and carry out public responsibilities, less accountable institutions such as the corporation will do the job in their own self-interest. ~ Charles Derber,

325:The church growth movement has made many lasting contributions to our practice of ministry. But its overemphasis on technique and results can put too much pressure on ministers because it underemphasizes the importance of godly character and the sovereignty of God. ~ Timothy J Keller,

326:The real reason Cuba poses a threat has nothing to do with my being here or anyone else being here. It's because Cuba is an example of a country that is actively fighting against imperialist domination and insists on its own right to self-determination and sovereignty. ~ Assata Shakur,

327:Of course, the irony is that the kind of centralized administrative state Croly advocated, and which surrounds us today and is managed by a relative handful of architects, is all but immune from the popular will and completely impervious to direct popular sovereignty. In ~ Mark R Levin,

328:What kind of a concept of God do we have that we would say that God is paralyzed by human choices? If His freedom is limited by our freedom, we are sovereign, not God. No, we are free, but God is even more free. This means that our freedom can never limit God’s sovereignty. ~ R C Sproul,

329:If you and I are to appropriate God's grace in our times of need, we must see His sovereignty ultimately ruling in all the circumstances of our lives. And when those circumstances are difficult, disappointing, or humiliating, we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand. ~ Jerry Bridges,

330:By the time she wrote The Sovereignty of Good in 1970 her criticism had become stringent: ‘we are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy’. ~ Iris Murdoch,

331:No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. ~ Woodrow Wilson,

332:The idea of sovereignty current in the English speaking world of the 1760's was scarcely more than a century old. It had first emerged during the English Civil War, in the early 1640's, and had been established as a canon of Whig political thought in the Revolution of 1688. ~ Bernard Bailyn,

333:We are pushing towards the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. If there is a real project that aims to resolve the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it. ~ Ismail Haniyeh,

334:You have to record as many details as possible and achieve an order, without taking away the complexity of the real. To voice the real and at the same time to create an image that is a world in itself, with its own coherence, its autonomy and sovereignty; an image that thinks ~ Luc Delahaye,

335:The real struggle between an American government and the people was one of power, which was settled when they designed their Constitution, which conceded the sovereignty of the people when it came to politics, and the sovereignty of the consumer when it came to economics. ~ Ndabaningi Sithole,

336:The sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God.” —Margaret Clarkson ~ Randy Alcorn,

337:Not a drop of rain can fall outside the orb of Jesus’ sovereignty. All our days—our health, our illnesses, our joys, our victories, our tears, our prayers, and the answers to our prayers—fall within the sweep of the sovereignty of one who wears a human face, a thorn-shadowed face. ~ D A Carson,

338:There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship, and I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people. ~ Alan Keyes,

339:We want to represent all the French people with ideas that are neither left nor right: patriotism, defense of the identity and sovereignty of the people. If a person like me is described as being extreme-left and extreme-right at the same time, then that isn't far off the mark. ~ Marine Le Pen,

340:sn God. This frequently used Hebrew name for God (אֱלֹהִים,’elohim ) is a plural form. When it refers to the one true God, the singular verb is normally used, as here. The plural form indicates majesty; the name stresses God’s sovereignty and incomparability – he is the “God of gods. ~ Anonymous,

341:Paul Martin talks eloquently about defending national sovereignty but the reality hasn't matched the rhetoric. When it comes to the United States, Mr. Martin says he calls them as he sees them, but when it comes to American passage through Canada, he doesn't actually see anything. ~ Stephen Harper,

342:Money power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration - political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there can not be democracy under the political money system. ~ E C Riegel,

343:If you do not feel a fervent love and profound pity for humanity, be assured that the gift of Christian eloquence has been denied you. You will not win souls, neither will you acquire that most excellent of earthly sovereignties - sovereignty over human hearts....Love is irresistible. ~ Dwight L Moody,

344:Mrs. Teasdale congratulates him on his coronation and sovereignty: "The eyes of the world are upon you. Notables from every country are gathered here in your honor. This is a gala day for you." Firefly replies: "Well, a gal a day is enough for me. I don't think I could handle any more." ~ Groucho Marx,

345:Germany is a capitalist state nurtured carefully and brought back to prosperity by the United States, and it is very loyal to the United States. I don't even think the Germans enjoy full sovereignty. There are some things which they cannot do if the United States doesn't wish them to do it. ~ Tariq Ali,

346:The believer who doesn’t live in the confidence of God’s sovereignty will lack God’s peace and be left to the chaos of a troubled heart. But our confident trust in the Lord will allow us to thank Him in the midst of trials because we have God’s peace on duty to protect our hearts. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

347:Because even after fifty-six years of independent sovereignty, still the earth trembles beneath Israel's feet. Israel has not yet managed to establish among its citizens the sense that this place is their home. They may feel that Israel is their fortress, but still not truly their home. ~ David Grossman,

348:I also hope you’ll understand that prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and glory. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

349:Number one,” Bannon went on, “we’re going to stop mass illegal immigration and start to limit legal immigration to get our sovereignty back. Number two, you are going to bring manufacturing jobs back to the country. And number three, we’re going to get out of these pointless foreign wars. ~ Bob Woodward,

350:Prayer is not merely a task of ministry; it is a gauge that exposes our hearts’ condition. It unveils our pride, showing us whether or not we believe we are powerless apart from God. When we pray, it is an expression of surrender to God and reliance on His infinite wisdom and sovereignty. ~ Francis Chan,

351:The single most important duty of the federal government is to protect and defend our national sovereignty. There are new and disturbing reports of American nuclear submarines passing though Canadian waters without obtaining the permission of, or even notifying, the Canadian government. ~ Stephen Harper,

352:The values that we talked about, the values democracy and free speech and international norms and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Things are not something that we can set aside. ~ Barack Obama,

353:At every turn you have to find a new kind of self-sovereignty over your environment. Every kid I see is at the mercy of Periscope, Twitter, or an Angry Bird of some description. People are shackled to their mediocrity by companies and businesses who want to consume your life with theirs. ~ Daniel Gillies,

354:So then, the unbelief of Israel, which in Romans 9 is attributed to God’s purpose of election, in Romans 10 is attributed to her pride, ignorance and stubbornness. The tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility constitutes an antinomy which the finite mind cannot fathom. ~ John R W Stott,

355:We understand hereby, that the family, the business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the State, but obey a high authority within their own bosom; an authority which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the State does. ~ Abraham Kuyper,

356:Ethnicity and tribe began, by definition, where sovereignty and taxes ended. The ethnic zone was feared and stigmatized by state rhetoric precisely because it was beyond its grasp and therefore an example of defiance and an ever-present temptation to those who might wish to evade the state. ~ James C Scott,

357:What happens when we acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God without trusting in His goodness and faithfulness? A pitcher who saw God's power behind his extremely unlikely rise to the big leagues wondered if, at any difficulty he encountered there, God might be taking his ability away. ~ Michael Lewis,

358:Beloved, we’re living in the lions’ den. Victory is ours when we walk with God daily in habitual prayer, when we know His Word well enough to trust His sovereignty, and when we cast ourselves on Him and make an honest plea for help. He derives great satisfaction from shutting that lion’s mouth. ~ Beth Moore,

359:Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling.Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its people's sovereignty the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized. ~ Joseph Goebbels,

360:Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel. ~ Yasser Arafat,

361:The person who loves his life will lose it: it could not be otherwise, for to love one's life is a fundamental denial of God's sovereignty, of God's rights, and a brazen elevation of self to the apogee of one's perception, and therefore an idolatrous focus on self, which is the heart of all sin ~ D A Carson,

362:Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every phase of human endeavor.... It is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn. ~ Emma Goldman,

363:By Revolution, we mean the ultimate establishment of an order of society which may not be threatened by such breakdown, and in which the sovereignty of the proletariat should be recognized and a world federation should redeem humanity from the bondage of capitalism and misery of imperial wars. ~ Bhagat Singh,

364:Modern sovereignty, whether expressed through killing in battle or the torture of suspects, brings together the desire to build up and the desire to destroy, to let Aid Agencies offer charity (in its original meaning of "love") while the military offers death. The two are intrinsically connected. ~ Talal Asad,

365:And how would you call what a small number of citizens should ordain, in states where the people is not the master, but all is ordered by the advice of a few persons, who possess the sovereignty?" "I would call whatever they ordain a law; for laws are nothing else but the ordinances of sovereigns." "If ~ Xenophon,

366:President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming....Why doesn't President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. ~ Jerome Corsi,

367:The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly; an aristocratic council; or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical. ~ John Adams,

368:changed the course of history, but the process was not yet complete. It was only when Jesus returned at the Parousia that “we shall all be changed” and “death be swallowed up in victory.”64 Then and only then would Christ establish the Kingdom, “deposing every sovereignty, authority, and power.”65 ~ Karen Armstrong,

369:I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their rights to their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. Ten times, that is what we stand for. ~ Robert Mugabe,

370:Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies. Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling. Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its "people's sovereignty" the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized. ~ Joseph Goebbels,

371:From the beginning, I said that Israel, one, has a right to defend herself, but Israel ought to be cautious about how she defends herself. Israel's a democratically elected government. They make decisions on their own sovereignty. It's their decision-making that is what leads to the tactics they chose. ~ George W Bush,

372:The political elite in Russia don't want domestic reform, they aren't ready for it. As such, they welcome an external threat. You have to remember that Russia rests on two national concepts: defense and sovereignty. We approach the question of security much more reverentially than other countries do. ~ Sergey Karaganov,

373:As a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens. ~ Mary Robinson,

374:Any attempts by any government to change Community legislation to its own wishes are doomed to failure following the extension of policy areas now subject to majority voting... In our opinion, this must have serious implications for the traditional view of Parliament as a legislative body sovereignty. ~ Margaret Thatcher,

375:For more than a year now, the League of Forgotten Men has warned the politicians, the whole government, that we are sick unto death of being the Dispossessed—and that, at last, we are more than fifty million strong; no whimpering horde, but with the will, the voices, the votes to enforce our sovereignty! ~ Sinclair Lewis,

376:I know that the United Kingdom is sometimes seen as an argumentative and rather strong-minded member of the family of European nations. And it's true that our geography has shaped our psychology. We have the character of an island nation - independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. ~ David Cameron,

377:You could clearly tell that the country had no sovereignty: this was still colonization in its ugliest face. In the so-called free world, the politicians preach things such as sponsoring democracy, freedom, peace, and human rights: What hypocrisy! Still, many people believe this propaganda garbage. ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi,

378:Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God - and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love. ~ C J Mahaney,

379:Today, it is more important than ever to strengthen transatlantic relations. Only by co-operating closely can the EU and the US continue to make a difference when dealing with unprecedented challenges such as Daesh, the threats to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, climate change and migration. ~ Donald Tusk,

380:The American revolution broke out, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, which had been nurtured in the townships and municipalities, took possession of the State: every class was enlisted in its cause; battles were fought, and victories obtained for it, until it became the law of laws. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

381:The Manhattan District bore no relation to the industrial or social life of our country; it was a separate state, with its own airplanes and its own factories and its thousands of secrets. It had a peculiar sovereignty, one that could bring about the end, peacefully or violently, of all other sovereignties. ~ Richard Rhodes,

382:The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

383:There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. ~ Charles Spurgeon,

384:Though the absolute sovereignty of God over our lives is consistently taught throughout Scripture, it is not the uncaring sovereignty of a despot but of a God who is just as loving and caring as He is sovereign. But we have to by faith believe that truth when His ways are different from that which we desire. My ~ Jerry Bridges,

385:But there are no institutions on earth which enable each separate person to have a hand in the exercise of Power, for Power is command, and everyone cannot command. Sovereignty of the people is, therefore, nothing but a fiction, and one which must in the long run prove destructive of individual liberties. ~ Bertrand de Jouvenel,

386:Over the longer term, the institutions and powers of the EU will continue to expand and certain policymaking powers, heretofore vested in the member states, will be delegated or transferred to, or pooled and shared with EU institutions. As a result, the sovereignty of the member states will increasingly be eroded. ~ David Cameron,

387:Prayer is subversive activity. It involves a more or less open act of defiance against any claim by the current regime.... [As we pray,] slowly but surely, not culture, not family, not government, not job, not even the tyrannous self can stand against the quiet power and creative influence of God's sovereignty. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

388:We have the character of an island nation: independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel. And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional. ~ David Cameron,

389:The ocean settled her soul like nothing else. Being near God’s creation reminded her of His sovereignty and majesty. Setting the moon in the sky to control the tides . . . it awed her. Jesus walking on water, calming the storm . . . Knowing He tamed something so wild and free settled her soul in a way nothing else did. ~ Dani Pettrey,

390:Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine the values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. ~ Donald Trump,

391:Ravana’s mind thought it was hungering after universal sovereignty and victory over Rama; but the aim his soul kept its vision fixed upon all the time was to get back to its heaven as soon as possible & be again God’s menial. Therefore, as the shortest way, it hurled itself against God in a furious clasp of enmity. ~ Sri Aurobindo,

392:The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We've seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors. ~ Donald Trump,

393:The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union--complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether. ~ Ron Paul,

394:To hear these defenders of democracy talk, one would think that the people deliberate like a committee of wise men, whereas in truth judicial murders, foolhardy undertakings, wild choices, and above all foolish and disastrous wars are eminently the prerogatives of this form of government." Study on Sovereignty. ~ Joseph de Maistre,

395:Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty. ~ George Will,

396:The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society. ~ James Madison,

397:Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn't get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty. ~ Marwan Barghouti,

398:We have a much bigger objective. We've got to look at the long run here. This is an example - the situation between the United Nations and Iraq - where the United Nations is deliberately intruding into the sovereignty of a sovereign nation.... Now this is a marvelous precedent (to be used in) all countries of the world. ~ Stansfield Turner,

399:Under our institutions each individual is born to sovereignty. Whatever he may adopt as a means of livelihood, his real business is serving his country. He cannot hold himself above his fellow men. The greatest place of command is really the place of obedience, and the greatest place of honor is really the place of service. ~ Calvin Coolidge,

400:For Croly, the entire process of popular sovereignty exercised through representative republicanism, which led to the drafting, adoption, and ratification of the United States Constitution, was illegitimate, since it lacked direct popular voting. “In theory the fundamental Law should have been more completely the people’s law .  ~ Mark R Levin,

401:During the long ages of class rule, which are just beginning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has been assigned to all men--that, namely, over all women. Upon these feeble and inferior companions all men were permitted to avenge the indignities they suffered from so many men to whom they were forced to submit. ~ Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi,

402:Most men quarrel with this [the sovereignty of God]. But mark, the thing that you complain of in God is the very thing that you love in yourselves. Every man likes to feel that he has a right to do with his own as he pleases. We all like to be little sovereigns. Oh, for a spirit that bows always before the sovereignty of God. ~ Warren W Wiersbe,

403:Indonesia should revive its maritime culture, develop its fishing industry, improve maritime links through things like better ferries and ports, and crack down on illegal fishing and other violations of sovereignty. Indeed, he said, Indonesia should be nothing less than a “world maritime axis” between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. ~ Anonymous,

404:The United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world. That must be condemned in the strongest terms. ~ Nelson Mandela,

405:This president's committed to taking steps to move the Middle East peace process forward, to bringing the two parties to the table to negotiate a lasting peace. That is the only way that a two-state solution can be achieved that provides the security that Israel deserves and needs and the sovereignty that the Palestinian people seek. ~ Jay Carney,

406:We also need to find a language capable of defending government as an element of the common good, one that does not define itself as both a punishing and corporate state. This is not merely a matter of redefining sovereignty, but also rethinking what is distinctive about the social state, social responsibility, and the common good. ~ Henry Giroux,

407:The invention of the concept of sustainable human development and that of so-called human security, as opposed to territorial security of nation- states, and its promotion by the UN is in clear contradiction to all that we, the Group of 77, and the UN Charter itself consider inalienable, namely national sovereignty and security. ~ Pranab Mukherjee,

408:Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. ~ Oscar Wilde,

409:What worker or peasant can pay 80 - 90 million dollars to elect a senator or 4 billion to elect a president? Only great capital can do that. That is why we say that bourgeois democracy has been evolving in the last years into dollar democracy, this is not the democracy of sovereignty, and only the people can determine that. ~ Alejandro Castro Espin,

410:I worry because there is a basic asymmetry, an imbalance, between the two parties. For the Palestinians, it is about status and sovereignty, which could always be adjusted, while for Israel it is about security and trust. And security is something you can't adjust. If you make a mistake on the scrutiny issue, there is no going back. ~ Abraham Foxman,

411:because of the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty settled upon Eremon. It was in his reign, continues the legend, that the Cruitnigh or Picts arrived from the Continent. They landed in the southwest, at the mouth of the River Slaney (Inver Slaigne). ~ Seumas MacManus,

412:Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that man has ever had. The fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteousness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the Kingdom, the eternal hope- there was never an interpretation of life to compare with that. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick,

413:Bluntly: the United States will need to accept some further loss of sovereignty in exchange for more just and effective mechanisms for solving collective global problems. No state can combat disease, climate change, or international terrorist organizations on its own--but any state can play a destructive and destabilizing role on its own. ~ Rosa Brooks,

414:Our great civilization, here in America and across the civilized world has come upon a moment of reckoning. We've seen it in the United Kingdom, where they voted to liberate themselves from global government and global trade deal, and global immigration deals that have destroyed their sovereignty and have destroyed many of those nations. ~ Donald Trump,

415:The likelihood that Jews would be sent to their deaths depended upon the durability of institutions of state sovereignty and the continuity of prewar citizenship. These structures created the matrix within which individual choices were made, the constraints upon those who did evil, and the possibilities for those who wished to do good. ~ Timothy Snyder,

416:C. J. Mahaney, are a good reminder: “Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God—and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love. ~ John Piper,

417:Do you find yourself in a dry place today? Don’t look back toward the land of your bondage, or even to the place where God miraculously saved you from your enemies. Those seasons are over and he is now offering you a great opportunity. He is longing to reveal his sovereignty to you by providing for you in this most hot and dry place. ~ Amy Layne Litzelman,

418:When man banishes God and his neighbour from his heart, he loses his sovereignty over God’s creation, bestowed on him by virtue of his likeness to God. In other words, he fails in what he has been designed for – to oversee the world with justice and, being enlarged by the spirit of prophecy, to bring all creation to God. ~ Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou,

419:It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out. ~ Niall Ferguson,

420:The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. ~ Sandra Day O Connor,

421:There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, a perception of privacy and isolation, even of dominion. In that vast space you can sail unaccompanied for hours, afloat on pine and brush and rock. It’s a tranquility born of sheer immensity; it calms with its very magnitude, which renders the merely human of no consequence. ~ Tara Westover,

422:Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one's self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded--a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

423:The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament. ~ A V Dicey,

424:There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, a perception of privacy and isolation, even of dominion. In that vast space you can sail unaccompanied for hours, afloat on pine and brush and rock. It’s a tranquillity born of sheer immensity; it calms with its very magnitude, which renders the merely human of no consequence. ~ Tara Westover,

425:if God’s sovereignty is limited one ounce by our freedom, He is not sovereign. What kind of a concept of God do we have that we would say that God is paralyzed by human choices? If His freedom is limited by our freedom, we are sovereign, not God. No, we are free, but God is even more free. This means that our freedom can never limit God’s sovereignty. ~ R C Sproul,

426:In recent years a new International System has been developing, oriented toward the establishment of norms and principles of universal jurisdiction, above national sovereignty, in the areas of what is called the New Agenda...we have to confront ..... what I dare to call the Anglo-Saxon prejudice against the establishment of supra-national organizations. ~ Vicente Fox,

427:Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy. ~ Abraham Kuyper,

428:In Europe one needs to act ‘as if’ – as if what was wanted was little, in order to obtain much, as if States were to remain sovereign to convince them to concede sovereignty … The Commission in Brussels, for example, should act as if it were a technical instrument, in order to be able to be treated as a government. And so on by disguise and subterfuge. ~ Giuliano Amato,

429:For it was only via the idea of God that we were able to develop all our ideas about a unified self, reason, a unified law-governed cosmos, sovereignty, property, supervision (Providence) and management, long-term purposes and action to attain them and so on. God taught us everything, so that we are eternally grateful to God even as we now leave him behind. ~ Don Cupitt,

430:We live in a relativistic culture, where people are more con- cerned with being liked than being truthful. In A Sweet and Bitter Providence, John Piper does an outstanding job of bibli- cally defending key truths that the church often ignores. He gives us an example of how to take a bold and educated stand on issues of race, purity, and God's sovereignty. ~ Francis Chan,

431:but Fortune, O! She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee; Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John, And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France To tread down fair respect of sovereignty, And made his majesty the bawd to theirs. France is a bawd to Fortune and King John- That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John ~ William Shakespeare,

432:The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony--unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe's declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty. ~ Hannah Arendt,

433:I believe that the broad sweep of the way in which prayer works in the Bible — and I’m thinking here of Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh — teaches us that God, in his sovereignty, has established a kind of contingency in the universe, and that God genuinely interacts with humans who pray in such a way that the universe changes as a result of our prayers. ~ Scot McKnight,

434:Why doesn't anyone address the substantive question of why other states blatantly interfere in Israel's internal affairs? Israel does not meddle in the affairs of other states in a similar way, so why do other countries feel entitled to do this to Israel? These actions violate Israeli sovereignty and I expect European Union member states to act differently. ~ Ayelet Shaked,

435:In marked contrast, Ottoman scientific progress was non-existent in this same period. The best explanation for this divergence was the unlimited sovereignty of religion in the Muslim world. Towards the end of the eleventh century, influential Islamic clerics began to argue that the study of Greek philosophy was incompatible with the teachings of the Koran.32 ~ Niall Ferguson,

436:What does it mean to feel "in control" of your life? What I mean by control is the ability to make a choice. Personal sovereignty means that you choose from what is available in order to be intentional about your life...When you feel in control of your life, you know yourself to be the author of your own actions and know that you always have choices. ~ Polly Young Eisendrath,

437:....the globalization that characterizes today's economics goes beyond or eludes the sovereignty of individual states, and thus the power of their rulers. It is not they, but rather financial groups in control of vast amounts of capital, who decide upon their vertiginous passage through nations, without taking into account the serious crises they might generate. ~ Patricio Aylwin,

438:I live just outside of Salt Lake City in a place called Emigration Canyon. It's on the Mormon trail. So I feel deeply connected, not only because of my Mormon roots, which are five or six generations, but because of where we live. There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not mindful of the spiritual sovereignty that was sought by my people in coming to Utah. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,

439:Since the moment of the United Nations' inception, untold energies have been expended by governments not only toward the exclusion of persons of principle and distinction from the organization's leading positions, but toward the installation of men whose character and affiliations would as far as possible preclude any serious challenge to governmental sovereignty. ~ Shirley Hazzard,

440:The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

441:We have to understand the sovereignty of God. It might not seem fair to us, and it doesn’t always make sense to us, but God’s ways are not our ways, and the Scripture talks about how God has given to every person different gifts, different talents, according to our own ability. Everyone doesn’t get the same, but what He gave you is what you need to fulfill your destiny ~ Joel Osteen,

442:Our founding republican spirit of “No taxation without representation” and “Don’t tread on me” is laudable, but must be directed to the proper offshore entity. Libertarians are confused because, unlike King James I, Verizon doesn’t make a straightforward assertion of sovereignty. Instead, it wraps you up in the embrace of rational-looking bureaucratic irrationality. ~ Matthew B Crawford,

443:There can never be complete agreement on international control and the administration of atomic energy or on general disarmament until there is a modification of the traditional concept of national sovereignty. For as long as atomic energy and armaments are considered a vital part of national security no nation will give more than lip service to international treaties. ~ Albert Einstein,

444:We spoke often of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, who argued that the future of the Jewish people depended on the existence of a Jewish state, one bonded together not just by religion but by language and nationality. “Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the earth’s surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people. Then we will do the rest. ~ Shimon Peres,

445:In his sovereignty, God looked down through history and specifically chose you to be the father of your child. He decided no one else could raise that boy or girl better than you. In all of history, there were no other guys better equipped to lead our children through this wilderness than you and I could. He’s put a lot of faith in us and he’s the ultimate strategic planner. ~ Tez Brooks,

446:The image of keys (plural) perhaps suggests not so much the porter, who controls admission to the house, as the steward, who regulates its administration (Is 22:22, in conjunction with 22:15). The issue then is not that of admission to the church (which is not what the kingdom of heaven means; see pp. 45-47) but an authority derived from a delegation of God's sovereignty. ~ Craig S Keener,

447:There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial for political offenses, the nationalization or expropriation of private property, and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw. ~ Ayn Rand,

448:The French Revolution propagated two quite revolutionary ideas. One was that political change was not exceptional or bizarre but normal and thus constant. The second was that “sovereignty”—the right of the state to make autonomous decisions within its realm—did not reside in (belong to) either a monarch or a legislature but in the “people” who, alone, could legitimate a regime. ~ Anonymous,

449:It is our discomforts which provoke, which create consciousness; their task accomplished, they weaken and disappear one after the other. Consciousness however remains and survives them, without recalling what it owes to them, without even ever having known. Hence it continually proclaims its autonomy, its sovereignty, even when it loathes itself and would do away with itself. ~ Emil M Cioran,

450:The British offered Herzl a territory in Uganda, to be under the sovereignty of the British crown, into which a million Jews could immigrate and settle. The territory would be administered by the Jews and have a Jewish governor. When Nordau protested that Uganda was not Palestine, Herzl replied that, like Moses, he was leading the people to their goal via an apparent detour. ~ Martin Gilbert,

451:The sovereignty of the state as the power that protects the individual and that defines the mutual relationships among the visible spheres, rises high above them by its right to command and compel. But within these spheres ... another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges. ~ Abraham Kuyper,

452:In oppressing, one becomes oppressed. Men are enchained by reason of their very sovereignty; it is because they alone earn money that their wives demand checks, it is because they alone engage in a business or profession that their wives require them to be successful, it is because they alone embody transcendence that their wives wish to rob them of it by taking charge... ~ Simone de Beauvoir,

453:Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail. ~ John C Calhoun,

454:We are used to speaking of "the state" as a single entity but actually, I think, modern states are better seen as the confluence of three different elements, hose historical origins are quite distinct, have no intrinsic relation with one another, and may already be in the process of finally drifting apart. I will call these sovereignty, administration, and politics. (p. 175) ~ David Graeber,

455:We're being overrun by people who live in poor and corrupt countries who come to the USA to get work. But we got to regain our sovereignty, we're going to control our border, and there will be border security tied to the pathway to citizenship. There will be an earned pathway to citizenship. It will be available to everybody who works hard, pays a fine, passes a background check. ~ Lindsey Graham,

456:A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law...That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled. ~ Alexander Hamilton,

457:[Barack] Obama can draw lines for himself and his country, not for other countries. We have our red lines, like our sovereignty, our independence, while if you want to talk about world red lines, the United States used depleted uranium in Iraq, Israel used white phosphorus in Gaza, and nobody said anything. What about the red lines ? We don't see red lines. It's political red lines. ~ Bashar al Assad,

458:Lincoln too considered secession the “essence of anarchy.” He branded state sovereignty a “sophism.” “The Union is older than any of the States,” Lincoln asserted, “and, in fact, it created them as States.” The Declaration of Independence transformed the “United Colonies” into the United States; without this union then, there would never have been any “free and independent States. ~ James M McPherson,

459:Few progressive Europeans would argue against a democratic United States of Europe, with a proper government elected on a pan-European ticket and answerable to a proper parliament vested with complete sovereignty over all decisions and matters. But this is pure wishful thinking. The sobering reality is that it is not in the European Union’s DNA naturally to evolve into a federation. ~ Yanis Varoufakis,

460:It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no. It takes no faith to "claim," like a robber, something that is not ours to claim. We are to come to God and tell Him what we want, but we must trust Him to give the answer that is best for us. That is what Jesus did. ~ R C Sproul,

461:Like other countries in the world, China must uphold its own sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests. At the same time, we are willing to properly handle differences and disagreements in state-to-state relations in accordance with the basic norms governing international relations and the principle of mutual understanding, mutual accommodation, dialogue and consultation. ~ Hu Jintao,

462:Out of the chaos of post-Roman Dark Age Britain, the English had created the world's first nation-state: One king, one country, one church, one currency, one language and a single unified representative national administration. Never again in England would sovereignty descend to the merely regional level. Never again would the idea of England and the unity of England ever be challenged. ~ David Starkey,

463:After the unlawful decision to recognize Kosovo, everyone expected Russia to respond by recognizing the independence and sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This is true, this is how it was. Everyone was waiting for Russia's decision. And we had the moral right to make it but we did not. We were more than restrained. I don't even want to comment on it. In truth, we "swallowed" it. ~ Vladimir Putin,

464:God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints. ~ A W Tozer,

465:God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "0 Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints. ~ A W Tozer,

466:Let's say you don't want to stress the urgency of the gospel. Imagine that you are a hyper-Calvinist, and you just figure that people's salvation is a matter for the sovereignty of God. Well, if that's the case, there will never be the heartfelt pleading that you would see in a Spurgeon or an Edwards, or in the Apostle Paul where he pours out his heart in Romans 9 and 10 for the Jewish people. ~ Mark Dever,

467:was a crime that this great country lost the will that had driven it to greatness. The fungus of apathy had crept in, an insidious infestation cloaked in self-satisfaction, a sense that things were good enough, that the country could rest on its laurels. Robbed of a unifying sense of purpose, it gradually surrendered its precious sovereignty to the nattering nabobs at the United Nations. ~ Richard Phillips,

468:Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind then, and all the ignorant--that is, all the children--must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting the truth, and acting according to its mandates. ~ Horace Mann,

469:Calvin sets the absolute sovereignty of God and the infallibility of the Bible over against the pretended sovereignty and infallibility of the pope. Fearing God, he was fearless of man. The sense of God’s sovereignty fortified his followers against the tyranny of temporal sovereigns, and made them champions and promoters of civil and political liberty in France, Holland, England, and Scotland. ~ Philip Schaff,

470:Our stories affect one another whether we know it or not. Sometimes obedience isn't for us at all, but for another. We don't know how God holds the kingdom in balance or why he moves a chess piece at a crucial time; we might never see the results of his sovereignty [...] I might just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I'm a part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception. ~ Jen Hatmaker,

471:In God’s sovereignty, our choices are sometimes made according to the results He has ordained, and we accomplish what we have intended. Other times, our ordained choices do not match the results He has ordained, and our plans are thwarted. But in both cases, God’s purpose never fails. Our steps are established according to what He has designed (Prov. 16:9), for He has the final say in His creation. ~ Anonymous,

472:When God is our Holy Father, sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, and immutability do not terrify us; they leave us full of awe and gratitude. Sovereignty is only tyrannical if it is unbounded by goodness; holiness is only terrifying if it is untempered by grace; omniscience is only taunting if it is unaccompanied by mercy; and immutability is only torturous if there is no guarantee of goodwill. ~ Ravi Zacharias,

473:He knew that he was hated, abhorred by the mass of the people, and this knowledge made him react against the external world, and at the same time increased the satisfaction and pleasure he found in the servility, solicitude, and adulation of his dependents, who had consolidated his interests and prosperity and extended to the utmost a sovereignty quite unsupported by legality and constitution. ~ Alejo Carpentier,

474:Lives interweave with other lives, and out of the tapestry arise hints at answers to questions that raze to the bone of life: What are the building blocks of character, of contentment, of lasting achievement? How does a person come into self-possession and sovereignty of mind against the tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism? Does genius suffice for happiness, does distinction, does love? ~ Maria Popova,

475:For most of history, organized religions have claimed sovereignty over the meaning of human existence. For their founders and leaders the enigma has been relatively easy to solve. The gods put us on Earth, then they told us how to behave. Why should people around the world continue to believe one fantasy over another out of the more than four thousand that exist on Earth? The answer is tribalism, ~ Edward O Wilson,

476:The Sovereignty of the United States resides in the people, not in the machines, and it's the people's to take back, if they so wish. The machines," said Paul, "have exceeded the personal sovereignty willingly surrendered to them by the American people for the good government. Machines and organization and pursuit of efficiency have robbed the American people of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,

477:The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government. ~ Alexander Hamilton,

478:The Government honoring our treaties and sovereignty is first and foremost. These issues are still the top priority which [Barak] Obama, if elected, has promised us. For us, we should implement the most impor-tant programs right now: they are programs to teach the children a positive sense of dignity, self-worth, and the importance of sustaining their culture, history, language and honor as a people. ~ Leonard Peltier,

479:Knowing as we do—our secret guiltiness, unfaithfulness, and black-heartedness, we are dissolved in grateful admiration of the matchless freeness and sovereignty of grace! Jesus must have found the cause of His love—in His own heart. He could not have found it in us—for it is not there! Even since our conversion we have been black with sin—though sovereign grace has made us lovely in His sight. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

480:Nobody was ready for it, and nobody could quite understand it now that it was happening. But somehow it was being determined that democracy henceforth, perhaps for some centuries to come, would operate through a new instrument. Sovereignty of the states was dying, North as well as South, and going with it was the ancient belief that the government which governs least is the government which governs best. ~ Bruce Catton,

481:Unless this [Barack Obama] American administration is willing to diverge from the conventional American policy in the Middle East by changing its basic attitudes on crucial questions, foremost of them Palestine, and support genuinely the rights of people for independence, sovereignty and identity across the board, the only "resolve" one would hope from the USA is to stay out of the Middle East for a while. ~ Ilan Pappe,

482:In the model that we grew up with, governments rule physical territory in which national economies function, and strong economies support hegemonic military power. In the new model, already emerging under our noses, economic decisions don't pay much attention to national sovereignty in a world where more than half of the one hundred or two hundred largest economic entities are not countries but companies. ~ Amory Lovins,

483:The symbol of Louis XIV, the fleur-de-lis branded on a runaway was to be a physical reminder of sovereignty and the limits of moral and legal altruism. Flight infringed on ancien régime doctrine and mores. Flight was a doctrine refusing transcendental indoctrination. Recurrent flight in the era of the Code Noir was sure death. Political orders premised on the juridical paradox eventually became insolvent. ~ Neil Roberts,

484:I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal. ~ Sherman Alexie,

485:In God's case, if He had said in the infinite sovereignty of His absolute will, "I will have no substitute, but each man shall suffer for himself, he who sinneth shall die," none could have murmured. It was grace, and only grace which led the divine mind to say, "I will accept of a substitute. There shall be a vicarious suffering; and My vengeance shall be content, and My mercy shall be gratified. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

486:The nation-king cannot exercise its sovereignty itself; it is obliged to delegate it to agents: this is constantly reiterated by those who seek to win its favor. Be these agents five, ten, one hundred, or a thousand, of what consequence is the number; and what matters the name? It is always the government of man, the rule of will and caprice. I ask what this pretended revolution has revolutionized? ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon,

487:All 'isms' run out in the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example. [...] If in the interest of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map once and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty. There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether. ~ Frederick Buechner,

488:One thing which Stephen A. Douglas was temperamentally incapable of doing was admitting he was wrong. He always believed that 'popular sovereignty' - the core doctrine of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill - was the right solution to the slavery controversy; and even though it had failed to solve much of anything in Kansas and Nebraska, he stubbornly insisted that this was because it had never been adequately tested. ~ Allen C Guelzo,

489:The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples. . . We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is MORE than a state, government and sovereignty----this is national consolidation in a free homeland. ~ David,

490:C. H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile these two truths to each other. “I wouldn’t try,” he replied; “I never reconcile friends.” Friends?—yes, friends. This is the point that we have to grasp. In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together. ~ J I Packer,

491:Examine then, and see if He be not the dispenser of kingdoms, who is Lord at once of the world which is ruled, and of man himself who rules; if He have not ordained the changes of dynasties, with their appointed seasons, who was before all time, and made the world a body of times; if the rise and the fall of states are not the work of Him, under whose sovereignty the human race once existed without states at all. ~ Tertullian,

492:I believe that during the intervention of NATO in Kosovo there is an element nobody can question: the air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by a material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian: What is at stake here are the principles, human rights which have priority above state sovereignty. This makes it legitimate to attack the Yugoslav Federation, although without the United Nations mandate. ~ Vaclav Havel,

493:...there is no head of state in the world today who is not in virtuality a criminal. Those who shoulder the dreary mantle of sovereignty know that their turn may come to be branded a criminal by their colleagues. We certainly will not be the ones to complain. For the sovereign, who freely consented to donning the executioner's clothes, is now finally manifesting his originary kinship with the criminal. ~ Giorgio Agamben,

494:There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, a perception of privacy and isolation, even of dominion. In that vast space you can sail unaccompanied for hours, afloat on pine and brush and rock. It’s a tranquillity born of sheer immensity; it calms with its very magnitude, which renders the merely human of no consequence. Gene was formed by this alpine hypnosis, this hushing of human drama. ~ Tara Westover,

495:...there is no head of state in the world today who is not in virtuality a criminal. Those who shoulder the dreary mantle of sovereignty know that their turn may come to be branded a criminal by their colleagues. We certainly will not be the ones to complain. For the sovereign, who freely consented to donning the executioner's clothes, is now finally manifesting his originary kinship with the criminal. ~ Giorgio Agamben,

496:Wild child,” Jade said. I’d figured as much. The 13 tattooed on her calf was a declaration of sovereignty or a cry for attention. It required twelve jurors and one judge to send an original G to the pen. Everybody knows that, though; real criminals and aspiring delinquents alike. She’d forgotten the ½, which meant “half a chance.” It didn’t mean anything except I should keep one eye open and my hand on my wallet. ~ Laird Barron,

497:Nevertheless, many times during that evening she despaired of destiny, and of herself. She didn’t invoke God, as we know, but she had faith in the genius of evil, that vast sovereignty that reigns over all the details of human life, a power so great that, as in the Arabian fable, it needs no more than a single pomegranate seed from which to reconstruct a ruined world. Once she’d readied herself to receive Felton, ~ Alexandre Dumas,

498:He is announcing to the most powerful ruler of the ancient world that these people may be your slaves but they are My children. The story of the exodus is as much political as theological. Theologically, the plagues showed that the Creator of nature is supreme over the forces of nature. Politically it declared that over every human power stands the sovereignty of God, defender and guarantor of the rights of humankind. ~ Jonathan Sacks,

499:Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights ~ Nathaniel Branden,

500:The Accuser continued, “Regarding the covenant preamble, we have this difficult matter of the sovereignty of the Creator. Really, is not the sovereignty of the suzerain the foundation of the entire edifice? If this cornerstone is rejected, do not all other bricks crumble to the ground?” He brilliantly used leading questions. Enoch thought to himself how he would like to see the cornerstone fall on the Accuser and crush him. ~ Brian Godawa,

501:Within a world of free trade and democracy there are no incentives for war and conquest. In such a world it is of no concern whether a nation’s sovereignty stretches over a larger or a smaller territory. Its citizens cannot derive any advantage from the annexation of a province. us territorial problems can be treated without bias and passion; it is not painful to be fair to other people’s claims for self-determination. ~ Ludwig von Mises,

502:The problem that faces us is the problem of awakening. What we lack is not an ideology or doctrine that will save the world. What we lack is mindfulness of what we are, of what our situation really is. We need to wake up in order to rediscover our human sovereignty. We are riding a horse that is running out of control. The way of salvation is a new culture in which human beings are encouraged to rediscover their deepest nature. ~ Nhat Hanh,

503:What does a life without anxiety look like? With God as your helper, you'll sleep better tonight and smile more tomorrow. You'll reframe the way you face your fears. You'll learn how to talk yourself off the ledge, view bad news through the lens of sovereignty, discern the lies of Satan, and tell yourself the truth. You'll discover a life that's characterized by calm and will develop tools for facing the onslaughts of anxiety. ~ Max Lucado,

504:Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect: the other extends it to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what they assert; both are wrong in what they deny. If one important truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold upon the conscience. ~ Philip Schaff,

505:The question before us is, whether people of African ancestry compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. ~ Roger Brooke Taney,

506:The Soviet Union, true to the Leninist principles of respect for the rights and national independence of all peoples great or small, has always been and is guided in its relations with other countries by the principles of mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-intervention in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefits, peaceful coexistence and economic cooperation. ~ Kliment Voroshilov,

507:I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure; No sovereignty;— ~ William Shakespeare,

508:Our country was very close to acquiring full sovereignty—that is, a nuclear weapon. In the new world order, only nations that have a nuclear arsenal are sovereign; the others may be potential hotbeds of tension or providential sources of raw materials for the great powers, but from now on, that’s all. The world is run by the forces of international finance, for which peace is equivalent to layoffs. It’s all a matter of living space. ~ Anonymous,

509:There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection... The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit. ~ Jean Monnet,

510:The problem that faces us is the problem of awakening. What we lack is not an ideology or doctrine that will save the world. What we lack is mindfulness of what we are, of what our situation really is. We need to wake up in order to rediscover our human sovereignty. We are riding a horse that is running out of control. The way of salvation is a new culture in which human beings are encouraged to rediscover their deepest nature. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,

511:What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord? Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness? Think of it. [The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain That looks so many fathoms to the sea And hears it roar beneath.] ~ William Shakespeare,

512:As we have seen, despite holdings by the European Court of Justice that EU law trumps member-state law, many national courts have insisted on retaining the final word as to whether a rule of European law conforms to their own constitutional requirements. And if this is so among nations committed to a measure of political and economic union, how much less likely is foreign law to impinge upon the sovereignty of one not so encumbered? ~ Stephen G Breyer,

513:Tell the British people if the Iraqis are subjected to aggression or humiliation they would fight bravely. Just as the British people did in the Second World War and we will defend our country as they defended their country each in its own way. The Iraqis don't wish war but if war is imposed upon them - if they are attacked and insulted - they will defend themselves. They will defend their country, their sovereignty and their security. ~ Saddam Hussein,

514:The implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a World Organization. . .Political unification in some sort of World Government will be required. . .Even though. . . any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. ~ Julian Huxley,

515:All of God's sovereignty is mediated through one who was crucified on my behalf. For Christians, that means God's sovereignty can no longer be viewed as a merely credal point, still less as the source of endless mystery. There is more than enough material for credal confession here, and not a little mystery; but these mysteries revolve around one who died in my place. The mysteries of prayer remain, but they dissolve in worship and gratitude. ~ D A Carson,

516:The problem, however, comes within the reach of possible solution, if we distinguish between sovereignty as an inherent power, and the exercise of sovereignty. God may limit the exercise of his sovereignty to make room for the free action of his creatures. It is by his sovereign decree that man is free. Without such self-limitation he could not admonish men to repent and believe. Here, again, the Calvinistic logic must either bend or break. ~ Philip Schaff,

517:The true state will be oriented against both capitalism and communism. At its center will stand a principle of authority and a transcendent symbol of sovereignty…. The state is the primary element that precedes nation, people, and society. The state – and with the state everything that is properly constituted as political order and political reality – is defined essentially on the basis of an idea, not by naturalistic and contractual factors. ~ Julius Evola,

518:This is what sin does to us all. At a deep and often unnoticed level, sin replaces worship of God with worship of self. It replaces submission with self-rule. It replaces gratitude with demands for more. It replaces faith with self-reliance. It replaces vertical joy with horizontal envy. It replaces a rest in God’s sovereignty with a quest for personal control. We live for our glory. We set up our rules. We ask others to serve our agenda. ~ Paul David Tripp,

519:The core problem seems to lie in the classical-philosophical equation of power with control, and thus omnipotence with omnicontrol, an equation that forces the problem of evil to be seen as a problem of God's sovereignty. If it is accepted that God is all-loving and all-powerful, and if maximum power is defined as maximum control, then by definition there seems to be no place for evil. If goodness controls all things, all things must me good. ~ Gregory A Boyd,

520:What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know. But what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ A W Tozer,

521:During the rule of the Shah, arrogance, aggression, territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs and attempts to harm Iraq's national sovereignty and the rights of the Arab nation were a constant pattern. Iraq and the Arab nation were regarded as a sphere of influence for the expansionist plans of Iranian interests. That policy has been followed throughout history by the State of Persia against its neighbours to the west, and as we have shown. ~ Saddam Hussein,

522:There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. [...] The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev,

523:There is great confidence in trusting God's sovereignty, especially when it comes to the fact that even Christians are willing to place their own supposed freedom and autonomy over the true freedom and autonomy of God. I have seen many precious souls struggle through these foundational issues and emerge changed, strengthened, with a new and lasting appreciation of the holiness and love of God along with a passion for His grace that cannot be erased. ~ James R White,

524:What if there are hundreds of lobsters, all trying to make a living and raise a family, in the same crowded patch of sand and refuse? Other creatures have this problem, too. When songbirds come north in the spring, for example, they engage in ferocious territorial disputes. The songs they sing, so peaceful and beautiful to human ears, are siren calls and cries of domination. A brilliantly musical bird is a small warrior proclaiming his sovereignty. ~ Jordan Peterson,

525:The world is too public. These things can only be secured in privacy. You talk of kings and presidents. How much power do they possess? As much as their people will allow them. Who in the world has the power of life or death over his people? Now that Stalin is dead, can you name any man except myself? And how do I possess that power, that sovereignty? Through privacy. Through the fact that nobody knows. Through the fact that I have to account to no one. ~ Ian Fleming,

526:When the text is examined in its full context of the chapter and rest of the Bible we discover a very different notion about God and gods. The phrase “I am, and there is none beside me” was an ancient Biblical slogan of incomparability of sovereignty, not exclusivity of existence. It was a way of saying that a certain authority was the most powerful compared to all other authorities. It did not mean that there were no other authorities that existed. We ~ Brian Godawa,

527:Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us is a tribute that we can at any tine exact with confidence; but the celebration of those which we only feign, or desire without any vigorous endeavours to attain them, is received as a confession of sovereignty over regions never conquered, as a favourable decision of disputable claims, and is more welcome as more gratuitous. ~ Samuel Johnson,

528:There are tribes, I should say nations, which prior to the AIM movement had only ten or fifteen employees, and now have upwards of 2000. There are educational programs that didn't exist before, there are housing programs, health programs, senior citizen programs, cultural programs and the list goes on. It's all because some people stood up and said sovereignty is our right by treaty and the constitution says treaty law is the supreme law of the land. ~ Leonard Peltier,

529:What if there are hundreds of lobsters, all trying to make a living and raise a family, in the same crowded patch of sand and refuse? Other creatures have this problem, too. When songbirds come north in the spring, for example, they engage in ferocious territorial disputes. The songs they sing, so peaceful and beautiful to human ears, are siren calls and cries of domination. A brilliantly musical bird is a small warrior proclaiming his sovereignty. ~ Jordan B Peterson,

530:In authoritarian societies, control over the production, distribution, and circulation is generally in the hands of the government, or what might be termed traditional modes of political sovereignty. But in neoliberal societies, sovereignty is often in the hands of major corporations that now have power over not only the production of knowledge but also over the implementation of policies that bear down on matters of life and death, living and surviving. ~ Henry Giroux,

531:There is a need for educators, young people, artists and other cultural workers to develop an educative politics in which people can address the historical, structural and ideological conditions at the core of the violence being waged by the corporate and repressive state and to make clear that government under the dictatorship of market sovereignty and power is no longer responsive to the most basic needs of young people - or most people for that matter. ~ Henry Giroux,

532:While the game of deadlocks and bottle-necks goes on, another more serious game is also being played. It is governed by two axioms. One is that there can be no peace without a general surrender of sovereignty: the other is that no country capable of defending its sovereignty ever surrenders it. If one keeps these axioms in mind one can generally see the relevant facts in international affairs through the smoke-screen with which the newspapers surround them. ~ George Orwell,

533:Common sense and every material reality insisted upon the unification of human life throughout the planet and the socialisation of its elementary needs, and pitted against that was the fact that every authority, every institution, every established way of thinking and living was framed to preserve the advantages of the ruling and possessing minority and the separate sovereignty of the militant states that had been evolved within the vanished circumstances of the past. ~ H G Wells,

534:Don't come lecturing us about liberty. You need a reality check. Don't act like a spoiled rude child. Here you will only find dignity and sovereignty. Here we haven't invaded anyone. Here we don't torture like in Guantanamo. Here we don't have drones killing alleged terrorist without any due trial, killing also the women and children of those supposed terrorists. So don't come lecturing us about life, law, dignity, or liberty. You don't have the moral right to do so. ~ Rafael Correa,

535:On accepting adversity in our lives: Always it is initiated by an act of will on our part; we set ourselves to believe in the overruling goodness, providence, and sovereignty of God and refuse to turn aside no matter what may come, no matter how we may feel. I mistakenly thought I could not trust God unless I felt like trusting Him. Now I am learning that trusting God is first of all a matter of the will. I choose to trust in God, and my feelings eventually follow. ~ Margaret Clarkson,

536:While pursuing those relations with Russia, which are important - Russia is an important country - it is also important to stand by your friends and allies in Europe, defend your treaty commitment to NATO allies, stand by the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. It's not whether we pursue relations with Russia when we need to, but what we're willing to give them in order to have that very, very good relationship that Donald Trump seems to be talking about. ~ Philip Gordon,

537:The idea of self-determination was gradually given credibility by international law, and it lent strong emancipatory support to movements of liberation struggling against a West-centric world order. Latin American countries used international law creatively, both to limit the protection of foreign investment by establishing the primacy of national sovereignty in relation to natural resources, and by building support for the norm on non-intervention in internal affairs. ~ Richard A Falk,

538:Ethics involves the question of authority. The Christian lives under the sovereignty of God, who alone may claim lordship over us. Christian ethics is theocentric as opposed to secular or philosophical ethics, which tend to be anthropocentric. For the humanist, man is the norm, the ultimate standard of behavior. Christians, however, assert that God is the center of all things and that His character is the absolute standard by which questions of right and wrong are determined. ~ R C Sproul,

539:I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries. Columbus is coming from the Indies as a prisoner to Cadiz. ~ Christopher Columbus,

540:You will make the boy Thief king?" he said. "When you could have had me?" Attolia allowed a slight smile. "A fine revenge for the loss of a hand," said the Mede, close to snarling. "I will have my sovereignty," said Attolia thinly. "Oh, yes, a fine one-handed figurehead he will make," spat Nahuseresh. Then he remembered Attolia's flattery earlier that morning. "Or do I insult your lover?" he asked. "Not a lover," said Attolia. "Merely my choice for king. ~ Megan Whalen Turner,

541:When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise,—and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

542:But when you begin to celebrate the sovereignty of God and how he formed you and brought you and your spouse together for his glory and your good, you quit being irritated by your differences and start celebrating how your life has been enhanced by them. As a result, you will not only give room to your spouse’s sensibilities, but you will honor him or her in what you do and say in the moments when you are confronted with the differences in your approach to the very same things. ~ Paul David Tripp,

543:You recalled the 1956 declaration, and this declaration established the rules that should be followed by both sides and that should be put into the foundation of a peace treaty. If you carefully read the text of this document, you will see that the declaration will take effect after we sign a peace treaty and the two islands [Kunashir and Shikotan] are transferred to Japan. It does not say on what terms they should be transferred and what side will exercise sovereignty over them. ~ Vladimir Putin,

544:The chief difficulty is that God demands of us that we live by faith: faith in God, God's sovereignty over the future, God's sufficiency for the present; while, on the other hand, the various other gods whom we can serve appeal to us in terms of the things which we can see and the forces which we can calculate. The choice between the life of faith and the life of sight is a choice between a God whom only faith can apprehend and gods whom one has only to see to understand. ~ Daniel Thambyrajah Niles,

545:Svalbard has no restrictions on foreigners who want to move here, except that they must have a job. Under a 1920 international treaty that granted Norway sovereignty, the territory is open to all nationals of the more than 40 nations that have now signed the pact. A population that used to be homogeneously white now includes Thais, Chinese and other foreigners. Nearly a third of all residents are foreigners, including hundreds of Ukrainians working in a mining concession owned by Russia. ~ Anonymous,

546:Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused. ~ Woodrow Wilson,

547:It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. ~ Walter Cronkite,

548:1. We must learn to reverence God. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111: 10; Prov 9: 10; compare Job 28: 28; Prov 1: 7; 15: 33). Not till we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty (“ the great and awesome God,” Neh 1: 5; compare 4: 14; 9: 32; Deut 7: 21; 10: 17; Ps 99: 3; Jer 20: 11), acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. ~ J I Packer,

549:In the arena of adversity, the Scriptures teach us three essential truths about God—truths we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity. They are: • God is completely sovereign. • God is infinite in wisdom. • God is perfect in love. Someone has expressed these three truths as they relate to us in this way: “God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about. ~ Jerry Bridges,

550:It is superfluous to try by the standards of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable" . . . the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. ~ James Madison,

551:Balance-of-power diplomacy was less a choice than an inevitability. No state was strong enough to impose its will; no religion retained sufficient authority to sustain universality. The concept of sovereignty and the legal equality of states became the basis of international law and diplomacy. China, by contrast, was never engaged in sustained contact with another country on the basis of equality for the simple reason that it never encountered societies of comparable culture or magnitude. ~ Henry Kissinger,

552:And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants. ~ Aristotle,

553:The sovereignty of the States is the language of the Confederacy and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words. This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding ~ Andrew Johnson,

554:What we've undergone in recent decades worldwide has been totally insane, and all of this is a result of capitalism. The workforce in Latin America was treated as a vulgar instrument for capital accumulation. Mechanisms of exploitation were imposed, such as outsourcing, labor mediation, and the like.The results are plain to see: greater inequality in Latin America; unemployment is higher than in previous decades; we haven't resolved the problem of poverty; we've lost a great deal of sovereignty. ~ Rafael Correa,

555:The head of Isis is sometimes ornamented with a crown of gold or a garland of olive leaves, as conspicuous marks of her sovereignty as queen of the world and mistress of the entire universe. The crown of gold signifies also the aurific unctuosity or sulphurous fatness of the solar and vital fires which she dispenses to every individual by a continual circulation of the elements, this circulation being symbolized by the musical rattle which she carries in her hand. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages,

556:Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people, and her example, her assistance, her encouragement, has thrilled two continents in this western world with all those fine impulses which have built up human liberty on sides of the water. She stands, therefore, as an example of independence, as an example of free institutions, and as an example of disinterested international action in the main tenets of justice. ~ Woodrow Wilson,

557:Zen replaces all objects of belief with one single thing: reality itself. We believe only in this universe. We don't believe in the afterlife. We don't believe in the sovereignty of nations. We don't believe in money or power or fame. We don't believe in our idols. We don't believe in our positions or our possessions. We don't believe we can be insulted, or that our honor or the honor of our family, our nation or our faith can be offended. We don't believe in Buddha. We just believe in reality. Just this. ~ Brad Warner,

558:White supremacy remained central to Jacksonian Democracy throughout the second party system, no less pervasively than economic development was to Whiggery. Virtually every aspect of the Democratic political outlook supported white supremacy and slavery in particular one way or another: Indian Removal, local autonomy and state sovereignty, respect for property rights, distrust of government economic intervention, criticism of early industrial capitalism, and (as will become evident) Texas annexation. ~ Daniel Walker Howe,

559:First, God's sovereignty over the death of Christ does not mitigate the guilt of the human conspirators. On the other hand, the malice of their conspiracy has not caught God flat-footed, as if he had not foreseen the cross, much less planned it. The text plainly insists that God's sovereignty is not mitigated by human actions, and human guilt is not exculpated by appeal to divine sovereignty. This duality is sometimes called compatibilism: God's utter sovereignty and human moral responsibility are compatible. ~ D A Carson,

560:It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties. ~ James Monroe,

561:ACCEPT EACH DAY exactly as it comes to you. By that, I mean not only the circumstances of your day but also the condition of your body. Your assignment is to trust Me absolutely, resting in My sovereignty and faithfulness. On some days, your circumstances and your physical condition feel out of balance: The demands on you seem far greater than your strength. Days like that present a choice between two alternatives—giving up or relying on Me. Even if you wrongly choose the first alternative, I will not reject you. ~ Sarah Young,

562:Do you know why few of us like to wait? We don’t like to wait because waiting immediately reminds us that we are not in charge. Nothing more quickly offends our delusions of self-sovereignty than being forced to step out of our own schedules and wait for another. Think about it. You have never gotten angry because you have had to wait for you! Only when my heart is progressively in awe of the agenda of One vastly greater and wiser than me will I surrender my schedule to him and be willing to wait for others. ~ Paul David Tripp,

563:... even in his most artificial creations, nature is the material upon which man has to work; certain spots will persist in remaining surrounded by the vassals of their own special sovereignty, and will raise their immemorial standards among all the 'laid-out' scenery of a park, just as they would have done far from any human interference, in a solitude which must everywhere return to engulf them, springing up out of the necessities of their exposed position, and superimposing itself upon the work of man's hands. ~ Marcel Proust,

564:But why is God so slow in conquering the forces of evil? Why does not God break in and smash the evil schemes of wicked men?...We are responsible human beings, not blind automatons; persons, not puppets. By endowing us with freedom, God relinquished a measure of his own sovereignty and imposed certain limitations upon himself. If his children are free, they must do his will by a voluntary choice. Therefore, God cannot at the same time impose his will upon his children and also maintain his purpose for man. ~ Martin Luther King Jr,

565:Do not expect an easy path as you journey hand in hand with Me, but do remember that I, your very-present Helper, am omnipotent. Much, much stress results from your wanting to make things happen before their times have come. One of the main ways I assert My sovereignty is in the timing of events. If you want to stay close to Me and do things My way, ask Me to show you the path forward moment by moment. Instead of dashing headlong toward your goal, let Me set the pace. Slow down, and enjoy the journey in My Presence. ~ Sarah Young,

566:Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by... liberals. ~ George Will,

567:Moves toward sovereignty in Iraq stimulate pressures first for human rights among the bitterly repressed Shi'ite population but also toward some degree of autonomy. You can imagine a kind of a loose Shi'ite alliance in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the United States. And much worse, although Europe can be intimidated by the United States, China can't. It's one of the reasons, the main reasons, why China is considered a threat. We're back to the Mafia principle. ~ Noam Chomsky,

568:[Vladimir] Putin spoke unabashedly about the importance of national sovereignty in Syria, a concept apparently near and dear to his heart, unless it comes to the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine or any other country in which he intervenes. Then he offered his cooperation, but without making any concrete concessions at all. And he didn't have to, either. He knows what he can rely on. He has assets that are more valuable than words: He has tanks in Ukraine, fighter jets in Syria - and Barack Obama in the White House. ~ Garry Kasparov,

569:We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it. ~ Mark Levin,

570:In comparison with the justice exercised with sovereign power by traditional chiefs, the kings of justice, by the powerful of crooked judgments, Hesiodic justice, going from the decree of Zeus to the order of the world, and from this to peasant vigilance and exactness, to the interplay of good understanding and debts repaid, calls for a whole transfer of sovereignty. Calls for it, but does not record it, for at the time of Works and Days justice is institutionalized only in the hands of the kings of justice. ~ Michel Foucault,

571:With all these considerations in view, the order in the application of redemption is found to be, calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, glorification. When this order is carefully weighed we find that there is a logic which evinces and brings into clear focus the governing principle of salvation in all of its aspects, the grace of God in its sovereignty and efficacy. Salvation is of the Lord in its application as well as in its conception and accomplishment. ~ John Murray,

572:We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it. ~ Mark R Levin,

573:Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce — yes, announce — that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by . . . liberals. ~ George F Will,

574:Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel. Israel gave up land without peace in South Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war—the Lebanon war of 2006—and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war—and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state. Israel is prepared ~ Charles Krauthammer,

575:For Christians, the first priority may be theological self-understanding. For Jews it is, and after Auschwitz must be, simple safety for their children. In pursuit of this goal, Jews seek - are morally required to seek - independence of other people's charity. They therefore seek safety - are morally required to seek it - through the existence of a Jewish state. Except among the theologically or humanly perverse, Zionism - the commitment to the safety and genuine sovereignty of the State of Israel - is not negotiable. ~ Emil Fackenheim,

576:I know," Attolia soothed him. "I did not say that I am afraid. He is, though, I think. Afraid of his own desire for power. He is not unused to wielding power, but it has always been in secret. I could, of course, command him to be king. He will give me anything I ask." "That would only confirm your sovereignty, not his," Relius objected. "So," agreed the queen. Relius considered he, sitting beside him. She didn't seem unduly concerned. "I am confident, My Queen, that if you have met your match, so has he. ~ Megan Whalen Turner,

577:Sovereignty inheres in the right to issue money. And the American sovereignty belongs by right to the people, and their representatives in Congress have the right to issue money and to determine the value thereof. And 120 million, 120 million suckers have lamentably failed to insist on the observation of this quite decided law. ... Now the point at which embezzlement of the nation's funds on the part of her officers becomes treason can probably be decided only by jurists, and not by hand-picked judges who support illegality. ~ Ezra Pound,

578:Individual sovereignty—that is, the unalienable individual rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—is denounced as a quaint and outdated notion of a bygone era, as are the traditions, customs, and institutions that have developed over time and through generational experience. They must give way to notions of modernity and progressivism, hatched by self-anointed and deluded masterminds who claim to act for “the greater good” and “the public interest,” requiring the endless reshuffling and rearranging of society. ~ Mark R Levin,

579:The absolute monarch was supposed to serve the interests of the nation as a whole, to be the visible exponent and proof of the existence of such a common interest. The enlightened despotism was based on [Duc de] Rohan's "kings command the peoples and interest commands the king"; with the abolition of the king and sovereignty of the people, this common interest was in constant danger of being replaced by a permanent conflict among class interests and struggle for control of state machinery, that is, by a permanent civil war. ~ Hannah Arendt,

580:Rather than seeking total control, relinquish it. You can't run the world, but you can entrust it to God. This is the message behind Paul's admonition to "rejoice in the Lord." Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord's sovereignty, as Paul did. Sovereignty gives the saint the inside track to peace. Others see the problems of the world and wring their hands. We see the problems of the world and bend our knees. ~ Max Lucado,

581:Popular sovereignty may be fine in theory but not when the citizenry are so obviously in need of "re-education" by their betters. The alliance of political statists and judicial statists is moving us into a land beyond law--a land of apostasy trials. The Conformicrats have made a bet that the populace will willingly submit to subtle but pervasive forms of re-education camp. Over in England, London's transportation department has a bureaucrat whose very title sums up our ruler's general disposition toward us: Head of Behavior Change. ~ Mark Steyn,

582:Since sovereignty is priceless and must be inviolate, it is fundamental that no nation has the right to do that which if every other nation did likewise, would destroy this fragile fabric of civilization. We all agree in 99 percent of the cases that no nation has the right to infringe overtly upon the sovereignty of another. Since there is no higher court or other jurisdictional body empowered as final and absolute arbiter over the nations of the world, judgments in such cases must be left to the honor that exists among nations. ~ L Fletcher Prouty,

583:Roosevelt had returned from Hyde Park troubled that Felix Frankfurter and Bohr had somehow breached Manhattan Project security, Bush and perhaps Conant had talked to Bohr and the two administrators had submitted to Stimson at his request a more detailed proposal incorporating Bohr’s ideas. In doing so they had explicitly recommended that the United States sacrifice some portion of its national sovereignty in exchange for effective international control, understanding as they did so that they would have to answer vigorous opposition: ~ Richard Rhodes,

584:People everywhere, including the United States, are still prone to accept stereotypes, eager to believe what we want to believe (for example, on global warming) and anxious to await while others take the lead--seeking in vain to avoid both responsibility and risk. When trouble arises among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but left in the closet when clouds threaten. ~ Madeleine K Albright,

585:triumphed over both fear of loss and desire of sovereignty, he is free, and therefore serene. How far such serenity is from the frenzies of our market-fueled fantasies of acquisition, control, and ownership, and therefore how constant is our terror of loss and our flight from the honesty of grief. Again, only through relinquishment, which is a deliberate act of letting go of the false hope of permanent purchase on life’s treasures, can one experience serenity, and at the same time savor the plenitude that has so richly come to each of us. ~ James Hollis,

586:To know the piano is to know the universe. To master the piano is to master the universe. The spectrum of piano sound acts as a prism through which all musical and non-musical sounds may be filtered. The grunts of sheep, the braying of mules, the popping of champagne corks, the sighs of unrequited love, not to mention the full lexicon of sounds available to all other instruments-including whistles, scrapes, bleatings, caresses, thuds, hoots, plus sweet and sour pluckings-fall within the sovereignty of this most bare and dissembling chameleon. ~ Russell Sherman,

587:Law itself is either suspended, or regarded as an instrument that the state may use in the service of constraining and monitoring a given population; the state is not subject to the rule of law, but law can be suspended or deployed tactically and partially to suit the requirements of a state that seeks more and more to allocate sovereign power to its executive and administrative powers. The law is suspended in the name of "sovereignty" of the nation, where "sovereignty" denotes the task of any state to preserve and protect its own territoriality. ~ Judith Butler,

588:The biblical authors wrote of God's sovereignty over His world, and of man's experiences within that world, using such modes of speech about the natural order and human experience as were current in their days, and in a language that was common to themselves and their contemporaries. This is saying no more than that they wrote to be understood. Their picture of the world and things in it is not put forward as normative for later science, andy more than their use of Hebrew and Greek is put forward as a perfect model for composition in these languages. ~ J I Packer,

589:Although the sovereignty of God is universal and absolute, it is not the sovereignty of blind power. It is coupled with infinite wisdom, holiness and love. And this doctrine, when properly understood, is a most comforting and reassuring one. Who would not prefer to have his affairs in the hands of a God of infinite power, wisdom, holiness and love, rather than to have them left to fate, or chance, or irrevocable natural law, or to short-sighted and perverted self? Those who reject God's sovereignty should consider what alternatives they have left. ~ Loraine Boettner,

590:GONZALO: I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure; And no sovereignty; - SEBASTIAN: Yet he would be king on't. ANTONIO: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. ~ William Shakespeare,

591:Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, I would yet warn against a too-great preoccupation with the thought. It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints. ~ Anonymous,

592:Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty. ~ Nhat Hanh,

593:If we are to avoid that catastrophe [a nuclear World War III], a system of world order — preferably a system of world government — is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty, just as America's thirteen colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and establish a world executive and parliament of nations, thanks to the Nuremburg precedent we will already have in place the fundamentals for the third branch of government, the judiciary. ~ Walter Cronkite,

594:Walking through the X-ray machine marked the first time I’d taken a step without oxygen in some months, and it felt pretty amazing to walk unencumbered like that, stepping across the Rubicon, the machine’s silence acknowledging that I was, however briefly, a nonmetallicized creature. I felt a bodily sovereignty that I can’t really describe except to say that when I was a kid I used to have a really heavy backpack that I carried everywhere with all my books in it, and if I walked around with the backpack for long enough, when I took it off I felt like I was floating. ~ John Green,

595:Perspectives from God’s Word “…for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9). “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). Perspectives from God’s People “The sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God.” —Margaret Clarkson ~ Randy Alcorn,

596:Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us. ~ P J O Rourke,

597:Sovereignty is the term the Bible uses to describe God's perfect control and management of the universe. He preserves and governs every element. He's continually involved with all created things, directing them to act in a way that fulfills his divine purpose. That's why the most stressed-out people are control freaks. They fail at the quest they most pursue. The more they try to control the world, the more they realize they cannot. Life becomes a cycle of anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure. We can't take control, because control is not ours to take. ~ Max Lucado,

598:his sovereign control is the guarantee that you will have everything that he has promised you. His sovereign control means he knows what you need because he has planned for you everything that you’re now facing. But more needs to be said. His sovereignty is your surety because he can guarantee the delivery of his promises only in the location where he rules. Because he rules over all things at all times (since he wrote the story that includes it all), he can guarantee that you and I will have what he has promised us in the places and at the times they are needed. ~ Paul David Tripp,

599:Do not be inaccessible. None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others. He is an incorrigible ass who will never listen to any one. Even the most surpassing intellect should find a place for friendly counsel. Sovereignty itself must learn to lean. There are some that are incorrigible simply because they are inaccessible: They fall to ruin because none dares to extricate them. The highest should have the door open for friendship; it may prove the gate of help. A friend must be free to advise, and even to upbraid, without feeling embarrassed. ~ Baltasar Gracian,

600:Truth is never our enemy, ever. So we should never freak out about people who claim to have discovered truth. If it's true truth, God owns it and has already accounted for it, and while nothing that is true ever contradicts God's revealed word in the Bible, discovered truth sometimes contradicts the words of Christians. We shouldn't be afraid of this, because God knew it before anybody else and its discovery is dependent on his sovereignty anyway. The truth is that the truth is ours - all truth is our truth because we are of Christ and Christ is of the sovereign God. ~ Matt Chandler,

601:In examining the division of powers, as established by the Federal Constitution, remarking on the one hand the portion of sovereignty which has been reserved to the several States, and on the other, the share of power which has been given to the Union, it is evident that the Federal legislators entertained very clear and accurate notions respecting the centralization of government. The United States form not only a republic, but a confederation; yet the national authority is more centralized there than it was in several of the absolute monarchies of Europe.... ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

602:A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband:–"The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won't get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad marriage." The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty: "If he's rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go without. If he has no doctor he will die." "And if he has one?" "He will die," said the porter. ~ Victor Hugo,

603:Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not just three different religions or civilisations. Had this been so, the devotees of each might still consider themselves a chosen people. More generously, each might have come to Niels Bohr’s conclusion that the opposite of a trivial truth is a falsehood, but the opposite of a profound truth may be another profound truth. There is more than one way of being-in-the-world under the sovereignty of God. More probably they would simply have ignored one another. Their differences would not have led to centuries of bloodshed and animosity. ~ Jonathan Sacks,

604:What, then, are we to say about the suggestion that a hearty faith in the absolute sovereignty of God is inimical to evangelism? We are bound to say that anyone who makes this suggestion thereby shows that he has simply failed to understand what the doctrine of divine sovereignty means. Not only does it undergird evangelism, and uphold the evangelist, by creating a hope of success that could not otherwise be entertained; it also teaches us to bind together preaching and prayer; and as it makes us bold and confident before men, so it makes us humble and importunate before God. ~ J I Packer,

605:Secrecy fuels erotic intensity because it makes you feel like you're doing something that is entirely yours. It gives you the sense of autonomy, the sense of freedom, and the sense of sovereignty. And then you add to that the sexual energy. In many affairs, people will tell you they slept with the person three or four times, but the story went on for months. That's an important thing because many people who have affairs often have very good sexual relationships at home. It's not necessarily a compensation story. But affairs offer a different sexuality with a different context. ~ Esther Perel,

606:In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. ~ Calvin Coolidge,

607:Between gods and men, territories are set up. At least in the no-man’s land of the heights of heaven, the depths of hell, and inside the boundary traced by the oceans. Dimensions installed by a cosmogonic trilogy that leaves each term in its generic place. There remains the earth ancestress, a fourth term, that was once the most fertile, that has been progressively buried and forgotten beneath the architectonic of patriarchal sovereignty. And this murder erupts in the form of ambivalences that have constantly to be solved and hierarchized, in twinned pairs of more or less good doubles. ~ Luce Irigaray,

608:NO PEACE TREATY WAS REACHED at Bruges because the English were determined to retain their former possessions in France under their own sovereignty, while Charles V was equally determined to regain the sovereignty of Guienne yielded at Brétigny. His lawyers argued that the yielding of sovereignty had been invalid because it violated the sacred oath of homage, therefore the Black Prince and the King of England had been guilty of rebellion comparable to that of Lucifer against God. While this satisfied Charles’s life-long care to exhibit a lawful case, it failed to impress the English. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,

609:S. E. Smith's I Live in a Hut has a deceptively simple title, considering that the brain in that hut contains galaxies-worth of invention: At night when your soldiers are praying ceaselessly for less rain and more underwear my soldiers make underwear out of rain. These poems seesaw between despair and delight but delight is winning the battle. Smith is a somersaulting tightrope walker of a poet and her poems will make you look at anything and everything with new eyes: For days I tried to rub the new freckle // off my hand until I realized what it was / and began to grant it its sovereignty. ~ Matthea Harvey,

610:Jean-Jacques Rousseau speculated that states are formed by a social contract, a rational decision reached when people calculated their self-interest, came to the agreement that they would be better off in a state than in simpler societies, and voluntarily did away with their simpler societies. But observation and historical records have failed to uncover a single case of a state’s being formed in that ethereal atmosphere of dispassionate farsightedness. Smaller units do not voluntarily abandon their sovereignty and merge into larger units. They do so only by conquest, or under external duress. ~ Jared Diamond,

611:We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries. ~ David Rockefeller,

612:We see this sloganeering in two distinct passages, one of the ruling power of Babylon claiming proudly in her heart, “I am, and there is no one beside me” (Isa. 47:8) and the other of the city of Nineveh boasting in her heart, “I am, and there is no one else” (Zeph. 2:15). The powers of Babylon and Nineveh are obviously not saying that there are no other powers or cities that exist beside them, because they had to conquer other cities and rule over them. In the same way, Yahweh uses that colloquial phrase, not to deny the existence of other gods, but to express his incomparable sovereignty over them.[3] ~ Brian Godawa,

613:He cleverly assumed that he was addressing loyal people and made common cause with them: I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your friend and fellow-citizen, not to injure or annoy you, but to respect the rights, and to defend and enforce the rights of all loyal citizens. An enemy, in rebellion against our common government, has taken possession of, and planted its guns upon the soil of Kentucky and fired upon our flag . . . He is moving upon your city. I am here to defend you against this enemy and to assert and maintain the authority and sovereignty of your Government and mine.5 For the first time, ~ Ron Chernow,

614:Myth is essentially a cultural construct, a common understanding of the world that binds individuals and communities together. This understanding may be religious or secular. Ideas such as rebirth, heaven and hell, angels and demons, fate and freewill, sin, Satan and salvation are religious myths. Ideas such as sovereignty, nation state, human rights, women’s rights, animal rights and gay rights are secular myths. Religious or secular, all myths make profound sense to one group of people. Not to everyone. They cannot be rationalized beyond a point. In the final analysis, you either accept them or you don’t. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,

615:This had been the seat of sovereignty, and it cropped up throughout the city’s history if you knew where to look. Jack Cade touched his sword to the London Stone when claiming grievances against the king: that was what gained him the right to speak, he said, and others believed. Did he wonder why it had turned on him, afterward? Perhaps after the change in his fortunes, his head had looked down from the pike on the bridge, seen his quartered body parts taken for national gloating, and wryly thought, So, London Stone, to be honest I’m getting mixed messages here … Should I in fact maybe not lead the rebels? But ~ China Mi ville,

616:For it is not true that some Christians believe in divine sovereignty while others hold an opposite view. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? The root cause is the same as in most cases of error in the church--the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic. ~ J I Packer,

617:I am convinced that the way forward for the human race is to recognize and protect the fundamental right of sovereignty over consciousness, to throw off the chains of our divisive religious heritage, to seek out forms of spirituality (or no spirituality at all if we so prefer) that are truly supportive of liberty and tolerance, to help the human spirit to grow rather than to wither, and to nurture our innate capacity for love and mutual respect. The old ways are broken and bankrupt and new ways are struggling to be born. Each one of us with our own talents, and by our own choices, has a part to play in that process. ~ Graham Hancock,

618:You’ll not be convincing me you’re only eighteen years old.” “Are you calling me old, Tavish?” She speared him with a look. He held up his hands in a show of innocence. “I said nothing of the sort.” “I am twenty-six. I can take perfectly good care of myself, thank you very much. So you can just wrap your mind around leaving me be.” “Twenty-six, are you?” No response to her declaration of sovereignty? “That’s a perfect age.” She felt a tiny skip in her heart but firmly ignored it. “Perfect for what?” “For you, Sweet Katie. The age suits you. Or it would, at least, if you didn’t wear such a sour expression all the time. ~ Sarah M Eden,

619:THE SHADOWS Table of Contents Old Ralph Rinkelmann made his living by comic sketches, and all but lost it again by tragic poems. So he was just the man to be chosen king of the fairies, for in Fairyland the sovereignty is elective. It is no doubt very strange that fairies should desire to have a mortal king; but the fact is, that with all their knowledge and power, they cannot get rid of the feeling that some men are greater than they are, though they can neither fly nor play tricks. So at such times as there happens to be twice the usual number of sensible electors, such a man as Ralph Rinkelmann gets to be chosen. They ~ George MacDonald,

620:By seeing society in class terms we are programmed to find antagonism at the heart of all the institutions through which people have attempted to limit it. Nation, law, faith, tradition, sovereignty – these ideas by contrast denote things that unite us. It is in terms of them that we attempt to articulate the fundamental togetherness that mitigates social rivalries, whether of class, status or economic role. Hence it has always been a vital project on the left, to which Hobsbawm made his own distinctive contribution, to show these things are in some way illusory, standing for nothing durable or fundamental in the social order. ~ Roger Scruton,

621:Decisions are free when each of us settles his path through life by negotiation, playing his cards according to his own best judgement and without coercion from others. Traditional liberalism is the view that such a society is possible only if the individual members have sovereignty over their own lives – which means being free both to grant and to withhold consent respecting whatever relations may be proposed to them. Individual sovereignty exists only where the state guarantees rights, such as the right to life, limb and property, so protecting citizens from invasion and coercion by others, including invasion and coercion by the state. ~ Roger Scruton,

622:To put it slightly differently, small sovereign nations, like Iceland, have choices to make within the broader constraints created for them by nature and by the rest of humanity. However limited these choices might be, Iceland’s body politic retains absolute authority to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they have reached within the nation’s exogenous constraints, and to strike down every piece of legislation that it has decided upon in the past. (...) In this sense, small, powerless Iceland continues to enjoy full sovereignty while the comparatively omnipotent European Union has been stripped of all forms of sovereignty. ~ Yanis Varoufakis,

623:In Romans 11:34 God becomes terrifying: “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” The answer is nobody. We find this aspect of God’s sovereignty terrifying. More often than not, we want him to have fairy wings and spread fairy dust and shine like a precious little star, dispensing nothing but good times on everyone, like some kind of hybrid of Tinker Bell and Aladdin’s Genie. But the God of the Bible, this God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, is a pillar of fire and a column of smoke. His glory is blinding. It undoes people. It takes people out. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). ~ Matt Chandler,

624:Slowly, painfully, I realized what I had been reading from the very first words of his journal. My husband had had an inner life that went beyond his gregarious exterior, and if I had known enough to let him inside my guard, I might have understood this fact. Except I hadn’t, of course. I had let tidal pools and fungi that could devour plastic inside my guard, but not him. Of all the aspects of the journal, this ate at me the most. He had created his share of our problems—by pushing me too hard, by wanting too much, by trying to see something in me that didn’t exist. But I could have met him partway and retained my sovereignty. And now it was too late. ~ Jeff VanderMeer,

625:Day And Night NIGHT, ambushed in the darkling wood, Waited to seize the sleeping field, His sentinels the pine trees stood Till the sun fell beneath his shield. Then when the day at last was dead, Night, in his might, marched conquering Across the land his banner spread And reigned as victor and as King. And you and I--all days apart Rejoiced to see Night's victory, Because he has a kindlier heart Than Day wears with his sovereignty: Day keeps us prisoned close, but Night Lifts off Day's chains, and all night through You dream of me, my life's delight, And all night through I dream of you. ~ Edith Nesbit,

626:If we overstress submission, we become too passive. We will never pray with the remarkable force and arguments that we see in Abraham pressing God to save Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:16–33), or Moses pleading with God for mercy for Israel and himself (Ex 33:12–22), or Habakkuk and Job questioning God’s actions in history. However, if we overstress “importunity,” if we engage in petitionary prayer without a foundation of settled acceptance of God’s wisdom and sovereignty, we will become too angry when our prayers are not answered. In either case—we will stop praying patient, long-suffering, persistent yet nonhysterical prayers for our needs and concerns. ~ Timothy J Keller,

627:Now this doctrine of hell, that has been such a comfort to my race, which so many ministers are pleading for, has been defended for ages-by the fathers of the church. Your preacher says that the sovereignty of God implies that he has an absolute, unlimited, and independent right to dispose of his creatures as he will, because he made them. Has he? Suppose I take this book and change it immediately into a servient human being. Would I have a right to torture it because I made it? No; on the contrary. I would say, having brought you into existence, it is my duty to do the best for you I can. They say God has a right to damn me because he made me. I deny it. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,

628:While not seeking to diminish the impact of racism upon a culture, I also want us to recognize that illegitimate or continual cries of racism are self-limiting and self-defeating. They simply foster a victim mentality that reinforces a pathology of dependency. Victimology can be defined as nurturing an unfocused strain of resentment rooted in a defeatist identity through which all realities are filtered, rather than viewing challenges as opportunities to overcome. It is virtually impossible to be a victor and a victim at the same time. In God’s kingdom, victimology negates the foundational theological truths of sovereignty and victory in Christ (Romans 8:28, 37). ~ Tony Evans,

629:Creator and Sustainer. Men are to make their own mistakes and successes. Each man is to work out his salvation (or damnation) in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Other men are to sit in judgment over him only when he commits public evil. They are not to command him as imitation gods. They are not to issue comprehensive commands and monitor him constantly. That is God’s job, not man’s. Thus, God’s hierarchy produces social freedom. It relieves mankind from any pretended autonomy from God’s total sovereignty. Men are not to seek to create predestinating hierarchies. They can leave their fellow men alone, so long as God’s institutional laws are obeyed in public. ~ Gary North,

630:Our contemporaries are constantly wracked by two warring passions: they feel the need to be led and the desire to remain free. Unable to destroy either of these contrary instincts, they seek to satisfy both at once. They imagine a single, omnipotent, tutelary power, but one that is elected by the citizens. They combine centralization with popular sovereignty. This gives them some respite. They console themselves for being treated as wards by imagining that they have chosen their own protectors. Each individual allows himself to be clapped in chains because that the other end of the chain is held not by a man or a class but by the people themselves. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

631:Woodrow Wilson, that great liberal president of the United States who sought to found the League of Nations, put it this way in a lecture he delivered at Columbia University in 1907: Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused. ~ David Harvey,

632:There is indeed no horror, no wickedness, no evil - no cruelty, no torture, no holocaust in the whole history of the world - that is not, under the sovereignty of grace, already reconciled in Jesus. And there is no perpetrator of any horror, wickedness, evil, et cetera (up to and including Hitler and your dreadful brother-in-law) who is not, in Jesus, forgiven. That is the Gospel, the Good News, without which we are all obviously dead ducks. But it is also, from where we sit, the most outrageous piece of bad news the world has ever heard because it says quite clearly that, on the basis of anything we can know or feel about the goodness of creation, God is bad. ~ Robert Farrar Capon,

633: Immortality I have drunk deep of God's own liberty From which an occult sovereignty derives: Hidden in an earthly garment that survives, I am the worldless being vast and free. A moment stamped with that supremacy Has rescued me from cosmic hooks and gyves; Abolishing death and time my nature lives In the deep heart of immortality. God's contract signed with Ignorance is torn; Time has become the Eternal's endless year, My soul's wide self of living infinite Space Outlines its body luminous and unborn Behind the earth-robe; under the earth-mask grows clear The mould of an imperishable face. ~ Sri Aurobindo, - Immortality ,

634:Further still than this the Holy Spirit is represented as the One who is the supreme authority in the church, who calls men to work and appoints them to office. We read in Acts xiii. 2, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto I have called them.” And in Acts xx. 28, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to  feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” There can be no doubt to a candid seeker after truth that it is a Person, and a person of Divine majesty and sovereignty, who is here set before us. ~ R A Torrey,

635:What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a worldwide scale I do not claim to know; but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there. Let ~ A W Tozer,

636:you know how I feel about the United Nations. From the beginning, it’s functioned as a one-world-order organization whose sole function is to look down its collective nose at the one nation that funds it, the United States. The UN has advocated the transfer of wealth out of the United States, the elimination of international borders, the establishment of a single global currency, international gun control, and the elimination of American jobs. It’s become a friendly forum for radical and scientifically absurd ideas like global warming and has advocated cockamamie international tax schemes like cap-and-trade. It has done everything it can to end the sovereignty of the United States. ~ Don Brown,

637:The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enough to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anythig like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don't blow ourselves off the map once and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty. There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is another sort altogether. ~ Frederick Buechner,

638:and domestic aspects of life. That would be to forsake the universal claim of the kingdom of God. Newbigin looks to the pattern of Jesus who exercised the sovereignty of God’s kingdom through servanthood. How is it possible for the church truly to represent the reign of God in the world the way Jesus did? The answer, he believes, lies in the local congregation. I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a ~ Tim Chester,

639:abuse, in economics, of a term (“sovereignty”) appropriate only to the political realm and is thus an illustration of the dangers of the application of metaphors taken from other disciplines. “Sovereignty” is the quality of ultimate political power; it is the power resting on the use of violence. In a purely free society, each individual is sovereign over his own person and property, and it is therefore this self-sovereignty which obtains on the free market. No one is “sovereign” over anyone else's actions or exchanges. Since the consumers do not have the power to coerce producers into various occupations and work, the former are not “sovereign” over the latter. B. PROFESSOR HUTT AND CONSUMERS ~ Murray N Rothbard,

640:It is the Word alone, and not the interference with it, that finally counts. True enough, and fittingly enough, the most obvious point in the whole parable is that the fullest enjoyment of the fruitfulness of the Word is available only to those who interfere with it least. But even in making that point, Jesus still hammers away at the sovereignty and sole effectiveness of the Word. Those on the good ground, he says, are those who simply hear the Word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty-, some sixty-, and some a hundredfold. It's not that they do anything, you see; rather, it's that they don't do things that get in the Word's way. It's the Word, and the Word alone, that does all the rest. ~ Robert Farrar Capon,

641:A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests; what it termed our encroachments were our rights. When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing itself victorious over Bonaparte and well-rooted in the country, that is to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a citizen. This is the foundation of ~ Victor Hugo,

642:At this point in the evolution of the ST it would not occur to anyone that such an operation that violated the sovereignty of another country or that was patently a case of “interference in the internal affairs of another nation” should not be carried out without some formal sanction from the host government. The idea of fighting Communism had become so blindly accepted that they began to forget that such activity was properly a “clandestine operation” and should not be performed lightly. The feeling of urgency and of an almost missionary zeal to combat and root out real or imagined subversive insurgency anywhere was such that the great importance of national sovereignty was all but overlooked. ~ L Fletcher Prouty,

643:The father of this other view of political activity is Plato, who assumes that only one who himself knows and has experienced the good is capable of ruling well. All sovereignty must be service, i.e., a conscious act whereby one renounces the contemplative height that one has attained and the freedom that this height brings. The act of governing must be a voluntary return into the dark “cave” in which men live. It is only in this way that genuine governance comes about. Anything else is a mere scuffling with illusions in a realm of shadows—and that is in fact what most of political activity is. Plato detects the blindness of average politicians in their fight for power “as if that were a great good. ~ Benedict XVI,

644:Rather than be searched by hand, I chose to walk through the metal detector without my cart or my tank or even the plastic nubbins in my nose. Walking through the X-ray machine marked the first time I’d taken a step without oxygen in some months, and it felt pretty amazing to walk unencumbered like that, stepping across the Rubicon, the machine’s silence acknowledging that I was, however briefly, a nonmetallicized creature. I felt a bodily sovereignty that I can’t really describe except to say that when I was a kid I used to have a really heavy backpack that I carried everywhere with all my books in it, and if I walked around with the backpack for long enough, when I took it off I felt like I was floating. ~ John Green,

645:Spontaneous order is self-contradictory. Spontaneity connotes the ebullition of surprises. It is highly entropic and disorderly. It is entrepreneurial and complex. Order connotes predictability and equilibrium. It is what is not spontaneous. It includes moral codes, constitutional restraints, personal disciplines, educational integrity, predictable laws, reliable courts, stable money, trustworthy finance, strong families, dependable defense, and police powers. Order requires political guidance, sovereignty, and leadership. It normally entails religious beliefs. The entire saga of the history of the West conveys the courage and sacrifice necessary to enforce and defend these values against their enemies. ~ George Gilder,

646:[T]raveling, a local is shocked to realize that in neighboring countries locals view him as a foreigner; between villages, clans, nations, and classes there are wars, potlatches, agreements, treaties, and struggles that remove the absolute meaning from the idea of the 'other' and bring out its relativity; whether one likes it or not, individuals and groups have no choice but to recognize the reciprocity of their relation. How is it, then, that between the sexes this reciprocity has not been put forward, that one of the terms has been asserted as the only essential one, denying any relativity in regard to its correlative, defining the latter as pure alterity? Why do women not contest male sovereignty? ~ Simone de Beauvoir,

647:From a political point of view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society. ~ Victor Hugo,

648:Finally, you are ready to launch your church. Begin by developing action steps and goals that can be used as benchmarks to track your progress. In your planning, always be sensitive to God’s sovereignty. What matters is not so much the final detailed plan itself as the actual process of planning. Reality will always alter your plan, but the planning process will equip you to deal with surprises and new realities in a way that is informed by and consistent with your model and vision. Your specific action steps and plans should include these basics: • goals for funding and how to reach them • goals for concrete ministries/programs and how to reach them • goals for leadership development and how to reach them ~ Timothy J Keller,

649: The Godhead I sat behind the dance of Danger's hooves In the shouting street that seemed a futurist's whim, And suddenly felt, exceeding Nature's grooves, In me, enveloping me the body of Him. Above my head a mighty head was seen, A face with the calm of immortality And an omnipotent gaze that held the scene In the vast circle of its sovereignty. His hair was mingled with the sun and breeze; The world was in His heart and He was I: I housed in me the Everlasting's peace, The strength of One whose substance cannot die. The moment passed and all was as before; Only that deathless memory I bore. 608 Pondicherry, c. 1927 - 1947 ~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Godhead ,

650:It is a strange misunderstanding to make Paul either a fatalist or a particularist; he is the strongest opponent of blind necessity and of Jewish particularism, even in the ninth chapter of Romans. But he aims at no philosophical solution of a problem which the finite understanding of man cannot settle; he contents himself with asserting its divine and human aspects, the religious and ethical view, the absolute sovereignty of God and the relative freedom of man, the free gift of salvation and the just punishment for neglecting it. Christian experience includes both truths, and we find no contradiction in praying as if all depended on God, and in working as if all depended on man. This is Pauline theology and practice. ~ Philip Schaff,

651:Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

652:He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union. “The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress,” he declared. He favored granting Congress supreme power in war, peace, trade, finance, and foreign affairs. 43 Instead of bickering congressional boards, he wanted strong executives and endorsed single ministers for war, foreign affairs, finance, and the navy: “There is always more decision, more dispatch, more secrecy, more responsibility where single men than when bodies are concerned. By a plan of this kind, we should blend the advantages of a monarchy and of a republic in a happy and beneficial union.” 44 Hamilton was especially intent upon subjecting all military forces to centralized congressional control: ~ Ron Chernow,

653:Thus slowly I lift man's soul nearer the Light.    But human mind clings to its ignorance    And to its littleness the human heart    And to its right to grief the earthly life.    Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,    Only when infinity weds the finite's thought,    Can man be free from himself and live with God.    I bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;    I bring back hope to the despairing heart;    I give peace to the humble and the great,    And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.    I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.    Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth's soil;    Man's mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth    And body bear the immense descent of God."    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces,

654:... All the works of mind and intllect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis. It is this that the evolution of consciousness in the world carries prefigured but latent in its seed and in the straining tense intention of its process; nor can that process, that evolution cease till it has evolved the instruments of a perfect in place of its now imperfect manifestation of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 149,

655:Tennessee Claflin Shope I was the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves -Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English. For instead of talking free trade, Or preaching some form of baptism; Instead of believing in the efficacy Of walking cracks -- picking up pins the right way, Seeing the new moon over the right shoulder, Or curing rheumatism with blue glass, I asserted the sovereignty of my own soul. Before Mary Baker G. Eddy even got started With what she called science I had mastered the "Bhagavad Gita," And cured my soul, before Mary Began to cure bodies with souls -Peace to all worlds! ~ Edgar Lee Masters,

656:If a contract, either civil or natural, could still bind the king and his people, there would be a mutual obligation; the will of the people could not set itself up as absolute judge to pronounce absolute judgment. Therefore it is necessary to prove that no agreement binds the people and the king. In order to prove that the people are themselves the embodiment of eternal truth it is necessary to demonstrate that royalty is the embodiment of eternal crime. Saint-Just, therefore, postulates that every king is a rebel or a usurper. He is a rebel against the people whose absolute sovereignty he usurps. Monarchy is not a king, "it is crime." Not a crime, but crime itself, says Saint-Just; in other words, absolute profanation. ~ Albert Camus,

657:A consensual order is one in which the decisions on which our relations with others depend are, discounting emergencies, freely taken. Decisions are free when each of us settles his path through life by negotiation, playing his cards according to his own best judgement and without coercion from others. Traditional liberalism is the view that such a society is possible only if the individual members have sovereignty over their own lives – which means being free both to grant and to withhold consent respecting whatever relations may be proposed to them. Individual sovereignty exists only where the state guarantees rights, such as the right to life, limb and property, so protecting citizens from invasion and coercion by others, including invasion and coercion by the state. ~ Roger Scruton,

658:People have long known in America what many in Europe have come to grasp—that we can hang together without a common religion or even delusions of common ancestry. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, various independence movements gained traction in Europe, from Caledonia to Catalonia. Neither the logic of territorial integrity nor that of national sovereignty can resolve such matters. But let the arguments not be made in terms of some ancient spirit of the Folk; the truth of every modern nation is that political unity is never underwritten by some preexisting national commonality. What binds citizens together is a commitment, through Renan’s daily plebiscite, to sharing the life of a modern state, united by its institutions, procedures, and precepts. ~ Kwame Anthony Appiah,

659:In the presence chamber of your dreaming mind, I take upon myself the symbols and metaphors most apt to your understanding. This crown is my sovereignty; these breasts the source of milk that sustains and feeds the myriads of my galaxy; this veil my chastity; the bridal gown the sign of my surrender and coming mental union with Milky Way, an intimate violation more intimate than rape, or else a consummation more fertile; these chains are the cliometry of creation, which operates at a larger scale than the history of races and the evolution of stars. You have a dim memory of myth about a royal woman thus chained, also named Andromeda, fated to be fed to a sea monster. The symbolism is compelling. Also, I occupy a female hence submissive position, pleading for your chivalry. ~ John C Wright,

660:In the aftermath of Jesus and his cross, we should never again define God’s sovereignty or supremacy by analogy to the kings of this world who dominate, oppress, subordinate, exploit, scapegoat and marginalize.3 Instead, we have migrated to an entirely new universe, or, as Paul says, “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) in which old ideas of supremacy are subverted. If this is true, to follow Jesus is to change one’s understanding of God. To accept Jesus and to accept the God Jesus loved is to become an atheist in relation to the Supreme Being of violent and dominating power. We are not demoting God to a lower, weaker level; we are rising to a higher and deeper understanding of God as pure light, with no shadow of violence, conquest, exclusion, hostility, or hate at all. ~ Brian D McLaren,

661:They had embraced the ideal of a society in which the sole aristocracy would consist of public officials and a single, all-powerful administration would control the state and be the guardian of individuals. Although they wished to be free, they had no intention of abandoning this fundamental idea. They merely attempted to reconcile it with the idea of liberty. Hence, they sought to combine unlimited administrative centralization with a preponderant legislative body: bureaucratic administration and representative government. The nation as a body enjoyed all the rights of sovereignty, but each individual citizen was gripped in the tightest dependency. The experience and virtues of a free people were required of the former, the qualities of a good servant of the latter. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

662:1. Decrease current human population below five hundred million and keep it in perpetual balance with nature. 2. Guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity. 3. Unite humanity with a “living” new language. 4. Redistribute global wealth under the more acceptable term “global public goods.” 5. Rebalance personal rights with “social duties.” 6. Replace passion, faith, and tradition with reason. 7. Make clever use of new technologies to go around national governments and establish direct ties with citizens. 8. Rebrand global governance as equitable, efficient, and the logical next step in human evolution. 9. Discredit, delegitimize, and dismantle the idea of the nation state/national sovereignty. 10. Prepare a mechanism to neutralize any challenges to United Nations’ authority. ~ Brad Thor,

663:A WORD OF CAUTION The material in this chapter is “tough stuff.” It should be read, studied, and prayed about when life is more or less routine. It should be stored up or hidden in our hearts (see Psalm 119:11) for the time of adversity when we must draw upon its truth. Above all, we need to be very sensitive about instructing someone else in the sovereignty of God and encouraging that person to trust God when he or she is in the midst of adversity or pain. It is much easier to trust in the sovereignty of God when it is the other person who is hurting. We need to be like Jesus, of whom it was said, “A bruised reed he will not break” (Matthew 12:20). Let us not be guilty of breaking a bruised reed (a heavy heart) by insensitive treatment of the heavy doctrine of the sovereignty of God. ~ Jerry Bridges,

664:Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it in alienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void -- is in fact, not a law. The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau,

665:The Accuser was not impressed by any of this. A transformed seraph himself, his plaintiffs were all Sons of God as well. His opposition did not intimidate him at all. He and Semjaza, along with almost two hundred Watchers, presented themselves across from the array they despised. They considered the throne-circling adversaries to be a mob of sycophants, yes-men and sell-outs, puppets and tools. The Accuser, Semjaza, and their fellow Watchers were just as divine, and maybe even more powerful than their enemies because at least they exercised free will — real free will — iron will. That will did have to bend to the sovereignty of the Judge, however, to the use of their original heavenly names of Semjaza, Baraqel, and Zaqiel instead of their Shinarian deity names of Anu, Enlil, and Nanna. ~ Brian Godawa,

666:Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous viruses often lie hidden, malware that must be identified and purged from our software if we want our future to be different from our past. We are realizing that our ancestors didn’t merely misinterpret a few Scriptures in their day; rather, they consistently practiced a dangerous form of interpretation that deserves to be discredited, rejected, and replaced by a morally wiser form of interpretation today. (We ~ Brian D McLaren,

667:Once we are reconciled and justified we can rejoice even when people slander us and wound us deeply. We can glory in it because of Christ and our justification. We glory in tribulation because we know what tribula-tion does. Paul understood, because he believed in the sovereignty and providence of God. There are no accidents in this world. No matter how many injustices are heaped upon us this side of heaven, they do not mean anything compared to the crown of glory that God has prepared for his people. Paul is saying that when we go through afflictions and tribulations we can glory in them, not because we enjoy pain but because we know what tribulation yields. For most people, tribulation breaks the spirit, leads them to despair, and causes them to abandon all hope. Not so for the Christian. ~ R C Sproul,

668:Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite; they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain. By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again.”9 ~ Mark R Levin,

669:Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is in fact, not a law. The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau,

670:Jesus' favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual stories about soil and seeds, meals and coins and sheep, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. And they are wholly secular: of his forty or so parables recorded in the Gospels, only one has its setting in church, and only a couple mention the name God. As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded! ~ Eugene H Peterson,

671:I AM WITH YOU AND FOR YOU. When you decide on a course of action that is in line with My will, nothing in heaven or on earth can stop you. You may encounter many obstacles as you move toward your goal, but don’t be discouraged—never give up! With My help, you can overcome any obstacle. Do not expect an easy path as you journey hand in hand with Me, but do remember that I, your very-present Helper, am omnipotent. Much, much stress results from your wanting to make things happen before their times have come. One of the main ways I assert My sovereignty is in the timing of events. If you want to stay close to Me and do things My way, ask Me to show you the path forward moment by moment. Instead of dashing headlong toward your goal, let Me set the pace. Slow down, and enjoy the journey in My Presence. ~ Sarah Young,

672:As a result of the rebellion, ensuing battle, and ultimately God’s judgment, God’s original creation became a “formless void” characterized by “darkness” and covered by “the deep.” Since this concept of a pre-creation battle was widely known among ancient Near Eastern people and among the Jews, as evidenced by the other creation passages that involve conflict, the Genesis author picked up his account where these other accounts left off. He began his narrative with the earth in its destroyed state. He then emphasized the ease with which God re-created his world, thus expressing the victory and sovereignty of the Creator over all forces that oppose him. No other reading of Genesis 1 and 2 can as easily harmonize itself with the biblical data about God’s conflict with forces of evil prior to creation. Fourth, ~ Gregory A Boyd,

673:I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility. II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression. III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any Individual, or Any Body of Men, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it. In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation into confusion by inflaming ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom and abilities, and to exercise them for the public good, and for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular descriptions of men or families. ~ Thomas Paine,

674:Islam is a system given by God and it aims to establish a fundamental principle of God’s sovereignty and people’s servitude to Him alone,” Qutb wrote. “As such, Islam has the right to remove all obstacles from its way and address people freely without any impediments such as a political system or social customs and traditions . . . it is the right of Islam to take the initiative. It is not the creed of a particular people or the system of a particular country. It is a system given by God for the entire world. As such, it has the right to take action to remove all obstacles that fetter man’s freedom of choice. It is a faith that does not force itself on any individual, it only attacks situations and regimes in order to free individuals from deviant influences that corrupt human nature and restrict man’s freedom. ~ Mark Bowden,

675:The Telescope, the Fluxions, the invention of Logarithms and the frenzy of multiplication, often for its own sake, that follow'd have for Emerson all been steps of an unarguable approach to God, a growing clarity,- Gravity, the pulse of time, the finite speed of Light present themselves to him as aspect of God's character. It's like becoming friendly with an erratic, powerful, potentially dangerous member of the Aristocracy. He holds no quarrel with the Creator's sovereignty, but is repeatedly appall'd at the lapses in Attention, the flaws in Design, the squand'rings of life and energy, the failures to be reasonable, or to exercise common sense,- first appall'd, then angry. We are taught,- we believe,- that it is love of the Creation which drives the Philosopher in his Studies. Emerson is driven, rather, by a passionate Resentment. ~ Thomas Pynchon,

676:He wrote an angry summing-up of the manifold ways in which the West subjugated weaker countries; caustically titled ‘On the New Rules for Destroying Countries,’ it could just as easily have been written by al-Afghani. Liang described the endless subtle ways in which European merchants and mine-owners had progressively infiltrated and undermined many societies and cultures. The essay detailed these methods, which included cajoling countries into spiralling debt (Egypt), territorial partition (Poland), exploiting internal divisions (India), or simply overwhelming adversaries with military superiority (the Philippines and the Transvaal). ‘To those who claim,’ Liang wrote, ‘that opening mining, railroad and concessionary rights to foreigners is not harmful to the sovereignty of the whole, I advise you to read the history of the Boer War. ~ Pankaj Mishra,

677:Unlike their heathen neighbors, the Jews do not have a multiplicity of temples scattered across the land. There is only one cultic center, one unique source for the divine presence, one singular place and no other where a Jew can commune with the living God. Judea is, for all intents and purposes, a temple-state. The very term “theocracy” was coined specifically to describe Jerusalem. “Some people have entrusted the supreme political powers to monarchies,” wrote the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, “others to oligarchies, yet others to the masses [democracy]. Our lawgiver [God], however, was attracted by none of these forms of polity, but gave to his constitution the form of what—if a forced expression be permitted—may be termed a ‘theocracy’ [theokratia], placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God.” Think ~ Reza Aslan,

678:The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history--such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture--God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But..." "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder. ~ Vannetta Chapman,

679:Freedom, or individual liberty, was a basic premise of the Spanish anarchist tradition. "Individual sovereignty" is a prime tenet of most anarchist writing; the free development of one' s individual potential is one of the basic "rights" to which all humans are born. Yet Spanish anarchists were firmly rooted in the communalist-anarchist tradition. For them, freedom was fundamentally a social product: the fullest expression of individuality and of creativity can be achieved only in and through community. As Carmen Conde (a teacher who was also active in Mujeres Libres) wrote, describing the relationship of individuality and community: "I and my truth; I and my faith ... And I for you, but without ever ceasing to be me, so that you can always be you. Because I don' t exist without your existence, but my existence is also indispensable to yours. ~ Martha A Ackelsberg,

680:To Bruce Lee, philosophy was not the professional playground of academics, but every human being’s gateway to the greatest adventure of the human spirit. It illuminated the frontiers of human possibility and obliterated the shadows of doubt and insecurity. Unlike others, content to follow, Bruce Lee insisted upon charting his own course toward truth, and he encouraged those who wished to share his insights to do likewise. While Lee was a champion of individual rights and individual development, both of which stress the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself, he also spoke to something deeper—the commonality of all human beings and the removal of such artificial barriers to true brotherhood as nationality, ethnicity, and class structure, so that human beings could live together peaceably as independent equals. Bruce Lee rejected blind obedience to ~ Bruce Lee,

681:Given the novelty of this organization, lines of authority were confused. Although Bremer nominally worked for and reported to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he increasingly dealt directly with the White House staff and bypassed the Pentagon bureaucracy. Relationships with the local U.S. military command were reportedly both strained and confused. The massive U.S. military presence and its role in providing law and order were regarded as increasingly oppressive by the Iraqi people, and this perception played a role in stimulating violent resistance. And then, with the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004, this entire, large bureaucracy had to be dismantled and its functions handed back either to Iraqi ministries or to the new embassy/ country team. This once again created substantial confusion as roles and missions were reassigned to a different bureaucracy. ~ Francis Fukuyama,

682:was titled “The Excellency of Christ.” In it Edwards unfolds the glory of God’s Son by describing the “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Christ.” His text is Revelation 5:5–6, and he unfolds the union of “diverse excellencies” in the Lion-Lamb. He shows how the glory of Christ is his combining of attributes that would seem to be utterly incompatible in one Person. In Jesus Christ, he says, meet infinite highness and infinite condescension; infinite justice and infinite grace; infinite glory and lowest humility; infinite majesty and transcendent meekness; deepest reverence toward God and equality with God; worthiness of good and the greatest patience under the suffering of evil; a great spirit of obedience and supreme dominion over heaven and earth; absolute sovereignty and perfect resignation; self-sufficiency and an entire trust and reliance on God.4 ~ John Piper,

683:The ancient form of covenant treaties between sovereign or suzerain king and subservient vassal contained five basic parts that bound the two parties. First, there was a preamble that identifies the Lordship of the great king, his transcendent sovereignty and jurisdiction over territories. Second, the historical prologue that recounted the previous relationship of the king and his subject, along with an establishment of hierarchy and authority. The third section laid out the ethical stipulations or laws required by the king for the subject to maintain his status as protected vassal. The sanctions or listings of blessings for obedience and curses for violation of the covenant came fourth, providing for the continuity of the covenant relationship with succeeding generations. The fifth and last section called for divine witness of the gods or the heavens and the earth. ~ Brian Godawa,

684:The nation, so long a victim of monarchical selfishness, thought to deliver itself for ever by declaring that it alone was sovereign. But what was monarchy? The sovereignty of one man. What is democracy? The sovereignty of the nation, or, rather, of the national majority. But it is, in both cases, the sovereignty of man instead of the sovereignty of the law, the sovereignty of the will instead of the sovereignty of the reason; in one word, the passions instead of justice. Undoubtedly, when a nation passes from the monarchical to the democratic state, there is progress, because in multiplying the sovereigns we increase the opportunities of the reason to substitute itself for the will; but in reality there is no revolution in the government, since the principle remains the same. Now, we have the proof to-day that, with the most perfect democracy, we cannot be free. ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon,

685:Rand Paul just came out with an appeal for a new organization that will counter the efforts by Obama and Hillary Clinton to shred the last remnants of our sovereignty by allowing the United Nations to take away our guns.6 And then, of course, they will come and conquer us. The basis for this is that the UN is now debating a small arms treaty.7 Small arms doesn’t mean pistols. It means anything less than a tank. These are just slaughtering people all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of people every year are killed with small arms, and a high percentage come from the United States.8 So there is an effort to have some sort of small arms treaty to regulate their flow. In the minds of the Rand Paul libertarians, this is just another effort by this ominous, fiendish outfit, the United Nations, to take away our freedom.   Rand Paul is the Republican senator from Kentucky and son of Ron Paul. ~ Noam Chomsky,

686:The essential task ahead requires formulating an adequate doctrine, upholding principles that have been thoroughly studied, and, beginning from these, giving birth to an Order. This elite, differentiating itself on a plane that is defined in terms of spiritual virility, decisiveness, and impersonality, and where every naturalistic bond loses its power and value, will be the bearer of a new principle of a higher authority and sovereignty; it will be able to denounce subversion and demagogy in whatever form they appear and reverse the downward spiral of the top-level cadres and the irresistible rise to power of the masses. From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity. ~ Julius Evola,

687:Ancient Jews often stated general principles in unequivocal terms for emphasis. We misinterpret them if we understand them as literal, universal laws. For example, Proverbs 12:21 states, “No harm happens to the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble” (cf. Prov. 13:21, 25). If read as an absolute universal law, this passage is obvious nonsense. History and our own experience demonstrate that righteous people frequently suffer great harm, while wicked people often live in peace and prosperity. Indeed, Scripture itself repeatedly makes this observation (Job; Ps. 73). As a general principle, however, righteous living helps one avoid harm, while wicked living will lead to trouble. In Proverbs 21:1, therefore, the author is not suggesting that every decision made by every king throughout history was orchestrated by God. He is simply emphasizing God’s general sovereignty over kings. Fourth, ~ Gregory A Boyd,

688:The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgment by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. Its usurps the revelation of God's purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. ~ Walter Wink,

689:Jefferson must have regretted having arrived so late. He had no doubt that the original holders of government paper had been cheated of rightful gains by speculators who were “fraudulent purchasers of this paper. . . . Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before.”42 Jefferson’s objections to Hamilton’s plan had philosophical roots. In his view, the smaller the government, the better the chances of preserving liberty. And to the extent that a central government was necessary, he wanted a strong Congress with a weak executive. Most of all, Jefferson wished to preserve state sovereignty against federal infringement. Since Hamilton’s agenda was to strengthen the central government, bolster the executive branch at the expense of the legislature, and subordinate the states, it embodied everything Jefferson abhorred. ~ Ron Chernow,

690:The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title of general, which the king of the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce impatience of the Barbarians, and the perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine court. Four dependent nations, among whom we may distinguish the Barbarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Huns; and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman alliance; till the just claims, and formidable power, of Rugilas, were effectually urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. ~ Edward Gibbon,

691:At least there is calm at home? Hardly: food, gas, and electricity prices are at near all-time highs; a stagnant economy in “recovery” that for most people outside of Wall Street remains recessionary; government soon to be run by executive orders; the end of any idea of national sovereignty or a southern border; the Ferguson riots and racial explosions revealing an America more divided than at any time since the 1970s; the buffoonish Missouri governor Nixon playing the Katrina role of a now imprisoned Ray Nagin. The alphabet soup of unresolved IRS, VA, NSA, and AP scandals; revolutionary, extra-legal justice meted out to Rick Perry; Benghazi coming back into the news; the little reported on drip-by-drip practical dissolution of Obamacare. 1979–80 seem calm in comparison. The chaos arises from a variety of causes, but one common denominator is that President Obama has not a clue how to deal with these crises. ~ Anonymous,

692:For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that Communism has been for America. Wherever there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America’s phobia about world Communism; but in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world’s eyes. Today America has become the world’s nightmare. When an uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable team can flaunt the historic and traditional codes of civilization by disregarding the honor and sovereignty of other countries large and small, by intervening in the internal affairs of other countries for reasons real and contrived, the rest of the world does fear for its own welfare and for the future of this country. ~ L Fletcher Prouty,

693:Polybius foresaw Rome's decadence. “All things are subject to decay and change,” he wrote. “When a state, after having passed with safety through many and great dangers, arrives at the highest degree of power, and possesses an entire and undisputed sovereignty, it is manifest that the long continuance of prosperity must give birth to costly and luxurious manners, and that the minds of men will be heated with ambitious contests, and become too eager and aspiring in the pursuit of dignities. And as those evils are continually increased, the desire of power and rule, and the imagined ignominy of remaining in a subject state, will first begin to work the ruin of the republic; arrogance and luxury will afterwards advance it; and in the end the change will be completed by the people; when the avarice of some is found to injure and oppress them, and the ambition of others swells their vanity, and poisons them with flattering hopes. ~ Anonymous,

694:The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a “brutal” autocrat propped up by the West for its own exploitative economic and geostrategic purposes. The aim of the revolution, the argument went, was to create a government more sympathetic to national sovereignty and Western pluralistic government. However, it soon became clear with the political triumph of the Ayatollah Khomeini that the revolution was in the main a religious one, inspired in part by anger at the Shah’s secularization, modernization, and liberalization policies. As Khomeini said in 1962, the Shah’s regime was “fundamentally opposed to Islam itself and the existence of a religious class. ~ Anonymous,

695:Dismally enough, some of us are insecure in such a way that we cannot bear the thought of the sovereignty of God, the thought of His Being as greater than ourselves; it moves us into feelings of insignificance. Nonetheless, allow me to personally and peacefully maintain that if I were to worship and obey anything, I would like it far greater than myself or any person or human system, preferably to a point where it, in all its majesty, makes me feel lost and even 'creatural' in my basic humanity. Only this God - He who is great beyond human measure, yet still considers His creation precious - I find to be more than worthy of praise; otherwise, I bow down and worship nothing. And if the thought of such a superior and almighty God were to indeed offend me, I would have to remember that it is because I am only as significant as the things which I am idolizing, things which are ultimately separating me, the creation, from my ultimate Creator. ~ Criss Jami,

696:Some sense of the rapidly growing power of the digital giants comes when one looks at international politics, where the giants play a foundational role. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was invited to the 2011 G8 meetings, where he sat at the table and discussed world politics.92 MacKinnon characterizes “Facebookistan” and “Googledom” as virtual nation-states obsessed with limiting the ability of governments anywhere to interfere with their profitability and growth, which is their driving concern. The U.S. government—the same one that is theoretically working to regulate the giants domestically—generally acts as their powerful advocate globally. “Right now our social contract with the digital sovereigns is at a primitive, Hobbesian, royalist level,” Mackinnon writes. “If we are lucky we get a good sovereign, and we pray that his son or chosen successor is not evil. There is a reason most people no longer accept that sort of sovereignty. ~ Robert W McChesney,

697:Samuel Huntington identified the “Tudor” character of American politics.1 According to Huntington, the Englishmen who settled North America in the seventeenth century brought with them many of the political practices of Tudor, or late medieval, England. On American soil these old institutions became entrenched and were eventually written into the American Constitution, a fragment of the old society frozen in time.2 Those Tudor characteristics included the Common Law as a source of authority, one higher than that of the executive, with a correspondingly strong role for courts in governance; a tradition of local self-rule; sovereignty divided among a host of bodies, rather than being concentrated in a centralized state; government with divided powers instead of divided functions, such that, for example, the judiciary exercised not just judicial but also quasi-legislative functions; and reliance on a popular militia rather than a standing army. ~ Francis Fukuyama,

698:The multinational is a problem precisely because its decisions are based on economic rationality and divorced from political sovereignty. There is no solution. The multinational is a political problem not because of anything it does or does not do. It is a problem because political sovereignty and economic reality no longer coincide. It does the multinational no good to protest that it and each of its subsidiaries are “good corporate citizens” of the country in which each operates. Of course, it and each of its subsidiaries observe the laws—at least to the same extent to which the country’s nationals observe it. But if the phrase is meant to imply—as it usually does—that the multinational in every country in which it operates thinks and acts in terms of that country’s national economy and market, it is nonsense. To do so would deny the whole logic of the multinational corporation, which is to optimize resources within the world market reality. ~ Peter F Drucker,

699:Germany no longer feels bound by the Locarno Treaty. In the interest of the primitive rights of its people to the security of their frontier and the safeguarding of their defence, the German Government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone!” Now the six hundred deputies, personal appointees all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream Heils, the first two or three wildly, the next twenty-five in unison, like a college yell. Hitler raises his hand for silence. It comes slowly. Slowly the automatons sit down. Hitler now has them in his claws. He appears to sense it. He says in a deep, resonant voice: “Men of the German Reichstag!” The silence is utter. ~ William L Shirer,

700:Yet al-Afghani rarely spoke of Islam in religious terms. Perhaps his greatest contribution to Islamic political thought was his insistence that Islam, detached from its purely religious associations, could be used as a sociopolitical ideology to unite the whole of the Muslim world in solidarity against imperialism. Islam was for al-Afghani far more than law and theology; it was civilization. Indeed, it was a superior civilization because, as he argued, the intellectual foundations upon which the West was built had in fact been borrowed from Islam. Ideals such as social egalitarianism, popular sovereignty, and the pursuit and preservation of knowledge had their origins not in Christian Europe, but in the Ummah. It was Muhammad’s revolutionary community that had introduced the concept of popular sanction over the ruling government while dissolving all ethnic boundaries between individuals and giving women and children unprecedented rights and privileges. ~ Reza Aslan,

701:As neoliberalism wages war on public goods and the very idea of a public, including citizenship beyond membership, it dramatically thins public life without killing politics. Struggles remain over power, hegemonic values, resources, and future trajectories. This persistence of politics amid the destruction of public life and especially educated public life, combined with the marketization of the political sphere, is part of what makes contemporary politics peculiarly unappealing and toxic— full of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrity-and-scandal-hungry corporate media. Neoliberalism generates a condition of politics absent democratic institutions that would support a democratic public and all that such a public represents at its best: informed passion, respectful deliberation, aspirational sovereignty, sharp containment of powers that would overrule or undermine it. ~ Wendy Brown,

702:Citizenship in modern states means access to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy has the reputation of killing Jews; it would be closer to the truth to say that it was the removal of bureaucracy that killed Jews. So long as state sovereignty persisted, so did the limits and possibilities afforded by bureaucracy. In most offices, time is slowed and matters are considered, perhaps with the help of petitions or bribes. When people in sovereign states beyond Germany wished to be noble, bureaucracy provided them with the opportunity to frame their arguments on behalf of individual Jews in the pragmatic or patriotic terms that employees of the state could understand and endorse. The bureaucracies beyond Germany also exhibited the typical tendencies of passing the buck, awaiting clear orders from higher authorities, and insisting on clarity of expression and proper paperwork. Many of the things that make bureaucracies annoying in daily life could and did mean survival for Jews. ~ Timothy Snyder,

703:If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parrallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion! Yet the most subtile sophist cannot produce a juster simile. ~ Thomas Paine,

704:A husband looks for himself in his wife, a lover in his mistress, in the guise of a stone statue; he seeks in her the myth of his virility, his sovereignty, his unmediated reality...But he himself is a slave to his double: what effort to build up an image in which he is always in danger! After all, it is founded on the capricious freedom of women: it must constantly be made favorable; man is consumed by the concern to appear male, important, superior; he playacts so that others will playact with him; he is also aggressive and nervous; he feels hostility for women because he is afraid of them, and he is afraid of them because he is afraid of the character with whom he is assimilated. What time and energy he wastes in getting rid of, idealizing, and transposing complexes, in speaking about women, seducing, and fearing them! He would be liberated with their liberation. But that is exactly what he fears. And he persists in the mystifications meant to maintain women in chains. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,

705:The common law does not proceed by legislation, or by imposing directives and decrees on a reluctant population. It proceeds by resolving conflicts, and discovering the rules that are implicit in those conflicts and in the behaviour that gives rise to them. Common law is discovered law, and its principles are not imposed from above but extracted from below, by judges whose aim is to do justice in the individual case, rather than to reform the conduct of mankind. Its rights are not stated but implied, and they encapsulate a vision of individual freedom rather than a politics of collective conformity. The rights dreamed up in the European Courts, by judges who do not pay the cost of imposing them, are experiments in social engineering, rather than recognitions of individual sovereignty, and this is in no matter more evident than in those clauses that have imposed the mores of the elite on a reluctant residue of Christian believers, and which are now ubiquitous in our statutory law. ~ Roger Scruton,

706:Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind -- and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

707:In Lamentations 2, we encounter a suffering community coming to terms with their narrative. They embrace the necessary work of God in the place of suffering rather than quickly jumping to the easy answers. Lamentations 2 suggests a proper response to God’s sovereignty. The narrative of suffering and the lament that accompanies suffering is evidenced in Lamentations 2 as God’s people move toward an acknowledgment of who is in charge. In the humility necessary to acknowledge their shortcomings, the survivors of the destruction of Jerusalem can respond appropriately to God’s judgment. The dismantling of privilege requires the disavowal of any pretense of exceptionalism. Lamentations 2 offers a possibility of the expansion of the American evangelical theological imagination in order to encompass suffering and lament, which a privileged perspective may not allow. Lamentations calls us to embrace a narrative of suffering in order to understand the fullness of God’s message for his people. ~ Soong Chan Rah,

708:What manner of men had lived in those days...who had so eagerly surrendered their sovereignty for a lie and a delusion? Why had they been so anxious to believe that the government could solve problems for them which had been pridefully solved, many times over, by their fathers? Had their characters become so weak and debased, so craven and emasculated, that offers of government dole had become more important than their liberty and their humanity? Had they not know that power delegated to the government becomes the club of tyrants? They must have known. They had their own history to remember, and the history of five thousand years. Yet, they had willingly and knowingly, with all this knowledge, declared themselves unfit to manage their own affairs and had placed their lives, which belonged to God only, in the hands of sinister men who had long plotted to enslave them, by wars, by "directives," by "emergencies." In the name of the American people, the American people had been made captive. ~ Taylor Caldwell,

709:Yours, O Lord, is the sovereignty and You are exalted over all. A king who says to the sea: 'Thus far shall you come' -- He shall be king! A king of abomination, who comes from a stinking drop and goes no further than the grave -- why should he be king? A king who builds his upper chambers and the chariot-throne in the heavens -- He shall be king! A king who returns to the dust like an expiring candle -- why should he be king? A king who redeems from harm all those who trust in him -- He shall be king! A king who flees like a driven leaf because of his heart's dread -- why should he be king? A king distinguished among ten thousand, who brings forth thousands and tens of thousands of angels -- He shall be king! A king who fears, dreads, and is terrified at the judgment of his Master -- why should he be king? A king Who every was and shall be, in His grace and His bounty -- He shall be king! [1835.jpg] -- from The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, Edited by T. Carmi ~ Eleazar ben Kallir, He Shall be King! ,

710:But the message of the gospel is that I haven’t been left to myself, that Immanuel is with me in sovereign authority and powerful grace. He rules with perfect wisdom over all the circumstances and locations that would make me afraid. In grace, he blesses me with what I need to face what he has decided to put on my plate. I am never—in anything, anywhere, at any time—by myself. I never arrive on scene first. I never step into a situation that exists outside his control. I never move beyond the reach of his authority. He is never surprised by where I end up or by what I am facing. He never leaves me to the limited resources of my own wisdom, strength, and righteousness. He never grows weary with protecting and providing for me. He will never abandon me out of frustration. I do not need to be afraid. When you forget God’s sovereignty and his grace, you give room in your heart for fear to do its nasty, debilitating work. Pray right now for grace to remember. Your sovereign Savior loves to hear and answer. ~ Paul David Tripp,

711:Withdrawal from the world or accepting simplistic answers reveals human effort or human problem solving, while lament acknowledges who is ultimately in control. In the midst of a crisis, Lamentations points toward God and acknowledges his sovereignty regardless of the circumstances. Lamentations 1:1-3 reminds us of Jerusalem’s story by contrasting the past glory with the anguish of the present crisis. A dramatic change of fortune is demonstrated. The reality of this destruction presents the challenge of the book of Lamentations. How will God’s people respond? Will they only look for the answers they want to hear? Will they run and hide, or will they enter into the place of lament and embrace the reality of their situation? The historical context of the fall of Jerusalem as revealed in Lamentations 1:1-3 and Jeremiah 29:4-9 points to the necessity of Lamentations. By challenging the two primary temptations facing the exiles, Scripture now points the people of God toward the proper response to a broken world: lament. ~ Soong Chan Rah,

712:Satana SHE draws all men to serve her, and her lure Is her pulsating human loveliness— The beauty of her bosom's rippling lines, The passion pleading in her eyes, the pure Soft contour of her cheek, her dainty dress, With all the rich aroma of her warm Glad womanhood perfumed, her supple form Curving and swaying like a living flower, Aflush with life and youth. These are the signs By which she queens the hearts of men, the power By which she makes her sovereignty secure! But though her red lips mock me of their wine, And that low laugh of hers fills me with fire, As, spent with loving, in her scorn I lie; Yet some day she will come to me and twine Her slender arms about me; and desire Will plead in those eyes that were all disdain, And break her bosom with a sob of pain, And her hot lips will lavish all their store Of hungry kisses on me—then shall I Remember all her queenly coldness, or With kisses make her breathing beauty mine? ~ Arthur Henry Adams,

713:the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD . . . for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. PSALM 22:27–28 NOVEMBER 4 It is said that the United States of America was formed by the convergence of two streams of history. One took its rise in the thinking of the philosophers of classical antiquity: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero. These men believed that the human mind must always be free. The other stream took its rise when Moses addressed a nation of slaves and told them that they were children of God, that other men should not put shackles on their wrists or lay whips to their backs. The confluence of these two great streams of thought formed a government predicated upon the greatness of the human mind and the sovereignty of the human soul. I have enormous faith in the continuity of these ideals in the American people. You cannot break a nation built upon such foundations, unless that nation becomes arrogant, forgets its great heritage, and, worse than all else, turns away from God. ~ Norman Vincent Peale,

714:All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD . . . for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. PSALM 22:27–28 NOVEMBER 4 It is said that the United States of America was formed by the convergence of two streams of history. One took its rise in the thinking of the philosophers of classical antiquity: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero. These men believed that the human mind must always be free. The other stream took its rise when Moses addressed a nation of slaves and told them that they were children of God, that other men should not put shackles on their wrists or lay whips to their backs. The confluence of these two great streams of thought formed a government predicated upon the greatness of the human mind and the sovereignty of the human soul. I have enormous faith in the continuity of these ideals in the American people. You cannot break a nation built upon such foundations, unless that nation becomes arrogant, forgets its great heritage, and, worse than all else, turns away from God. ~ Norman Vincent Peale,

715:Among the darker nations, Paris is famous for two betrayals. The first came in 1801, when Napoleon Bonaparte sent General Victor Leclerc to crush the Haitian Revolution, itself inspired by the French Revolution. The French regime could not allow its lucrative Santo Domingo to go free, and would not allow the Haitian people to live within the realm of the Enlightenment's " Rights of Man." The Haitians nonetheless triumphed, and Haiti became the first modern colony to win its independence. The second betrayal came shortly after 1945, when a battered France, newly liberated by the Allies, sent its forces to suppress the Vietnamese, West Indians, and Africans who had once been its colonial subjects. Many of these regions had sent troops to fight for the liberation of France and indeed Europe, but they returned home emptyhanded. As a sleight of hand, the French government tried to maintain sovereignty over its colonies by repackaging them as " overseas territories." A people hungry for liberation did not want such measly hors d'oeuvres. ~ Vijay Prashad,

716:Because in [Lenin's] eyes the workers were only workers and not also customers, he believed they were already slaves under capitalism, and that one did not change their status when nationalizing all plants and shops. Socialism substitutes the sovereignty of a dictator, or committee of dictators, for the sovereignty of the consumers. Along with the economic sovereignty of the citizens disappears also their political sovereignty. To the unique production plan that annuls any planning on the part of the consumers corresponds in the constitutional sphere the one party principle that deprives the citizens of any opportunity to plan the course of public affairs. Freedom is indivisible. He who has not the faculty to choose among various brands of canned food or soap, is also deprived of the power to choose between various political parties and programs and to elect the officeholders. He is no longer a man; he becomes a pawn in the hands of the supreme social engineer. Even his freedom to rear progeny will be taken away by eugenics. ~ Ludwig von Mises,

717:The geisha and the temple maiden of the Hindus, Persians, Mayas, or Inca present the sovereignty of idle beauty, completely withdrawn from the world of work. Living in idleness, she preserves those soft and fluid forms of the voice, of the smile, of the whole body, that captivate without resisting what they touch. Her beauty does not triumph in the endurance of stern physical tasks; it does not endure; it is as ephemeral as the flowers that bloom in the night and die when the sun rises. She makes herself an object by covering herself with brilliant and fluid garments, jewels, and perfumes. The working man is stopped in his tracks, contemplating a body set apart, remote from his laborious concerns, ostentatious and alluring. Her sumptuous dress, jewelry of precious stones, plumes of exotic birds, and perfumes made of fields of rare flowers represent values, represent the dissipation of human labor in useless splendor. This intense consumption exerts a dangerous fascination. She tempts the worker to the follies and excesses of passion and dispossession. ~ Alphonso Lingis,

718:The whole concept of European culture as a cornucopia from which things are freely given is misleading. It does not take a specialist in anthropology to see that the European “give” is always highly selective. We never give any native people under our control – and we never shall, for it would be sheer folly as long as we stand on the basis of our present Realpolitik – the following elements of culture: 1. The instruments of physical power: fire-arms, bombing planes, poison gas, and all that makes an effective defence or aggression possible 2. We do not give out instruments of political mastery [i.e. sovereignty or voting rights] 3. We do not share with them the substance of economic wealth and advantages…. Even when under indirect economic exploitation… we allow the native a share of the profits, the full control of the economic organization remains in the hands of Western enterprise. 4. We do not admit them as equals to Church, Assembly, school, or drawing room… Full political, social and even religious equality is nowhere granted. ~ Bronis aw Malinowski,

719:Decolonization is the process whereby we intend the conditions we want to live and social relations we wish to have. We have to supplant the colonial logic of the state itself. German philosopher Gustav Landauer wrote almost a hundred years ago that "the State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships." Decolonization requires us to exercise our sovereignties differently, and reconfigure our communities based on shared experiences, ideals, and visions. Almost all indigenous formulations of sovereignty--such as the Two Row Wampum agreement of peace, friendship, and respect between the Haudenosaunee nations and settlers--are premised on revolutionary notions of respectful coexistence and stewardship of the land, which goes far beyond any Western liberal democratic ideal. Original blog post: Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory and Practice. Quoted In: Decolonize Together: Moving beyond a Politics of Solidarity toward a Practice of Decolonization. Taking Sides. ~ Harsha Walia,

720:Who works all things according to the counsel of his will is best understood to mean that every single event that occurs is in some sense predestined by God. At the same time, Paul emphasizes the importance of human responsibility, as is evident in all of the moral commands later in Ephesians (chs. 4–6) and in all of Paul’s letters. As Paul demonstrated in all of his remarkable efforts in spreading the gospel (Acts 13–28; cf. 2 Cor. 11:23–28), he believed that doing personal evangelism and making conscious choices to obey God are also absolutely essential in fulfilling God’s plan. God uses human means to fulfill what he has ordained. With regard to tragedies and evil, Paul and the other biblical writers never blame God for them (cf. Rom. 5:12; 2 Tim. 4:14; also Job 1:21–22). Rather, they see the doctrine of God’s sovereignty as a means of comfort and assurance (cf. Rom. 8:28–30), confident that evil will not triumph, and that God’s good plans for his people will be fulfilled. How God’s sovereignty and human responsibility work together in the world is a mystery no one can fully understand. ~ Anonymous,

721:These are the “problem children” who are periodically put through the torture of the teachers’ complaints to their parents, and through the helpless despair of seeing their parents side with the torturers. Some of these children are violently rebellious; others seem outwardly timid and passive, but are outside the reach of any pressure or influence. Whatever their particular forms of bearing the unbearable, what they all have in common is the inability to fit in, i.e., to accept the intellectual authority of the pack. (Not all “misfits” belong to this category; there are children who reject the pack for entirely different reasons, such as frustrated powerlust.) The nonconformists are heroic little martyrs who are given no credit by anyone—not even by themselves, since they cannot identify the nature of their battle. They do not have the conceptual knowledge or the introspective skill to grasp that they are unable and unwilling to accept anything without understanding it, and that they are holding to the sovereignty of their own judgment against the terrifying pressure of everyone around them. ~ Anonymous,

722:This point is underlined in the well-known parable which Jotham told the men of Shechem: ‘Once upon a time the trees went out to anoint a king over them; and they said … to the vine, “Come and reign over us.” And the vine said to them: “Should I leave my wine, which cheers God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?”’ Similarly, the fig-tree declined because of its sweetness, and the olive because of its own good qualitites. Then a bramble, a barren plant full of thorns, accepted the sovereignty which they offered, though it possessed neither a special good quality of its own, nor those of the trees that were to be subject to it (cf. Judg. 9 : 7–15). Now in this parable the trees which sought a ruler were not cultivated but wild. The vine, the fig-tree and the olive refused to rule over the wild trees, preferring to bear their own fruits rather than to occupy a position of authority. Likewise, those who perceive in themselves some fruit of virtue and feel its benefit, refuse to assume leadership even when pressed by others, because they prefer this benefit to receiving honour from men. ~ Kallistos Ware,

723:As the Great Creatrix, the feminine is no vessel and passage for an alien, masculine Other that condescends towards her, enters into her, and favors her with the seed of living. Life originates in her and issues from her, and the light that appears projected on the night sky, which she is herself, is rooted in her depths. For she is not only the protomantis, the first and great Prophetess, but also she who gives birth to the Spirit-Light, which, like consciousness and the illumination that arises in transformation, is rooted in her creative efficacy. She is the creative Earth, which not only brings forth and swallows life, but as that which transforms also lets the dead thing be resurrected and leads the lower to the higher. All developments and transformations that lead from the simple and insignificant through all gradations of life to the complicated and intricately differentiated fall under her sovereignty. This matriarchal world is geocentric; the stars and signs of the zodiac are the heavenly girdle of the Earth Goddess and are arranged around her as the true center around which everything revolves. ~ Erich Neumann,

724:The English, American, and French revolutionaries changed all that when they created the notion of popular sovereignty--declaring that the power once held by kings is now held by an entity that they called "the people." This created an immediate logical problem, because "the people" are by definition a group of individuals united by the fact that they are, in fact, bound by a certain set of laws. So in what sense can they have created those laws? When this questions was first posed in the wake of the British, American, and French revolutions, the answer seemed obvious: through those revolutions themselves. But this created a further problem. Revolutions are acts of law-breaking. It is completely illegal to rise up in arms, overthrow a government, and create a new political order. In fact, nothing could possibly be more illegal. Cromwell, Jefferson, or Danton were all clearly guilty of treason, according to the laws under which they grew up, just as much as they would have been had they tried to do the same thing again under the new regimes they created, say, twenty years later. So laws emerge from illegal activity. (p. 214) ~ David Graeber,

725:We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can’t stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable. —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 74.12b–13 What we consider to be harmless indulgences can easily become full-blown addictions. We start with coffee in the morning, and soon enough we can’t start the day without it. We check our email because it’s part of our job, and soon enough we feel the phantom buzz of the phone in our pocket every few seconds. Soon enough, these harmless habits are running our lives. The little compulsions and drives we have not only chip away at our freedom and sovereignty, they cloud our clarity. We think we’re in control—but are we really? As one addict put it, addiction is when we’ve “lost the freedom to abstain.” Let us reclaim that freedom. What that addiction is for you can vary: Soda? Drugs? Complaining? Gossip? The Internet? Biting your nails? But you must reclaim the ability to abstain because within it is your clarity and self-control. ~ Ryan Holiday,

726:Of course I'd been long enough on land to know earthly love, and it had always ended in a battle, in each wanting to be the stronger, the superior in the relation. It is commonly called 'the battle of the sexes,' but I don't know if that is the right term. In truth it's a question of a power struggle, of a battle not to lose oneself, to maintain one's sovereignty — one's property rights. Only the very strong can live with no fear of losing their autonomy. Still, this is the precondition for loving: not to want power — not to want to own someone. There can be talk of love only when one gives up one's self-assertion, when one lays down arms and capitulates fully. When one no longer defends oneself. Love is the absolute yielding, the total surrender – unconditionally. It knows no reservations, no defense. Love creates no need to be the strongest; it knows no lust for power, no personality struggle. Love is pure devotion, absolute self-surrender. Only one who is strong enough not to fear losing his personality can love. To love, one must be able to forsake oneself, to make the other free. And it is this which we're not strong enough to do. ~ Jens Bj rneboe,

727:Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history, but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous vices often lie hidden. . . . We are coming to see in the life and teaching of Christ, and especially in the cross and resurrection of Christ, a radical rejection of dominating supremacy in all its forms. The theological term for [this] is kenosis, which means self-emptying. . . . Rather than seizing, hoarding, and exercising power in the domineering ways of typical kings, conquistadors, and religious leaders, Jesus was consistently empowering others. He descended the ladders and pyramids of influence instead of climbing them upwards, released power instead of grasping at it, and served instead of dominating. He ultimately overturned all conventional understandings of . . . power by purging [it] of violence—to the point where he himself chose to be killed rather than kill. ~ Brian D McLaren,

728:All sciences have their mysteries and at certain points the apparently most obvious theory will be found in contradiction with experience. Politics, for example, offers several proofs of this truth. In theory, is anything more absurd than hereditary monarchy? We judge it by experience, but if government had never been heard of and we had to choose one, whoever would deliberate between hereditary and elective monarchy would be taken for a fool. Yet we know by experience that the first is, all things considered, the best that can be imagined, while the second is the worst. What arguments could not be amassed to establish that sovereignty comes from the people? However they all amount to nothing. Sovereignty is always taken, never given, and a second more profound theory subsequently discovers why this must be so. Who would not say the best political constitution is that which has been debated and drafted by statesmen perfectly acquainted with the national character, and who have foreseen every circumstance? Nevertheless nothing is more false. The best constituted people is the one that has the fewest written constitutional laws, and every written constitution is WORTHLESS. ~ Joseph de Maistre,

729:Honestly facing your lack of sovereignty over your own life produces either anxiety or relief. Anxiety is God-forgetting. It is the result of thinking that life is on your shoulders, that it is your job to figure it all out and keep things in order. It’s worrisome to think that your job in life is to work yourself into enough control over people, locations, and situations that you can rest assured that you will get what you think you need and accomplish what you think you need to accomplish. If you fall into this way of thinking, your life will be burdened with worry and your heart will be filled with dread. But there is a much better way. It is God-remembering. It rests in the relief that although it may not look like it, your life is under the careful control of One who defines wisdom, power, and love. In all of those moments when life is out of your control, it is not out of his control: “For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; . . . and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:34–35). ~ Paul David Tripp,

730:I'm struck by the difficulty I had in formulating it. When I think back now, I ask myself what else it was that I was talking about in Madness and Civilization or The Birth of the Clinic, but power? Yet I'm perfectly aware that I scarcely ever used the word and never had such a field of analyses at my disposal. I can say that this was an incapacity linked undoubtedly with the political situation in which we found ourselves. It is hard to see where, either on the Right or the Left, this problem of power could then have been posed. On the Right, it was posed only in terms of constitution, sovereignty, and so on, that is, in juridical terms; on the Marxist side, it was posed only in terms of the state apparatus. The way power was exercised - concretely, and in detail - with its specificity, its techniques and tactics, was something no one attempted to ascertain; they contented themselves with denouncing it in a polemical and global fashion as it existed among the "other," in the adversary camp. Where Soviet socialist power was in question, its opponents called it totalitarianism; power in Western capitalism was denounced by the Marxists as class domination; but the mechanics of power in themselves were never analyzed. ~ Michel Foucault,

731:1. Sovereignty of the human will; in short, despotism. 2. Inequality of wealth and rank. 3. Property — above JUSTICE, always invoked as the guardian angel of sovereigns, nobles, and proprietors; JUSTICE, the general, primitive, categorical law of all society. We must ascertain whether the ideas of despotism, civil inequality and property, are in harmony with the primitive notion of justice, and necessarily follow from it, — assuming various forms according to the condition, position, and relation of persons; or whether they are not rather the illegitimate result of a confusion of different things, a fatal association of ideas. And since justice deals especially with the questions of government, the condition of persons, and the possession of things, we must ascertain under what conditions, judging by universal opinion and the progress of the human mind, government is just, the condition of citizens is just, and the possession of things is just; then, striking out every thing which fails to meet these conditions, the result will at once tell us what legitimate government is, what the legitimate condition of citizens is, and what the legitimate possession of things is; and finally, as the last result of the analysis, what justice is. ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon,

732:A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation, who for a short time believe, and make others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

733:In accepting the truth about my complicit role in aiding and abetting cruelty, I had to leave the cycle of denial... As a feminist, I couldn't hide from the fact that what we do to animals to fulfill our consumer demands is profoundly un-feminist. We impregnate the animals against their will, breeding them into captivity, we imprison them, we control and violate their reproductive sovereignty and organs so we can take what we want out of them, and, when they have given us most of what they have, we toss them out to make room for more fertile ones. This is what feminists approve of and directly cause when we consume animals' stolen milk and eggs. we take the babies we have forced into them so we can have the products we want. The mothers get nothing. They are denied the pleasure of raising their babies. They are denied the comforts of being suckled and feeling their wings around their chirping young. Even in rare cases where the babies and mothers aren't separated and are allowed something resembling a decent life, we still decide how they will live as well as when they will die. None of this challenges the status quo of ownership, of our "right" to their very physical bodies. From "How I Became a Vegan Feminist Agitator" in Circles of Compassion ~ Marla Rose,

734:Two other issues are contributing to tension in Sino-American relations. China rejects the proposition that international order is fostered by the spread of liberal democracy and that the international community has an obligation to bring this about, and especially to achieve its perception of human rights by international action. The United States may be able to adjust the application of its views on human rights in relation to strategic priorities. But in light of its history and the convictions of its people, America can never abandon these principles altogether. On the Chinese side, the dominant elite view on this subject was expressed by Deng Xiaoping: Actually, national sovereignty is far more important than human rights, but the Group of Seven (or Eight) often infringe upon the sovereignty of poor, weak countries of the Third World. Their talk about human rights, freedom and democracy is designed only to safeguard the interests of the strong, rich countries, which take advantage of their strength to bully weak countries, and which pursue hegemony and practice power politics. No formal compromise is possible between these views; to keep the disagreement from spiraling into conflict is one of the principal obligations of the leaders of both sides. ~ Henry Kissinger,

735:Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large that holds the end of his chain. By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

736:THE DECLARATION of the Rights of Man at the end of the eighteenth century was a turning point in history. It meant nothing more nor less than that from then on Man, and not God's command or the customs of history, should be the source of Law. Independent of the privileges which history had bestowed upon certain strata of society or certain nations, the declaration indicated man's emancipation from all tutelage and announced that he had now come of age. Beyond this, there was another implication of which the framers of the declaration were only half aware. The proclamation of human rights was also meant to be a much-needed protection in the new era where individuals were no longer secure in the estates to which they were born or sure of their equality before God as Christians. In other words, in the new secularized and emancipated society, men were no longer sure of these social and human rights which until then had been outside the political order and guaranteed not by government and constitution, but by social, spiritual, and religious forces. Therefore throughout the nineteenth century, the consensus of opinion was that human rights had to be invoked whenever individuals needed protection against the new sovereignty of the state and the new arbitrariness of society. ~ Hannah Arendt,

737:November 11 “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Romans 6:14 SIN will reign if it can: it cannot be satisfied with any place below the throne of the heart. We sometimes fear that it will conquer us, and then we cry unto the Lord, “Let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” This is his comforting answer, “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” It may assail you, and even wound you; but it shall never establish sovereignty over you. If we were under the law, our sin would gather strength and hold us under its power; for it is the punishment of sin that a man comes under the power of sin. As we are under the covenant of grace, we are secured against departing from the living God by the sure declaration of the covenant. Grace is promised to us, by which we are restored from our wanderings, cleansed from our impurities, and set free from the chains of habit. We might lie down in despair and be “content to serve the Egyptians” if we were still as slaves working for eternal life; but since we are the Lord’s free men, we take courage to fight with our corruptions and temptations, being assured that sin shall never bring us under its sway again. God himself giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

738:Clint stared down at him. He was wearing what appeared to be a massive, lopsided and jewel-encrusted crown, holding a scepter and surrounded by a floating mass of Roombas. “Welcome to the sovereign nation of Bartonia,” he said, with a straight face. “My subjects, the Roombas, the drones and one random mechanical bird thing that I found, and I welcome you, and ask you what the fuck you think you're doing here, you are seriously a fucking moron.” “I'm here,” Tony gritted out, “to rescue you, and what kind of fucking attitude is that?.” “A little short for a storm trooper, aren't you?” Clint said, arching an eyebrow. He offered Tony a hand. “Are you wearing a crown? Seriously? Where did you get a- Why are you wearing a crown?” Tony asked, taking it and allowing Clint to help lever him back to his feet. “Listen, dude, I have learned something about myself today. Mostly, I have learned that if I end up in some sort of alien rubbish dump surrounded by neurotic robots and without a clue as to if I'm ever going to make it home, if I find a crown, I'm putting that bad boy on. There should never be a time when you do not wear a crown. Find a crown, you wear it and declare sovereignty over the vast mechanical wastes.” Clint waved his scepter around a bit, making the Roombas dodge. “Thus, Bartonia. ~ Scifigrl47,

739:I am plagued by my sins, Jonathan. I have seen good men and I have seen great. And I am confident of this one thing: the great are rarely the good, and the good are rarely the great.” “Do you think Yahweh controls only the good in this world and not the evil?” David answered, “Do you justify evil with such appeals to Yahweh’s sovereignty?” “Of course not. Yahweh punishes evil even in his chosen people. But they are no less chosen, because he does not choose them for their goodness or their greatness—for anything in them. He chooses them because of his own purposes. And he chooses his anointed one as well.” “What are you saying, Jonathan?” Jonathan took off his royal robe. “I have sought out the Seer Samuel to see if my suspicions were correct. And I have found my answer.” David’s knees grew weak. “David, you were not anointed to be a royal musician in the court of the king of Israel.” He opened the robe and walked up to David to drape it over his back. “You were anointed to be the next king of Israel.” David felt faint. He caught himself and sat down on his armoring chair, staring with shock into the air. Jonathan picked up his bow, his sword and belt, and handed them to David. “I strip myself of my rights to the throne to support Yahweh’s chosen and anointed one, the messiah king.” He bowed to his knee. David got up quickly. ~ Brian Godawa,

740:THERE HAS BEEN A SILENT DIVORCE IN THE CHURCH, SPEAKING generally, between the Word and the Spirit. When there is a divorce, sometimes the children stay with the mother, sometimes with the father. In this divorce you have those on the Word side and those on the Spirit side. What is the difference? Those on the Word side stress earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, expository preaching, sound theology, rediscovering the doctrines of the Reformation—justification by faith, sovereignty of God. Until we get back to the Word, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. Those on the Spirit side stress getting back to the Book of Acts, signs, wonders, and miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit—with places being shaken at prayer meetings, get in Peter’s shadow and you are healed, lie to the Holy Spirit and you are struck dead. Until we recover the power of the Spirit, the honor of God’s name will not be restored. What is wrong with this emphasis? Nothing. It is exactly right, in my opinion. The problem is, neither will learn from the other. But if these two would come together, the simultaneous combination would mean spontaneous combustion. And if Smith Wigglesworth’s prophecy got it right, the world will be turned upside down again. ~ R T Kendall,

741:Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love. They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon his throne whom we trust. It is God upon his throne of whom we have been singing this morning; and it is God upon his throne of whom we shall speak in this discourse. I shall dwell only, however, upon one portion of God’s Sovereignty, and that is God’s Sovereignty in the distribution of his gifts. In this respect I believe he has a right to do as he wills with his own, and that he exercises that right. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

742:When we survey the wretched conditions of man, under the monarchical and hereditary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of Governments is necessary. What is government more than the management of the affairs of a Nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is supported; and though by force and contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual; and a Nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of Government it finds inconvenient, and to establish such as accords with its interest, disposition and happiness. the romantic and barbarous distinction of men into Kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens; and is exploded by the principle upon which Governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the Sovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be only to the laws. ~ Thomas Paine,

743:I wrote Dr. Allen Guelzo for his perspective. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and the director of the Civil War Era Studies Program at Gettysburg College. He is one of the great students of Lincoln and one of the great historians in the country. Frankly, I expected Allen to respond, “Have you just lost your mind!?” But he didn’t. Guelzo responded: Your points are entirely on the mark. I have done a quick comparative outline of both inaugural addresses, and while the existential situation of the two are different, on March 4th, 1861, Lincoln was already facing the secession of seven states, the official creation of a Confederate States of America, and demands for the surrender of federal property, there is this common thread, the sovereignty of the people. Lincoln used that principle to deny that one part of the nation, the seven seceding states, could break up the union without the consent of the American people, as well as denying that one branch of the government, the Supreme Court, could overrule the American people’s will. This was enough to make me feel better. But Guelzo continued. Trump invokes that principle. To deny that a federal bureaucracy can enrich and empower itself at the expense of the people, as well as denying that identity enclaves can overrule the fundamental unity of the American people. ~ Newt Gingrich,

744:When asked a general question about his Hashimite cousin, Abu Sufyan began to belittle him, and said: “Let him not cause thee any anxiety; his importance is less than thou hast heard it to be,” but the Emperor immediately cut him short with more particular questions, and having received a precise answer on every point, he summed up his conclusion as follows: “I asked thee about his lineage, and thou didst affirm that it was pure and of the best amongst you; and God chooseth no man for prophet save him who is of the noblest lineage. Then I asked if any of his kinsmen had made claims the like of his, and thou saidst nay. Then I asked them if he had been dispossessed of sovereignty and had made this claim for the sake of recovering it, and again thine answer was nay. Then I asked thee about his followers, and thou said they were the weak and the poor and young slaves and women, and such have been the followers of the prophets in all times. Then I asked if any of his followers left him and thou saidst none. Even so is the sweetness of faith: once it hath entered the heart, it departeth not away. Then I asked if he were treacherous, and thou didst answer nay; and verily if what thou hast told me of him to be the truth, he will vanquish me here where now I stand, and I would I were with him, that I might wash his feet. Go ye now about your business. ~ Martin Lings,

745:I have the body but of a weak, feeble woman,” she told her troops as the Spanish Armada sailed for home in 1588, “but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.” Relishing opposites, the queen was constant only in her patriotism, her insistence on keeping ends within means, and her determination—a requirement for pivoting—never to be pinned down. 38 Her hopes for religion reflected this. Knowing the upheavals her country had undergone—Henry VIII’s expulsion of the pope from English Catholicism, the shift to strict Protestantism in Edward VI’s brief reign, the harsh reversion to Rome under Mary—Elizabeth wanted a single church with multiple ways of worship. There was, she pointed out, “only one Jesus Christ.” Why couldn’t there be different paths to Him? Theological quarrels were “trifles,” or, more tartly, “ropes of sand or sea-slime leading to the Moon.” 39 Until they affected national sovereignty. God’s church, under Elizabeth, would be staunchly English: whether “Catholic” or “Protestant” mattered less than loyalty. This was, in one sense, toleration, for the new queen cared little what her subjects believed. She would watch like a hawk, though, what they did. “Her Majesty seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister,” Feria warned Philip—which was saying something since that lady had been “bloody” Mary. “We have lost a kingdom, ~ John Lewis Gaddis,

746:For a king among people is one whom no-one rules but God the most high, and who does not need anything except God-great and glorious. And with that he rules his kingdom insofar as his soldiers and his subjects obey him. Yet the kingdom proper to him is his own heart and soul, where his soldiers are his appetites, his anger, and his affections; while his subjects are his tongue, his eyes, his hands, and the rest of his organs. If he rules them and they do not rule him, and if they obey him and he does not obey them, he will attain the level of a king in this world. And if that be coupled with the fact that he is independent of all people, yet all people are in need of him for their life now and in the future, he will be an earthly king. This is the level of the prophets-may God's blessings be upon all of them. For they have no need of direction to the next life from anyone except God-great and glorious-while everyone needs it from them. They are followed in this kingship by religious scholars, who 'inherit the legacy of the prophets', Their kingship, however, is proportional to their ability to guide the people, and to their lack of need for asking for guidance. By means of these attributes man comes close to the angels in qualities, and by means of them approaches God the most high. This kingship is a gift to man from the true king whose sovereignty has no competitor. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,

747:To Imagination When weary with the long day's care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again: Oh, my true friend! I am not lone, While thou canst speak with such a tone! So hopeless is the world without; The world within I doubly prize; Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt, And cold suspicion never rise; Where thou, and I, and Liberty, Have undisputed sovereignty. What matters it, that, all around, Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie, If but within our bosom's bound We hold a bright, untroubled sky, Warm with ten thousand mingled rays Of suns that know no winter days? Reason, indeed, may oft complain For Nature's sad reality, And tell the suffering heart, how vain Its cherished dreams must always be; And Truth may rudely trample down The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown: But, thou art ever there, to bring The hovering vision back, and breathe New glories o'er the blighted spring, And call a lovelier Life from Death, And whisper, with a voice divine, Of real worlds, as bright as thine. I trust not to thy phantom bliss, Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, Benignant Power; 112 Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs! ~ Emily Jane Brontë,

748:Patriotism July 4 ALL “ISMS” RUN OUT IN the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example. If patriots are people who stand by their country right or wrong, Germans who stood by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be adequate proof that we’ve had enough of them. If patriots are people who believe not only that anything they consider unpatriotic is wrong but that anything they consider wrong is unpatriotic, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his backers should be enough to make us avoid them like the plague. If patriots are people who believe things like “Better Dead Than Red,” they should be shown films of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, and then be taken off to the funny farm. The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enough to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don’t blow ourselves off the map once and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty. There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether. ~ Frederick Buechner,

749:It is a myth that the free market breaks down national barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty, it undermines democracy. As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their 'sweetheart deals', to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate globalization - or shall we call by its name? Imperialism - needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. Meanwhile, the countries of the north harden their borders and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. Afterall, they have to make sure that it is only money, goods, patents, and services that are globalized. Not a respect for human rights. Not international treaties on racial discrimnation or chemical and nuclear weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change or - God forid - justice. So this - all this - is Empire. This loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them. Our fight, our goal, our vision of another world must be to eliminate that distance. So how do we resist Empire? ~ Arundhati Roy,

750:The father of communism, Karl Marx, famously predicted the “withering away of the state” once the proletarian revolution had achieved power and abolished private property. Left-wing revolutionaries from the nineteeth-century anarchists on thought it sufficient to destroy old power structures without giving serious thought to what would take their place. This tradition continues up through the present, with the suggestion by antiglobalization authors like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri that economic injustice could be abolished by undermining the sovereignty of states and replacing it with a networked “multitude.”17 Real-world Communist regimes of course did exactly the opposite of what Marx predicted, building large and tyrannical state structures to force people to act collectively when they failed to do so spontaneously. This in turn led a generation of democracy activists in Eastern Europe to envision their own form of statelessness, where a mobilized civil society would take the place of traditional political parties and centralized governments. 18 These activists were subsequently disillusioned by the realization that their societies could not be governed without institutions, and when they encountered the messy compromises required to build them. In the decades since the fall of communism, Eastern Europe is democratic, but it is not thereby necessarily happy with its politics or politicians.19 The fantasy of statelessness ~ Francis Fukuyama,

751:TO LIVE IN My Presence consistently, you must expose and expel your rebellious tendencies. When something interferes with your plans or desires, you tend to resent the interference. Try to become aware of each resentment, however petty it may seem. Don’t push those unpleasant feelings down; instead, let them come to the surface where you can deal with them. Ask My Spirit to increase your awareness of resentful feelings. Bring them boldly into the Light of My Presence, so that I can free you from them. The ultimate solution to rebellious tendencies is submission to My authority over you. Intellectually you rejoice in My sovereignty, without which the world would be a terrifying place. But when My sovereign will encroaches on your little domain of control, you often react with telltale resentment. The best response to losses or thwarted hopes is praise: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Remember that all good things—your possessions, your family and friends, your health and abilities, your time—are gifts from Me. Instead of feeling entitled to all these blessings, respond to them with gratitude. Be prepared to let go of anything I take from you, but never let go of My hand! Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. —PSALM 139:23–24 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand. —1 PETER 5:6 ~ Sarah Young,

752:Perhaps the best way to understand the book of Revelation is that it is a prophetic critique of civil religion. By civil religion I mean the religion of state where the state is the actual object of worship. Civil religion is religious patriotism. Christians are called to practice responsible citizenship but to renounce religious patriotism. In the practice of civil religion, the truth that the state is what is actually being deified and worshiped is usually carefully concealed. Instead of directly worshiping the state as God, worship of the state is expressed through sacred symbols, myths, and personifications of the state treated with religious reverence. The tendency to deify the state is particularly pronounced in empires—rich and powerful nations that believe they have a divine right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape history according to their agenda. God’s contention with empire is one of the major themes of the Bible. From Egypt and Assyria to Babylonia and Rome, the prophets constantly critique empire as a direct challenge to the sovereignty of God. This prophetic tradition of empire critique reaches its apex in the book of Revelation. John the Revelator tells us that Rome’s claim of a divine right to rule the nations and of a manifest destiny to shape history is the very thing that God has given to his Son, Jesus Christ. Thus the drama of Revelation is cast as an epic conflict between the Lamb (Jesus) and the Beast (Rome). ~ Brian Zahnd,

753:...In 2008, when the United States recognized Kosovo´s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, [Vladimir] Putin was furious; the UN had promised to respect Serbia´s sovereign integrity. Putin argued that the US decision oi disregard what Russia saw as Serbia´s threatened to ¨blow apart the whole system of international relations."The United States and other states opting to recognize Kosovar independence, should understand that their decision was ¨a two-sided stick,¨ warned Putin, ¨and the second end will come back and hit them in the face.¨ That particular two-sided stick has already been deployed by the Russians in the context of Ukraine and Crimea, where Putin greeted US protestations about the importance of respecting Ukrainian sovereignty with little more than a cynical smirk. In Syria too, Putin has highlighted inconsistencies in US actions and legal arguments: if the United States can use military force inside Syria without the consent of the Syrian government, why should Russia be condemned for using force inside Ukraine? The legal precedents we are setting risk undermining the fragile norms of sovereignty and human rights that help keep our world stable. We should ask ourselves this: Do we want to live in a world in which every state considers itself to have a legal right to kill people in other states, secretly and with no public disclosure or due process, based on its own unilateral assertions of national security prerogatives? ~ Rosa Brooks,

754:be “a familiar judicial exercise.”46 My colleagues believed the courts should not avoid the question by invoking the “political question” doctrine.47 They consequently sent the case back to the lower court for a decision on the merits.48 Though alone, I saw the case differently. “In the Middle East,” I wrote, “administrative matters can have implications that extend far beyond the purely administrative.”49 The secretary of state had argued that requiring her to stamp the word Israel on a passport would represent an “official decision by the United States to begin to treat Jerusalem as a city” under Israeli sovereignty.50 She maintained that upholding the statute would have significant foreign policy implications (a conclusion that others denied). Because of our inability to know the answer to this kind of dispute, I concluded that the merits of the case raised a political question, which the other two branches should resolve between themselves.51 What matters for our purposes, however, is that the other members of the Court disagreed with me. They thought that, even there, the doctrine did not prevent the Court from reviewing the merits of this foreign policy-related question. The upshot is that neither the classical view of Cicero nor the “political question” doctrine prevents today’s Court from reaching, and deciding the merits of, many questions in which security and civil liberties collide. But there are other doctrines, embodied in other cases, that have had much the same effect. ~ Stephen G Breyer,

755:The power to decide who is sovereign would signify a new sovereignty. A tribunal vested with such powers would constitute a supra-state and supra-sovereignty, which alone could create a new order if, for example, it had the authority to decide on the recognition of a new state. Not a Court of Justice but a League of Nations might have such pretensions. But in exercising them, it would become an independent agent. Together with the function of executing the law, managing an administration, etcetera (which might involve independence in financial affairs, budgeting, and other formalities), it would also signify something in and of itself. Its activity would not be limited to the application of existing legal norms, as would a tribunal that is an administrative authority. It would also be more than an arbiter, because in all decisive conflicts it would have to assert its own interests. Thus it would cease to uphold justice exclusively—in political terms, the status quo. If it took the constantly changing political situation as its guiding principle, it would have to decide on the basis of its own power what new order and what new state is or is not to be recognized. This could not be determined by the preexisting legal order, because most new states have come into being in opposition to the will of their formerly sovereign ruler. Owing to the rationale of self-assertion, it is conceivable that a conflict with the law might arise. Such a tribunal would not only represent the idea of impersonal justice but a powerful personality as well. ~ Carl Schmitt,

756:Browsing among the shelves, Poppy paused to examine a jeweled silver figurine of a horse, its hooves extended in mid-gallop. "How lovely." "A gift from the Crown Prince Yizhu of China," the man behind her said. "A Celestial horse." Fascinated, Poppy ran a fingertip along the figure's back. "Now the prince has been crowned as the Emperor Xianfeng," she said. "A rather ironic ruling name, isn't it?" Coming to stand beside her, the stranger glanced at her alertly. "Why do you say that?" "Because it means 'universal prosperity.' And that is certainly not the case, considering the internal rebellions he is facing." "I'd say the challenges from Europe are an even greater danger to him, at present." "Yes," Poppy said ruefully, nudging the figurine back into place. "One wonders how long Chinese sovereignty can last against such an onslaught." Her companion was standing close enough that she could detect the scents of pressed linen and shaving soap. He stared at her intently. "I know very few women who are able to discuss Far East politics." She felt color rise in her cheeks. "My family has rather unusual conversations around the supper table. At least, they're unusual in that my sisters and I always take part. My companion says it's perfectly all right to do that at home, but she has advised me not to appear too learned when I'm out in society. It tends to drive away suitors." "You'll have to be careful, then" he said softly, smiling. "It would be a shame for some intelligent comment to slip out at the wrong moment. ~ Lisa Kleypas,

757:But what is sovereignty? It is, they say, the power to make laws. Another absurdity, a relic of despotism. The nation had long seen kings issuing their commands in this form: for such is our pleasure; it wished to taste in its turn the pleasure of making laws. For fifty years it has brought them forth by myriads; always, be it understood, through the agency of representatives. The play is far from ended. The definition of sovereignty was derived from the definition of the law. The law, they said, is the expression of the will of the sovereign: then, under a monarchy, the law is the expression of the will of the king; in a republic, the law is the expression of the will of the people. Aside from the difference in the number of wills, the two systems are exactly identical: both share the same error, namely, that the law is the expression of a will; it ought to be the expression of a fact. Moreover they followed good leaders: they took the citizen of Geneva for their prophet, and the contrat social for their Koran. Bias and prejudice are apparent in all the phrases of the new legislators. The nation had suffered from a multitude of exclusions and privileges; its representatives issued the following declaration: All men are equal by nature and before the law; an ambiguous and redundant declaration. Men are equal by nature: does that mean that they are equal in size, beauty, talents, and virtue? No; they meant, then, political and civil equality. Then it would have been sufficient to have said: All men are equal before the law. ~ Pierre Joseph Proudhon,

758:Nietzsche, one of the main thinkers being channeled by rightist chan culture knowingly or otherwise, argued for transgression of the pacifying moral order and instead for a celebration of life as the will to power. As a result, his ideas had appeal to everyone from the Nazis to feminists like Lily Braun. Today, the appeal of his anti-moralism is strong on the alt-right because their goals necessitate the repudiation of Christian codes that Nietzsche characterized as slave morality. Freud, on the other hand, characterized transgression as an anti-civilizational impulse, as part of the antagonism between the freedom of instinctual will and the necessary repressions of civilization. Perhaps the most significant theorist of transgression Georges Bataille inherited his idea of sovereignty from de Sade, stressing self-determination over obedience. Although rightist chan culture was undoubtedly not what Bataille had in mind, the politically fungible ideas and styles of these aesthetic transgressives are echoed in the porn-fuelled shocking content of early /b/ and in the later anti-liberal transgressions of the later /pol/. Bataille revered transgression in and of itself, and like de Sade viewed non-procreative sex as an expression of the sovereign against instrumentalism, what he called ‘expenditure without reserve’. For him excessive behavior without purpose, which also characterizes the sensibility of contemporary meme culture in which enormous human effort is exerted with no obvious personal benefit, was paradigmatically transgressive in an age of Protestant instrumental rationality. ~ Angela Nagle,

759:Naomi's return caused no small stir. Scripture says, All the city was excited because of them; and the women said, Is this Naomi? Naomi means pleasant, and in an earlier time it must have been a perfect description of Naomi. The fact that so many women remembered her and were so glad to see her suggests that she had once been a gregarious soul, beloved by all who knew her. But now her life was so colored with sadness that she told the other women, Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, meaning bitter, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me? This was not a complaint as much as a heartfelt lament. She knew, as Job did, that ist is the Lord who gives and takes away. She understood the principle of God's sovereignty. In calling herself Mara, she was not suggesting that she had become a bitter person; but, as her words reveal, that Providence had handed her bitter cup to drink. She was the hand of God in her sufferings, but far from complaining, I think she was simply acknowledging her faith in the sovereignty of God, even in the midst of a life of bitter grief. Everything scripture tells us about Naomi indicates that she remained steadfast in the faith throughout her trials. She was not unlike Job---she was a woman of great faith who withstood almost unimaginable testing without ever once wavering in her love for God and her commitment to His will. So hers is actually an impressive expression of faith, without an ounce of resentment in it. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

760:One more thing that stands in the middle of the road of easy-believism is the truth of the sovereignty of God. Years ago, I used to hear people say, “Don’t ever preach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God when you have nonbelievers in the audience.” People literally warned me against that. But here is another offensive bit of news for the unbeliever: God is sovereign, and you are not. You are not the captain of your soul or the master of your fate. You do not hold your destiny in your own hand. According to 1 Corinthians 1:24, those who believe are those whom God calls and sovereignly draws. God calls them because He has chosen them (v. 27), eklegomi, picked them out for Himself. The word appears again in verse 28. How could anybody get saved under those terms? You’ve got nothing left! You’re absolutely stripped of everything. Verse 30: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” So, if it’s all God’s doing anyway, why would I tamper with the message? Why would I try to manipulate the results? Verse 31: “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.” My friend R. C. Sproul has said that “God’s favorite doctrine is sovereignty, and if you were God, it would be yours too.” A wonderful sentiment like that helps offset the sick feeling I get when I hear contemporary evangelicals attack the sovereignty of God. His elective purpose is salvation, because if God isn’t saving people, they won’t be saved. This is a hard truth that many prominent evangelicals deny, stealing glory from God and overestimating the ability of the spiritually dead! ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

761:Funny thing about this world,” Adams said carefully. “Legally, a sovereign government can protect its interests pretty well as long as it doesn’t start open war and involve the big powers. Certainly a sovereign government can arm merchant ships and protect them against harassment by international gangsters. But there are a lot of sovereigns in name who haven’t the means to protect themselves and have to rely on someone else…” “You mean Tonga,” the prince said. He frowned, then shrugged. “But I must agree. We wish the British were still protecting us. But they’re not, and we see no one else we’d like to have as partners.” Adams nodded. “Now also in this world are big companies—like, say, Nuclear General—who have more than enough power to protect their interests but have no legal right to do it because they aren’t sovereign. The United States is supposed to look after our interests, but we don’t see them doing much of it. Delicate state of relations, world opinion—” Adams broke off, his jaw set. “Mostly lack of ability, of course. With welfare payments where they are the U.S. can’t even do proper research, much less—well. If Tonga were to nationalize some of Nuclear General’s ships, you’d have the right to arm them, declare them protected by your sovereignty…” “You’re asking us to expropriate your property?” Toki asked. “Well, we’d expect to be paid for it.” “But we don’t have the money to pay you… This is silly.” “You’d have enough money if you leased the ships to us. We’d pay very well for their use. At least as much, say, as we’d have to ask for if you nationalized them.” A slow grin spread across Toki’s bronze face. ~ Jerry Pournelle,

762:THE DREADFUL DOCTRINE One more thing that stands in the middle of the road of easy-believism is the truth of the sovereignty of God. Years ago, I used to hear people say, “Don’t ever preach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God when you have nonbelievers in the audience.” People literally warned me against that. But here is another offensive bit of news for the unbeliever: God is sovereign, and you are not. You are not the captain of your soul or the master of your fate. You do not hold your destiny in your own hand. According to 1 Corinthians 1:24, those who believe are those whom God calls and sovereignly draws. God calls them because He has chosen them (v. 27), eklegomi, picked them out for Himself. The word appears again in verse 28. How could anybody get saved under those terms? You’ve got nothing left! You’re absolutely stripped of everything. Verse 30: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” So, if it’s all God’s doing anyway, why would I tamper with the message? Why would I try to manipulate the results? Verse 31: “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.” My friend R. C. Sproul has said that “God’s favorite doctrine is sovereignty, and if you were God, it would be yours too.” A wonderful sentiment like that helps offset the sick feeling I get when I hear contemporary evangelicals attack the sovereignty of God. His elective purpose is salvation, because if God isn’t saving people, they won’t be saved. This is a hard truth that many prominent evangelicals deny, stealing glory from God and overestimating the ability of the spiritually dead! ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

763:In focusing on “cultural change” and “conflict between cultures,” these studies avoid fundamental questions about the formation of the United States and its implications for the present and future. This approach to history allows one to safely put aside present responsibility for continued harm done by that past and the questions of reparations, restitution, and reordering society.9 Multiculturalism became the cutting edge of post-civil-rights-movement US history revisionism. For this scheme to work—and affirm US historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture. As territorially and treaty-based peoples in North America, they did not fit the grid of multiculturalism but were included by transforming them into an inchoate oppressed racial group, while colonized Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were dissolved into another such group, variously called “Hispanic” or “Latino.” The multicultural approach emphasized the “contributions” of individuals from oppressed groups to the country’s assumed greatness. Indigenous peoples were thus credited with corn, beans, buckskin, log cabins, parkas, maple syrup, canoes, hundreds of place names, Thanksgiving, and even the concepts of democracy and federalism. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian helping to establish and enrich the development of the United States is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources. The fundamental unresolved issues of Indigenous lands, treaties, and sovereignty could not but scuttle the premises of multiculturalism. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz,

764:Again, I call to mind that distant moment in [the prison at] Hermanice when on a hot, cloudless summer day, I sat on a pile of rusty iron and gazed into the crown of an enormous tree that stretched, with dignified repose, up and over all the fences, wires, bars and watchtowers that separated me from it. As I watched the imperceptible trembling of its leaves against an endless sky, I was overcome by a sensation that is difficult to describe: all at once, I seemed to rise above all the coordinates of my momentary existence in the world into a kind of state outside time in which all the beautiful things I had ever seen and experienced existed in a total “co-present”; I felt a sense of reconciliation, indeed of an almost gentle consent to the inevitable course of things as revealed to me now, and this combined with a carefree determination to face what had to be faced. A profound amazement at the sovereignty of Being became a dizzying sensation of tumbling endlessly into the abyss of its mystery; an unbounded joy at being alive, at having been given the chance to live through all I have lived through, and at the fact that everything has a deep and obvious meaning— this joy formed a strange alliance in me with a vague horror at the inapprehensibility and unattainability of everything I was so close to in that moment, standing at the very “edge of the finite”; I was flooded with a sense of ultimate happiness and harmony with the world and with myself, with that moment, with all the moments I could call up, and with everything invisible that lies behind it and has meaning. I would even say that I was somehow “struck by love,” though I don’t know precisely for whom or what. ~ V clav Havel,

765:That God in some sense foreordains whatever comes to pass is a necessary result of his sovereignty. In itself it does not plead for Calvinism. It only declares that God is absolutely sovereign over his creation. God can foreordain things in different ways. But everything that happens must at least happen by his permission. If he permits something, then he must decide to allow it. If he decides to allow something, then in a sense he is foreordaining it. Who, among Christians, would argue that God could not stop something in this world from happening? If God so desires, he has the power to stop the whole world. To say that God foreordains all that comes to pass is simply to say that God is sovereign over his entire creation. If something could come to pass apart from his sovereign permission, then that which came to pass would frustrate his sovereignty. If God refused to permit something to happen and it happened anyway, then whatever caused it to happen would have more authority and power than God himself. If there is any part of creation outside of God’s sovereignty, then God is simply not sovereign. If God is not sovereign, then God is not God. If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. Perhaps that one maverick molecule will lay waste all the grand and glorious plans that God has made and promised to us. If a grain of sand in the kidney of Oliver Cromwell changed the course of English history, so our maverick molecule could change the course of all redemption history. Maybe that one molecule will be the thing that prevents Christ from returning. ~ R C Sproul,

766:Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments? Why did Mother Teresta think that affluent Westerners often seemed poorer than the Calcutta poor, the poorest of the poor? The paradox comes to pass because the impoverishments and enrichments of a self in a world are not necessarily the same as the impoverishments and enrichments of an organism in an environment. The organism is needy or not needy accordingly as needs are satisfied or not satisfied by its environment. The self in a world is rich or poor accordingly as it succeeds in identifying its otherwise unspeakable self, e.g., mythically, by identifying itself with a world-sign, such as a totem; religiously, by identifying itself as a creature of God...In a post-religious age, the only recourses of the self are self as transcendent and self as immanent. The impoverishment of the immanent self derives from a perceived loss of sovereignty to "them," the transcending scientists and experts of society. As a consequence, the self sees its only recourse as an endless round of work, diversion, and consumption of goods and services. Failing this and having some inkling of its plight, it sees no way out because it has come to see itself as an organism in an environment and so can't understand why it feels so bad in the best of all possible environments--say, a good family and a good home in a good neighborhood in East Orange on a fine Wednesday afternoon--and so finds itself secretly relishing bad news, assassinations, plane crashes, and the misfortunes of neighbors, and even comes secretly to hope for catastrophe, earthquake, hurricane, wars, apocalypse--anything to break out of the iron grip of immanence. ~ Walker Percy,

767:Stanzas How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature's universal throne; Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.] In youth have I known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held- as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light- such for his spirit was fitAnd yet that spirit knew not, in the hour Of its own fervor what had o'er it power. II Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told- or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more, That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass? III Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye To the loved object- so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be- (that object) hid From us in life- but common- which doth lie Each hour before us- but then only, bid With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken, To awake us- 'Tis a symbol and a token 65 IV Of what in other worlds shall be- and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven, Tho' not with Faith- with godliness- whose throne With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

768:"The notion that every single human being – regardless of their peculiarities and their strangenesses and sins and crimes and all of that – has something divine in them that needs to be regarded with respect, plays an integral role, at least an analogous role, in the creation of habitable order out of chaos. It's a magnificent, remarkable and crazy idea. Yet we developed it. And I do firmly believe that it sits at the base of our legal system. I think it is the cornerstone of our legal system. That's the notion that everyone is equal before God. That's such a strange idea. It's very difficult to understand how anybody could have ever come up with that idea, because the manifold differences between people are so obvious and so evident that you could say the natural way of viewing someone, or human beings, is in this extremely hierarchical manner where some people are contemptible and easily brushed off as pointless and pathological and without value whatsoever, and all the power accrues to a certain tiny aristocratic minority at the top. But if you look way that the idea of individual sovereignty developed, it is clear that it unfolded over thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, where it became something that was fixed in the imagination that each individual had something of transcendent value about them. And, man, I can tell you – we dispense with that idea at our serious peril. And if you're going to take that idea seriously – and you do because you act it out, because otherwise you wouldn't be law-abiding citizens. It's shared by anyone who acts in a civilized manner. The question is, why in the world do you believe it? Assuming that you believe what you act out – which I think is a really good way of fundamentally defining belief." ~ Jordan Peterson,

769:"The notion that every single human being – regardless of their peculiarities and their strangenesses and sins and crimes and all of that – has something divine in them that needs to be regarded with respect, plays an integral role, at least an analogous role, in the creation of habitable order out of chaos. It's a magnificent, remarkable and crazy idea. Yet we developed it. And I do firmly believe that it sits at the base of our legal system. I think it is the cornerstone of our legal system. That's the notion that everyone is equal before God. That's such a strange idea. It's very difficult to understand how anybody could have ever come up with that idea, because the manifold differences between people are so obvious and so evident that you could say the natural way of viewing someone, or human beings, is in this extremely hierarchical manner where some people are contemptible and easily brushed off as pointless and pathological and without value whatsoever, and all the power accrues to a certain tiny aristocratic minority at the top. But if you look way that the idea of individual sovereignty developed, it is clear that it unfolded over thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, where it became something that was fixed in the imagination that each individual had something of transcendent value about them. And, man, I can tell you – we dispense with that idea at our serious peril. And if you're going to take that idea seriously – and you do because you act it out, because otherwise you wouldn't be law-abiding citizens. It's shared by anyone who acts in a civilized manner. The question is, why in the world do you believe it? Assuming that you believe what you act out – which I think is a really good way of fundamentally defining belief." ~ Jordan B Peterson,

770:In Youth I Have Known One How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature's universal throne; Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! I. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held - as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light - such for his spirit was fit And yet that spirit knew - not in the hour Of its own fervour - what had o'er it power. II. Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told - or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass? III. Doth o'er us pass, when as th' expanding eye To the loved object - so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be - (that object) hid From us in life - but common - which doth lie Each hour before us - but then only bid With a strange sound, as of a harpstring broken T' awake us - 'Tis a symbol and a token IV. 52 Of what in other worlds shall be - and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

771:My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

772:About a month before the handover of sovereignty, Joshua Paul, a young CPA staffer, typed up a joke on his computer and sent it to a few friends in the palace. The recipients forwarded it to their friends, who did the same thing. In less than a week, almost everyone in the Green Zone had seen it. QUESTION: Why did the Iraqi chicken cross the road? CPA: The fact that the chicken crossed the road shows that decision-making authority has switched to the chicken in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on, the chicken is responsible for its own decisions. HALLIBURTON: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost $326,004. SHIITE CLERIC MOQTADA AL-SADR: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed. U.S. ARMY MILITARY POLICE: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken-rights violations. PESHMERGA: The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in the future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill. AL-JAZEERA: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens. CIA: We cannot confirm or deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident. TRANSLATORS: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request. ~ Rajiv Chandrasekaran,

773:Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee." Isaiah 41:9 If we have received the grace of God in our hearts, its practical effect has been to make us God's servants. We may be unfaithful servants, we certainly are unprofitable ones, but yet, blessed be his name, we are his servants, wearing his livery, feeding at his table, and obeying his commands. We were once the servants of sin, but he who made us free has now taken us into his family and taught us obedience to his will. We do not serve our Master perfectly, but we would if we could. As we hear God's voice saying unto us, "Thou art my servant," we can answer with David, "I am thy servant; thou hast loosed my bonds." But the Lord calls us not only his servants, but his chosen ones--"I have chosen thee." We have not chosen him first, but he hath chosen us. If we be God's servants, we were not always so; to sovereign grace the change must be ascribed. The eye of sovereignty singled us out, and the voice of unchanging grace declared, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Long ere time began or space was created God had written upon his heart the names of his elect people, had predestinated them to be conformed unto the image of his Son, and ordained them heirs of all the fulness of his love, his grace, and his glory. What comfort is here! Has the Lord loved us so long, and will he yet cast us away? He knew how stiffnecked we should be; he understood that our hearts were evil, and yet he made the choice. Ah! our Saviour is no fickle lover. He doth not feel enchanted for awhile with some gleams of beauty from his church's eye, and then afterwards cast her off because of her unfaithfulness. Nay, he married her in old eternity; and it is written of Jehovah, "He hateth putting away." The eternal choice is a bond upon our gratitude and upon his faithfulness which neither can disown. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

774:the planned destruction of Iraq’s agriculture is not widely known. Modern Iraq is part of the ‘fertile crescent’ of Mesopotamia where man first domesticated wheat between 8,000 and 13,000 years ago, and home to several thousand varieties of local wheat. As soon as the US took over Iraq, it became clear its interests were not limited to oil. In 2004, Paul Bremer, the then military head of the Provisional Authority imposed as many as a hundred laws which made short work of Iraq’s sovereignty. The most crippling for the people and the economy of Iraq was Order 81 which deals, among other things, with plant varieties and patents. The goal was brutally clear-cut and sweeping — to wipe out Iraq’s traditional, sustainable agriculture and replace it with oil-chemical-genetically-modified-seed-based industrial agriculture. There was no public or parliamentary debate for the conquered people who never sought war. The conquerors made unilateral changes in Iraq’s 1970 patent law: henceforth, plant forms could be patented — which was never allowed before — while genetically-modified organisms were to be introduced. Farmers were strictly banned from saving their own seeds: this, in a country where, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers planted only their own saved seeds. With a single stroke of the pen, Iraq’s agriculture was axed, while Order 81 facilitated the introduction and domination of imported, high-priced corporate seeds, mainly from the US — which neither reproduce, nor give yields without their prescribed chemical fertiliser and pesticide inputs. It meant that the majority of farmers who had never spent money on seed and inputs that came free from nature, would henceforth have to heavily invest in corporate inputs and equipment — or go into debt to obtain them, or accept lowered profits, or give up farming altogether. ~ Anonymous,

775:Progressivism was imported from Europe and would result in a radical break from America’s heritage. In fact, it is best described as an elitist-driven counterrevolution to the American Revolution, in which the sovereignty of the individual, natural law, natural rights, and the civil society—built on a foundation of thousands of years of enlightened thinking and human experience—would be drastically altered and even abandoned for an ideological agenda broadly characterized as “historical progress.” Progressivism is the idea of the inevitability of historical progress and the perfectibility of man—and his self-realization—through the national community or collective. While its intellectual and political advocates clothe its core in populist terminology, and despite the existence of democratic institutions and cyclical voting, progressivism’s emphasis on material egalitarianism and societal engineering, and its insistence on concentrated, centralized administrative rule, lead inescapably to varying degrees of autocratic governance. Moreover, for progressives there are no absolute or permanent truths, only passing and distant historical events. Thus even values are said to be relative to time and circumstances; there is no eternal moral order—that is, what was true and good in 1776 and before is not necessarily true and good today. Consequently, the very purpose of America’s founding is debased. To better understand this ideology, its refutation of the American heritage, and its enormous effect on modern American life, it is necessary to become acquainted with some of the most influential progressive intellectuals who, together with others, set the nation on this lamentable course. Given their prolific writings, it is neither possible nor necessary to delve into every manner of their thoughts or the differences among them in their brand of progressivism. For our purposes, it is enough to expose essential aspects of their arguments. ~ Mark R Levin,

776:February 3 MORNING “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.” — Romans 8:12 AS God’s creatures, we are all debtors to Him: to obey Him with all our body, and soul, and strength. Having broken His commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to His justice, and we owe to Him a vast amount which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt His people owed; for this reason the believer owes the more to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to His justice, for He will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, “It is finished!” and by that He meant, that whatever His people owed was wiped away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God’s justice no longer. But then, because we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and ponder for a moment. What a debtor thou art to divine sovereignty! How much thou owest to His disinterested love, for He gave His own Son that He might die for thee. Consider how much you owe to His forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts He loves you as infinitely as ever. Consider what you owe to His power; how He has raised you from your death in sin; how He has preserved your spiritual life; how He has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path, you have been able to hold on your way. Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once. Thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast — yield thyself as a living sacrifice, it is but thy reasonable service. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

777:Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive sign of sovereignty and strength. In other words, the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets someone who commands, who commands severely—a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience. From this one might perhaps gather that the two world religions, Buddhism and Christianity, may have owed their origin and above all their sudden spread to a tremendous collapse and disease of the will. And that is what actually happened: both religions encountered a situation in which the will had become diseased, giving rise to a demand that had become utterly desperate for some "thou shalt." Both religions taught fanaticism in ages in which the will had become exhausted, and thus they offered innumerable people some support, a new possibility of willing, some delight in willing. For fanaticism is the only "strength of the will" that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain, being a sort of hypnotism of the whole system of the senses and the intellect for the benefit of an excessive nourishment (hypertrophy) of a single point of view and feeling that henceforth becomes dominant— which the Christian calls his faith. Once a human being reaches the fundamental conviction that he must be commanded, he becomes "a believer." Conversely, one could conceive of such a pleasure and power of self-determination, such a freedom of the will [ This conception of "freedom of the will" ( alias, autonomy) does not involve any belief in what Nietzsche called "the superstition of free will" in section 345 ( alias, the exemption of human actions from an otherwise universal determinism).] that the spirit would take leave of all faith and every wish for certainty, being practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

778:David continued, “I recommend a twofold strategy: leave the highlands of Judah and the desert of Negeb to me. I will secure your interests in that region. Instead of your forces attacking the interior, which will draw the fullness of Saul’s forces into maximum conflict, I suggest you hit him on the periphery where you are strongest and he is weakest, on the flatlands of the Jezreel Valley up north.” Achish thought for a moment, then blurted out, “Brilliant!” Then he paused skeptically. “But that is quite a distance from our own stronghold.” “But it is flat plains all the way up the coast and inland to the city of Shunem. You could secure that whole region and therefore box Saul in from both north and south.” David felt like the reverse of the Serpent in the Garden, leading the real serpent with his own whispering rhetoric. Achish’s mind was not as sharp as usual under the influence of wine, but it was not blunted completely. “How many Philistine forces will you require? That might split my own strength in half.” “None, my lord.” “None?” This was looking better every moment to Achish. “I will not lie to you. Even though my men are rebels and dissidents from Saul, they are still Israelites, and they do not like fighting alongside Philistines. But they are loyal to me. So, if you give us our own city near the Negeb, and grant us a measure of independence, you need never fear an uprising. I will lead them in flash raids against Israelite clans in the far south to secure the desert territory. That way, they can work out their enmity with rival tribes, without feeling as if they are fighting for you.” Achish moaned with agreement, but eyed him suspiciously. “You will be outside the pentapolis.” “But still inside Philistia,” replied David. “Autonomy,” pondered Achish. “Under your sovereignty,” pandered David. “I will be at your beck and call. If Saul goes after me, Israel will be ripe for your taking. If he splits his forces against you and me, then you will still have an easy victory in the north. ~ Brian Godawa,

779:Slavery became a huge, international business, and of course would remain one down to the present moment. It’s estimated that at the midpoint of the fifth century every third or fourth person in Athens was a slave. When Carthage fell to Rome in 146 B.C.E., fifty thousand of the survivors were sold as slaves. In 132 B.C.E. some seventy thousand Roman slaves rebelled; when the revolt was put down, twenty thousand were crucified, but this was far from the end of Rome’s problems with its slaves.               But new signs of distress appeared in this period that were far more relevant to our purpose here tonight. For the first time in history, people were beginning to suspect that something fundamentally wrong was going on here. For the first time in history, people were beginning to feel empty, were beginning to feel that their lives were not amounting to enough, were beginning to wonder if this is all there is to life, were beginning to hanker after something vaguely more. For the first time in history, people began listening to religious teachers who promised them salvation.               It's impossible to overstate the novelty of this idea of salvation. Religion had been around in our culture for thousands of years, of course, but it had never been about salvation as we understand it or as the people of this period began to understand it. Earlier gods had been talismanic gods of kitchen and crop, mining and mist, house-painting and herding, stroked at need like lucky charms, and earlier religions had been state religions, part of the apparatus of sovereignty and governance (as is apparent from their temples, built for royal ceremonies, not for popular public devotions).               Judaism, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Buddhism all came into being during this period and had no existence before it. Quite suddenly, after six thousand years of totalitarian agriculture and civilization building, the people of our culture—East and West, twins of a single birth—were beginning to wonder if their lives made sense, were beginning to perceive a void in themselves that economic success and civil esteem could not fill, were beginning to imagine that something was profoundly, even innately, wrong with them. ~ Daniel Quinn,

780:Famine's Realm To him in whom the love of Nature has Imperfectly supplanted the desire And dread necessity of food, your shore, Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over all Your sunny level, from Tamaletown To where the Pestuary's fragrant slime, With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet, Broods the still menace of starvation. Bones Of men and women bleach along the ways And pampered vultures sleep upon the trees. It is a land of death, and Famine there Holds sovereignty; though some there be her sway Who challenge, and intrenched in larders live, Drawing their sustentation from abroad. But woe to him, the stranger! He shall die As die the early righteous in the bud And promise of their prime. He, venturesome To penetrate the wilds rectangular Of grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms, Frequented of the bee and of the blithe, Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afar From human habitation and is lost In mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him, And (careless man! deeming God's providence Extends so far) he has not wherewithal To bate its urgency. Then, lo! appears A mealery-a restaurant-a place Where poison battles famine, and the two, Like fish-hawks warring in the upper sky For that which one has taken from the deep, Manage between them to dispatch the prey. He enters and leaves hope behind. There ends His history. Anon his bones, clean-picked By buzzards (with the bones himself had picked, Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends, Of all felonious and deadlywise Devices of the Enemy of Souls, Planted along the ways of life to snare Man's mortal and immortal part alike, 261 The Oakland restaurant is chief. It lives That man may die. It flourishes that life May wither. Its foundation stones repose On human hearts and hopes. I've seen in it Crabs stewed in milk and salad offered up With dressing so unholily compound That it included flour and sugar! Yea, I've eaten dog there!-dog, as I'm a man, Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the pen And scrawls a tortured 'Finis' on the page. ~ Ambrose Bierce,

781:questioning the lawfulness of a long-standing State Department policy specifying that the birthplace of an American citizen born in Jerusalem be given as “Jerusalem” rather than “Israel or Jordan” in his passport.43 The courts were asked to review this policy in light of a congressional statute requiring the State Department to describe the birthplace as “Israel” if the citizen so wished. Did the statute unconstitutionally interfere with the President’s power to conduct foreign affairs?44 The lower courts had decided that the case presented an unreviewable political question.45 But the Supreme Court held to the contrary. All the justices but one (and I was the one) considered the matter of deciding what the statute meant and whether it was constitutional to be “a familiar judicial exercise.”46 My colleagues believed the courts should not avoid the question by invoking the “political question” doctrine.47 They consequently sent the case back to the lower court for a decision on the merits.48 Though alone, I saw the case differently. “In the Middle East,” I wrote, “administrative matters can have implications that extend far beyond the purely administrative.”49 The secretary of state had argued that requiring her to stamp the word Israel on a passport would represent an “official decision by the United States to begin to treat Jerusalem as a city” under Israeli sovereignty.50 She maintained that upholding the statute would have significant foreign policy implications (a conclusion that others denied). Because of our inability to know the answer to this kind of dispute, I concluded that the merits of the case raised a political question, which the other two branches should resolve between themselves.51 What matters for our purposes, however, is that the other members of the Court disagreed with me. They thought that, even there, the doctrine did not prevent the Court from reviewing the merits of this foreign policy-related question. The upshot is that neither the classical view of Cicero nor the “political question” doctrine prevents today’s Court from reaching, and deciding the merits of, many questions in which security and civil liberties collide. But there are other doctrines, embodied in other cases, that have had much the same effect. ~ Stephen G Breyer,

782:The Dead Czar LAY him beneath his snows, The great Norse giant who in these last days Troubled the nations. Gather decently The imperial robes about him. 'T is but man,-This demi-god. Or rather it was man, And is--a little dust that will corrupt As fast as any nameless dust which sleeps 'Neath Alma's grass or Balaklava's vines. No vineyard grave for him. No quiet tomb By river margin, where across the seas Children's fond thoughts and women's memories come Like angels, to sit by the sepulchre, Saying: 'All these were men who knew to count, Front-faced, the cost of honor, nor did shrink From its full payment: coming here to die, They died--like men.' But this man? Ah! for him Funereal state, and ceremonial grand, The stone-engraved sarcophagus, and then Oblivion. Nay, oblivion were as bliss To that fierce howl which rolls from land to land Exulting,--'Art thou fallen, Lucifer, Son of the morning?' or condemning,--'Thus Perish the wicked!' or blaspheming,--'Here Lies our Belshazzar, our Sennacherib, Our Pharaoh,--he whose heart God hardenèd, So that he would not let the people go.' Self-glorifying sinners! Why, this man Was but like other men:--you, Levite small, Who shut your saintly ears, and prate of hell And heretics, because outside church-doors, Your church-doors, congregations poor and small Praise Heaven in their own way;--you, autocrat Of all the hamlets, who add field to field 167 And house to house, whose slavish children cower Before your tyrant footstep;--you, foul-tongued Fanatic or ambitious egotist, Who thinks God stoops from His high majesty To lay His finger on your puny head, And crown it,--that you henceforth may parade Your maggotship throughout the wondering world,-'I am the Lord's anointed!' Fools and blind! This Czar, this emperor, this disthronèd corpse, Lying so straightly in an icy calm Grander than sovereignty, was but as ye,-No better and no worse;--Heaven mend us all! Carry him forth and bury him. Death's peace Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier Sits silent, or says only these few words,-'Let him who is without sin 'mongst ye all Cast the first stone.' ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,

783:The greatest advantage of polytheism. — For an individual to posit his own ideal and to derive from it his own law, joys, and rights — that may well have been considered hitherto as the most outrageous human aberration and as idolatry itself; indeed, the few who dared as much always felt the need to apologize to themselves, usually by saying: 'Not I! Not I! But a god through me.' The wonderful art and power of creating gods — polytheism — was that through which this drive could discharge itself, purify, perfect, and ennoble itself; for originally it was a base and undistinguished drive, related to stubbornness, disobedience, and envy. To be hostile to this drive to have one’s own ideal: that was formerly the law of every morality. There was only one norm: ‘the human being’— and every people believed itself to have this one and ultimate norm. But above and outside oneself, in some distant overworld, one was permitted to behold a plurality of norms; one god was not considered the denial or anathema to another god! Here for the first time one allowed oneself individuals; here one first honored the rights of individuals. The invention of gods, heroes, and overmen (Übermenschen) of all kinds, as well as deviant or inferior forms of humanoid life, undermen, dwarfs, fairies, centaurs, satyrs, demons, and devils, was the invaluable preliminary exercise for the justification of the egoism and sovereignty of the individual: the freedom that one conceded to a god in his relation to other gods one finally gave to oneself in relation to laws, customs, and neighbors. Monotheism, in contrast, this rigid consequence of the doctrine of one normal human type — that is, the belief in one normal god beside whom there are only pseudo-gods — was perhaps the greatest danger that has yet confronted humanity. It threatened us with the premature stagnation that, as far as we can see, most other species have long reached; for all of them believe in one normal type and ideal for their species, and they have translated the morality of custom definitively into their own flesh and blood. In polytheism the free-spiritedness and many-spiritedness of humanity received preliminary form — the power to create for ourselves our own new eyes and ever again new eyes that are ever more our own — so that for humans alone among the animals there are no eternal horizons and perspectives. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

784:Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices, Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions. All known nations have been happy and powerful to the extent that they have more faithfully obeyed this national reason, which is nothing other than the annihilation of individual dogmas and the absolute and general reign of national dogmas, that is to say, of useful prejudices. Let each man call upon his individual reason in the matter of religion, and immediately you will see the birth of an anarchy of belief or the annihilation of religious sovereignty. Likewise, if each man makes himself judge of the principles of government, you will at once see the birth of civil anarchy or the annihilation of political sovereignty. Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, and its ministers. To annihilate it or submit it to the discussion of each individual is the same thing; it lives only through national reason, that is to say through political faith, which is a creed. Man’s first need is that his nascent reason be curbed under this double yoke, that it be abased and lose itself in the national reason, so that it changes its individual existence into another common existence, just as a river that flows into the ocean always continues to exist in the mass of water, but without a name and without a distinct reality. ~ Joseph de Maistre,

785:If Marx had no time for the state, it was partly because he viewed it as a kind of alienated power. It was as though this august entity had confiscated the abilities of men and women to determine their own existence, and was now doing so on their behalf. It also had the impudence to call this process ‘‘democracy.’’ Marx himself began his career as a radical democrat and ended up as a revolutionary one, as he came to realize just how much transformation genuine democracy would entail; and it is as a democrat that he challenges the state’s sublime authority. He is too wholehearted a believer in popular sovereignty to rest content with the pale shadow of it known as parliamentary democracy. He is not in principle opposed to parliaments, any more than was Lenin. But he saw democracy as too precious to be entrusted to parliaments alone. It had to be local, popular and spread across all the institutions of civil society. It had to extend to economic as well as political life. It had to mean actual self-government, not government entrusted to a political elite. The state Marx approved of was the rule of citizens over themselves, not of a minority over a majority. The state, Marx considered, had come adrift from civil society. There was a blatant contradiction between the two. We were, for example, abstractly equal as citizens within the state, but dramatically unequal in everyday social existence. That social existence was riven with conflicts, but the state projected an image of it as seamlessly whole. The state saw itself as shaping society from above, but was in fact a product of it. Society did not stem from the state; instead, the state was a parasite on society. The whole setup was topsy-turvy. As one commentator puts it, ‘‘Democracy and capitalism have been turned upside down’’—meaning that instead of political institutions regulating capitalism, capitalism regulated them. The speaker is Robert Reich, a former U.S. labour secretary, who is not generally suspected of being a Marxist. Marx’s aim was to close this gap between state and society, politics and everyday life, by dissolving the former into the latter. And this is what he called democracy. Men and women had to reclaim in their daily lives the powers that the state had appropriated from them. Socialism is the completion of democracy, not the negation of it. It is hard to see why so many defenders of democracy should find this vision objectionable. ~ Terry Eagleton,

786:Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary. If nothing else, an examination of the past—and of the present, for that matter—can be instructive. It shows us that there is little shelter and little gain for Native peoples in doing nothing. So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. How important is it for us to maintain protected communal homelands? Are our traditions and languages worth the cost of carrying on the fight? Certainly the easier and more expedient option is simply to step away from who we are and who we wish to be, sell what we have for cash, and sink into the stewpot of North America. With the rest of the bones. No matter how you frame Native history, the one inescapable constant is that Native people in North America have lost much. We’ve given away a great deal, we’ve had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation. But this need not happen. Native cultures aren’t static. They’re dynamic, adaptive, and flexible, and for many of us, the modern variations of older tribal traditions continue to provide order, satisfaction, identity, and value in our lives. More than that, in the five hundred years of European occupation, Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient. Okay. That was heroic and uncomfortably inspirational, wasn’t it? Poignant, even. You can almost hear the trumpets and the violins. And that kind of romance is not what we need. It serves no one, and the cost to maintain it is too high. So, let’s agree that Indians are not special. We’re not … mystical. I’m fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms. ~ Thomas King,

787:reading :::    50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:    1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)    2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)    3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)    4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)    5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)    6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)    7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)    8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)    9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)    10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)    11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)    12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)    13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)    14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)    15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)    16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)    17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)    18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)    19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)    20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)    21. Heraclitus - Fragments (6th century)    22. David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)    23. William James - Pragmatism (1904)    24. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking: Fast and Slow (2011)    25. Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781)    26. Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (1843)    27. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity (1972)    28. Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)    29. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Theodicy (1710)    30. John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)    31. Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage (1967)    32. Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince (1532)    33. John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (1859)    34. Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)    35. Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good (1970)    36. Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886)    37. Blaise Pascal - Pensees (1670)    38. Plato - The Republic (4th century BC)    39. Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)    40. John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)    41. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)    42. Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness (1920)    43. Michael Sandel - Justice (2009)    44. Jean Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness (1943)    45. Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation (1818)    46. Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save (2009)    47. Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)    48. Nassim Nicholas - Taleb The Black Swan (2007)    49. Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (1953)    50. Slavoj Zizek - Living In The End Times (2010)    ~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Philosophy Classics,

788:What about me?’ said Grantaire. ‘I’m here.’ ‘You?’ ‘Yes, me.’ ‘You? Rally Republicans! You? In defence of principles, fire up hearts that have grown cold!’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Are you capable of being good for something?’ ‘I have the vague ambition to be,’ said Grantaire. ‘You don’t believe in anything.’ ‘I believe in you.’ ‘Grantaire, will you do me a favour?’ ‘Anything. Polish your boots.’ ‘Well, don’t meddle in our affairs. Go and sleep off the effects of your absinthe.’ ‘You’re heartless, Enjolras.’ ‘As if you’d be the man to send to the Maine gate! As if you were capable of it!’ ‘I’m capable of going down Rue des Grès, crossing Place St-Michel, heading off along Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, taking Rue de Vaugirard, passing the Carmelite convent, turning into Rue d’Assas, proceeding to Rue du Cherche-Midi, leaving the Military Court behind me, wending my way along Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, striding across the boulevard, following Chaussée du Maine, walking through the toll-gate and going into Richefeu’s. I’m capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.’ ‘Do you know them at all, those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?' ‘Not very well. But we’re on friendly terms.’ ‘What will you say to them?’ ‘I’ll talk to them about Robespierre, of course! And about Danton. About principles.’ ‘You?’ ‘Yes, me. But I’m not being given the credit I deserve. When I put my mind to it, I’m terrific. I’ve read Prudhomme, I’m familiar with the Social Contract, I know by heart my constitution of the year II. “The liberty of the citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.” Do you take me for a brute beast? I have in my drawer an old promissory note from the time of the Revolution. The rights of man, the sovereignty of the people, for God’s sake! I’m even a bit of an Hébertist. I can keep coming out with some wonderful things, watch in hand, for a whole six hours by the clock.’ ‘Be serious,’ said Enjolras. ‘I mean it,’ replied Grantaire. Enjolras thought for a few moments, and with the gesture of a man who had come to a decision, ‘Grantaire,’ he said gravely, ‘I agree to try you out. You’ll go to the Maine toll-gate.’ Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very close to Café Musain. He went out, and came back five minutes later. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre-style waistcoat. ‘Red,’ he said as he came in, gazing intently at Enjolras. Then, with an energetic pat of his hand, he pressed the two scarlet lapels of the waistcoat to his chest. And stepping close to Enjolras he said in his ear, ‘Don’t worry.’ He resolutely jammed on his hat, and off he went. ~ Victor Hugo,

789:American Indians share a magnificent history — rich in its astounding diversity, its integrity, its spirituality, its ongoing unique culture and dynamic tradition. It's also rich, I'm saddened to say, in tragedy, deceit, and genocide. Our sovereignty, our nationhood, our very identity — along with our sacred lands — have been stolen from us in one of the great thefts of human history. And I am referring not just to the thefts of previous centuries but to the great thefts that are still being perpetrated upon us today, at this very moment. Our human rights as indigenous peoples are being violated every day of our lives — and by the very same people who loudly and sanctimoniously proclaim to other nations the moral necessity of such rights. Over the centuries our sacred lands have been repeatedly and routinely stolen from us by the governments and peoples of the United States and Canada. They callously pushed us onto remote reservations on what they thought was worthless wasteland, trying to sweep us under the rug of history. But today, that so-called wasteland has surprisingly become enormously valuable as the relentless technology of white society continues its determined assault on Mother Earth. White society would now like to terminate us as peoples and push us off our reservations so they can steal our remaining mineral and oil resources. It's nothing new for them to steal from nonwhite peoples. When the oppressors succeed with their illegal thefts and depredations, it's called colonialism. When their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples are met with resistance or anything but abject surrender, it's called war. When the colonized peoples attempt to resist their oppression and defend themselves, we're called criminals. I write this book to bring about a greater understanding of what being an Indian means, of who we are as human beings. We're not quaint curiosities or stereotypical figures in a movie, but ordinary — and, yes, at times, extraordinary — human beings. Just like you. We feel. We bleed. We are born. We die. We aren't stuffed dummies in front of a souvenir shop; we aren't sports mascots for teams like the Redskins or the Indians or the Braves or a thousand others who steal and distort and ridicule our likeness. Imagine if they called their teams the Washington Whiteskins or the Washington Blackskins! Then you'd see a protest! With all else that's been taken from us, we ask that you leave us our name, our self-respect, our sense of belonging to the great human family of which we are all part. Our voice, our collective voice, our eagle's cry, is just beginning to be heard. We call out to all of humanity. Hear us! ~ Leonard Peltier,

790:I have talked with many pastors whose real struggle isn’t first with the hardship of ministry, the lack of appreciation and involvement of people, or difficulties with fellow leaders. No, the real struggle they are having, one that is very hard for a pastor to admit, is with God. What is caused to ministry become hard and burdensome is disappointment and anger at God. We have forgotten that pastoral ministry is war and that you will never live successfully in the pastorate if you live with the peacetime mentality. Permit me to explain. The fundamental battle of pastoral ministry is not with the shifting values of the surrounding culture. It is not the struggle with resistant people who don't seem to esteem the Gospel. It is not the fight for the success of ministries of the church. And is not the constant struggle of resources and personnel to accomplish the mission. No, the war of the pastor is a deeply personal war. It is far on the ground of the pastor’s heart. It is a war values, allegiances, and motivations. It's about the subtle desires and foundational dreams. This war is the greatest threat to every pastor. Yet it is a war that we often naïvely ignore or quickly forget in the busyness of local church ministry. When you forget the Gospel, you begin to seek from the situations, locations and relationships of ministry what you already have been given in Christ. You begin to look to ministry for identity, security, hope, well-being, meeting, and purpose. These things are already yours in Christ. In ways of which you are not always aware, your ministry is always shaped by what is in functional control of your heart. The fact of the matter is that many pastors become awe numb or awe confused, or they get awe kidnapped. Many pastors look at glory and don't seek glory anymore. Many pastors are just cranking out because they don't know what else to do. Many pastors preach a boring, uninspiring gospel that makes you wonder why people aren't sleeping their way through it. Many pastors are better at arguing fine points of doctrine than stimulating divine wonder. Many pastors see more stimulated by the next ministry, vision of the next step in strategic planning than by the stunning glory of the grand intervention of grace into sin broken hearts. The glories of being right, successful, in control, esteemed, and secure often become more influential in the way that ministry is done than the awesome realities of the presence, sovereignty, power, and love of God. Mediocrity is not a time, personnel, resource, or location problem. Mediocrity is a heart problem. We have lost our commitment to the highest levels of excellence because we have lost our awe. ~ Paul David Tripp,

791:This is what sin does to us all. At a deep and often unnoticed level, sin replaces worship of God with worship of self. It replaces submission with self-rule. It replaces gratitude with demands for more. It replaces faith with self-reliance. It replaces vertical joy with horizontal envy. It replaces a rest in God’s sovereignty with a quest for personal control. We live for our glory. We set up our rules. We ask others to serve our agenda. We curse whatever gets in our way. We hate having to wait. We get upset when we have to go without. We strike back when we think we have been wronged. We do all we can to satisfy our cravings. We think too much about our own pleasure. We envy those who have what we think we deserve. We pout when we think we have been overlooked. We hate suffering of any kind. We manipulate others for our own good. We attempt to work ourselves into positions of power and control. We are obsessed about what is best for us. We demand more than we serve, and we take more than we give. We long to be first and hate being last. We are all too concerned with being right, being noticed, and being affirmed. We find it easier to judge those who have offended us than to forgive them. We require life to be predictable, satisfying, and easy. We do all these things because we are full of ourselves, in awe more of ourselves than of God. This is what Paul is talking about when he writes that Christ “died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves” (2 Cor. 5:15). Here we see the great replacement again. It is what sin does to us all; no longer living for God, we live for ourselves. The myriad of dysfunctions of the human community can be traced to this one thing: awe. When we replace vertical awe of God with awe of self, bad things happen in the horizontal community. You see it played out in a thousand ways every day. If you listen, you will discover that the universal language of sinners in this broken world is complaint. When you’re at the center, when you feel entitled, when your desires dominate your heart, and when it really is all about you, you will have much to complain about. It is amazing how much more natural complaint is for us than thanks or how much more we tend to grumble than we tend to praise. We talk much more about what we want than about what we have been given. Notice how much we compare what we have to what others have and how little of the time we are satisfied. Listen to people very long, and you’ll hear the drone of complaint far more frequently than you’ll hear the melody of thankfulness. You see, we don’t first have a grumbling problem. No, we have an awe problem that results in a life of personal dissatisfaction and complaint. When awe of self replaces awe of God, praise will be rare and grumbling plentiful. ~ Paul David Tripp,

792:RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER: Why then I do but dream on sovereignty, Like one that stands upon a promontory And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, Wishing his foot were equal with his eye, And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, Saying, he'll lade it dry to have his way: So do I wish the crown, being so far off, And so I chide the means that keeps me from it, And so, I say, I'll cut the causes off, Flattering me with impossibilities, My eye's too quick, my hear o'erweens too much, Unless my hand and strength could equal them. Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard; What other pleasure can the world afford? I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap, And deck my body in gay ornaments, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. O miserable thought! and more unlikely Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns! Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb; And for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub, To make an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; To shape my legs of an unequal size, To disproportion me in every part, Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam. And am I then a man to be belov'd? O monstrous fault, to harbor such a thought! Then since this earth affords no joy to me But to command, to check, to o'erbear such As are of better person than myself, I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown, And whiles I live, t' account this world but hell, Until my misshap'd trunk that bears this head Be round impaled with a glorious crown. And yet I know not how to get the crown, For many lives stand between me and home; And I - like one lost in a thorny wood, That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns, Seeking a way, and straying from the way, Not knowing how to find the open air, But toiling desperately to find it out - Torment myself to catch the English crown; And from that torment I will free myself, Or hew my way out with a bloody axe. Why, I can smile, and murther whiles I smile, And cry "Content" to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions. I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall, I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk, I'll play the orator as well as Nestor, Deceive more slily than Ulysses could, And like a Simon, take another Troy. I can add colors to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, And set the murtherous Machevil to school. Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down. ~ William Shakespeare,

793:When a boy grows up in a “dysfunctional” family (perhaps there is no other kind of family), his interior warriors will be killed off early. Warriors, mythologically, lift their swords to defend the king. The King in a child stands for and stands up for the child’s mood. But when we are children our mood gets easily overrun and swept over in the messed-up family by the more powerful, more dominant, more terrifying mood of the parent. We can say that when the warriors inside cannot protect our mood from being disintegrated, or defend our body from invasion, the warriors collapse, go into trance, or die. The inner warriors I speak of do not cross the boundary aggressively; they exist to defend the boundary. The Fianna, that famous band of warriors who defended Ireland’s borders, would be a model. The Fianna stayed out all spring and summer watching the boundaries, and during the winter came in. But a typical child has no such protection. If a grown-up moves to hit a child, or stuff food into the child’s mouth, there is no defense—it happens. If the grown-up decides to shout, and penetrate the child’s auditory boundaries by sheer violence, it happens. Most parents invade the child’s territory whenever they wish, and the child, trying to maintain his mood by crying, is simply carried away, mood included. Each child lives deep inside his or her own psychic house, or soul castle, and the child deserves the right of sovereignty inside that house. Whenever a parent ignores the child’s sovereignty, and invades, the child feels not only anger, but shame. The child concludes that if it has no sovereignty, it must be worthless. Shame is the name we give to the sense that we are unworthy and inadequate as human beings. Gershen Kauffman describes that feeling brilliantly in his book, Shame, and Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason in their book, Facing Shame, extend Kauffman’s work into the area of family shame systems and how they work. When our parents do not respect our territory at all, their disrespect seems overwhelming proof of our inadequacy. A slap across the face pierces deeply, for the face is the actual boundary of our soul, and we have been penetrated. If a grown-up decides to cross our sexual boundaries and touch us, there is nothing that we as children can do about it. Our warriors die. The child, so full of expectation of blessing whenever he or she is around an adult, stiffens with shock, and falls into the timeless fossilized confusion of shame. What is worse, one sexual invasion, or one beating, usually leads to another, and the warriors, if revived, die again. When a boy grows up in an alcoholic family, his warriors get swept into the river by a vast wave of water, and they struggle there, carried downriver. The child, boy or girl, unprotected, gets isolated, and has more in common with snow geese than with people. ~ Robert Bly,

794:The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul. For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed. It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now. What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ Anonymous,

795:On television and on the front pages of the major newspapers, Trump clearly seemed to be losing the election. Each new woman who came forward with charges of misbehavior became a focal point of coverage, coupled with Trump’s furious reaction, his ever darkening speeches, and the accompanying suggestion that they were dog whistles aimed at racists and anti-Semites. “Trump’s remarks,” one Washington Post story explained, summing up the media’s outlook, “were laced with the kind of global conspiracies and invective common in the writings of the alternative-right, white-nationalist activists who see him as their champion. Some critics also heard echoes of historical anti-Semitic slurs in Trump’s allegations that Clinton ‘meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty’ and that media and financial elites were part of a soulless cabal.” This outlook, which Clinton’s campaign shared, gave little consideration to the possibility that voters might be angry at large banks, international organizations, and media and financial elites for reasons other than their basest prejudices. This was the axis on which Bannon’s nationalist politics hinged: the belief that, as Marine Le Pen put it, “the dividing line is [no longer] between left and right but globalists and patriots.” Even as he lashed out at his accusers and threatened to jail Clinton, Trump’s late-campaign speeches put his own stamp on this idea. As he told one rally: “There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. From now on, it’s going to be ‘America first.’” Anyone steeped in Guénon’s Traditionalism would recognize the terrifying specter Trump conjured of marauding immigrants, Muslim terrorists, and the collapse of national sovereignty and identity as the descent of a Dark Age—the Kali Yuga. For the millions who were not familiar with it, Trump’s apocalyptic speeches came across as a particularly forceful expression of his conviction that he understood their deep dissatisfaction with the political status quo and could bring about a rapid renewal. Whether it was a result of Trump’s apocalyptic turn, disgust at the Clintons, or simply accuser fatigue—it was likely a combination of all three—the pattern of slippage in the wake of negative news was less pronounced in Trump’s internal surveys in mid-October. Overall, he still trailed. But the data were noisy. In some states (Indiana, New Hampshire, Arizona) his support eroded, but in others (Florida, Ohio, Michigan) it actually improved. When Trump held his own at the third and final debate on October 19, the numbers inched up further. The movement was clear enough that Nate Silver and other statistical mavens began to take note of it. “Is the Presidential Race Tightening?” he asked in the title of an October 26 article. Citing Trump’s rising favorability numbers among Republicans and red-state trend lines, he cautiously concluded that probably it was. By November 1, he had no doubt. “Yes, Donald Trump Has a Path to Victory” read the headline for his column that day, in which he ~ Joshua Green,

796:If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary); he acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle. … Obedience to a person, institution or power (heteronomous obedience) is submission; it implies the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptance of a foreign will or judgment in place of my own. Obedience to my own reason or conviction (autonomous obedience) is not an act of submission but one of affirmation. My conviction and my judgment, if authentically mine, are part of me. If I follow them rather than the judgment of others, I am being myself; (p. 6) In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err and to sin. ... …; hence any social, political, and religious system which proclaims freedom, yet stamps out disobedience, cannot speak the truth. (p. 8) At this point in history the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization. (p. 10) It is the function of the prophet to show reality, to show alternatives and to protest; it is his function to call loudly, to awake man from his customary half-slumber. It is the historical situation which makes prophets, not the wish of some men to be prophets. (p. 12) Disobedience, then, in the sense in which we use it here, is an act of the affirmation of reason and will. It is not primarily an attitude directed against something, but for something: for man’s capacity to see, to say what he sees, and to refuse to say what he does not see (p. 17) That which was the greatest criticism of socialism fifty years ago—that it would lead to uniformity, bureaucratization, centralization, and a soulless materialism—is a reality of today’s capitalism. (p. 31) Man, instead of being the master of the machines he has built, has become their servant. But man is not made to be a thing, and with all the satisfactions of consumption, the life forces in man cannot be held in abeyance continuously. We have only one choice, and that is mastering the machine again, making production into a means and not an end, using it for the unfolding of man—or else the suppressed life energies will manifest themselves in chaotic and destructive forms. Man will want to destroy life rather than die of boredom. (p. 32) The supreme loyalty of man must be to the human race and to the moral principles of humanism. (p. 38) The individual must be protected from fear and the need to submit to anyone’s coercion. (p. 42) Not only in the sphere of political decisions, but with regard to all decisions and arrangements, the grip of the bureaucracy must be broken in order to restore freedom. (p. 42) According to its basic principles, the aim of socialism is the abolition of national sovereignty, the abolition of any kind of armed forces, and the establishment of a commonwealth of nations. (p. 43) It is exactly the weakness of contemporary society that it offers no ideals, that it demands no faith, that it has no vision—except that of more of the same. (p. 49) Socialism must be radical. To be radical is to go to the roots; and the root is Man. (p. 49) ~ Erich Fromm,

797:LEAD PEOPLE TO COMMITMENT We have seen that nonbelievers in worship actually “close with Christ” in two basic ways: some may come to Christ during the service itself (1 Cor 14:24 – 25), while others must be “followed up with” by means of after-service meetings. Let’s take a closer look at both ways of leading people to commitment. It is possible to lead people to a commitment to Christ during the service. One way of inviting people to receive Christ is to make a verbal invitation as the Lord’s Supper is being distributed. At our church, we say it this way: “If you are not in a saving relationship with God through Christ today, do not take the bread and the cup, but as they come around, take Christ. Receive him in your heart as those around you receive the food. Then immediately afterward, come up and tell an officer or a pastor about what you’ve done so we can get you ready to receive the Supper the next time as a child of God.” Another way to invite commitment during the service is to give people a time of silence or a period of musical interlude after the sermon. This affords people time to think and process what they have heard and to offer themselves to God in prayer. In many situations, it is best to invite people to commitment through after-meetings. Acts 2 gives an example. Inverses 12 and 13 we are told that some folks mocked after hearing the apostles praise and preach, but others were disturbed and asked, “What does this mean?” Then, we see that Peter very specifically explained the gospel and, in response to the follow-up question “What shall we do?” (v. 37), he explained how to become a Christian. Historically, many preachers have found it effective to offer such meetings to nonbelievers and seekers immediately after evangelistic worship. Convicted seekers have just come from being in the presence of God and are often the most teachable and open at this time. To seek to “get them into a small group” or even to merely return next Sunday is asking a lot. They may also be “amazed and perplexed” (Acts 2:12), and it is best to strike while the iron is hot. This should not be understood as doubting that God is infallibly drawing people to himself (Acts 13:48; 16:14). Knowing the sovereignty of God helps us to relax as we do evangelism, knowing that conversions are not dependent on our eloquence. But it should not lead us to ignore or minimize the truth that God works through secondary causes. The Westminster Confession (5.2 – 3), for example, tells us that God routinely works through normal social and psychological processes. Therefore, inviting people into a follow-up meeting immediately after the worship service can often be more conducive to conserving the fruit of the Word. After-meetings may take the shape of one or more persons waiting at the front of the auditorium to pray with and talk with seekers who wish to make inquiries right on the spot. Another way is to host a simple Q&A session with the preacher in or near the main auditorium, following the postlude. Or offer one or two classes or small group experiences targeted to specific questions non-Christians ask about the content, relevance, and credibility of the Christian faith. Skilled lay evangelists should be present who can come alongside newcomers, answer spiritual questions, and provide guidance for their next steps. ~ Timothy J Keller,

798:To my great distress, I sometimes hear people say, in their zeal for fervency and efficacy in prayer, that we should never qualify our prayer requests with the words "if it be Your will." Some will even say that to attach those words, those conditional terms, to our prayers is an act of unbelief. We are told today that in the boldness of faith we are to "name it and claim it." I suppose I should be more measured in my response to this trend, but I can't think of anything more foreign to the teaching of Christ. We come to the presence of God in boldness, but never in arrogance. Yes, we can name and claim those things God has clearly promised in Scripture. For instance, we can claim the certainty of forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him, because He promises that. But when it comes to getting a raise, purchasing a home, or finding healing from a disease, God hasn't made those kind of specific promises anywhere in Scripture, so we are not free to name and claim those things. As I mentioned earlier, when we come before God, we must remember two simple facts-who He is and who we are. We must remember that we're talking to the King, the Sovereign One, the Creator, but we are only creatures. If we will keep those facts in mind, we will pray politely. We will say, "By Your leave," "As You wish," "If You please," and so on. That's the way we go before God. To say that it is a manifestation of unbelief or a weakness of faith to say to God "if it be Your will" is to slander the very Lord of the Lord's Prayer. It was Jesus, after all, who, in His moment of greatest passion, prayed regarding the will of God. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that immediately following the Last Supper: Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44) It is important to see what Jesus prays here. He says, "Not My will, but Yours, be done." Jesus was not saying, "I don't want to be obedient" or "I refuse to submit." Jesus was saying: "Father, if there's any other way, all things being equal, I would rather not have to do it this way. What You have set before Me is more ghastly than I can contemplate. I'm entering into My grand passion and I'm terrified, but if this is what You want, this is what I'll do. Not My will, but Your will, be done, because My will is to do Your will." I also want you to notice what happened after Jesus prayed. Luke tells us that an angel came to Him and strengthened Him. The angel was the messenger of God. He came from heaven with the Father's answer to Jesus' prayer. That answer was this: "You must drink the cup." This is what it means to pray that the will of God would be done. It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no. It takes no faith to "claim," like a robber, something that is not ours to claim. We are to come to God and tell Him what we want, but we must trust Him to give the answer that is best for us. That is what Jesus did. ~ R C Sproul,

799:Religion, then, is far from "useless." It humanizes violence; it protects man from his own violence by taking it out of his hands, transforming it into a transcendent and ever-present danger to be kept in check by the appropriate rites appropriately observed and by a modest and prudent demeanor. Religious misinterpretation is a truly constructive force, for it purges man of the suspicions that would poison his existence if he were to remain conscious of the crisis as it actually took place. To think religiously is to envision the city's destiny in terms of that violence whose mastery over man increases as man believes he has gained mastery over it. To think religiously (in the primitive sense) is to see violence as something superhuman, to be kept always at a distance and ultimately renounced. When the fearful adoration of this power begins to diminish and all distinctions begin to disappear, the ritual sacrifices lose their force; their potency is not longer recognized by the entire community. Each member tries to correct the situation individually, and none succeeds. The withering away of the transcendental influence means that there is no longer the slightest difference between a desire to save the city and unbridled ambition, between genuine piety and the desire to claim divine status for oneself. Everyone looks on a rival enterprise as evidence of blasphemous designs. Men set to quarreling about the gods, and their skepticism leads to a new sacrificial crisis that will appear - retrospectively, in the light of a new manifestation of unanimous violence - as a new act of divine intervention and divine revenge. Men would not be able to shake loose the violence between them, to make of it a separate entity both sovereign and redemptory, without the surrogate victim. Also, violence itself offers a sort of respite, the fresh beginning of a cycle of ritual after a cycle of violence. Violence will come to an end only after it has had the last word and that word has been accepted as divine. The meaning of this word must remain hidden, the mechanism of unanimity remain concealed. For religion protects man as long as its ultimate foundations are not revealed. To drive the monster from its secret lair is to risk loosing it on mankind. To remove men's ignorance is only to risk exposing them to an even greater peril. The only barrier against human violence is raised on misconception. In fact, the sacrificial crisis is simply another form of that knowledge which grows grater as the reciprocal violence grows more intense but which never leads to the whole truth. It is the knowledge of violence, along with the violence itself, that the act of expulsion succeeds in shunting outside the realm of consciousness. From the very fact that it belies the overt mythological messages, tragic drama opens a vast abyss before the poet; but he always draws back at the last moment. He is exposed to a form of hubris more dangerous than any contracted by his characters; it has to do with a truth that is felt to be infinitely destructive, even if it is not fully understood - and its destructiveness is as obvious to ancient religious thought as it is to modern philosophers. Thus we are dealing with an interdiction that still applies to ourselves and that modern thought has not yet invalidated. The fact that this secret has been subjected to exceptional pressure in the play [Bacchae] must prompt the following lines: May our thoughts never aspire to anything higher than laws! What does it cost man to acknowledge the full sovereignty of the gods? That which has always been held as true owes its strength to Nature. ~ Ren Girard,

800:Greece can balance its books without killing democracy Alexis Tsipras | 614 words OPINION Greece changes on January 25, the day of the election. My party, Syriza, guarantees a new social contract for political stability and economic security. We offer policies that will end austerity, enhance democracy and social cohesion and put the middle class back on its feet. This is the only way to strengthen the eurozone and make the European project attractive to citizens across the continent. We must end austerity so as not to let fear kill democracy. Unless the forces of progress and democracy change Europe, it will be Marine Le Pen and her far-right allies that change it for us. We have a duty to negotiate openly, honestly and as equals with our European partners. There is no sense in each side brandishing its weapons. Let me clear up a misperception: balancing the government’s budget does not automatically require austerity. A Syriza government will respect Greece’s obligation, as a eurozone member, to maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets. However, it is a fundamental matter of democracy that a newly elected government decides on its own how to achieve those goals. Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are. If the Greek people entrust us with their votes, implementing our economic programme will not be a “unilateral” act, but a democratic obligation. Is there any logical reason to continue with a prescription that helps the disease metastasise? Austerity has failed in Greece. It crippled the economy and left a large part of the workforce unemployed. This is a humanitarian crisis. The government has promised the country’s lenders that it will cut salaries and pensions further, and increase taxes in 2015. But those commitments only bind Antonis Samaras’s government which will, for that reason, be voted out of office on January 25. We want to bring Greece to the level of a proper, democratic European country. Our manifesto, known as the Thessaloniki programme, contains a set of fiscally balanced short-term measures to mitigate the humanitarian crisis, restart the economy and get people back to work. Unlike previous governments, we will address factors within Greece that have perpetuated the crisis. We will stand up to the tax-evading economic oligarchy. We will ensure social justice and sustainable growth, in the context of a social market economy. Public debt has risen to a staggering 177 per cent of gross domestic product. This is unsustainable; meeting the payments is very hard. On existing loans, we demand repayment terms that do not cause recession and do not push the people to more despair and poverty. We are not asking for new loans; we cannot keep adding debt to the mountain. The 1953 London Conference helped Germany achieve its postwar economic miracle by relieving the country of the burden of its own past errors. (Greece was among the international creditors who participated.) Since austerity has caused overindebtedness throughout Europe, we now call for a European debt conference, which will likewise give a strong boost to growth in Europe. This is not an exercise in creating moral hazard. It is a moral duty. We expect the European Central Bank itself to launch a full-blooded programme of quantitative easing. This is long overdue. It should be on a scale great enough to heal the eurozone and to give meaning to the phrase “whatever it takes” to save the single currency. Syriza will need time to change Greece. Only we can guarantee a break with the clientelist and kleptocratic practices of the political and economic elites. We have not been in government; we are a new force that owes no allegiance to the past. We will make the reforms that Greece actually needs. The writer is leader of Syriza, the Greek oppositionparty ~ Anonymous,

801:But Muslims now find themselves in a world shaped by western theories and western values. If we are to consider how Islamic communities conducted their affairs throughout the greater part of their history, it may be convenient to compare and contrast this way of life with the contemporary western model. Today the Muslims are urged to embrace democracy and are condemned for political corruption, while western scholars debate whether Islam can ever accommodate the democratic ideal. On the whole, they think not. Democracy, they believe, is a sign of political maturity and therefore of superiority. Western societies, since they are seen as democratic, exemplify this superiority. So there is one question that has to be pressed home: what, precisely, is meant by democracy? Let me put forward an imaginary Arab who knows nothing of western ways but would like to learn about them. He is aware that the literal meaning of the word democracy is "mob rule", but understands that this is not what westerners mean by it. He wonders how this meaning has, in practice, been modified and, since his questions are directed to an Englishman, he is not altogether surprised to be told that Britain is the exemplary democracy. He learns that the people—all except children, lunatics and peers of the realm—send their representatives to Parliament to speak for them. He is assured that these representatives never accept bribes to vote against their consciences or against the wishes of their constituents. He enquires further and is astonished to learn that the political parties employ what are known as Whips, who compel members to vote in accordance with the party line, even if this conflicts both with their consciences and with the views of the people who elected them. In this case it is not money but ambition for office that determines the way they vote. "But is this not corruption?" he asks naively. The Englishman is shocked. "But at least the party in power represents the vast majority of the electorate?" This time the Englishman is a little embarrassed. It is not quite like that. The governing party, which enjoys absolute power through its dominance in the House of Commons, represents only a minority of the electorate. "Are there no restraints on this power?" There used to be, he is told. In the past there was a balance between the Crown, the House of Lords and the Commons, but that was seen as an undemocratic system so it was gradually eroded. The "sovereignty" of the Lower House is now untrammelled (except, quite recently, by unelected officials in Brussels). "So this is what democracy means?" Our imaginary Arab is baffled. He investigates further and is told that, in the 1997 General Election, the British people spoke with one voice, loud and clear. A landslide victory gave the Leader of the Labour Party virtually dictatorial powers. Then he learns that the turn-out of electors was the lowest since the war. Even so, the Party received only forty-three per cent of the votes cast. He wonders if this can be the system which others wish to impose on his own country. He is aware that various freedoms, including freedom of the press, are essential components of a democratic society, but no one can tell him how these are to be guaranteed if the Ruler, supported by a supine—"disciplined"—House of Commons enjoys untrammelled authority. He knows a bit about rulers and the way in which they deal with dissent, and he suspects that human nature is much the same everywhere. Barriers to oppression soon fall when a political system eliminates all "checks and balances" and, however amiable the current Ruler may be, there is no certainty that his successors, inheriting all the tools of power, will be equally benign. He turns now to an American and learns, with some relief since he himself has experienced the oppression of absolutism, that the American system restrains the power of the President by that of the Congress and the Supreme Court; moreover, the electe ~ Anonymous,

802:By The Waters Of Babylon Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone; The curse is come upon me, and I waste In penal torment powerless to atone. The curse is come on me, which makes no haste And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud Hard man and him the sinner double-faced. Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed Within me, as my body in this mire; My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore-bested and cowed. As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire, As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal, So we the elect ones perish in His ire. Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel With famished faces toward Jerusalem: His heart is shut against us not to feel, His ears against our cry He shutteth them, His hand He shorteneth that He will not save, His law is loud against us to condemn: And we, as unclean bodies in the grave Inheriting corruption and the dark, Are outcast from His presence which we crave. Our Mercy hath departed from His Ark, Our Glory hath departed from His rest, Our Shield hath left us naked as a mark Unto all pitiless eyes made manifest. Our very Father hath forsaken us, Our God hath cast us from Him: we oppressed Unto our foes are even marvellous, A hissing and a butt for pointing hands, Whilst God Almighty hunts and grinds us thus; For He hath scattered us in alien lands, Our priests, our princes, our anointed king, And bound us hand and foot with brazen bands. Here while I sit my painful heart takes wing Home to the home-land I must see no more, Where milk and honey flow, where waters spring And fail not, where I dwelt in days of yore Under my fig-tree and my fruitful vine, There where my parents dwelt at ease before: 109 Now strangers press the olives that are mine, Reap all the corners of my harvest-field, And make their fat hearts wanton with my wine; To them my trees, to them my garden yield Their sweets and spices and their tender green, O'er them in noontide heat outspread their shield. Yet these are they whose fathers had not been Housed with my dogs, whom hip and thigh we smote And with their blood washed their pollutions clean, Purging the land which spewed them from its throat; Their daughters took we for a pleasant prey, Choice tender ones on whom the fathers doat. Now they in turn have led our own away; Our daughters and our sisters and our wives Sore weeping as they weep who curse the day, To live, remote from help, dishonoured lives, Soothing their drunken masters with a song, Or dancing in their golden tinkling gyves: Accurst if they remember through the long Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed If they forget and join the accursed throng. How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst When I remember that my way was plain, And that God's candle lit me at the first, Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain, Desiring but to find Him Who is lost, To find Him once again, but once again. His wrath came on us to the uttermost, His covenanted and most righteous wrath: Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast, Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path, Who swept the Red Sea dry before our feet, Who in His jealousy smote kings, and hath Sworn once to David: One shall fill thy seat Born of thy body, as the sun and moon 'Stablished for aye in sovereignty complete. O Lord, remember David, and that soon. The Glory hath departed, Ichabod! Yet now, before our sun grow dark at noon, Before we come to nought beneath Thy rod, Before we go down quick into the pit, Remember us for good, O God, our God:— 110 Thy Name will I remember, praising it, Though Thou forget me, though Thou hide Thy face, And blot me from the Book which Thou hast writ; Thy Name will I remember in my praise And call to mind Thy faithfulness of old, Though as a weaver Thou cut off my days, And end me as a tale ends that is told. ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,

803:A Song For Peace And Honour TO THE QUEEN LADY and Queen, for whom our laurels twine, Upon whose head the glories of our land In one immortal diadem are met, Embodied England, in whose woman-hand The sceptre of Imperial sway is set, Receive this song of mine! For you are England, and her bays grow green To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace, And in our hearts your face is as Her face; The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen. We, men of England, children of her might, With all our Mother's record-roll of glory, Great with her greatness, noble by her name, Drank with our mothers' milk our Mother's story, And in our veins the splendour of her fame Made strong our blood and bright; And to her absent sons her name has been Familiar music heard in distant lands, Heart of our heart and sinews of our hands, England, our Mother, our Mistress and our Queen! Out of the thunderous echoes of the past Through the gold-dust of centuries we hear Her voice, 'O children of a royal line, Sons of her heart, whom England holdeth dear, Mine was the Past--make ye the future mine All glorious to the last!' And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men, And men to heroes, and the voice of fear Is as a whisper in a deaf man's ear, And the dead past is quick in us again. Her robe is woven of glory and renown, 25 Hers are the golden-laden Argosies, And lordship of the wild and watery ways, Her flag is blown across the utmost seas: Dead nations built her throne, and kingdoms blaze For jewels in her crown. Her Empire like a girdle doth enfold The world; her feet upon her foes are set; She wears the steel-wrought, blood-bright amulet Won by her children in the days of old. Yet in a treasury of such gems as these Which power and sovereignty and kingship fill To the vast limit of the circling sun, England, our Mother, in her heart holds still, As her most precious jewel, save only one, The priceless pearl of peace-Peace plucked from out the very heart of war Through the long agony of strenuous years, Made pure by blood and sanctified by tears, A pearl to lie where England's treasures are. O peaceful English lanes all white with may, O English meadows where the grass grows tall, O red-roofed village, field and farm and fold Where the long shadows of the elm-trees fall On the wide pastures which the sun calls gold And twilit dew calls gray;-These are the home, the happy cradle-place Of every man who has our English tongue, Sprung from those loins from which our sires have sprung, Heirs of the glory of our mighty race! Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth: Shall Peace, our pearl, by us be cast aside? Is it not more to us than all things are? Nay, Peace is precious as the world is wide, But England's honour is more precious far Than all the heavens and earth. Were honour outcast from her supreme place 26 Our pearl of Peace no more a pearl would shine, But, trampled under-foot of cowards and swine, Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace. Know then, O ye our brothers over sea, We will not cast our pearl of Peace away, But, holding it, we wait; and if, at last, The whole world came against us in array, If all our glory into darkness passed, Our Empire ceased to be, Yet should we still have chosen the better part Though in the dust our kingdoms were cast down, Though lost were every jewel in our crown We still should wear our jewel in our heart. So, for our Mother's honour, if it must Let Peace be lost, but lost the worthier way; Not trampled down, but given, for her sake Who forged of many an iron yesterday The golden song that gold-tongued fame shall wake When we are dust, in dust: For brotherhood and strife and praise and blame And all the world, even to our very land, Weighed in the balance, are as a grain of sand Against the honour of our English name! ~ Edith Nesbit,

804:Love Motives To You. SO you have come at last! And we nestle, each in each, As leans the pliant sea in the clean-curved limbs of her lover the beach; Merged in each other quite, Clinging, as in the tresses of trees dallies the troubadour night; Faint as a perfume, soft as wine, Yielding as moonlight—mine, all mine— So I have found you at last! I dreamed; we dare not meet: The time is yet too soon; Swept with the tumult of perfect love, our souls from this life would swoon— For the fusion of our lives Is the sole great goal to which the vast creation vaguely drives; And only when I kiss your face Shall the last great trumpet shatter Space— I dreamed; we dare not meet! Yet somewhere, hungry-eyed, You lie and listen with tears, Clogged with the flesh, and dulled with the sodden heritage of the years. And I am alien, lone, Hedged with the palisades of self, shut in—a soul unknown. You, fashioned for me from Time's first day, I, moulded for you ere that dawn was grey, Wait hidden, hungry-eyed! I lie in the lonely night; And you?—perhaps so near That if I should whisper your sweet soul-name you would joyously leap and hear! And yet perhaps so far, Drowned in the cosmic mist beyond the swirl of the farthest star; But over the universe yawning between, With wistful eyes you listen and lean, Alone in the lonely night! Perhaps your thirsty arms Some stranger youth entwine, And you will yield him thin, faint kisses, thinking his lips are mine; He thinking that unawares 46 He has caught, as once in a dream he caught, that miracle-glance of hers. The pathos of the thing that seems! Each clasping memories, kissing dreams. In passionate-thirsty arms! So you will yearn through life, Or maybe you did not wait: You married him, and his neutral smile you learnt to sullenly hate; Or you have lived a lie, And drank the mockery of his lips, believing that he was I. You dreamed, content that you loved him true, But the soul of your soul was dead to you— So I must yearn through life! Or, starving and passionate still, To your dreams you were bravely true; You told the Night your secrets drear, and he laughed back at you; And even when you dreamed You heard his merciless laughter ring, and you sprang awake and screamed; Till Age kissed you with a kiss that sears, And you faded and withered with the years, Starving and passionate still! But, hush! I had almost heard: Last night I dreamed your name; Like the soft, white tread of a faint, cool cloud to my desolate sky it came; Like a moth it drifted away, And into the flame of the dawn it fluttered, dying into the day. Yet the wind in the whispering leaves The moan of your sobbing weaves— Hush! I had almost heard. Yet I should know your face! As mine, all mine, I claim That coil of hair that over your bosom smoulders— a yellow flame; And the cool, dim-curtained eyes, The crescent of your imperious chin, and the little moist mouth that cries. I have heard through the din of the years Your voice, with its tincture of tears— Yes, I remember your face! Once in the drifting crowd I thought I had found a clue— A pale face pealed like an organ-note, and yet— oh! my heart—not you! She had your look, the same 47 Ineffable sorrow of glad young eyes; but all the rest was shame. Perhaps she saw—for her eyes were wet— In me the soul she had one time met In eternity's drifting crowd! Perhaps 't is the desert of years That severs each from each, And out of the cavernous centuries to each other we blindly reach. You blossomed so long ago That only the Dawn and the Spring remember, and little, so little, they know! You wait on the hill of the first white morn, Straining dead eyes to me, unborn, Across the desert of years. Or when I am dead at last, And my sovereignty have won, As merged in the dust of the gradual Past, unliving, I live on, You will rise with some far-off Spring, And back to the drear, dead days that were mine your piteous glance will fling. But, hush! I shall come in the rain-kissed night And whisper the words of our marriage-rite— So I shall find you at last! Yet if we met.… I dreamed; we dare not meet. ~ Arthur Henry Adams,

805:At Shelley’s House At Lerici Maiden, with English hair, and eyes The colour of Italian skies, What seek you by this shore? ``I seek, sir, for the latest home Where Shelley dwelt, and, o'er the foam Speeding, returned no more.'' Come, then, with me: I seek it, too. Are you his kith? For strangely you Resemble him in mien. ``No, save it be that all are kin Who cherish the same thoughts within, And gaze on things unseen.'' It should be easy, sure, to find. Waves close in front, woods close behind, Green shutters, whitewashed walls; A little space of rocky ground, Where climbs the wave, and, round and round The seagull curves and calls. Lo! there it stands. A quiet spot, Untenanted, it seems forgot, Like shrine from which the God Hath vanished, and but left behind A something in the air, the wind, Recalling where he trod. Upon this balcony how oft, When waves were smooth and winds were soft, As now, he must have stood, And dreamed of days when men should be Bondless as this unfettered sea, And peaceful as that wood. What would he find if came he now? A phantom crown on kingly brow, Veiled sceptre, trembling throne; Pulpits where threat and curse have ceased, 171 And shrines whereat half-sceptic priest Worships, too oft, alone. With muffled psalm and whispered hymn, At secret dawn or twilight dim, A pious remnant pray; For their maimed rites indulgence plead, And, half uncertain of their creed, Explain their God away. Gone the conventions Shelley cursed: The first are last, the last are first; The lame, the halt, the blind, Now in the seat of power, along With the far-seeing and the strong, Mould mandates for mankind. No longer doth man's will decide, And woman's feebler impulse guide; He yields to her his might: Duty hath grown an old-world tale, And chaste Obedience rends her veil, For epicene delight. Where now do towering despots reign Over lithe knee and servile brain, The scared, the base, the bought? Monarchs themselves now bend with awe Before the kingliness of Law, The majesty of Thought. Yes, Kings have gone, or reign as slaves; Religion mumbles round our graves, But shapes our lives no more: Tradition, thrice-spurned Sibyl, burns The leaves mob Sovereignty spurns, Contemptuous of her lore. Fair Maiden with the sea-blue eyes, With whom, beneath these sea-blue skies, Shelley had loved to live, Forgive me if his dream, unborn 172 Then, but now adult, moves my scorn: Would He too not forgive? For where both Crown and Cowl defied Sue for the ruth they once denied, What would he find instead? A fiercer despot, fouler creed, The Rule of Gold, the rites of Greed, And a bitterer cry for bread. Wake, poet! and retune your strings. The earth now swarms with petty kings, Seated on self-made thrones, And altar-tables richly spread, Where Roguery consecrates the bread, And Opulence atones. Here Shelley prayed that War might cease From earth, and Pentecostal Peace Descend with dovelike breath. Look round this bay! each treeless gorge, Each scarred ravine, incessant forge The instruments of death. From Salterbrand's unfreezing peaks To sunny Manfredonia's creeks, Have alien satraps gone; But, guarding Italy the Free, Her murderous mammoth-monsters, see, Come grimly wallowing on. Yes, here He dwelt and dreamed: and there, Gleams Porto Venere the fair, The mockery of a name. Where fervent Venus once was Queen, Hot Mars now ravishes the scene, And fans a fiercer flame. Fair Maiden with the English brow, Although from me, who shortly now Must tread life's downward slope, Illusions one by one depart, 173 Still foster in your virgin heart The embryo of Hope. The hills remain, the woods, the waves; And they alone are dupes or slaves Who, spurning Nature's breast, Too high would soar, too deep would sound, And madden vainly round and round The orbit of unrest. Pity, too, lingers. As I speak, The teardrops tremble on your cheek, Too silent to deceive; And with assuaging hand you show How tenderness still tempers woe, And none need singly grieve. Yes! sweet it were, with you for guide, To float across that dimpling tide, And, on its farther shore, To prove if Venus still holds sway, And, wandering with you round the bay, Tempt back one's youth once more. But, child! it is not Shelley's world. Fancy's light sails had best be furled, Before they surge and swell. What helm can steer the heart? or who Keep moored, inspired by such as You? Heaven prosper you! Farewell. ~ Alfred Austin,

806:After Sixty Years RING, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy. Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name. God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever woman wore. A jewel, in the front of time, shall blaze This day, of all your days commemorate; With Time's white bays your brows are laureate, And England's love shall garland all your days. When England's crown, to Love's acclaim, was laid On the soft brightness of a maiden's hair, Amid delight, Love trembled, half afraid, To give that little head such weight to bear,-Bind on so slight a maid A kingdom's purple--bid her hands hold high The sceptre and the heavy orb of power, To give to youth and beauty for a dower Care and a crown, sorrow and sovereignty. But from our hearts sprang an intenser flame When loyal Love met tender Love half way, And, in love's script, wrote on the scroll of fame, Entwined with all the splendour of that day, The letters of her name. Then as fair roses grow 'mid leaves of green, Love amid loyalty grew strong and close, To hedge a pleasaunce round our Royal rose, Our sovereign maiden flower, our child, our Queen. The trumpets spake--in sonorous triumph shout, Their speech found echo in the hundred guns; From countless towers the answering bells rang out, And England's heart spoke clamorous, through her sons, The exulting land throughout. Down streets ablaze with light the flags unfurled, 51 Along dark, lonely hills the joy-fires crept, And eager swords within their scabbards leapt To guard our Lady and Queen against the world. Those swords are rusted now. Good men and true Dust in the dust are laid who held her dear; But from their grave the bright flower springs anew, Which for her festival we bring her here, The long years' meed and due; The bud of homage grafted on chivalry. God took the souls that shrined the jewel of love, But made their sons inheritors thereof, In endless gold entail of loyalty. Time, compensating life, the fruit bestowed When in spent perfume passed the flower of youth; Her feet were set upon the upward road, Her face was turned towards the star of truth That in her soul abode. With youth the maid's bright brow was garlanded But richer crowns adorn the dear white hair; The gathered love of all the years lies there, In coronal benediction on her head. She is of our blood, for hath not she, too, met The angels of delight and of despair? Does not she, too, remember and forget How bitter or how bright the lost days were? Her eyes have tears made wet; She has seen joy unveilèd even as we, Has laid upon cold clay the heart-warm kiss, She has known Sorrow for the king he is; She has held little children on her knee. Mother, dear Mother, these your children rise And call you blessèd, and shall we not, too, Who are your children in the greater wise, And love you for our land and her for you? 52 The blessing sanctifies Your children as they breathe it at your knees, And, bringing little gifts from very far, Where the great nurseries of your Empire are, Your children's blessings throng from over seas. On Love's spread wings, and over leagues of space, Homage is borne from far-off sun-steeped lands; From many a domed mysterious Eastern place, Where Secresy holds Time between her hands, The children of your race Reach English hands towards your English throne; And from the far South turn blue English eyes, That never saw the blue of English skies, Yet call you Mother, and your land their own. Where 'mid great trees the mighty waters flow In arrogant submission to your sway, In fur of price your northern hunters go, And shafts of ardent greeting fly your way Across the splendid snow; And isles that with their coral, safe and small, Rock in the cradle of the tropic seas, In soft, strange speech join in the litanies That pride and prayer breathe at your festival. All round the world, on every far-off sea, In wind-ploughed oceans and in sun-kissed bays, By every busy wharf and chattering quay, Some cantle of your Empire sails or stays-Flaunts your supremacy Against the winds of all the world, and flies Your flag triumphant between blue and blue, Blazons to sun and star the name of you, And spreads your glory between seas and skies, There is no cottage garden, sunny-sweet, There is no pasture where our shepherds tend 53 Their quiet flocks, no red-roofed village street, But holds for you the love-wish of a friend, Blent with high homage meet; No little farm among the cornfields lone, No little cot upon the uplands bare, But hears to-day in blessing and in prayer One name, Victoria, and that name your own. From the vast cities where the giant's might, Pauseless, resistless, moves by night and day, From hidden mines where day is one with night, From weary lives whose days and nights are grey And empty of delight, From lives that rhyme to sunshine and the spring, From happiness at flood and hope at ebb, Rose the magnificent and mingled web That floats, your banner, at your thanksgiving. Throned on the surety of a splendid past, With present glory clothed as with the sun, Crowned with the future's hopes, you know at last What treasure from the years your life has won; Behold, your hands hold fast The moon of Empire, and its sway controls The tides of war and peace, while in those hands Lies tender homage out of all the lands Against whose feet your furthest ocean rolls. How seems your life, looked back at through the years? Much love, much sorrow, dead desires, lost dreams, A great life lived out greatly; hidden tears, And smiles for daily wear; strong plans and schemes, And mighty hopes and fears; War in the South and murder in the East, And England's heart-throbs echoed by your heart When loss, and labour, and sorrow were her part, Or when Fate bade her to some flower-crowned feast. 54 Red battle-fields whereon your soldiers died, Green pastoral fields saved by the blood of these, Duty that bade mere sorrow stand aside, And love transforming anguish into ease; Long longing satisfied, Great secrets wrenched from Nature's grudging breast, The fruit of knowledge plucked for all to eat,-These have you known, Life's circle is complete, And, knowing these, you know what is Life's best: The dear small secrets of our common life, The English woods and hills, the English home, The common joys and griefs of Mother and wife, Joy coming, going--griefs that go and come, Soul's peace amid world's strife; Hours when the Queen's cares leave the woman free; Dear friendships, where the friend forgets the Queen And stoops to wear a dearer, homelier mien, And be more loved than mere Queens rise to be. And, in your hour of triumph, when you shine The centre of our triumph's blazing star, And, gazing down your long life's lustrous line, Behold how great your life-long glories are, Yet, in your heart's veiled shrine, No splendour of all splendours that have been Will brim your eyes with tremulous thanksgivings, But little memories of little things-The treasures of the woman, not the Queen. Yet, Queen, because the love of you hath wound A golden girdle all about the earth, Because your name is as a trumpet sound To call toward you men of English birth From the world's outmost bound, Because old kinsmen, long estranged from home, Come, with old foes, to greet you, friend and kin, With kindly eyes behold your guests come in, See from afar the long procession come! 55 No Emperor in Rome's Imperial days Knew ever such a triumph day as this, Though captive kings bore chains along his ways, Though tribute from the furthest isles was his, With pageant and with praise. For you--free kings and free republics grace Your triumph, and across the conquered waves Come gifts from friends, not tributes wrung from slaves, And praise kneels, clothed in love, before your face. Ring, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy! Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name! God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever monarch wore. For, 'mid this day's triumphal voluntaries, Your name shines like the splendour of the sun, Because your name with England's name is one, As Hers, thank God! is one with Liberty's. ~ Edith Nesbit,

807:A Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought, Through contemplation of those goodly sights, And glorious images in heaven wrought, Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights; I fain to tell the things that I behold, But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold. Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright, From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow, To shed into my breast some sparkling light Of thine eternal truth, that I may show Some little beams to mortal eyes below Of that immortal beauty, there with thee, Which in my weak distraughted mind I see; That with the glory of so goodly sight The hearts of men, which fondly here admire Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight, Transported with celestial desire Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher, And learn to love, with zealous humble duty, Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty. Beginning then below, with th' easy view Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye, From thence to mount aloft, by order due, To contemplation of th' immortal sky; Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly, That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath, Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe. Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed With sight of that is fair, look on the frame Of this wide universe, and therein reed The endless kinds of creatures which by name Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim; All which are made with wondrous wise respect, And all with admirable beauty deckt. 16 First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded, Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands; Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded On every side, with piles of flaming brands, Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands; And last, that mighty shining crystal wall, Wherewith he hath encompassed this All. By view whereof it plainly may appear, That still as every thing doth upward tend, And further is from earth, so still more clear And fair it grows, till to his perfect end Of purest beauty it at last ascend; Air more than water, fire much more than air, And heaven than fire, appears more pure and fair. Look thou no further, but affix thine eye On that bright, shiny, round, still moving mass, The house of blessed gods, which men call sky, All sow'd with glist'ring stars more thick than grass, Whereof each other doth in brightness pass, But those two most, which ruling night and day, As king and queen, the heavens' empire sway; And tell me then, what hast thou ever seen That to their beauty may compared be, Or can the sight that is most sharp and keen Endure their captain's flaming head to see? How much less those, much higher in degree, And so much fairer, and much more than these, As these are fairer than the land and seas? For far above these heavens, which here we see, Be others far exceeding these in light, Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same be, But infinite in largeness and in height, Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotless bright, That need no sun t' illuminate their spheres, But their own native light far passing theirs. And as these heavens still by degrees arise, 17 Until they come to their first Mover's bound, That in his mighty compass doth comprise, And carry all the rest with him around; So those likewise do by degrees redound, And rise more fair; till they at last arrive To the most fair, whereto they all do strive. Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place, In full enjoyment of felicity, Whence they do still behold the glorious face Of the divine eternal Majesty; More fair is that, where those Ideas on high Enranged be, which Plato so admired, And pure Intelligences from God inspired. Yet fairer is that heaven, in which do reign The sovereign Powers and mighty Potentates, Which in their high protections do contain All mortal princes and imperial states; And fairer yet, whereas the royal Seats And heavenly Dominations are set, From whom all earthly governance is fet. Yet far more fair be those bright Cherubins, Which all with golden wings are overdight, And those eternal burning Seraphins, Which from their faces dart out fiery light; Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright, Be th' Angels and Archangels, which attend On God's own person, without rest or end. These thus in fair each other far excelling, As to the highest they approach more near, Yet is that highest far beyond all telling, Fairer than all the rest which there appear, Though all their beauties join'd together were; How then can mortal tongue hope to express The image of such endless perfectness? Cease then, my tongue, and lend unto my mind Leave to bethink how great that beauty is, Whose utmost parts so beautiful I find; 18 How much more those essential parts of his, His truth, his love, his wisdom, and his bliss, His grace, his doom, his mercy, and his might, By which he lends us of himself a sight. Those unto all he daily doth display, And shew himself in th' image of his grace, As in a looking-glass, through which he may Be seen of all his creatures vile and base, That are unable else to see his face, His glorious face which glistereth else so bright, That th' Angels selves cannot endure his sight. But we, frail wights, whose sight cannot sustain The sun's bright beams when he on us doth shine, But that their points rebutted back again Are dull'd, how can we see with feeble eyne The glory of that Majesty Divine, In sight of whom both sun and moon are dark, Compared to his least resplendent spark? The means, therefore, which unto us is lent Him to behold, is on his works to look, Which he hath made in beauty excellent, And in the same, as in a brazen book, To read enregister'd in every nook His goodness, which his beauty doth declare; For all that's good is beautiful and fair. Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation, To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind, Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation, From this dark world, whose damps the soul so blind, And, like the native brood of eagles' kind, On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes, Clear'd from gross mists of frail infirmities. Humbled with fear and awful reverence, Before the footstool of his majesty Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence, Ne dare look up with corruptible eye On the dread face of that great Deity, 19 For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee, Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be. But lowly fall before his mercy seat, Close covered with the Lamb's integrity From the just wrath of his avengeful threat That sits upon the righteous throne on high; His throne is built upon eternity, More firm and durable than steel or brass, Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass. His sceptre is the rod of righteousness, With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust, And the great Dragon strongly doth repress, Under the rigour of his judgement just; His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust, From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright That all about him sheddeth glorious light: Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark Which darted is from Titan's flaming head, That with his beams enlumineth the dark And dampish air, whereby all things are read; Whose nature yet so much is marvelled Of mortal wits, that it doth much amaze The greatest wizards which thereon do gaze. But that immortal light, which there doth shine, Is many thousand times more bright, more clear, More excellent, more glorious, more divine, Through which to God all mortal actions here, And even the thoughts of men, do plain appear; For from th' eternal truth it doth proceed, Through heavenly virtue which her beams do breed. With the great glory of that wondrous light His throne is all encompassed around, And hid in his own brightness from the sight Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound; And underneath his feet are to be found Thunder and lightning and tempestuous fire, The instruments of his avenging ire. 20 There in his bosom Sapience doth sit, The sovereign darling of the Deity, Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit For so great power and peerless majesty, And all with gems and jewels gorgeously Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear, And make her native brightness seem more clear. And on her head a crown of purest gold Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty; And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold, With which she rules the house of God on high, And manageth the ever-moving sky, And in the same these lower creatures all Subjected to her power imperial. Both heaven and earth obey unto her will, And all the creatures which they both contain; For of her fullness which the world doth fill They all partake, and do in state remain As their great Maker did at first ordain, Through observation of her high behest, By which they first were made, and still increast. The fairness of her face no tongue can tell; For she the daughters of all women's race, And angels eke, in beauty doth excel, Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face, And more increas'd by her own goodly grace, That it doth far exceed all human thought, Ne can on earth compared be to aught. Ne could that painter (had he lived yet) Which pictured Venus with so curious quill, That all posterity admired it, Have portray'd this, for all his mast'ring skill; Ne she herself, had she remained still, And were as fair as fabling wits do feign, Could once come near this beauty sovereign. But had those wits, the wonders of their days, 21 Or that sweet Teian poet, which did spend His plenteous vein in setting forth her praise, Seen but a glimpse of this which I pretend, How wondrously would he her face commend, Above that idol of his feigning thought, That all the world should with his rhymes be fraught. How then dare I, the novice of his art, Presume to picture so divine a wight, Or hope t' express her least perfection's part, Whose beauty fills the heavens with her light, And darks the earth with shadow of her sight? Ah, gentle Muse, thou art too weak and faint The portrait of so heavenly hue to paint. Let angels, which her goodly face behold And see at will, her sovereign praises sing, And those most sacred mysteries unfold Of that fair love of mighty heaven's King; Enough is me t' admire so heavenly thing, And being thus with her huge love possest, In th' only wonder of herself to rest. But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold, Of all on earth whom God so much doth grace And lets his own beloved to behold; For in the view of her celestial face All joy, all bliss, all happiness, have place; Ne aught on earth can want unto the wight Who of herself can win the wishful sight. For she, out of her secret treasury, Plenty of riches forth on him will pour, Even heavenly riches, which there hidden lie Within the closet of her chastest bower, Th' eternal portion of her precious dower, Which mighty God hath given to her free, And to all those which thereof worthy be. None thereof worthy be, but those whom she Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive, And letteth them her lovely face to see, 22 Whereof such wondrous pleasures they conceive, And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave Their soul of sense, through infinite delight, And them transport from flesh into the spright. In which they see such admirable things, As carries them into an ecstasy, And hear such heavenly notes, and carollings Of God's high praise, that fills the brazen sky; And feel such joy and pleasure inwardly, That maketh them all worldly cares forget, And only think on that before them set. Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense, Or idle thought of earthly things, remain; But all that erst seem'd sweet seems now offence, And all that pleased erst now seems to pain; Their joy, their comfort, their desire, their gain, Is fixed all on that which now they see; All other sights but feigned shadows be. And that fair lamp, which useth to inflame The hearts of men with self-consuming fire Thenceforth seems foul, and full of sinful blame; And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire By name of honour, and so much desire, Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross, And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss. So full their eyes are of that glorious sight, And senses fraught with such satiety, That in nought else on earth they can delight, But in th' aspect of that felicity, Which they have written in their inward eye; On which they feed, and in their fastened mind All happy joy and full contentment find. Ah, then, my hungry soul, which long hast fed On idle fancies of thy foolish thought, And, with false beauty's flatt'ring bait misled, Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought, Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought 23 But late repentance through thy follies prief; Ah cease to gaze on matter of thy grief: And look at last up to that sovereign light, From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs, That kindleth love in every godly sprite, Even the love of God, which loathing brings Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things; With whose sweet pleasures being so possest, Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest. ~ Edmund Spenser,

808:An Hymn Of Heavenly Beauty Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought, Through contemplation of those goodly sights, And glorious images in heaven wrought, Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights; I fain to tell the things that I behold, But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold. Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Spright, From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow, To shed into my breast some sparkling light Of thine eternal truth, that I may show Some little beams to mortal eyes below Of that immortal beauty, there with thee, Which in my weak distraughted mind I see; That with the glory of so goodly sight The hearts of men, which fondly here admire Fair seeming shews, and feed on vain delight, Transported with celestial desire Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher, And learn to love, with zealous humble duty, Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty. Beginning then below, with th' easy view Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye, From thence to mount aloft, by order due, To contemplation of th' immortal sky; Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly, That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath, Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe. Then look, who list thy gazeful eyes to feed With sight of that is fair, look on the frame Of this wide universe, and therein reed The endless kinds of creatures which by name Thou canst not count, much less their natures aim; All which are made with wondrous wise respect, And all with admirable beauty deckt. 43 First th' earth, on adamantine pillars founded, Amid the sea engirt with brazen bands; Then th' air still flitting, but yet firmly bounded On every side, with piles of flaming brands, Never consum'd, nor quench'd with mortal hands; And last, that mighty shining crystal wall, Wherewith he hath encompassed this All. By view whereof it plainly may appear, That still as every thing doth upward tend, And further is from earth, so still more clear And fair it grows, till to his perfect end Of purest beauty it at last ascend; Air more than water, fire much more than air, And heaven than fire, appears more pure and fair. Look thou no further, but affix thine eye On that bright, shiny, round, still moving mass, The house of blessed gods, which men call sky, All sow'd with glist'ring stars more thick than grass, Whereof each other doth in brightness pass, But those two most, which ruling night and day, As king and queen, the heavens' empire sway; And tell me then, what hast thou ever seen That to their beauty may compared be, Or can the sight that is most sharp and keen Endure their captain's flaming head to see? How much less those, much higher in degree, And so much fairer, and much more than these, As these are fairer than the land and seas? For far above these heavens, which here we see, Be others far exceeding these in light, Not bounded, not corrupt, as these same be, But infinite in largeness and in height, Unmoving, uncorrupt, and spotless bright, That need no sun t' illuminate their spheres, But their own native light far passing theirs. And as these heavens still by degrees arise, 44 Until they come to their first Mover's bound, That in his mighty compass doth comprise, And carry all the rest with him around; So those likewise do by degrees redound, And rise more fair; till they at last arrive To the most fair, whereto they all do strive. Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place, In full enjoyment of felicity, Whence they do still behold the glorious face Of the divine eternal Majesty; More fair is that, where those Ideas on high Enranged be, which Plato so admired, And pure Intelligences from God inspired. Yet fairer is that heaven, in which do reign The sovereign Powers and mighty Potentates, Which in their high protections do contain All mortal princes and imperial states; And fairer yet, whereas the royal Seats And heavenly Dominations are set, From whom all earthly governance is fet. Yet far more fair be those bright Cherubins, Which all with golden wings are overdight, And those eternal burning Seraphins, Which from their faces dart out fiery light; Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright, Be th' Angels and Archangels, which attend On God's own person, without rest or end. These thus in fair each other far excelling, As to the highest they approach more near, Yet is that highest far beyond all telling, Fairer than all the rest which there appear, Though all their beauties join'd together were; How then can mortal tongue hope to express The image of such endless perfectness? Cease then, my tongue, and lend unto my mind Leave to bethink how great that beauty is, Whose utmost parts so beautiful I find; 45 How much more those essential parts of his, His truth, his love, his wisdom, and his bliss, His grace, his doom, his mercy, and his might, By which he lends us of himself a sight. Those unto all he daily doth display, And shew himself in th' image of his grace, As in a looking-glass, through which he may Be seen of all his creatures vile and base, That are unable else to see his face, His glorious face which glistereth else so bright, That th' Angels selves cannot endure his sight. But we, frail wights, whose sight cannot sustain The sun's bright beams when he on us doth shine, But that their points rebutted back again Are dull'd, how can we see with feeble eyne The glory of that Majesty Divine, In sight of whom both sun and moon are dark, Compared to his least resplendent spark? The means, therefore, which unto us is lent Him to behold, is on his works to look, Which he hath made in beauty excellent, And in the same, as in a brazen book, To read enregister'd in every nook His goodness, which his beauty doth declare; For all that's good is beautiful and fair. Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation, To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind, Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation, From this dark world, whose damps the soul so blind, And, like the native brood of eagles' kind, On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes, Clear'd from gross mists of frail infirmities. Humbled with fear and awful reverence, Before the footstool of his majesty Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence, Ne dare look up with corruptible eye On the dread face of that great Deity, 46 For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee, Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be. But lowly fall before his mercy seat, Close covered with the Lamb's integrity From the just wrath of his avengeful threat That sits upon the righteous throne on high; His throne is built upon eternity, More firm and durable than steel or brass, Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass. His sceptre is the rod of righteousness, With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust, And the great Dragon strongly doth repress, Under the rigour of his judgement just; His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust, From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright That all about him sheddeth glorious light: Light far exceeding that bright blazing spark Which darted is from Titan's flaming head, That with his beams enlumineth the dark And dampish air, whereby all things are read; Whose nature yet so much is marvelled Of mortal wits, that it doth much amaze The greatest wizards which thereon do gaze. But that immortal light, which there doth shine, Is many thousand times more bright, more clear, More excellent, more glorious, more divine, Through which to God all mortal actions here, And even the thoughts of men, do plain appear; For from th' eternal truth it doth proceed, Through heavenly virtue which her beams do breed. With the great glory of that wondrous light His throne is all encompassed around, And hid in his own brightness from the sight Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound; And underneath his feet are to be found Thunder and lightning and tempestuous fire, The instruments of his avenging ire. 47 There in his bosom Sapience doth sit, The sovereign darling of the Deity, Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit For so great power and peerless majesty, And all with gems and jewels gorgeously Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear, And make her native brightness seem more clear. And on her head a crown of purest gold Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty; And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold, With which she rules the house of God on high, And manageth the ever-moving sky, And in the same these lower creatures all Subjected to her power imperial. Both heaven and earth obey unto her will, And all the creatures which they both contain; For of her fullness which the world doth fill They all partake, and do in state remain As their great Maker did at first ordain, Through observation of her high behest, By which they first were made, and still increast. The fairness of her face no tongue can tell; For she the daughters of all women's race, And angels eke, in beauty doth excel, Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face, And more increas'd by her own goodly grace, That it doth far exceed all human thought, Ne can on earth compared be to aught. Ne could that painter (had he lived yet) Which pictured Venus with so curious quill, That all posterity admired it, Have portray'd this, for all his mast'ring skill; Ne she herself, had she remained still, And were as fair as fabling wits do feign, Could once come near this beauty sovereign. But had those wits, the wonders of their days, 48 Or that sweet Teian poet, which did spend His plenteous vein in setting forth her praise, Seen but a glimpse of this which I pretend, How wondrously would he her face commend, Above that idol of his feigning thought, That all the world should with his rhymes be fraught. How then dare I, the novice of his art, Presume to picture so divine a wight, Or hope t' express her least perfection's part, Whose beauty fills the heavens with her light, And darks the earth with shadow of her sight? Ah, gentle Muse, thou art too weak and faint The portrait of so heavenly hue to paint. Let angels, which her goodly face behold And see at will, her sovereign praises sing, And those most sacred mysteries unfold Of that fair love of mighty heaven's King; Enough is me t' admire so heavenly thing, And being thus with her huge love possest, In th' only wonder of herself to rest. But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold, Of all on earth whom God so much doth grace And lets his own beloved to behold; For in the view of her celestial face All joy, all bliss, all happiness, have place; Ne aught on earth can want unto the wight Who of herself can win the wishful sight. For she, out of her secret treasury, Plenty of riches forth on him will pour, Even heavenly riches, which there hidden lie Within the closet of her chastest bower, Th' eternal portion of her precious dower, Which mighty God hath given to her free, And to all those which thereof worthy be. None thereof worthy be, but those whom she Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive, And letteth them her lovely face to see, 49 Whereof such wondrous pleasures they conceive, And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave Their soul of sense, through infinite delight, And them transport from flesh into the spright. In which they see such admirable things, As carries them into an ecstasy, And hear such heavenly notes, and carollings Of God's high praise, that fills the brazen sky; And feel such joy and pleasure inwardly, That maketh them all worldly cares forget, And only think on that before them set. Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense, Or idle thought of earthly things, remain; But all that erst seem'd sweet seems now offence, And all that pleased erst now seems to pain; Their joy, their comfort, their desire, their gain, Is fixed all on that which now they see; All other sights but feigned shadows be. And that fair lamp, which useth to inflame The hearts of men with self-consuming fire Thenceforth seems foul, and full of sinful blame; And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire By name of honour, and so much desire, Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross, And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss. So full their eyes are of that glorious sight, And senses fraught with such satiety, That in nought else on earth they can delight, But in th' aspect of that felicity, Which they have written in their inward eye; On which they feed, and in their fastened mind All happy joy and full contentment find. Ah, then, my hungry soul, which long hast fed On idle fancies of thy foolish thought, And, with false beauty's flatt'ring bait misled, Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought, Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought 50 But late repentance through thy follies prief; Ah cease to gaze on matter of thy grief: And look at last up to that sovereign light, From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs, That kindleth love in every godly sprite, Even the love of God, which loathing brings Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things; With whose sweet pleasures being so possest, Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest. ~ Edmund Spenser,

809:Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings Hyperion slid into the rustled air, And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd. It was a den where no insulting light Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse, Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where. Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd Ever as if just rising from a sleep, Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns; And thus in thousand hugest phantasies Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe. Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon, Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled: Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering. Caus, and Gyges, and Briareus, Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, With many more, the brawniest in assault, Were pent in regions of laborious breath; Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd; Without a motion, save of their big hearts Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse. Mnemosyne was straying in the world; Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered; And many else were free to roam abroad, But for the main, here found they covert drear. Scarce images of life, one here, one there, Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor, When the chill rain begins at shut of eve, In dull November, and their chancel vault, The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night. Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave Or word, or look, or action of despair. Creus was one; his ponderous iron mace Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined. Iapetus another; in his grasp, A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length Dead: and because the creature could not spit Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost, As though in pain; for still upon the flint He ground severe his skull, with open mouth And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him Asia, born of most enormous Caf, Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs, Though feminine, than any of her sons: More thought than woe was in her dusky face, For she was prophesying of her glory; And in her wide imagination stood Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles. Even as Hope upon her anchor leans, So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk Shed from the broadest of her elephants. Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve, Upon his elbow rais'd, all prostrate else, Shadow'd Enceladus; once tame and mild As grazing ox unworried in the meads; Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, wroth, He meditated, plotted, and even now Was hurling mountains in that second war, Not long delay'd, that scar'd the younger Gods To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird. Not far hence Atlas; and beside him prone Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd close Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap Sobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair. In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet Of Ops the queen; all clouded round from sight, No shape distinguishable, more than when Thick night confounds the pine-tops with the clouds: And many else whose names may not be told. For when the Muse's wings are air-ward spread, Who shall delay her flight? And she must chaunt Of Saturn, and his guide, who now had climb'd With damp and slippery footing from a depth More horrid still. Above a sombre cliff Their heads appear'd, and up their stature grew Till on the level height their steps found ease: Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face: There saw she direst strife; the supreme God At war with all the frailty of grief, Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair. Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head, A disanointing poison: so that Thea, Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass First onwards in, among the fallen tribe.   As with us mortal men, the laden heart Is persecuted more, and fever'd more, When it is nighing to the mournful house Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise; So Saturn, as he walk'd into the midst, Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest, But that he met Enceladus's eye, Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once Came like an inspiration; and he shouted, "Titans, behold your God!" at which some groan'd; Some started on their feet; some also shouted; Some wept, some wail'd, all bow'd with reverence; And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil, Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan, Her eye-brows thin and jet, and hollow eyes. There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise Among immortals when a God gives sign, With hushing finger, how he means to load His tongue with the filll weight of utterless thought, With thunder, and with music, and with pomp: Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines; Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world, No other sound succeeds; but ceasing here, Among these fallen, Saturn's voice therefrom Grew up like organ, that begins anew Its strain, when other harmonies, stopt short, Leave the dinn'd air vibrating silverly. Thus grew it up-"Not in my own sad breast, Which is its own great judge and searcher out, Can I find reason why ye should be thus: Not in the legends of the first of days, Studied from that old spirit-leaved book Which starry Uranus with finger bright Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom;- And the which book ye know I ever kept For my firm-based footstool:-Ah, infirm! Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,- At war, at peace, or inter-quarreling One against one, or two, or three, or all Each several one against the other three, As fire with air loud warring when rain-floods Drown both, and press them both against earth's face, Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple wrath Unhinges the poor world;-not in that strife, Wherefrom I take strange lore, and read it deep, Can I find reason why ye should be thus: No, nowhere can unriddle, though I search, And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'-Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'-Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, How we can war, how engine our great wrath! O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's ear Is all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus, Ponderest high and deep; and in thy face I see, astonied, that severe content Which comes of thought and musing: give us help!"   So ended Saturn; and the God of the sea, Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove, But cogitation in his watery shades, Arose, with locks not oozy, and began, In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands. "O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung, Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies! Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears, My voice is not a bellows unto ire. Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop: And in the proof much comfort will I give, If ye will take that comfort in its truth. We fall by course of Nature's law, not force Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou Hast sifted well the atom-universe; But for this reason, that thou art the King, And only blind from sheer supremacy, One avenue was shaded from thine eyes, Through which I wandered to eternal truth. And first, as thou wast not the first of powers, So art thou not the last; it cannot be: Thou art not the beginning nor the end. From Chaos and parental Darkness came Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil, That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came, And with it Light, and Light, engendering Upon its own producer, forthwith touch'd The whole enormous matter into life. Upon that very hour, our parentage, The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest: Then thou first born, and we the giant race, Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms. Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain; O folly! for to bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well! As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth In form and shape compact and beautiful, In will, in action free, companionship, And thousand other signs of purer life; So on our heels a fresh perfection treads, A power more strong in beauty, born of us And fated to excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness: nor are we Thereby more conquer'd, than by us the rule Of shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soil Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed, And feedeth still, more comely than itself? Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves? Or shall the tree be envious of the dove Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings To wander wherewithal and find its joys? We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves, But eagles golden-feather'd, who do tower Above us in their beauty, and must reign In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law That first in beauty should be first in might: Yea, by that law, another race may drive Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. Have ye beheld the young God of the seas, My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face? Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along By noble winged creatures he hath made? I saw him on the calmed waters scud, With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous fate Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive the truth, and let it be your balm."   Whether through pos'd conviction, or disdain, They guarded silence, when Oceanus Left murmuring, what deepest thought can tell? But so it was, none answer'd for a space, Save one whom none regarded, Clymene; And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd, With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild, Thus wording timidly among the fierce: "O Father! I am here the simplest voice, And all my knowledge is that joy is gone, And this thing woe crept in among our hearts, There to remain for ever, as I fear: I would not bode of evil, if I thought So weak a creature could turn off the help Which by just right should come of mighty Gods; Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell Of what I heard, and how it made me weep, And know that we had parted from all hope. I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore, Where a sweet clime was breathed from a land Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers. Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief; Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth; So that I felt a movement in my heart To chide, and to reproach that solitude With songs of misery, music of our woes; And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell And murmur'd into it, and made melody- O melody no more! for while I sang, And with poor skill let pass into the breeze The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand Just opposite, an island of the sea, There came enchantment with the shifting wind, That did both drown and keep alive my ears. I threw my shell away upon the sand, And a wave fill'd it, as my sense was fill'd With that new blissful golden melody. A living death was in each gush of sounds, Each family of rapturous hurried notes, That fell, one after one, yet all at once, Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string: And then another, then another strain, Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, With music wing'd instead of silent plumes, To hover round my head, and make me sick Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame, And I was stopping up my frantic ears, When, past all hindrance of my trembling hands, A voice came sweeter, sweeter than all tune, And still it cried, 'Apollo! young Apollo! The morning-bright Apollo! young Apollo!' I fled, it follow'd me, and cried 'Apollo!' O Father, and O Brethren, had ye felt Those pains of mine; O Saturn, hadst thou felt, Ye would not call this too indulged tongue Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard."   So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook That, lingering along a pebbled coast, Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met, And shudder'd; for the overwhelming voice Of huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath: The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks, Came booming thus, while still upon his arm He lean'd; not rising, from supreme contempt. "Or shall we listen to the over-wise, Or to the over-foolish, Giant-Gods? Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all That rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent, Not world on world upon these shoulders piled, Could agonize me more than baby-words In midst of this dethronement horrible. Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy Titans all. Do ye forget the blows, the buffets vile? Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm? Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the waves, Thy scalding in the seas? What! have I rous'd Your spleens with so few simple words as these? O joy! for now I see ye are not lost: O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes Wide-glaring for revenge!"-As this he said, He lifted up his stature vast, and stood, Still without intermission speaking thus: "Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn, And purge the ether of our enemies; How to feed fierce the crooked stings of fire, And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, Stifling that puny essence in its tent. O let him feel the evil he hath done; For though I scorn Oceanus's lore, Much pain have I for more than loss of realms: The days of peace and slumbrous calm are fled; Those days, all innocent of scathing war, When all the fair Existences of heaven Carne open-eyed to guess what we would speak:- That was before our brows were taught to frown, Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds; That was before we knew the winged thing, Victory, might be lost, or might be won. And be ye mindful that Hyperion, Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced- Hyperion, lo! his radiance is here!"   All eyes were on Enceladus's face, And they beheld, while still Hyperion's name Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks, A pallid gleam across his features stern: Not savage, for he saw full many a God Wroth as himself. He look'd upon them all, And in each face he saw a gleam of light, But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locks Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel When the prow sweeps into a midnight cove. In pale and silver silence they remain'd, Till suddenly a splendor, like the morn, Pervaded all the beetling gloomy steeps, All the sad spaces of oblivion, And every gulf, and every chasm old, And every height, and every sullen depth, Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streams: And all the everlasting cataracts, And all the headlong torrents far and near, Mantled before in darkness and huge shade, Now saw the light and made it terrible. It was Hyperion:-a granite peak His bright feet touch'd, and there he stay'd to view The misery his brilliance had betray'd To the most hateful seeing of itself. Golden his hair of short Numidian curl, Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk Of Memnon's image at the set of sun To one who travels from the dusking East: Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's harp He utter'd, while his hands contemplative He press'd together, and in silence stood. Despondence seiz'd again the fallen Gods At sight of the dejected King of day, And many hid their faces from the light: But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare, Uprose Iapetus, and Creus too, And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode To where he towered on his eminence. There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name; Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "Saturn!" Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods, In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods Gave from their hollow throats the name of "Saturn!" by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ John Keats, Hyperion. Book II ,

810:The Tower Of The Dream Part I HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be As some have said, the thin disjoining shades Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late, All interweaving, set in ghostly act And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim, By mimic fancy; wonderful no less Are they though this be true and wondrous more Is she, who in the dark, and stript of sense, Can wield such sovereignty—the Queen of Art! For what a cunning painter is she then, Who hurriedly embodying, from the waste Of things memorial littering life’s dim floor, The forms and features, manifold and quaint, That crowd the timeless vistas of a dream, Fails in no stroke, but breathes Pygmalion-like A soul of motion into all her work; And doth full oft in magic mood inspire Her phantom creatures with more eloquent tones Than ever broke upon a waking ear. But are they more? True glimpses oft, though vague, Over that far unnavigable sea Of mystic being, where the impatient soul Is sometimes wont to stray and roam at large? No answer comes. Yet are they wonderful However we may rank them in our lore, And worthy some fond record are these dreams That with so capable a wand can bring Back to the faded heart the rosy flush And sweetness of a long-fled love, or touch The eyes of an old enmity with tears Of a yet older friendship; or restore A world-lost mate, or reunite in joy The living and the dead!—can, when so wills Their wand’s weird wielder, whatsoe’er it be, Lift up the fallen—fallen however low! Give youth unto the worn, enrich the poor; Build in the future higher than the hope 200 Of power, when boldest, ever dared to soar; Annul the bars of space, the dens of time, Giving the rigid and cold-clanking chain Which force, that grey iniquity, hath clenched About its captive, to relent,—yea, stretch Forth into fairy-land, or melt like wax In that fierce life whose spirit lightens wide Round freedom, seated on her mountain throne. But not thus always are our dreams benign; Oft are they miscreations—gloomier worlds, Crowded tempestuously with wrongs and fears, More ghastly than the actual ever knew, And rent with racking noises, such as should Go thundering only through the wastes of hell. Yes, wonderful are dreams: and I have known Many most wild and strange. And once, long since, As in the death-like mystery of sleep My body lay impalled, my soul arose And journeyed outward in a wondrous dream. In the mid-hour of a dark night, methought I roamed the margin of a waveless lake, That in the knotted forehead of the land Deep sunken, like a huge Cyclopean eye, Lidless and void of speculation, stared Glassily up—for ever sleepless—up At the wide vault of heaven; and vaguely came Into my mind a mystic consciousness That over against me, on the farther shore Which yet I might not see, there stood a tower. The darkness darkened, until overhead Solidly black the starless heaven domed, And earth was one wide blot;—when, as I looked, A light swung blazing from the tower (as yet Prophesied only in my inner thought), And brought at once its rounded structure forth Massive and tall out of the mighty gloom. On the broad lake that streaming radiance fell, Through the lit fluid like a shaft of fire, Burning its sullen depths with one red blaze. 201 Long at that wild light was I gazing held In speechless wonder, till I thence could feel A strange and thrillingly attractive power; My bodily weight seemed witched away, aloft I mounted, poised within the passive air, Then felt I through my veins a branching warmth, The herald of some yet unseen content, The nearness of some yet inaudible joy, As if some spell of golden destiny Lifted me onwards to the fateful tower. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part II High up the tower, a circling balcony Emporched a brazen door. The silver roof Rested on shafts of jet, and ivory work Made a light fence against the deep abyss. Before that portal huge a lady stood In radiant loveliness, serene and bright, Yet as it seemed expectant; for as still She witched me towards her, soft she beckon’d me With tiny hand more splendid than a star; And then she smiled, not as a mortal smiles With visible throes, to the mere face confined, But with her whole bright influence all at once In gracious act, as the Immortals might, God-happy, or as smiles the morning, when Its subtle lips in rosy beauty part Under a pearly cloud, and breathe the while A golden prevalence of power abroad, That taketh all the orient heaven and earth Into the glory of its own delight. Then in a voice, keen, sweet, and silvery clear, And intimately tender as the first Fine feeling of a love-born bliss, she spoke, “Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where?” 202 With thrilling ears and heart I heard, but felt Pass from me forth a cry of sudden fear, As swooning through the wildness of my joy, Methought I drifted,—whither? All was now One wide cold blank; the lady and the tower, The gleaming lake, with all around it, one Wide dreary blank;—the drearier for that still A dizzy, clinging, ghostly consciousness Kept flickering from mine inmost pulse of life, Like a far meteor in some dismal marsh; How long I knew not, but the thrilling warmth That, like the new birth of a passionate bliss, Erewhile had searched me to the quick, again Shuddered within me, more and more, until Mine eyes had opened under two that made All else like darkness; and upon my cheek A breath that seemed the final spirit of health And floral sweetness, harbingered once more The silver accents of that wondrous voice, Which to have heard was never to forget; And with her tones came, warbled as it seemed, In mystical respondence to her voice, Still music, such as Eolus gives forth, But purer, deeper;—warbled as from some Unsearchable recess of soul supreme, Some depth of the Eternal! echoing thence Through the sweet meanings of its spirit speech. I answered not, but followed in mute love The beamy glances of her eyes; methought Close at her side I lay upon a couch Of purple, blazoned all with stars of gold Tremblingly rayed with spiculated gems; Thus sat we, looking forth; nor seemed it strange That the broad lake, with its green shelving shores, And all the hills and woods and winding vales, Were basking in the beauty of a day So goldenly serene, that never yet The perfect power of life-essential light Had so enrobed, since paradise was lost, The common world inhabited by man. 203 I saw this rare surpassing beauty;—yea, But saw it all through her superior life, Orbing mine own in love; I felt her life, The source of holiest and truth-loving thoughts, Breathing abroad like odours from a flower, Enriched with rosy passion, and pure joy And earnest tenderness. Nor ever might The glassy lake below more quickly give Nimble impressions of the coming wind’s Invisible footsteps, dimpling swift along, Than instant tokens of communion sweet With outward beauty’s subtle spirit, passed Forth from her eyes, and thence in lambent waves Suffused and lightened o’er her visage bright. But as upon the wonder of her face My soul now feasted, even till it seemed Instinct with kindred lustre, lo! her eyes Suddenly saddened; then abstractedly Outfixing them as on some far wild thought That darkened up like a portentous cloud Over the morning of our peace, she flung Her silver voice into a mystic song Of many measures, which, as forth they went, Slid all into a sweet abundant flood Of metric melody! And to her voice As still she sung, invisible singers joined A choral burden that prolonged the strain’s Rich concords, till the echoes of the hills Came forth in tidal flow, and backward then Subsiding like a refluent wave, died down In one rich harmony. It strangely seemed As though the song were ware that I but slept, And that its utterer was but a dream; ’Tis traced upon the tablet of my soul In shining lines that intonate themselves— Not sounding to the ear but to the thought— Out of the vague vast of the wonderful, And might, when hardened into mortal speech, And narrowed from its wide and various sweep Into such flows as make our waking rhymes Most wildly musical, be written thus:— 204 The Song Wide apart, wide apart, In old Time’s dim heart One terrible Fiend doth his stern watch keep Over the mystery Lovely and deep, Locked in thy history, Beautiful Sleep! Could we disarm him, Could we but charm him, The soul of the sleeper might happily leap, Through the dark of the dim waste so deathly and deep That shroudeth the triple divinity, The three of thy mystical Trinity: Gratitude, Liberty, Joy from all trammels free, Beautiful Spirit of Sleep! Beautiful Spirit! Could we confound him Who darkens thy throne, Could we surround him With spells like thine own For the divinity Then of thy Trinity, Oh, what a blesseder reign were begun! For then it were evermore one, With all that soul, freed from the body’s strait scheme, Inherits of seer-light and mystical dream. And to sleep were to die Into life in the Infinite, Holy and high, Spotless and bright, Calmly, peacefully deep Ah then! that dread gulf should be crossed by a mortal, Ah then! to what life were thy bright arch the portal, Beautiful Spirit of Sleep. 205 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part III She ceased, and a deep tingling silence fell Instantly round,—silence complete, and yet Instinct as with a breathing sweetness, left By the rare spirit of her voice foregone; Even as the fragrance of a flower were felt Pervading the mute air through which erewhile, It had been borne by the delighted hand Of some sweet-thoughted maiden. Turning then Her bright face towards me, as I stood entranced, Yet with keen wonder stung, she said, “I love thee As first love loveth—utterly! But ah This love itself—this purple-wingéd love— This life-enriching spirit of delight Is but a honey-bee of paradise, That only in the morning glory dares To range abroad, only in vagrant mood, Adventures out into the common world Of man and woman, thither lured by sight Of some sweet human soul that blooms apart, Untainted by a rank soil’s weedy growths Lured thither thus, yet being even then A wilful wanderer from its birthplace pure, Whereto it sadly must return again, Or forfeit else its natal passport, ere The dread night cometh. Yet of how great worth Is love within the world! By the fair spring Of even the lowliest love, how many rich And gracious things that could not else have been, Grow up like flowers, and breathe a perfume forth That never leaves again the quickened sense It once hath hit, as with a fairy’s wand!” She spoke in mournful accents wild and sweet, And lustrous tears brimmed over from the eyes That met my own now melancholy gaze. 206 But not all comfortless is grief that sees Itself reflected in another’s eyes, And love again grew glad: alas, not long For with a short low gasp of sudden fear She started back, and hark! within the tower A sound of strenuous steps approaching fast Rang upwards, as it seemed, from the hard slabs Of a steep winding stair; and soon the huge And brazen portal, that behind us shut, Burst open with a clang of loosened bolts— A clang like thunder, that went rattling out Against the echoes of the distant hills. With deafened ears and looks aghast I turned Towards the harsh noise, there to behold, between The mighty jambs in the strong wall from which The door swung inward, a tremendous form! A horrid gloomy form that shapeless seemed, And yet, in all its monstrous bulk, to man A hideous likeness bare! Still more and more Deformed it grew, as forth it swelled, and then Its outlines melted in a grizzly haze, That hung about them, even as grey clouds Beskirt a coming tempest’s denser mass, That thickens still internally, and shows The murkiest in the midst—yea, murkiest there, Where big with fate, and hid in solid gloom, The yet still spirit of the thunder broods, And menaces the world. Beholding that dread form, the lady of light Had rushed to my extended arms, and hid Her beamy face, fright-harrowed, in my breast! And thus we stood, made one in fear; while still That terrible vision out upon us glared With horny eyeballs—horrible the more For that no evidence of conscious will, No touch of passion, vitalized their fixed Eumenidèan, stone-cold stare, as towards Some surely destined task they seemed to guide Its shapeless bulk and awful ruthless strength. 207 Then with a motion as of one dark stride Shadowing forward, and outstretching straight One vague-seen arm, from my reluctant grasp It tore the radiant lady, saying “This Is love forbidden!” in a voice whose tones Were like low guttural thunders heard afar, Outgrowling from the clouded gorges wild Of steep-cragged mountains, when a sultry storm Is pondering in its dark pavilions there. Me then he seized, and threw me strongly back Within the brazen door; its massive beam Dropped with a wall-quake, and the bolts were shot Into their sockets with a shattering jar. I may not paint the horrible despair That froze me now; more horrible than aught In actual destiny, in waking life, Could give the self -possession of my soul. Within, without,—all silent, stirless, cold Whither was she, my lady of delight Reft terribly away? Time—every drip of which Was as an age—kept trickling on and on, Brought no release, no hope; brought not a breath That spake of fellowship, or even of life Out of myself. Utterly blank I stood In marble-cold astonishment of heart! And when at length I cast despairing eyes— Eyes so despairing that the common gift Of vision stung me like a deadly curse— The dungeon round, pure pity of myself So warmed and loosened from my brain, the pent And icy anguish, that its load at once Came like an Alp-thaw streaming through my eyes; Till resignation, that balm-fragrant flower Of meek pale grief that hath its root in tears, Grew out of mine, and dewed my soul with peace. My dungeon was a half-round lofty cell, Massively set within the crossing wall That seemed to cut the tower’s whole round in twain; A door with iron studs and brazen clamps Shut off the inner stairway of the tower; And by this door a strange and mystic thing, 208 A bat-winged steed on scaly dragon claws, Stood mute and rigid in the darkening cell. The night came on; I saw the bat-winged steed Fade, melt and die into the gathering gloom, Then in the blackness hour by hour I paced, And heard my step—the only sound to me In all the wide world—throb with a dull blow Down through the hollow tower that seemed to yawn. A monstrous well beneath, with wide waste mouth Bridged only by the quaking strip of floor On which I darkling strode. Then hour on hour Paused as if clotting at the heart of time, And yet no other sound had being there And still that strange, mute, mystic, bat-winged steed Stood waiting near me by the inner door. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part IV At last, all suddenly, in the air aloft Over the tower a wild wailful song Woke, flying many-voiced, then sweeping off Far o’er the echoing hills, so passed away In dying murmurs through the hollow dark. Song In vain was the charm sought In vain was our spell wrought Which that dread watcher’s eyes drowsy might keep; In vain was the dragon-steed There at the hour of need Out with his double freight blissward to sweep. Lost—lost—lost—lost! In vain were our spells of an infinite cost Lost—lost—lost—lost! Yon gulf by a mortal may never be crossed 209 Never, ah never! The doom holds for ever For ever! for ever! Away, come away! For see, wide uprolling, the white front of day! Away to the mystic mid-regions of sleep, Of the beautiful Spirit of sleep. Lost—lost—lost—lost! The gulf we are crossing may never be crossed By a mortal, ah, never! The doom holds for ever! For ever! for ever! So passed that song (of which the drift alone Is here reached after in such leaden speech As uncharmed mortals use). And when its tones Out towards the mountains in the dark afar Had wasted, light began to pierce the gloom, Marbling the dusk with grey; and then the steed, With his strange dragon-claws and half-spread wings, Grew slowly back into the day again. The sunrise! Oh, it was a desolate pass Immured in that relentless keep, to feel How o’er the purple hills came the bright sun, Rejoicing in his strength; and then to know That he was wheeling up the heaven, and o’er My prison roof, tracking his midway course With step of fire, loud rolling through the world The thunder of its universal life! Thus seven times wore weary day and night Wearily on, and still I could not sleep. And still through this drear time the wintry tooth Of hunger never gnawed my corporal frame; No thirst inflamed me; while by the grim door That strange, unmoving, dragon-footed steed Stood as at first. Mere wonder at my doom Relieved the else-fixed darkness of despair! But on the seventh night at midnight—hark! 210 What might I hear? A step?—a small light step, That by the stair ascending, swiftly came Straight to the inner door—then stopped. Alas! The black leaf opened not; and yet, the while, A rainbow radiance through its solid breadth Came flushing bright, in subtle wave on wave, As sunset glow in swift rich curves wells forth Through some dense cloud upon the verge of heaven: So came it, filling all the cell at length With rosy lights; and then the mystic steed Moved, and spread wide his glimmering bat-like wings. When hark! deep down in the mysterious tower Another step! Yea, the same strenuous tramp That once before I heard, big beating up— A cry, a struggle, and retreating steps! And that fair light had faded from the air. Again the hateful tramp came booming up; The great door opened, and the monster-fiend Filled all the space between the mighty jambs. My heart glowed hot with rage and hate at once; Fiercely I charged him, but his horrible glooms Enwrapped me closer, in yet denser coils Every dread moment! But my anguish now, My pain, and hate, and loathing, all had grown Into so vast a horror that methought I burst with irresistible strength away— Rushed through the door and down the stairway—down An endless depth—till a portcullis, hinged In the tower’s basement, opened to my flight It fell behind me, and my passage lay By the long ripples of the rock-edged lake. Then, breathless, pausing in my giddy flight, I saw the lustrous lady upward pass Through the lit air, with steadfast downward look Of parting recognition—full of love, But painless, passionless. Above the tower And o’er the clouds her radiance passed away, And melted into heaven’s marble dome! Then fell there on my soul a sense of loss So bleak, so desolate, that with a wild 211 Sleep-startling outcry, sudden I awoke Awoke to find it but a wondrous dream; Yet ever since to feel as if some pure And guardian soul, out of the day and night, Had passed for ever from the reach of love! ~ Charles Harpur,

811:CANTO I. Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave A paradise for a sect; the savage, too, From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep Guesses at heaven; pity these have not Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf The shadows of melodious utterance, But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die; For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,-- With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable chain And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, "Thou art no Poet -- may'st not tell thy dreams?" Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved, And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse Be poet's or fanatic's will be known When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave. Methought I stood where trees of every clime, Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech, With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen, In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round I saw an arbour with a drooping roof Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms, Like floral censers, swinging light in air; Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits, Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal By angel tasted or our Mother Eve; For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass, And grapestalks but half-bare, and remnants more Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know. Still was more plenty than the fabled horn Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting, For Prosperine return'd to her own fields, Where the white heifers low. And appetite, More yearning than on earth I ever felt, Growing within, I ate deliciously,-- And, after not long, thirsted; for thereby Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took, And pledging all the mortals of the world, And all the dead whose names are in our lips, Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme. No Asian poppy nor elixir fine Of the soon-fading, jealous, Caliphat, No poison gender'd in close monkish cell, To thin the scarlet conclave of old men, Could so have rapt unwilling life away. Among the fragment husks and berries crush'd Upon the grass, I struggled hard against The domineering potion, but in vain. The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank, Like a Silenus on an antique vase. How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess. When sense of life return'd, I started up As if with wings, but the fair trees were gone, The mossy mound and arbour were no more; I look'd around upon the curved sides Of an old sanctuary, with roof august, Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds Might spread beneath as o'er the stars of heaven. So old the place was, I remember'd none The like upon the earth: what I had seen Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers, The superannuations of sunk realms, Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds, Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit things To that eternal domed monument. Upon the marble at my feet there lay Store of strange vessels and large draperies, Which needs have been of dyed asbestos wove, Or in that place the moth could not corrupt, So white the linen, so, in some, distinct Ran imageries from a sombre loom. All in a mingled heap confus'd there lay Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing-dish, Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries. Turning from these with awe, once more I raised My eyes to fathom the space every way: The embossed roof, the silent massy range Of columns north and south, ending in mist Of nothing; then to eastward, where black gates Were shut against the sunrise evermore; Then to the west I look'd, and saw far off An image, huge of feature as a cloud, At level of whose feet an altar slept, To be approach'd on either side by steps And marble balustrade, and patient travail To count with toil the innumerable degrees. Towards the altar sober-pac'd I went, Repressing haste as too unholy there; And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine One ministering; and there arose a flame When in mid-day the sickening east-wind Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain Melts out of the frozen incense from all flowers, And fills the air with so much pleasant health That even the dying man forgets his shroud;-- Even so that lofty sacrificial fire, Sending forth Maian incense, spread around Forgetfulness of everything but bliss, And clouded all the altar with soft smoke; From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard Language pronounc'd: "If thou canst not ascend These steps, die on that marble where thou art. Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust, Will parch for lack of nutriment; thy bones Will wither in few years, and vanish so That not the quickest eye could find a grain Of what thou now art on that pavement cold. The sands of thy short life are spent this hour, And no hand in the universe can turn Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps." I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once, So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed. Prodigious seem'd the toil; the leaves were yet Burning, when suddenly a palsied chill Struck from the paved level up my limbs. And was ascending quick to put cold grasp Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat. I shriek'd, and the sharp anguish of my shriek Stung my own ears; I strove hard to escape The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step. Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold Grew stifling, suffocating at the heart; And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not. One minute before death my ic'd foot touch'd The lowest stair; and, as it touch'd, life seem'd To pour in at the toes; I mounted up As once fair angels on a ladder flew From the green turf to heaven. "Holy Power," Cry'd I, approaching near the horned shrine, "What am I that another death come not To choke my utterance, sacrilegious, here?" Then said the veiled shadow: "Thou hast felt What 'tis to die and live again before Thy fated hour; that thou hadst power to do so Is thine own safety; thou hast dated on Thy doom." "High Prophetess," said I, "purge off, Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film." "None can usurp this height," return'd that shade, "But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest. All else who find a haven in the world, Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days, If by a chance into this fane they come, Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half." "Are there not thousands in the world," said I, Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade, "Who love their fellows even to the death, Who feel the giant agony of the world, And more, like slaves to poor humanity, Labour for mortal good? I sure should see Other men here, but I am here alone." "Those whom thou spakest of are no visionaries," Rejoin'd that voice; "they are no dreamers weak; They seek no wonder but the human face, No music but a happy-noted voice: They come not here, they have no thought to come; And thou art here, for thou art less than they. What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe, To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing, A fever of thyself: think of the earth; What bliss, even in hope, is there for thee? What haven? every creature hath its home, Every sole man hath days of joy and pain, Whether his labours be sublime or low -- The pain alone, the joy alone, distinct: Only the dreamer venoms all his days, Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve. Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shared, Such things as thou art are admitted oft Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile, And suffer'd in these temples: for that cause Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees." "That I am favour'd for unworthiness, But such propitious parley medicined In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice, Aye, and could weep for love of such award." So answer'd I, continuing, "If it please, Majestic shadow, tell me where I am, Whose altar this, for whom this incense curls; What image this whose face I cannot see For the broad marble knees; and who thou art, Of accent feminine so courteous?" Then the tall shade, in drooping linen veil'd, Spoke out, so much more earnest, that her breath Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung About a golden censer from her hand Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed Long-treasured tears. "This temple, sad and lone, Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war Foughten long since by giant hierarchy Against rebellion: this old image here, Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell, Is Saturn's; I, Moneta, left supreme, Sole goddess of this desolation." I had no words to answer, for my tongue, Useless, could find about its roofed home No syllable of a fit majesty To make rejoinder of Moneta's mourn: There was a silence, while the altar's blaze Was fainting for sweet food. I look'd thereon, And on the paved floor, where nigh were piled ****s of cinnamon, and many heaps Of other crisped spicewood: then again I look'd upon the altar, and its horns Whiten'd with ashes, and its languorous flame, And then upon the offerings again; And so, by turns, till sad Moneta cry'd: "The sacrifice is done, but not the less Will I be kind to thee for thy good will. My power, which to me is still a curse, Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes Still swooning vivid through my globbed brain, With an electral changing misery, Thou shalt with these dull mortal eyes behold Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not." As near as an immortal's sphered words Could to a mother's soften were these last: And yet I had a terror of her robes, And chiefly of the veils that from her brow Hung pale, and curtain'd her in mysteries, That made my heart too small to hold its blood. This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face, Not pin'd by human sorrows, but bright-blanch'd By an immortal sickness which kills not; It works a constant change, which happy death Can put no end to; deathwards progressing To no death was that visage; it had past The lilly and the snow; and beyond these I must not think now, though I saw that face. But for her eyes I should have fled away; They held me back with a benignant light, Soft, mitigated by divinest lids Half-clos'd, and visionless entire they seem'd Of all external things; they saw me not, But in blank splendour beam'd, like the mild moon, Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not What eyes are upward cast. As I had found A grain of gold upon a mountain's side, And, twing'd with avarice, strain'd out my eyes To search its sullen entrails rich with ore, So, at the sad view of Moneta's brow, I ask'd to see what things the hollow brow Behind environ'd: what high tragedy In the dark secret chambers of her skull Was acting, that could give so dread a stress To her cold lips, and fill with such a light Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice With such a sorrow? "Shade of Memory!" Cried I, with act adorant at her feet, "By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house, By this last temple, by the golden age, By Great Apollo, thy dear Foster-child, And by thyself, forlorn divinity, The pale Omega of a wither'd race, Let me behold, according as thou saidst, What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!" No sooner had this conjuration past My devout lips, than side by side we stood (Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine) Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star. Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs, And saw what first I thought an image huge, Like to the image pedestall'd so high In Saturn's temple; then Moneta's voice Came brief upon mine ear. "So Saturn sat When he had lost his realms;" whereon there grew A power within me of enormous ken To see as a god sees, and take the depth Of things as nimbly as the outward eye Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme Of those few words hung vast before my mind With half-unravell'd web. I sat myself Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see, And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life Was in this shrouded vale, -- not so much air As in the zoning of a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass; But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest. A stream went noiseless by, still deaden'd more By reason of the fallen divinity Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her reeds Prest her cold finger closer to her lips. Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went No further than to where old Saturn's feet Had rested, and there slept how long a sleep! Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred, and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth, His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. It seem'd no force could wake him from his place; But there came one who, with a kindred hand, Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low With reverence, though to one who knew it not. Then came the griev'd voice of Mnemosyne, And griev'd I hearken'd. "That divinity Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest wood, And with slow pace approach our fallen king, Is Thea, softest-natured of our brood." I mark'd the Goddess, in fair statuary Surpassing wan Moneta by the head, And in her sorrow nearer woman's tears. There was a list'ning fear in her regard, As if calamity had but begun; As if the venom'd clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear Was with its stored thunder labouring up, One hand she press'd upon that aching spot Where beats the human heart, as if just there, Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain; The other upon Saturn's bended neck She laid, and to the level of his ear Leaning, with parted lips some words she spoke In solemn tenour and deep organ-tone; Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue Would come in this like accenting; how frail To that large utterance of the early gods! "Saturn, look up! and for what, poor lost king? I have no comfort for thee; no, not one; I cannot say, wherefore thus sleepest thou? For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a god. The Ocean, too, with all its solemn noise, Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air Is emptied of thy hoary majesty. Thy thunder, captious at the new command, Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; And thy sharp lightning, in unpractis'd hands, Scourges and burns our once serene domain. "With such remorseless speed still come new woes, That unbelief has not a space to breathe. Saturn! sleep on: me thoughtless, why should I Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude? Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes? Saturn! sleep on, while at thy feet I weep." As when upon a tranced summer-night Forests, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a noise, Save from one gradual solitary gust Swelling upon the silence, dying off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave, So came these words and went; the while in tears She prest her fair large forehead to the earth, Just where her fallen hair might spread in curls, A soft and silken net for Saturn's feet. Long, long these two were postured motionless, Like sculpture builded-up upon the grave Or their own power. A long awful time I look'd upon them: still they were the same; The frozen God still bending to the earth, And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet; Moneta silent. Without stay or prop But my own weak mortality, I bore The load of this eternal quietude, The unchanging gloom and the three fixed shapes Ponderous upon my senses, a whole moon; For by my burning brain I measured sure Her silver seasons shedded on the night. And every day by day methought I grew More gaunt and ghostly. Oftentimes I pray'd Intense, that death would take me from the vale And all its burthens; gasping with despair Of change, hour after hour I curs'd myself, Until old Saturn rais'd his faded eyes, And look'd around and saw his kingdom gone, And all the gloom and sorrow of the place, And that fair kneeling Goddess at his feet. As the moist scent of flowers, and grass, and leaves, Fills forest-dells with a pervading air, Known to the woodland nostril, so the words Of Saturn fill'd the mossy glooms around, Even to the hollows of time-eaten oaks, And to the windings of the foxes' hole, With sad, low tones, while thus he spoke, and sent Strange moanings to the solitary Pan. "Moan, brethren, moan, for we are swallow'd up And buried from all godlike exercise Of influence benign on planets pale, And peaceful sway upon man's harvesting, And all those acts which Deity supreme Doth ease its heart of love in. Moan and wail; Moan, brethren, moan; for lo, the rebel spheres Spin round; the stars their ancient courses keep; Clouds still with shadowy moisture haunt the earth, Still suck their fill of light from sun and moon; Still buds the tree, and still the seashores murmur; There is no death in all the universe, No smell of death. -- There shall be death. Moan, moan, Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes Weak as the reed, weak, feeble as my voice. Oh! Oh! the pain, the pain of feebleness; Moan, moan, for still I thaw; or give me help; Throw down those imps, and give me victory. Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival, From the gold peaks of heaven's high-piled clouds; Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be Beautiful things made new, for the surprise Of the sky-children." So he feebly ceased, With such a poor and sickly-sounding pause, Methought I heard some old man of the earth Bewailing earthly loss; nor could my eyes And ears act with that unison of sense Which marries sweet sound with the grace of form, And dolorous accent from a tragic harp With large-limb'd visions. More I scrutinized. Still fixt he sat beneath the sable trees, Whose arms spread straggling in wild serpent forms With leaves all hush'd; his awful presence there (Now all was silent) gave a deadly lie To what I erewhile heard: only his lips Trembled amid the white curls of his beard; They told the truth, though round the snowy locks Hung nobly, as upon the face of heaven A mid-day fleece of clouds. Thea arose, And stretcht her white arm through the hollow dark, Pointing some whither: whereat he too rose, Like a vast giant, seen by men at sea To grow pale from the waves at dull midnight. They melted from my sight into the woods; Ere I could turn, Moneta cry'd, "These twain Are speeding to the families of grief, Where, rooft in by black rocks, they waste in pain And darkness, for no hope." And she spake on, As ye may read who can unwearied pass Onward from the antechamber of this dream, Where, even at the open doors, awhile I must delay, and glean my memory Of her high phrase -- perhaps no further dare. CANTO II. "Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright, I humanize my sayings to thine ear, Making comparisons of earthly things; Or thou might'st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees. In melancholy realms big tears are shed, More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe. The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound, Groan for the old allegiance once more, Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice. But one of the whole eagle-brood still keeps His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty: Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up From Man to the Sun's God -- yet insecure. For as upon the earth dire prodigies Fright and perplex, so also shudders he; Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech, Or the familiar visiting of one Upon the first toll of his passing bell, Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp; But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve, Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright, Bastion'd with pyramids of shining gold, And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks, Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts, Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries; And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds Flash angerly; when he would taste the wreaths Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills, Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick; Wherefore when harbour'd in the sleepy West, After the full completion of fair day, For rest divine upon exalted couch, And slumber in the arms of melody, He paces through the pleasant hours of ease, With strides colossal, on from hall to hall, While far within each aisle and deep recess His winged minions in close clusters stand Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men, Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops, When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers. Even now where Saturn, rous'd from icy trance, Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods, Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear, Is sloping to the threshold of the West. Thither we tend." Now in the clear light I stood, Reliev'd from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne Was sitting on a square-edg'd polish'd stone, That in its lucid depth reflected pure Her priestess' garments. My quick eyes ran on From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault, Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light, And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades. Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion; His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels, And gave a roar as if of earthy fire, That scar'd away the meek ethereal hours, And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ John Keats, Hyperion, A Vision - Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem ,

812:The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought, And yet a false one, was, "Man shrinks to nought "If matched with symbols of immensity; "Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky "Or sea, too little for their quietude:" And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sank Down the near terrace to the farther bank, And only one spot left from out the night Glimmered upon the river opposite A breadth of watery heaven like a bay, A sky-like space of water, ray for ray, And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary splendours folded in To die. Nor turned he till Ferrara's din (Say, the monotonous speech from a man's lip Who lets some first and eager purpose slip In a new fancy's birththe speech keeps on Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone) Aroused him, surely offered succour. Fate Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate Herself,best put off new strange thoughts awhile, That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile, What help to pierce the future as the past Lay in the plaining city?              And at last The main discovery and prime concern, All that just now imported him to learn, Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to complete Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet, Lighted his old life's every shift and change, Effort with counter-effort; nor the range Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked, Some otherwhich of these could he suspect, Prying into them by the sudden blaze? The real way seemed made up of all the ways Mood after mood of the one mind in him; Tokens of the existence, bright or dim, Of a transcendent all-embracing sense Demanding only outward influence, A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul, Power to uplift his power,such moon's control Over such sea-depths,and their mass had swept Onward from the beginning and still kept Its course: but years and years the sky above Held none, and so, untasked of any love, His sensitiveness idled, now amort, Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport Given wholly up, disposed itself anew At every passing instigation, grew And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt, Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race Of whitest ripples o'er the reeffound place For much display; not gathered up and, hurled Right from its heart, encompassing the world. So had Sordello been, by consequence, Without a function: others made pretence To strength not half his own, yet had some core Within, submitted to some moon, before Them still, superior still whate'er their force, Were able therefore to fulfil a course, Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute. To each who lives must be a certain fruit Of having lived in his degree,a stage, Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage, To stop at; and to this the spirits tend Who, still discovering beauty without end, Amass the scintillations, make one star Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar, And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest By winning it to notice and invest Their souls with alien glory, some one day Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway, Round to the perfect circlesoon or late, According as themselves are formed to wait; Whether mere human beauty will suffice The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes, Or human intellect seem best, or each Combine in some ideal form past reach On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim, Some love, hate even, take their place, the same, So to be servedall this they do not lose, Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose What must be Hella progress thus pursued Through all existence, still above the food That 's offered them, still fain to reach beyond The widened range, in virtue of their bond Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love, A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal prove To swaying all Sordello: but why doubt Some love meet for such strength, some moon without Would match his sea?or fear, Good manifest, Only the Best breaks faith?Ah but the Best Somehow eludes us ever, still might be And is not! Crave we gems? No penury Of their material round us! Pliant earth And plastic flamewhat balks the mage his birth Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block? Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock; Nought more! Seek creatures? Life 's i' the tempest, thought Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught With fervours: human forms are well enough! But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff Profuse at nature's pleasure, men beyond These actual men!and thus are over-fond In arguing, from Goodthe Best, from force Dividedforce combined, an ocean's course From this our sea whose mere intestine pants Might seem at times sufficient to our wants. External power! If none be adequate, And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate) Himself a law to his own sphere? "Remove "All incompleteness!" for that law, that love? Nay, if all other laws be feints,truth veiled Helpfully to weak vision that had failed To grasp aught but its special want,for lure, Embodied? Stronger vision could endure The unbodied want: no partthe whole of truth! The People were himself; nor, by the ruth At their condition, was he less impelled To alter the discrepancy beheld, Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly part Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art, Then palmed on him as alien woethe Guelf To succour, proud that he forsook himself. All is himself; all service, therefore, rates Alike, nor serving one part, immolates The rest: but all in time! "That lance of yours "Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors, "That buckler 's lined with many a giant's beard "Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared, "The buckler wielded handsomely as now! "But view your escort, bear in mind your vow, "Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that, "And, if you hope we struggle through the flat, "Put lance and buckler by! Next half-month lacks "Mere sturdy exercise of mace and axe "To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear "Which bristling holds Cydippe by the hair, "Lames barefoot Agathon: this felled, we 'll try "The picturesque achievements by and by "Next life!"       Ay, rally, mock, O People, urge Your claims!for thus he ventured, to the verge, Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust Likewise: accordingly the Crowd(as yet He had unconsciously contrived forget I' the whole, to dwell o' the points . . . one might assuage The signal horrors easier than engage With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief Not to be fancied off, nor gained relief In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk, But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work To correspond . . .) this Crowd then, forth they stood. "And now content thy stronger vision, brood "On thy bare want; uncovered, turf by turf, "Study the corpse-face thro' the taint-worms' scurf!" Down sank the People's Then; uprose their Now. These sad ones render service to! And how Piteously little must that service prove Had surely proved in any case! for, move Each other obstacle away, let youth Become aware it had surprised a truth 'T were service to impartcan truth be seized, Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased, Its captor find fresh prey, since this alit So happily, no gesture luring it, The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain, Most vain! a life to spend ere this he chain To the poor crowd's complacence: ere the crowd Pronounce it captured, he descries a cloud Its kin of twice the plume; which he, in turn, If he shall live as many lives, may learn How to secure: not else. Then Mantua called Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfume Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom; Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets, A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets; Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine, Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine. Yet to surmount this obstacle, commence With the commencement, merits crowning! Hence Must truth be casual truth, elicited In sparks so mean, at intervals dispread So rarely, that 't is like at no one time Of the world's story has not truth, the prime Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurled The world's course right, been really in the world Content the while with some mean spark by dint Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint Of buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would stream Sky-ward!      Sordello's miserable gleam Was looked for at the moment: he would dash This badge. and all it brought, to earth,abash Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest The Kaiser from his purpose,would attest His own belief, in any case. Before He dashes it however, think once more! For, were that little, truly service? "Ay, "I' the end, no doubt; but meantime? Plain you spy "Its ultimate effect, but many flaws "Of vision blur each intervening cause. "Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sum "Of service, Now as filled as teems To-come "With evidence of goodnor too minute "A share to vie with evil! No dispute, "'T were fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule: "That makes your life's work: but you have to school "Your day's work on these natures circumstanced "Thus variously, which yet, as each advanced "Or might impede the Guelf rule, must be moved "Now, for the Then's sake,hating what you loved, "Loving old hatreds! Nor if one man bore "Brand upon temples while his fellow wore "The aureole, would it task you to decide: "But, portioned duly out, the future vied "Never with the unparcelled present! Smite "Or spare so much on warrant all so slight? "The present's complete sympathies to break, "Aversions bear with, for a future's sake "So feeble? Tito ruined through one speck, "The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck? "This were work, true, but work performed at cost "Of other work; aught gained here, elsewhere lost. "For a new segment spoil an orb half-done? "Rise with the People one step, and sinkone? "Were it but one step, less than the whole face "Of things, your novel duty bids erase! "Harms to abolish! What, the prophet saith, "The minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith, "Old courage, only born because of harms, "Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms? "Flame may persist; but is not glare as staunch? "Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch; "Blood dries to crimson; Evil 's beautified "In every shape. Thrust Beauty then aside "And banish Evil! Wherefore? After all, "Is Evil a result less natural "Than Good? For overlook the seasons' strife "With tree and flower,the hideous animal life, "(Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt "For his solution, and endure the vaunt "Of nature's angel, as a child that knows "Himself befooled, unable to propose "Aught better than the fooling)and but care "For men, for the mere People then and there, "In these, could you but see that Good and Ill "Claimed you alike! Whence rose their claim but still "From Ill, as fruit of Ill? What else could knit "You theirs but Sorrow? Any free from it "Were also free from you! Whose happiness "Could be distinguished in this morning's press "Of miseries?the fool's who passed a gibe "'On thee,' jeered he, `so wedded to thy tribe, "`Thou carriest green and yellow tokens in "'Thy very face that thou art Ghibellin!' "Much hold on you that fool obtained! Nay mount "Yet higherand upon men's own account "Must Evil stay: for, what is joy?to heave "Up one obstruction more, and common leave "What was peculiar, by such act destroy "Itself; a partial death is every joy; "The sensible escape, enfranchisement "Of a sphere's essence: once the vexedcontent, "The crampedat large, the growing circleround, "All 's to begin againsome novel bound "To break, some new enlargement to entreat; "The sphere though larger is not more complete. "Now for Mankind's experience: who alone "Might style the unobstructed world his own? "Whom palled Goito with its perfect things? "Sordello's self: whereas for Mankind springs "Salvation by each hindrance interposed. "They climb; life's view is not at once disclosed "To creatures caught up, on the summit left, "Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft: "But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot. "So, range on range, the girdling forests shoot "'Twixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scale "Height after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil, "Heartened with each discovery; in their soul, "The Whole they seek by Partsbut, found that Whole, "Could they revert, enjoy past gains? The space "Of time you judge so meagre to embrace "The Parts were more than plenty, once attained "The Whole, to quite exhaust it: nought were gained "But leave to looknot leave to do: Beneath "Soon sates the lookerlook Above, and Death "Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live "First, and die soon enough, Sordello! Give "Body and spirit the first right they claim, "And pasture soul on a voluptuous shame "That you, a pageant-city's denizen, "Are neither vilely lodged midst Lombard men "Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck "Bright attributes away for sordid muck, "Yet manage from that very muck educe "Gold; then subject nor scruple, to your cruce "The world's discardings! Though real ingots pay "Your pains, the clods that yielded them are clay "To all beside,would clay remain, though quenched "Your purging-fire; who 's robbed then? Had you wrenched "An ampler treasure forth!As 't is, they crave "A share that ruins you and will not save "Them. Why should sympathy command you quit "The course that makes your joy, nor will remit "Their woe? Would all arrive at joy? Reverse "The order (time instructs you) nor coerce "Each unit till, some predetermined mode, "The total be emancipate; men's road "Is one, men's times of travel many; thwart "No enterprising soul's precocious start "Before the general march! If slow or fast "All straggle up to the same point at last, "Why grudge your having gained, a month ago, "The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow, "While they were landlocked? Speed their Then, but how "This badge would suffer you improve your Now!" His time of action for, against, or with Our world (I labour to extract the pith Of this his problem) grew, that even-tide, Gigantic with its power of joy, beside The world's eternity of impotence To profit though at his whole joy's expense. "Make nothing of my day because so brief? "Rather make more: instead of joy, use grief "Before its novelty have time subside! "Wait not for the late savour, leave untried "Virtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeeze "Vice like a biting spirit from the lees "Of life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust, "All tyrannies in every shape, be thrust "Upon this Now, which time may reason out "As mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt; "But long ere then Sordello will have slipt "Away; you teach him at Goito's crypt, "There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill. "Stirring, the few cope with the many, still: "So much of sand as, quiet, makes a mass "Unable to produce three tufts of grass, "Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void "The whole calm glebe's endeavour: be employed! "And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this, "Contribute each his pang to make your bliss, "'T is but one pangone blood-drop to the bowl "Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl "At last, stains ruddily the dull red cape, "And, kindling orbs grey as the unripe grape "Before, avails forthwith to disentrance "The portent, soon to lead a mystic dance "Among you! For, who sits alone in Rome? "Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home, "And set me there to live? Oh life, life-breath, "Life-blood,ere sleep, come travail, life ere death! "This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique, "But always streaming! Hindrances? They pique: "Helps? such . . . but why repeat, my soul o'ertops "Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops? "Enough that I can live, and would live! Wait "For some transcendent life reserved by Fate "To follow this? Oh, never! Fate, I trust "The same, my soul to; for, as who flings dust, "Perchance (so facile was the deed) she chequed "The void with these materials to affect "My soul diversely: these consigned anew "To nought by death, what marvel if she threw "A second and superber spectacle "Before me? What may serve for sun, what still "Wander a moon above me? What else wind "About me like the pleasures left behind, "And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh "Cling to me? What 's new laughter? Soothes the fresh "Sleep like sleep? Fate 's exhaustless for my sake "In brave resource: but whether bids she slake "My thirst at this first rivulet, or count "No draught worth lip save from some rocky fount "Above i' the clouds, while here she 's provident "Of pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tent "Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail "The silver globules and gold-sparkling grail "At bottom? Oh, 't were too absurd to slight "For the hereafter the to-day's delight! "Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: wear "Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair! "Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart "Offer to serve, contented for my part "To give life up in service,only grant "That I do serve; if otherwise, why want "Aught further of me? If men cannot choose "But set aside life, why should I refuse "The gift? I take itI, for one, engage "Never to falter through my pilgrimage "Nor end it howling that the stock or stone "Were enviable, truly: I, for one, "Will praise the world, you style mere anteroom "To palacebe it so! shall I assume "My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope, "My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly ope "One moment? What? with guarders row on row, "Gay swarms of varletry that come and go, "Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlace "The plackets of, pert claimants help displace, "Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for,laugh "At yon sleek parasite, break his own staff "'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder,why "Admitted to the presence by and by, "Should thought of having lost these make me grieve "Among new joys I reach, for joys I leave? "Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone, "Are floor-work there! But do I let alone "That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule "Once and for ever?Floor-work? No such fool! "Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I 'd say "I, is it, must be blest? Then, my own way "Bless me! Giver firmer arm and fleeter foot, "I 'll thank you: but to no mad wings transmute "These limbs of mineour greensward was so soft! "Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft: "We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thus "Engines subservient, not mixed up with us. "Better move palpably through heaven: nor, freed "Of flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed "'Mid flying synods of worlds! No: in heaven's marge "Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe "Solid with starsthe Centaur at his game, "Made tremulously out in hoary flame! "Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull "Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full, "Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealed "So oft a better life this life concealed, "And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path "Have hunted fearlesslythe horrid bath, "The crippling-irons and the fiery chair. "'T was well for them; let me become aware "As they, and I relinquish life, too! Let "What masters life disclose itself! Forget "Vain ordinances, I have one appeal "I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel; "So much is truth to me. What Is, then? Since "One object, viewed diversely, may evince "Beauty and uglinessthis way attract, "That way repel,why gloze upon the fact? "Why must a single of the sides be right? "What bids choose this and leave the opposite? "Where 's abstract Right for me?in youth endued "With Right still present, still to be pursued, "Thro' all the interchange of circles, rife "Each with its proper law and mode of life, "Each to be dwelt at ease in: where, to sway "Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey "Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart, "Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start "Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout "That some should pick the unstrung jewels out "Each, well!"        And, as in moments when the past Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast Himself quite through mere secondary states Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates, Into the mid deep yearnings overlaid By these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade, And on into the very nucleus probe That first determined there exist a globe. As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved, So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved By his flesh-half's break-up; the sudden swell Of his expanding soul showed Ill and Well, Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness, Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less, All qualities, in fine, recorded here, Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere, Urgent on these, but not of force to bind Eternity, as Timeas MatterMind, If Mind, Eternity, should choose assert Their attributes within a Life: thus girt With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct Quite otherwisewith Good and Ill distinct, Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result Contrived to render easy, difficult, This or the other course of . . . what new bond In place of flesh may stop their flight beyond Its new sphere, as that course does harm or good To its arrangements. Once this understood, As suddenly he felt himself alone, Quite out of Time and this world: all was known. What made the secret of his past despair? Most imminent when he seemed most aware Of his own self-sufficiency: made mad By craving to expand the power he had, And not new power to be expanded?just This made it; Soul on Matter being thrust, Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in Time On Matter: let the Soul's attempt sublime Matter beyond the scheme and so prevent By more or less that deed's accomplishment, And Sorrow follows: Sorrow how avoid? Let the employer match the thing employed, Fit to the finite his infinity, And thus proceed for ever, in degree Changed but in kind the same, still limited To the appointed circumstance and dead To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere; Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here; Since to the spirit's absoluteness all Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call Life, are conditions; take but this among Many; the body was to be so long Youthful, no longer: but, since no control Tied to that body's purposes his soul, She chose to understand the body's trade More than the body's selfhad fain conveyed Her boundless to the body's bounded lot. Hence, the soul permanent, the body not, Scarcely its minute for enjoying here, The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer, Run o'er its capabilities and wring A joy thence, she held worth experiencing: Which, far from half discovered even,lo, The minute gone, the body's power let go Apportioned to that joy's acquirement! Broke Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke From the volcano's vapour-flag, winds hoist Black o'er the spread of sea,down to the moist Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain, Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great To the soul's absoluteness. Meditate Too long on such a morning's cluster-chord And the whole music it was framed afford, The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck. And then no marvel if the spirit, shown A saddest sightthe body lost alone Through her officious proffered help, deprived Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived, Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence, Vain-gloriously were fain, for recompense, To stem the ruin even yet, protract The body's term, supply the power it lacked From her infinity, compel it learn These qualities were only Time's concern, And body may, with spirit helping, barred Advance the same, vanquishedobtain reward, Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow, Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below. And the result is, the poor body soon Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon, Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast. So much was plain then, proper in the past; To be complete for, satisfy the whole Series of spheresEternity, his soul Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each Single sphereTime. But does our knowledge reach No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke But by the failing of the fleshly yoke, Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar Sordello, self-sufficient as before, Though during the mere space that shall elapse 'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds perhaps? Must life be ever just escaped, which should Have been enjoyed?nay, might have been and would, Each purpose ordered rightthe soul 's no whit Beyond the body's purpose under it. Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay, And that sky-space of water, ray for ray And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary splendours folded in To diewould soul, proportioned thus, begin Exciting discontent, or surelier quell The body if, aspiring, it rebel? But how so order life? Still brutalize The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes To all that was before, all that shall be After this sphereall and each quality Save some sole and immutable Great, Good And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood To follow? Never may some soul see All The Great Before and After, and the Small Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore, And take the single course prescribed before, As the king-bird with ages on his plumes Travels to die in his ancestral glooms? But where descry the Love that shall select That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect, Nature has plied with all her means, from trees And flowers e'en to the Multitude!and these, Decides he save or no? One word to end! Ah my Sordello, I this once befriend And speak for you. Of a Power above you still Which, utterly incomprehensible, Is out of rivalry, which thus you can Love, tho' unloving all conceived by man What need! And ofnone the minutest duct To that out-nature, nought that would instruct And so let rivalry begin to live But of a Power its representative Who, being for authority the same, Communication different, should claim A course, the first chose but this last revealed This Human clear, as that Divine concealed What utter need!          What has Sordello found? Or can his spirit go the mighty round, End where poor Eglamor begun? So, says Old fable, the two eagles went two ways About the world: where, in the midst, they met, Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found? For they approachapproachthat foot's rebound Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail; They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil Asideand you divine who sat there dead, Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said, A triumph lingering in the wide eyes, Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies Help from above in his extreme despair, And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast, It beat.     By this, the hermit-bee has stopped His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped Dead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit, Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion 's fit, God counselled for. As easy guess the word That passed betwixt them, and become the third To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax Him with one faultso, no remembrance racks Of the stone maidens and the font of stone He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone. Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom Anon they laid within that old font-tomb, And, yet again, alas!            And now is 't worth Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth How Salinguerra extricates himself Without Sordello? Ghibellin and Guelf May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct, Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure, Was peace; our chief made some frank overture That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast On its disposer, and Taurello passed With foe and friend for an outstripping soul, Nine days at least. Then,fairly reached the goal, He, by one effort, blotted the great hope Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope With Este, that mad evening's style, but sent Away the Legate and the League, content No blame at least the brothers had incurred, Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at, Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat And ne'er spoke more,informed the Ferrarese He but retained their rule so long as these Lingered in pupilage,and last, no mode Apparent else of keeping safe the road From Germany direct to Lombardy For Friedrich,none, that is, to guarantee The faith and promptitude of who should next Obtain Sofia's dowry,sore perplexed (Sofia being youngest of the tribe Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe The envious magnates withnor, since he sent Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent Once failed the Kaiser's purposes"we lost "Egna last year, and who takes Egna's post "Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?") Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock In pure necessity, and, so destroyed His slender last of chances, quite made void Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams, Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed He up this evening's work that, when 't was brushed Somehow against by a blind chronicle Which, chronicling whatever woe befell Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe Of "Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo "Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire," The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire Which of Sofia's five was meant.                  The chaps Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse, Obliterated not the beautiful Distinctive features at a crash: but dull And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too Ecelin at Campese slept; close by, Who likes may see him in Solagna lie, With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote The cavalier he was)then his heart smote Young Ecelin at last; long since adult. And, save Vicenza's business, what result In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nick Of time when Ecelin and Alberic Closed with Taurello, come precisely news That in Verona half the souls refuse Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount, Their Podest, thro' his ancestral worth. Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth Was wholly hisTaurello sinking back From temporary station to a track That suited. News received of this acquist, Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missed Taurello then? Another year: they took Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free," Opposing Alberic,vile Bassanese, (Without Sordello!)Ecelin at ease Slaughtered them so observably, that oft A little Salinguerra looked with soft Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age To get appointed his proud uncle's page. More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown Better through age, his parts still in repute, Subtlehow else?but hardly so astute As his contemporaneous friends professed; Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest, Known by each neighbour, and allowed for, let Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret Men who would miss their boyhood's bugbear: "trap "The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap "A battered pinion!"was the word. In fine, One flap too much and Venice's marine Was meddled with; no overlooking that! She captured him in his Ferrara, fat And florid at a banquet, more by fraud Than force, to speak the truth; there 's slender laud Ascribed you for assisting eighty years To pull his death on such a man; fate shears The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads You fritter: so, presiding his board-head, The old smile, your assurance all went well With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!) In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends, Made some pretence at fighting, some amends For the shame done his eighty years(apart The principle, none found it in his heart To be much angry with Taurello)gained Their galleys with the prize, and what remained But carry him to Venice for a show? Set him, as 't were, down gentlyfree to go His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe The swallows soaring their eternal curve 'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens Gathered importunately, fives and tens, To point their children the Magnifico, All but a monarch once in firm-land, go His gait among them now"it took, indeed, "Fully this Ecelin to supersede "That man," remarked the seniors. Singular! Sordello's inability to bar Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought About by his strange disbelief that aught Was ever to be done,this thrust the Twain Under Taurello's tutelage,whom, brain And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod Indissolubly bound to baffle God Who loves the worldand thus allowed the thin Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin, And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic (Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quick To demonstrationprove wherever's will To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip, They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand (So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band Together, cross their coats as for Christ's cause, And saving Milan win the world's applause. Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew Never so pleasant as in Valley R By San Zenon where Alberic in turn Saw his exasperated captors burn Seven children and their mother; then, regaled So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take God's part and testify that 'mid the brake Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll, You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat The modern church beneath,no harm in that! Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper, Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre Above the ravage: there, at deep of day A week since, heard I the old Canon say He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst And Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsed Only five years ago. He added, "June 's "The month for carding off our first cocoons "The silkworms fabricate"a double news, Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose! And Naddo gone, all's gone; not Eglamor! Believe, I knew the face I waited for, A guest my spirit of the golden courts! Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports, Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained Its joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned, And still my spirit held an upward flight, Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light More and more gorgeousever that face there The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care As perfect triumph were not sure for all, But, on a few, enduring damp must fall, A transient struggle, haply a painful sense Of the inferior nature's clingingwhence Slight starting tears easily wiped away, Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play Of irrepressible admirationnot Aspiring, all considered, to their lot Who ever, just as they prepare ascend Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend Thy frank delight at their exclusive track, That upturned fervid face and hair put back! Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes Many a tale, of this retreat betimes, Was born: Sordello die at once for men? The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved Who thus, by fortune ordering events, Passed with posterity, to all intents, For just the god he never could become. As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb In praise of him: while what he should have been, Could be, and was notthe one step too mean For him to take,we suffer at this day Because of: Ecelin had pushed away Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake: He did muchbut Sordello's chance was gone. Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone, Apollo had been compassed: 't was a fit He wished should go to him, not he to it As one content to merely be supposed Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed Really at homeone who was chiefly glad To have achieved the few real deeds he had, Because that way assured they were not worth Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes Never itself, itself. Had he embraced Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot All he was anxious to appear, but scarce Solicitous to be. A sorry farce Such life is, after all! Cannot I say He lived for some one better thing? this way. Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill, Morning just up, higher and higher runs A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's On the square castle's inner-court's low wall Like the chine of some extinct animal Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze (Save where some slender patches of grey maize Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost Matting the balm and mountain camomile. Up and up goes he, singing all the while Some unintelligible words to beat The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet, So worsted is he at "the few fine locks "Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks "Sun-blanched the livelong summer,"all that's left Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft, Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect He sleeps, the feverish poetI suspect Not utterly companionless; but, friends, Wake up! The ghost's gone, and the story ends I'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul, That spirits are conjectured fair or foul, Evil or good, judicious authors think, According as they vanish in a stink Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough! Merely the savour's rareness; any nose May ravage with impunity a rose: Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours! I'd tell you that same pungency ensures An after-gust, but that were overbold. Who would has heard Sordello's story told. ~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Sixth ,

813:MANTIS EIM ESQLWN AGWNWN --Oedip. Colon. TO HIS EXCELLENCY PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO LATE SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE HOSPODAR OF WALLACHIA THE DRAMA OF HELLAS IS INSCRIBED AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR. PROLOGUE TO HELLAS Herald of Eternity. It is the day when all the sons of God Wait in the roofless senate-house, whose floor Is Chaos, and the immovable abyss Frozen by His steadfast word to hyaline... The shadow of God, and delegate Of that before whose breath the universe Is as a print of dew.            Hierarchs and kings Who from your thrones pinnacled on the past Sway the reluctant present, ye who sit Pavilioned on the radiance or the gloom Of mortal thought, which like an exhalation Steaming from earth, conceals the...of heaven Which gave it birth,...assemble here Before your Father's throne; the swift decree Yet hovers, and the fiery incarnation Is yet withheld, clothd in which it shall ...annul The fairest of those wandering isles that gem The sapphire space of interstellar air, That green and azure sphere, that earth enwrapped Less in the beauty of its tender light Than in an atmosphere of living spirit Which interpenetrating all the... ...it rolls from realm to realm And age to age, and in its ebb and flow Impels the generations To their appointed place, Whilst the high Arbiter Beholds the strife, and at the appointed time Sends His decrees veiled in eternal... Within the circuit of this pendent orb There lies an antique region, on which fell The dews of thought in the world's golden dawn Earliest and most benign, and from it sprung Temples and cities and immortal forms And harmonies of wisdom and of song, And thoughts, and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair. And when the sun of its dominion failed, And when the winter of its glory came, The winds that stripped it bare blew on and swept That dew into the utmost wildernesses In wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawed The unmaternal bosom of the North. Haste, sons of God,...for ye beheld, Reluctant, or consenting, or astonished, The stern decrees go forth, which heaped on Greece Ruin and degradation and despair. A fourth now waits: assemble, sons of God, To speed or to prevent or to suspend, If, as ye dream, such power be not withheld, The unaccomplished destiny... Chorus. The curtain of the Universe Is rent and shattered, The splendour-wingd worlds disperse Like wild doves scattered.   Space is roofless and bare, And in the midst a cloudy shrine, Dark amid thrones of light. In the blue glow of hyaline Golden worlds revolve and shine. In...flight From every point of the Infinite, Like a thousand dawns on a single night The splendours rise and spread; And through thunder and darkness dread Light and music are radiated, And in their pavilioned chariots led By living wings high overhead The giant Powers move, Gloomy or bright as the thrones they fill... A chaos of light and motion Upon that glassy ocean... The senate of the Gods is met, Each in his rank and station set;   There is silence in the spaces Lo! Satan, Christ, and Mahomet Start from their places! Christ.              Almighty Father! Low-kneeling at the feet of Destiny. . . There are two fountains in which spirits weep When mortals err, Discord and Slavery named, And with their bitter dew two Destinies Filled each their irrevocable urns; the third, Fiercest and mightiest, mingled both, and added Chaos and Death, and slow Oblivion's lymph, And hate and terror, and the poisoned rain. . . The Aurora of the nations. By this brow Whose pores wept tears of blood, by these wide wounds, By this imperial crown of agony, By infamy and solitude and death, For this I underwent, and by the pain Of pity for those who would...for me The unremembered joy of a revenge, For this I feltby Plato's sacred light, Of which my spirit was a burning morrow By Greece and all she cannot cease to be, Her quenchless words, sparks of immortal truth, Stars of all nighther harmonies and forms, Echoes and shadows of what Love adores In thee, I do compel thee, send forth Fate, Thy irrevocable child: let her descend, A seraph-wingd Victory [arrayed] In tempest of the omnipotence of God Which sweeps through all things. From hollow leagues, from Tyranny which arms Adverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies To stamp, as on a wingd serpent's seed, Upon the name of Freedom; from the storm Of faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickens The solid heart of enterprise; from all By which the holiest dreams of highest spirits Are stars beneath the dawn...                  She shall arise Victorious as the world arose from Chaos! And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed Their presence in the beauty and the light Of Thy first smile, O Father,as they gather The spirit of Thy love which paves for them Their path o'er the abyss, till every sphere Shall be one living Spirit,-- so shall Greece-- Satan. Be as all things beneath the empyrean, Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny, Thou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns? Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed Which pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn; For seest thou not beneath this crystal floor The innumerable worlds of golden light Which are my empire, and the least of them ...which thou wouldst redeem from me? Know'st thou not them my portion? Or wouldst rekindle the...strife Which our great Father then did arbitrate Which he assigned to his competing sons Each his apportioned realm?                Thou Destiny, Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence Of Him who sends thee forth, whate'er thy task, Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be mine Thy trophies, whether Greece again become The fountain in the desert whence the earth Shall drink of freedom, which shall give it strength To suffer, or a gulf of hollow death To swallow all delight, all life, all hope. Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no less Than of the Father's; but lest thou shouldst faint, The wingd hounds, Famine and Pestilence, Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forkd snake Insatiate Superstition still shall... The earth behind thy steps, and War shall hover Above, and Fraud shall gape below, and Change Shall flit before thee on her dragon wings, Convulsing and consuming, and I add Three vials of the tears which daemons weep When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death Pass triumphing over the thorns of life, Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares, Trampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates. The first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure, Glory and science and security, On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree, Then pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes. The second Tyranny-- Christ.            Obdurate spirit! Thou seest but the Past in the To-come. Pride is thy error and thy punishment. Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds Are more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops Before the Power that wields and kindles them. True greatness asks not space, true excellence Lives in the Spirit of all things that live, Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine... Mahomet. Haste thou and fill the waning crescent With beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow Of Christian night rolled back upon the West, When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow...                        Wake, thou Word Of God, and from the throne of Destiny Even to the utmost limit of thy way May Triumph........... Be thou a curse on them whose creed Divides and multiplies the most high God. HELLAS DRAMATIS PERSONAE Mahmud. Hassan. Daood. Ahasuerus, a Jew. Chorus of Greek Captive Women. The Phantom of Mahomet II. Messengers, Slaves, and Attendants. Scene, Constantinople. Time, Sunset. Scene--A Terrace on the Seraglio. Mahmud sleeping, an Indian Slave sitting beside his Couch. Chorus of Greek Captive Women. We strew these opiate flowers   On thy restless pillow, They were stripped from Orient bowers,   By the Indian billow.    Be thy sleep    Calm and deep, Like theirs who fellnot ours who weep! Indian. Away, unlovely dreams!   Away, false shapes of sleep! Be his, as Heaven seems,   Clear, and bright, and deep! Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath. Chorus. Sleep, sleep! our song is laden   With the soul of slumber; It was sung by a Samian maiden,   Whose lover was of the number    Who now keep    That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. Indian. I touch thy temples pale!   I breathe my soul on thee! And could my prayers avail,   All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, So thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep. Chorus.   Breathe low, low The spell of the mighty mistress now! When Conscience lulls her sated snake, And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake.   Breathe lowlow The words which, like secret fire, shall flow Through the veins of the frozen earthlow, low! Semichorus I. Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed,but it returneth! Semichorus II. Yet were life a charnel where Hope lay coffined with Despair; Yet were truth a sacred lie, Love were lust Semichorus I.          If Liberty Lent not life its soul of light, Hope its iris of delight, Truth its prophet's robe to wear, Love its power to give and bear. Chorus. In the great morning of the world, The Spirit of God with might unfurled The flag of Freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted from Imaus, Before an earthquake's tread. So from Time's tempestuous dawn Freedom's splendour burst and shone: Thermopylae and Marathon Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted, The springing Fire.The wingd glory On Philippi half-alighted, Like an eagle on a promontory. Its unwearied wings could fan The quenchless ashes of Milan.[1] From age to age, from man to man, It lived; and lit from land to land Florence, Albion, Switzerland. Then night fell; and, as from night, Reassuming fiery flight, From the West swift Freedom came, Against the course of Heaven and doom, A second sun arrayed in flame, To burn, to kindle, to illume. From far Atlantis its young beams Chased the shadows and the dreams. France, with all her sanguine steams, Hid, but quenched it not; again Through clouds its shafts of glory rain From utmost Germany to Spain. As an eagle fed with morning Scorns the embattled tempest's warning, When she seeks her aerie hanging In the mountain-cedar's hair, And her brood expect the clanging Of her wings through the wild air, Sick with famine:Freedom, so To what of Greece remaineth now Returns; her hoary ruins glow Like Orient mountains lost in day; Beneath the safety of her wings Her renovated nurslings prey, And in the naked lightenings Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes. Let Freedom leavewhere'er she flies, A Desert, or a Paradise: Let the beautiful and the brave Share her glory, or a grave. Semichorus I. With the gifts of gladness Greece did thy cradle strew; Semichorus II. With the tears of sadness Greece did thy shroud bedew! Semichorus I. With an orphan's affection She followed thy bier through Time; Semichorus II. And at thy resurrection Reappeareth, like thou, sublime! Semichorus I. If Heaven should resume thee, To Heaven shall her spirit ascend; Semichorus II. If Hell should entomb thee, To Hell shall her high hearts bend. Semichorus I. If Annihilation Semichorus II. Dust let her glories be! And a name and a nation Be forgotten, Freedom, with thee! Indian. His brow grows darkerbreathe notmove not! He startshe shuddersye that love not, With your panting loud and fast, Have awakened him at last. Mahmud (starting from his sleep). Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate! What! from a cannonade of three short hours? 'Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus Cannot be practicable yetwho stirs? Stand to the match; that when the foe prevails One spark may mix in reconciling ruin The conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower Into the gapwrench off the roof! (Enter Hassan.)                   Ha! what! The truth of day lightens upon my dream And I am Mahmud still. Hassan.             Your Sublime Highness Is strangely moved. Mahmud.           The times do cast strange shadows On those who watch and who must rule their course, Lest they, being first in peril as in glory, Be whelmed in the fierce ebb:and these are of them. Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me As thus from sleep into the troubled day; It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, Leaving no figure upon memory's glass. Would thatno matter. Thou didst say thou knewest A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle Of strange and secret and forgotten things. I bade thee summon him:'tis said his tribe Dream, and are wise interpreters of dreams. Hassan. The Jew of whom I spake is old,so old He seems to have outlived a world's decay; The hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean Seem younger still than he;his hair and beard Are whiter than the tempest-sifted snow; His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct With light, and to the soul that quickens them Are as the atoms of the mountain-drift To the winter wind:but from his eye looks forth A life of unconsumd thought which pierces The Present, and the Past, and the To-come. Some say that this is he whom the great prophet Jesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery, Mocked with the curse of immortality. Some feign that he is Enoch: others dream He was pre-adamite and has survived Cycles of generation and of ruin. The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, Deep contemplation, and unwearied study, In years outstretched beyond the date of man, May have attained to sovereignty and science Over those strong and secret things and thoughts Which others fear and know not. Mahmud.                  I would talk With this old Jew. Hassan.           Thy will is even now Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'Mid the Demonesi, less accessible Than thou or God! He who would question him Must sail alone at sunset, where the stream Of Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles, When the young moon is westering as now, And evening airs wander upon the wave; And when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water, Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud 'Ahasuerus!' and the caverns round Will answer 'Ahasuerus!' If his prayer Be granted, a faint meteor will arise Lighting him over Marmora, and a wind Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest, And with the wind a storm of harmony Unutterably sweet, and pilot him Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus: Thence at the hour and place and circumstance Fit for the matter of their conference The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare Win the desired communionbut that shout Bodes [A shout within. Mahmud.     Evil, doubtless; like all human sounds. Let me converse with spirits. Hassan.                 That shout again.                 Mahmud. This Jew whom thou hast summoned Hassan.                   Will be here                   Mahmud. When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked He, I, and all things shall compelenough! Silence those mutineersthat drunken crew, That crowd about the pilot in the storm. Ay! strike the foremost shorter by a head! They weary me, and I have need of rest. Kings are like starsthey rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose. [Exeunt severally. Chorus[2]. Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away.   But they are still immortal   Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,   Clothe their unceasing flight   In the brief dust and light Gathered around their chariots as they go;   New shapes they still may weave,   New gods, new laws receive, Bright or dim are they as the robes they last   On Death's bare ribs had cast.    A power from the unknown God,   A Promethean conqueror, came; Like a triumphal path he trod   The thorns of death and shame.   A mortal shape to him   Was like the vapour dim Which the orient planet animates with light;   Hell, Sin, and Slavery came,   Like bloodhounds mild and tame, Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight;   The moon of Mahomet   Arose, and it shall set: While blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon The cross leads generations on.   Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep   From one whose dreams are Paradise Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,   And Day peers forth with her blank eyes;   So fleet, so faint, so fair,   The Powers of earth and air Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem:   Apollo, Pan, and Love,   And even Olympian Jove Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them;   Our hills and seas and streams,   Dispeopled of their dreams, Their watrs turned to blood, their dew to tears,   Wailed for the golden years.   Enter Mahmud, Hassan, Daood, and others. Mahmud. More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory, And shall I sell it for defeat? Daood.                  The Janizars Clamour for pay. Mahmud.          Go! bid them pay themselves With Christian blood! Are there no Grecian virgins Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy? No infidel children to impale on spears? No hoary priests after that Patriarch[3] Who bent the curse against his country's heart, Which clove his own at last? Go! bid them kill, Blood is the seed of gold. Daood.               It has been sown, And yet the harvest to the sicklemen Is as a grain to each. Mahmud.             Then, take this signet, Unlock the seventh chamber in which lie The treasures of victorious Solyman, An empire's spoil stored for a day of ruin. O spirit of my sires! is it not come? The prey-birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep; But these, who spread their feast on the red earth, Hunger for gold, which fills not.See them fed; Then, lead them to the rivers of fresh death. [Exit Daood. O miserable dawn, after a night More glorious than the day which it usurped! O faith in God! O power on earth! O word Of the great prophet, whose o'ershadowing wings Darkened the thrones and idols of the West, Now bright!For thy sake cursd be the hour, Even as a father by an evil child, When the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph From Caucasus to White Ceraunia! Ruin above, and anarchy below; Terror without, and treachery within; The Chalice of destruction full, and all Thirsting to drink; and who among us dares To dash it from his lips? and where is Hope? Hassan. The lamp of our dominion still rides high; One God is GodMahomet is His prophet. Four hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits Of utmost Asia, irresistibly Throng, like full clouds at the Sirocco's cry; But not like them to weep their strength in tears: They bear destroying lightning, and their step Wakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm, And reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus, Tmolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen With horrent arms; and lofty ships even now, Like vapours anchored to a mountain's edge, Freighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala The convoy of the ever-veering wind. Samos is drunk with blood;the Greek has paid Brief victory with swift loss and long despair. The false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far, When the fierce shout of 'Allah-illa-Allah!' Rose like the war-cry of the northern wind Which kills the sluggish clouds, and leaves a flock Of wild swans struggling with the naked storm. So were the lost Greeks on the Danube's day! If night is mute, yet the returning sun Kindles the voices of the morning birds; Nor at thy bidding less exultingly Than birds rejoicing in the golden day, The Anarchies of Africa unleash Their tempest-wingd cities of the sea, To speak in thunder to the rebel world. Like sulphurous clouds, half-shattered by the storm, They sweep the pale Aegean, while the Queen Of Ocean, bound upon her island-throne, Far in the West, sits mourning that her sons Who frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee: Russia still hovers, as an eagle might Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane Hang tangled in inextricable fight, To stoop upon the victor;for she fears The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine. But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave Loves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover, Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood Crouch round. What Anarch wears a crown or mitre, Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold, Whose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foes? Our arsenals and our armouries are full; Our forts defy assault; ten thousand cannon Lie ranged upon the beach, and hour by hour Their earth-convulsing wheels affright the city; The galloping of fiery steeds makes pale The Christian merchant; and the yellow Jew Hides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth. Like clouds, and like the shadows of the clouds, Over the hills of Anatolia, Swift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry Sweep;the far flashing of their starry lances Reverberates the dying light of day. We have one God, one King, one Hope, one Law; But many-headed Insurrection stands Divided in itself, and soon must fall. Mahmud. Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable: Look, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud Which leads the rear of the departing day; Wan emblem of an empire fading now! See how it trembles in the blood-red air, And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent Shrinks on the horizon's edge, while, from above, One star with insolent and victorious light Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams, Like arrows through a fainting antelope, Strikes its weak from to death. Hassan.                  Even as that moon Renews itself Mahmud.         Shall we be not renewed! Far other bark than ours were needed now To stem the torrent of descending time: The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord Stalks through the capitals of armd kings, And spreads his ensign in the wilderness: Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls, Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust; And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear Cower in their kingly densas I do now. What were Defeat when Victory must appal? Or Danger, when Security looks pale? How said the messengerwho, from the fort Islanded in the Danube, saw the battle Of Bucharest?that Hassan.            Ibrahim's scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle A light and a destruction. Mahmud.               Ay! the day Was ours: but how? Hassan.            The light Wallachians, The Arnaut, Servian, and Albanian allies Fled from the glance of our artillery Almost before the thunderstone alit. One half the Grecian army made a bridge Of safe and slow retreat, with Moslem dead; The other Mahmud.       Speaktremble not.       Hassan.                  Islanded By victor myriads, formed in hollow square With rough and steadfast front, and thrice flung back The deluge of our foaming cavalry; Thrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines. Our baffled army trembled like one man Before a host, and gave them space; but soon, From the surrounding hills, the batteries blazed, Kneading them down with fire and iron rain: Yet none approached; till, like a field of corn Under the hook of the swart sickleman, The band, intrenched in mounds of Turkish dead, Grew weak and few.Then said the Pacha, 'Slaves, Render yourselvesthey have abandoned you What hope of refuge, or retreat, or aid? We grant your lives.' 'Grant that which is thine own!' Cried one, and fell upon his sword and died! Another'God, and man, and hope abandon me; But I to them, and to myself, remain Constant:'he bowed his head, and his heart burst. A third exclaimed, 'There is a refuge, tyrant, Where thou darest not pursue, and canst not harm Shouldst thou pursue; there we shall meet again.' Then held his breath, and, after a brief spasm, The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment Among the slaindead earth upon the earth! So these survivors, each by different ways, Some strange, all sudden, none dishonourable, Met in triumphant death; and when our army Closed in, while yet wonder, and awe, and shame Held back the base hyaenas of the battle That feed upon the dead and fly the living, One rose out of the chaos of the slain: And if it were a corpse which some dread spirit Of the old saviours of the land we rule Had lifted in its anger, wandering by; Or if there burned within the dying man Unquenchable disdain of death, and faith Creating what it feigned;I cannot tell But he cried, 'Phantoms of the free, we come! Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike To dust the citadels of sanguine kings, And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew; O ye who float around this clime, and weave The garment of the glory which it wears, Whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped, Lies sepulchred in monumental thought; Progenitors of all that yet is great, Ascribe to your bright senate, O accept In your high ministrations, us, your sons Us first, and the more glorious yet to come! And ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale When the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread, The vultures and the dogs, your pensioners tame, Are overgorged; but, like oppressors, still They crave the relic of Destruction's feast. The exhalations and the thirsty winds Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death; Heaven's light is quenched in slaughter: thus, where'er Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets, The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast Of these dead limbs,upon your streams and mountains, Upon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops, Where'er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly, Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down With poisoned lightFamine, and Pestilence, And Panic, shall wage war upon our side! Nature from all her boundaries is moved Against ye: Time has found ye light as foam. The Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake Their empire o'er the unborn world of men On this one cast;but ere the die be thrown, The renovated genius of our race, Proud umpire of the impious game, descends, A seraph-wingd Victory, bestriding The tempest of the Omnipotence of God, Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom, And you to oblivion!'More he would have said, But Mahmud.    Diedas thou shouldst ere thy lips had painted Their ruin in the hues of our success. A rebel's crime, gilt with a rebel's tongue! Your heart is Greek, Hassan. Hassan.                It may be so: A spirit not my own wrenched me within, And I have spoken words I fear and hate; Yet would I die for Mahmud.            Live! oh live! outlive Me and this sinking empire. But the fleet Hassan. Alas! Mahmud.     The fleet which, like a flock of clouds Chased by the wind, flies the insurgent banner! Our wingd castles from their merchant ships! Our myriads before their weak pirate bands! Our arms before their chains! our years of empire Before their centuries of servile fear! Death is awake! Repulse is on the waters! They own no more the thunder-bearing banner Of Mahmud; but, like hounds of a base breed, Gorge from a stranger's hand, and rend their master. Hassan. Latmos, and Ampelos, and Phanae saw The wreck Mahmud.       The caves of the Icarian isles Told each to the other in loud mockery, And with the tongue as of a thousand echoes, First of the sea-convulsing fightand, then, Thou darest to speaksenseless are the mountains: Interpret thou their voice! Hassan.                My presence bore A part in that day's shame. The Grecian fleet Bore down at daybreak from the North, and hung As multitudinous on the ocean line, As cranes upon the cloudless Thracian wind. Our squadron, convoying ten thousand men, Was stretching towards Nauplia when the battle Was kindled. First through the hail of our artillery The agile Hydriote barks with press of sail Dashed:ship to ship, cannon to cannon, man To man were grappled in the embrace of war, Inextricable but by death or victory. The tempest of the raging fight convulsed To its crystlline depths that stainless sea, And shook Heaven's roof of golden morning clouds, Poised on an hundred azure mountain-isles. In the brief trances of the artillery One cry from the destroyed and the destroyer Rose, and a cloud of desolation wrapped The unforeseen event, till the north wind Sprung from the sea, lifting the heavy veil Of battle-smokethen victoryvictory! For, as we thought, three frigates from Algiers Bore down from Naxos to our aid, but soon The abhorrd cross glimmered behind, before, Among, around us; and that fatal sign Dried with its beams the strength in Moslem hearts, As the sun drinks the dew.What more? We fled! Our noonday path over the sanguine foam Was beaconed,and the glare struck the sun pale, By our consuming transports: the fierce light Made all the shadows of our sails blood-red, And every countenance blank. Some ships lay feeding The ravening fire, even to the water's level; Some were blown up; some, settling heavily, Sunk; and the shrieks of our companions died Upon the wind, that bore us fast and far, Even after they were dead. Nine thousand perished! We met the vultures legioned in the air Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind; They, screaming from their cloudy mountain-peaks, Stooped through the sulphurous battle-smoke and perched Each on the weltering carcase that we loved, Like its ill angel or its damnd soul, Riding upon the bosom of the sea. We saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast. Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea, And ravening Famine left his ocean cave To dwell with War, with us, and with Despair. We met night three hours to the west of Patmos, And with night, tempest Mahmud.               Cease!               Enter a Messenger. Messenger.                  Your Sublime Highness, That Christian hound, the Muscovite Ambassador, Has left the city.If the rebel fleet Had anchored in the port, had victory Crowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome, Panic were tamer.Obedience and Mutiny, Like giants in contention planet-struck, Stand gazing on each other.There is peace In Stamboul. Mahmud.        Is the grave not calmer still? Its ruins shall be mine. Hassan.              Fear not the Russian: The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay Against the hunter.Cunning, base, and cruel, He crouches, watching till the spoil be won, And must be paid for his reserve in blood. After the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian That which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion Of blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields, Rivers and seas, like that which we may win, But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves! Enter second Messenger. Second Messenger. Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens, Navarin, Artas, Monembasia, Corinth, and Thebes are carried by assault, And every Islamite who made his dogs Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves Passed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood, Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death; But like a fiery plague breaks out anew In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale In its own light. The garrison of Patras Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope But from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant, His wishes still are weaker than his fears, Or he would sell what faith may yet remain From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway; And if you buy him not, your treasury Is empty even of promiseshis own coin. The freedman of a western poet-chief[4] Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels, And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont: The agd Ali sits in Yanina A crownless metaphor of empire: His name, that shadow of his withered might, Holds our besieging army like a spell In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny; He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors The ruins of the city where he reigned Childless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped The costly harvest his own blood matured, Not the sower, Aliwho has bought a truce From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads Of Indian gold. Enter a third Messenger. Mahmud.         What more?         Third Messenger.               The Christian tribes Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness Are in revolt;Damascus, Hems, Aleppo Tremble;the Arab menaces Medina, The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar, And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed, Who denies homage, claims investiture As price of tardy aid. Persia demands The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians Refuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus, Like mountain-twins that from each other's veins Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm, Shake in the general fever. Through the city, Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek, And prophesyings horrible and new Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still. A Dervise, learnd in the Koran, preaches That it is written how the sins of Islam Must raise up a destroyer even now. The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West[5], Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory, But in the omnipresence of that Spirit In which all live and are. Ominous signs Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky: One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun; It has rained blood; and monstrous births declare The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord. The army encamped upon the Cydaris Was roused last night by the alarm of battle, And saw two hosts conflicting in the air, The shadows doubtless of the unborn time Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm Which swept the phantoms from among the stars. At the third watch the Spirit of the Plague Was heard abroad flapping among the tents; Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead. The last news from the camp is, that a thousand Have sickened, and Enter a fourth Messenger. Mahmud.            And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow Of some untimely rumour, speak! Fourth Messenger.                  One comes Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood: He stood, he says, on Chelonites' Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groan Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendour of the moon, When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer, Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams, And smoke which strangled every infant wind That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air. At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds Over the sea-horizon, blotting out All objectssave that in the faint moon-glimpse He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral And two the loftiest of our ships of war, With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven, Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed; And the abhorrd cross Enter an Attendant. Attendant.              Your Sublime Highness, The Jew, who Mahmud.        Could not come more seasonably: Bid him attend. I'll hear no more! too long We gaze on danger through the mist of fear, And multiply upon our shattered hopes The images of ruin. Come what will! To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps Set in our path to light us to the edge Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught Which He inflicts not in whose hand we are. [Exeunt. Semichorus I. Would I were the wingd cloud Of a tempest swift and loud!   I would scorn   The smile of morn And the wave where the moonrise is born!   I would leave   The spirits of eve A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave From other threads than mine! Bask in the deep blue noon divine.    Who would? Not I.    Semichorus II. Whither to fly? Semichorus I. Where the rocks that gird th'Aegean Echo to the battle paean   Of the free   I would flee A tempestuous herald of victory!   My golden rain   For the Grecian slain Should mingle in tears with the bloody main, And my solemn thunder-knell Should ring to the world the passing-bell   Of Tyranny!   Semichorus II. Ah king! wilt thou chain The rack and the rain? Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane? The storms are free,   But we   Chorus. O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime, Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare! Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime, These brows thy branding garland bear,   But the free heart, the impassive soul    Scorn thy control!    Semichorus I. Let there be light! said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!Around her born, Shone like mountains in the morn Glorious states;and are they now Ashes, wrecks, oblivion? Semichorus II.              Go, Where Thermae and Asopus swallowed Persia, as the sand does foam; Deluge upon deluge followed, Discord, Macedon, and Rome: And lastly thou! Semichorus I.          Temples and towers, Citadels and marts, and they Who live and die there, have been ours, And may be thine, and must decay; But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystlline sea Of thought and its eternity; Her citizens, imperial spirits, Rule the present from the past, On all this world of men inherits Their seal is set. Semichorus II.            Hear ye the blast, Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls From ruin her Titanian walls? Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones Of Slavery? Argos, Corinth, Crete Hear, and from their mountain thrones The daemons and the nymphs repeat The harmony. Semichorus I.       I hear! I hear!       Semichorus II. The world's eyeless charioteer,   Destiny, is hurrying by! What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds Beneath her earthquake-footed steeds? What eagle-wingd victory sits At her right hand? what shadow flits Before? what splendour rolls behind?   Ruin and renovation cry 'Who but We?' Semichorus I.        I hear! I hear! The hiss as of a rushing wind, The roar as of an ocean foaming, The thunder as of earthquake coming.   I hear! I hear! The crash as of an empire falling, The shrieks as of a people calling 'Mercy! mercy!'How they thrill! Then a shout of 'kill! kill! kill!' And then a small still voice, thus Semichorus II.                     For Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, The foul cubs like their parents are, Their den is in the guilty mind, And Conscience feeds them with despair. Semichorus I. In sacred Athens, near the fane Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood: Serve not the unknown God in vain, But pay that broken shrine again, Love for hate and tears for blood. Enter Mahmud and Ahasuerus. Mahmud. Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we. Ahasuerus. No more! Mahmud.     But raised above thy fellow-men By thought, as I by power. Ahasuerus.               Thou sayest so.               Mahmud. Thou art an adept in the difficult lore Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest The flowers, and thou measurest the stars; Thou severest element from element; Thy spirit is present in the Past, and sees The birth of this old world through all its cycles Of desolation and of loveliness, And when man was not, and how man became The monarch and the slave of this low sphere, And all its narrow circlesit is much I honour thee, and would be what thou art Were I not what I am; but the unborn hour, Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms, Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor any Mighty or wise. I apprehended not What thou hast taught me, but I now perceive That thou art no interpreter of dreams; Thou dost not own that art, device, or God, Can make the Future presentlet it come! Moreover thou disdainest us and ours; Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest. Ahasuerus. Disdain thee?not the worm beneath thy feet! The Fathomless has care for meaner things Than thou canst dream, and has made pride for those Who would be what they may not, or would seem That which they are not. Sultan! talk no more Of thee and me, the Future and the Past; But look on that which cannot changethe One, The unborn and the undying. Earth and ocean, Space, and the isles of life or light that gem The sapphire floods of interstellar air, This firmament pavilioned upon chaos, With all its cressets of immortal fire, Whose outwall, bastioned impregnably Against the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them As Calpe the Atlantic cloudsthis Whole Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers, With all the silent or tempestuous workings By which they have been, are, or cease to be, Is but a vision;all that it inherits Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams; Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less The Future and the Past are idle shadows Of thought's eternal flightthey have no being: Nought is but that which feels itself to be. Mahmud. What meanest thou? Thy words stream like a tempest Of dazzling mist within my brainthey shake The earth on which I stand, and hang like night On Heaven above me. What can they avail? They cast on all things surest, brightest, best, Doubt, insecurity, astonishment. Ahasuerus. Mistake me not! All is contained in each. Dodona's forest to an acorn's cup Is that which has been, or will be, to that Which isthe absent to the present. Thought Alone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion, Reason, Imagination, cannot die; They are, what that which they regard appears, The stuff whence mutability can weave All that it hath dominion o'er, worlds, worms, Empires, and superstitions. What has thought To do with time, or place, or circumstance? Wouldst thou behold the Future?ask and have! Knock and it shall be openedlook, and lo! The coming age is shadowed on the Past As on a glass. Mahmud.        Wild, wilder thoughts convulse My spiritDid not Mahomet the Second Win Stamboul? Ahasuerus.        Thou wouldst ask that giant spirit The written fortunes of thy house and faith. Thou wouldst cite one out of the grave to tell How what was born in blood must die. Mahmud.                     Thy words Have power on me! I see Ahasuerus.               What hearest thou?               Mahmud. A far whisper Terrible silence. Ahasuerus.          What succeeds?          Mahmud.                  The sound As of the assault of an imperial city[6], The hiss of inextinguishable fire, The roar of giant cannon; the earthquaking Fall of vast bastions and precipitous towers, The shock of crags shot from strange enginery, The clash of wheels, and clang of armd hoofs, And crash of brazen mail as of the wreck Of adamantine mountainsthe mad blast Of trumpets, and the neigh of raging steeds, The shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood, And one sweet laugh, most horrible to hear, As of a joyous infant waked and playing With its dead mother's breast, and now more loud The mingled battle-cry,ha! hear I not 'En toutwi nikh!' 'Allah-illa-Allah!'? Ahasuerus. The sulphurous mist is raisedthou seest Mahmud.                        A chasm, As of two mountains, in the wall of Stamboul; And in that ghastly breach the Islamites, Like giants on the ruins of a world, Stand in the light of sunrise. In the dust Glimmers a kingless diadem, and one Of regal port has cast himself beneath The stream of war. Another proudly clad In golden arms spurs a Tartarian barb Into the gap, and with his iron mace Directs the torrent of that tide of men, And seemshe isMahomet! Ahasuerus.               What thou seest Is but the ghost of thy forgotten dream. A dream itself, yet less, perhaps, than that Thou call'st reality. Thou mayst behold How cities, on which Empire sleeps enthroned, Bow their towered crests to mutability. Poised by the flood, e'en on the height thou holdest, Thou mayst now learn how the full tide of power Ebbs to its depths.Inheritor of glory, Conceived in darkness, born in blood, and nourished With tears and toil, thou seest the mortal throes Of that whose birth was but the same. The Past Now stands before thee like an Incarnation Of the To-come; yet wouldst thou commune with That portion of thyself which was ere thou Didst start for this brief race whose crown is death, Dissolve with that strong faith and fervent passion Which called it from the uncreated deep, Yon cloud of war, with its tempestuous phantoms Of raging death; and draw with mighty will The imperial shade hither. [Exit Ahasuerus. The Phantom of Mahomet the Second appears. Mahmud.               Approach!               Phantom.                    I come Thence whither thou must go! The grave is fitter To take the living than give up the dead; Yet has thy faith prevailed, and I am here. The heavy fragments of the power which fell When I arose, like shapeless crags and clouds, Hang round my throne on the abyss, and voices Of strange lament soothe my supreme repose, Wailing for glory never to return. A later Empire nods in its decay: The autumn of a greener faith is come, And wolfish change, like winter, howls to strip The foliage in which Fame, the eagle, built Her aerie, while Dominion whelped below. The storm is in its branches, and the frost Is on its leaves, and the blank deep expects Oblivion on oblivion, spoil on spoil, Ruin on ruin:Thou art slow, my son; The Anarchs of the world of darkness keep A throne for thee, round which thine empire lies Boundless and mute; and for thy subjects thou, Like us, shalt rule the ghosts of murdered life, The phantoms of the powers who rule thee now Mutinous passions, and conflicting fears, And hopes that sate themselves on dust, and die! Stripped of their mortal strength, as thou of thine. Islam must fall, but we will reign together Over its ruins in the world of death: And if the trunk be dry, yet shall the seed Unfold itself even in the shape of that Which gathers birth in its decay. Woe! woe! To the weak people tangled in the grasp Of its last spasms. Mahmud.           Spirit, woe to all! Woe to the wronged and the avenger! Woe To the destroyer, woe to the destroyed! Woe to the dupe, and woe to the deceiver! Woe to the oppressed, and woe to the oppressor! Woe both to those that suffer and inflict; Those who are born and those who die! but say, Imperial shadow of the thing I am, When, how, by whom, Destruction must accomplish Her consummation! Phantom.          Ask the cold pale Hour, Rich in reversion of impending death, When he shall fall upon whose ripe gray hairs Sit Care, and Sorrow, and Infirmity The weight which Crime, whose wings are plumed with years, Leaves in his flight from ravaged heart to heart Over the heads of men, under which burthen They bow themselves unto the grave: fond wretch! He leans upon his crutch, and talks of years To come, and how in hours of youth renewed He will renew lost joys, and Voice without.                 Victory! Victory!                 [The Phantom vanishes. Mahmud. What sound of the importunate earth has broken My mighty trance? Voice without.          Victory! Victory!          Mahmud. Weak lightning before darkness! poor faint smile Of dying Islam! Voice which art the response Of hollow weakness! Do I wake and live? Were there such things, or may the unquiet brain, Vexed by the wise mad talk of the old Jew, Have shaped itself these shadows of its fear? It matters not!for nought we see or dream, Possess, or lose, or grasp at, can be worth More than it gives or teaches: Come what may, The Future must become the Past, and I As they were to whom once this present hour, This gloomy crag of time to which I cling, Seemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy Never to be attained.I must rebuke This drunkenness of triumph ere it die, And dying, bring despair. Victory! poor slaves! Exit Mahmud. Voice without. Shout in the jubilee of death! The Greeks Are as a brood of lions in the net Round which the kingly hunters of the earth Stand smiling. Anarchs, ye whose daily food Are curses, groans, and gold, the fruit of death, From Thule to the girdle of the world, Come, feast! the board groans with the flesh of men; The cup is foaming with a nation's blood, Famine and Thirst await! eat, drink, and die! Semichorus I. Victorious Wrong, with vulture scream, Salutes the rising sun, pursues the flying day! I saw her, ghastly as a tyrant's dream, Perch on the trembling pyramid of night, Beneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay In visions of the dawning undelight.   Who shall impede her flight?   Who rob her of her prey?   Voice without. Victory! Victory! Russia's famished eagles Dare not to prey beneath the crescent's light. Impale the remnant of the Greeks! despoil! Violate! make their flesh cheaper than dust! Semichorus II. Thou voice which art The herald of the ill in splendour hid! Thou echo of the hollow heart Of monarchy, bear me to thine abode When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed: Oh, bear me to those isles of jaggd cloud Which float like mountains on the earthquake, mid The momentary oceans of the lightning, Or to some toppling promontory proud Of solid tempest whose black pyramid, Riven, overhangs the founts intensely bright'ning Of those dawn-tinted deluges of fire Before their waves expire, When heaven and earth are light, and only light   In the thunder-night!   Voice without. Victory! Victory! Austria, Russia, England, And that tame serpent, that poor shadow, France, Cry peace, and that means death when monarchs speak. Ho, there! bring torches, sharpen those red stakes, These chains are light, fitter for slaves and poisoners Than Greeks. Kill! plunder! burn! let none remain. Semichorus I.    Alas! for Liberty! If numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years, Or fate, can quell the free!    Alas! for Virtue, when Torments, or contumely, or the sneers    Of erring judging men   Can break the heart where it abides. Alas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid,   Can change with its false times and tides,    Like hope and terror,     Alas for Love! And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended, If thou canst veil thy lie-consuming mirror Before the dazzled eyes of Error, Alas for thee! Image of the Above. Semichorus II.   Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn   Through many an hostile Anarchy! At length they wept aloud, and cried, 'The Sea! the Sea!'   Through exile, persecution, and despair,    Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become    The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair: But Greece was as a hermit-child,   Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built To woman's growth, by dreams so mild,   She knew not pain or guilt; And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble    When ye desert the free    If Greece must be A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, And build themselves again impregnably    In a diviner clime, To Amphionic music on some Cape sublime, Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. Semichorus I. Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made; Let the free possess the Paradise they claim; Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed With our ruin, our resistance, and our name! Semichorus II. Our dead shall be the seed of their decay, Our survivors be the shadow of their pride, Our adversity a dream to pass away Their dishonour a remembrance to abide! Voice without. Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends The keys of ocean to the Islamite. Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled, And British skill directing Othman might, Thunder-strike rebel victory. Oh, keep holy This jubilee of unrevengd blood! Kill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape! Semichorus I. Darkness has dawned in the East On the noon of time: The death-birds descend to their feast From the hungry clime. Let Freedom and Peace flee far To a sunnier strand, And follow Love's folding-star To the Evening land! Semichorus II.     The young moon has fed      Her exhausted horn       With the sunset's fire:     The weak day is dead,      But the night is not born; And, like loveliness panting with wild desire While it trembles with fear and delight, Hesperus flies from awakening night, And pants in its beauty and speed with light Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free!    Guide us far, far away, To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day     Thou art hidden   From waves on which weary Noon   Faints in her summer swoon,   Between kingless continents sinless as Eden,   Around mountains and islands inviolably     Pranked on the sapphire sea.     Semichorus I. Through the sunset of hope, Like the shapes of a dream, What Paradise islands of glory gleam!   Beneath Heaven's cope, Their shadows more clear float by The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe Burst, like morning on dream, or like Heaven on death,   Through the walls of our prison; And Greece, which was dead, is arisen! Chorus[7]. The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore. Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew. Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give. Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst[8], more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. Oh, cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last! Hellas was composed at Pisa in the autumn of 1821, and dispatched to London, November 11. It was published, with the author's name, by C. & J. Ollier in the spring of 1822. A transcript of the poem by Edward Williams is in the Rowfant Library. Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'Hellas was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:-- ''But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea Of thought and its eternity.''' ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas - A Lyrical Drama ,

814:The Third Monarchy, Being The Grecian, Beginning Under Alexander The Great In The 112. Olympiad. Great Alexander was wise Philips son, He to Amyntas, Kings of Macedon; The cruel proud Olympias was his Mother, She to Epirus warlike King was daughter. This Prince (his father by Pausanias slain) The twenty first of's age began to reign. Great were the Gifts of nature which he had, His education much to those did adde: By art and nature both he was made fit, To 'complish that which long before was writ. The very day of his Nativity To ground was burnt Dianaes Temple high: An Omen to their near approaching woe, Whose glory to the earth this king did throw. His Rule to Greece he scorn'd should be confin'd, The Universe scarce bound his proud vast mind. This is the He-Goat which from Grecia came, That ran in Choler on the Persian Ram, That brake his horns, that threw him on the ground To save him from his might no man was found: Philip on this great Conquest had an eye, But death did terminate those thoughts so high. The Greeks had chose him Captain General, Which honour to his Son did now befall. (For as Worlds Monarch now we speak not on, But as the King of little Macedon) Restless both day and night his heart then was, His high resolves which way to bring to pass; Yet for a while in Greece is forc'd to stay, Which makes each moment seem more then a day. Thebes and stiff Athens both 'gainst him rebel, Their mutinies by valour doth he quell. This done against both right and natures Laws, His kinsmen put to death, who gave no cause; That no rebellion in in his absence be, Nor making Title unto Sovereignty. And all whom he suspects or fears will climbe, 129 Now taste of death least they deserv'd in time, Nor wonder is t if he in blood begin, For Cruelty was his parental sin, Thus eased now of troubles and of fears, Next spring his course to Asia he steers; Leavs Sage Antipater, at home to sway, And through the Hellispont his Ships made way. Coming to Land, his dart on shore he throws, Then with alacrity he after goes; And with a bount'ous heart and courage brave, His little wealth among his Souldiers gave. And being ask'd what for himself was left, Reply'd, enough, sith only hope he kept. Thirty two thousand made up his Foot force, To which were joyn'd five thousand goodly horse. Then on he marcht, in's way he view'd old Troy, And on Achilles tomb with wondrous joy He offer'd, and for good success did pray To him, his Mothers Ancestors, (men say) When news of Alexander came to Court, To scorn at him Darius had good sport; Sends him a frothy and contemptuous Letter, Stiles him disloyal servant, and no better; Reproves him for his proud audacity To lift his hand 'gainst such a Monarchy. Then to's Lieftenant he in Asia sends That he be ta'ne alive, for he intends To whip him well with rods, and so to bring That boy so mallipert before the King. Ah! fond vain man, whose pen ere while In lower terms was taught a higher stile. To River Granick Alexander hyes Which in Phrygia near Propontike lyes. The Persians ready for encounter stand, And strive to keep his men from off the land; Those banks so steep the Greeks yet scramble up, And beat the coward Persians from the top, And twenty thousand of their lives bereave, Who in their backs did all their wounds receive. This victory did Alexander gain, With loss of thirty four of his there slain; Then Sardis he, and Ephesus did gain, 130 VVhere stood of late, Diana's wondrous Phane, And by Parmenio (of renowned Fame,) Miletus and Pamphilia overcame. Hallicarnassus and Pisidia He for his Master takes with Lycia. Next Alexander marcht towards the black Sea, And easily takes old Gordium in his way; Of Ass ear'd Midas, once the Regal Seat, VVhose touch turn'd all to gold, yea even his meat VVhere the Prophetick knot he cuts in twain, VVhich who so doth, must Lord of all remain. Now news of Memnon's death (the Kings Viceroy) To Alexanders heart's no little joy, For in that Peer, more valour did abide, Then in Darius multitude beside: In's stead, was Arses plac'd, but durst not stay, Yet set one in his room, and ran away; His substitute as fearfull as his master, Runs after two, and leaves all to Disaster. Then Alexander all Cilicia takes, No stroke for it he struck, their hearts so quakes. To Greece he thirty thousand talents sends, To raise more Force to further his intends: Then o're he goes Darius now to meet, Who came with thousand thousands at his feet. Though some there be (perhaps) more likely write He but four hundred thousand had to fight, The rest Attendants, which made up no less, Both Sexes there was almost numberless. For this wise King had brought to see the sport, With him the greatest Ladyes of the Court, His mother, his beauteous Queen and daughters, It seems to see the Macedonian slaughters. Its much beyond my time and little art, To shew how great Darius plaid his part; The splendor and the pomp he marched in, For since the world was no such Pageant seen. Sure 'twas a goodly sight there to behold, The Persians clad in silk, and glistering gold, The stately horses trapt, the lances gilt, As if addrest now all to run a tilt. The holy fire was borne before the host, 131 (For Sun and Fire the Persians worship most) The Priests in their strange habit follow after, An object, not so much of fear as laughter. The King sate in a chariot made of gold, With crown and Robes most glorious to behold, And o're his head his golden Gods on high, Support a party coloured Canopy. A number of spare horses next were led, Lest he should need them in his Chariots stead; But those that saw him in this state to lye, Suppos'd he neither meant to fight nor flye. He fifteen hundred had like women drest; For thus to fright the Greeks he judg'd was best. Their golden ornaments how to set forth, Would ask more time then was their bodies worth Great Sysigambis she brought up the Reer, Then such a world of waggons did appear, Like several houses moving upon wheels, As if she'd drawn whole Shushan at her heels: This brave Virago to the King was mother, And as much good she did as any other. Now lest this gold, and all this goodly stuff Had not been spoyle and booty rich enough A thousand mules and Camels ready wait Loaden with gold, with jewels and with plate: For sure Darius thought at the first sight, The Greeks would all adore, but none would fight But when both Armies met, he might behold That valour was more worth then pearls or gold, And that his wealth serv'd but for baits to 'lure To make his overthrow more fierce and sure. The Greeks came on and with a gallant grace Let fly their arrows in the Persians face. The cowards feeling this sharp stinging charge Most basely ran, and left their king at large: Who from his golden coach is glad to 'light, And cast away his crown for swifter flight: Of late like some immoveable he lay, Now finds both legs and horse to run away. Two hundred thousand men that day were slain, And forty thousand prisoners also tane, Besides the Queens and Ladies of the court, 132 If Curtius be true in his report. The Regal Ornaments were lost, the treasure Divided at the Macedonians pleasure; Yet all this grief, this loss, this overthrow, Was but beginning of his future woe. The royal Captives brought to Alexander T'ward them demean'd himself like a Commander For though their beauties were unparaled, Conquer'd himself now he had conquered, Preserv'd their honour, us'd them bounteously, Commands no man should doe them injury: And this to Alexander is more fame Then that the Persian King he overcame. Two hundred eighty Greeks he lost in fight, By too much heat, not wounds (as authors write) No sooner had this Victor won the field, But all Phenicia to his pleasure yield, Of which the Goverment he doth commit Unto Parmenio of all most fit. Darius now less lofty then before, To Alexander writes he would restore Those mournfull Ladies from Captivity, For whom he offers him a ransome high: But down his haughty stomach could not bring, To give this Conquerour the Stile of King. This Letter Alexander doth disdain, And in short terms sends this reply again, A King he was, and that not only so, But of Darius King, as he should know. Next Alexander unto Tyre doth goe, His valour and his victoryes they know: To gain his love the Tyrians intend, Therefore a crown and great Provision send, Their present he receives with thankfullness, Desires to offer unto Hercules, Protector of their town, by whom defended, And from whom he lineally descended. But they accept not this in any wise, Lest he intend more fraud then sacrifice, Sent word that Hercules his temple stood In the old town, (which then lay like a wood) With this reply he was so deep enrag'd, 133 To win the town, his honour he ingag'd: And now as Babels King did once before, He leaves not till he made the sea firm shore, But far less time and cost he did expend, The former Ruines forwarded his end: Moreover had a Navy at command, The other by his men fetcht all by land. In seven months time he took that wealthy town, Whose glory now a second time's brought down. Two thousand of the chief he crucifi'd, Eight thousand by the sword then also di'd, And thirteen thousand Gally slaves he made, And thus the Tyrians for mistrust were paid. The rule of this he to Philotas gave Who was the son of that Parmenio brave. Cilicia to Socrates doth give, For now's the time Captains like Kings may live. Zidon he on Ephestion bestowes; (For that which freely comes, as freely goes) He scorns to have one worse then had the other, So gives his little Lordship to another. Ephestion having chief command of th'Fleet, At Gaza now must Alexander meet. Darius finding troubles still increase, By his Ambassadors now sues for peace, And layes before great Alexanders eyes The dangers difficultyes like to rise, First at Euphrates what he's like to 'bide, And then at Tygris and Araxis side, These he may scape, and if he so desire, A league of friendship make firm and entire. His eldest daughter he in mariage profers, And a most princely dowry with her offers. All those rich Kingdomes large that do abide Betwixt the Hellespont and Halys side. But he with scorn his courtesie rejects, And the distressed King no whit respects, Tells him, these proffers great, in truth were none For all he offers now was but his own. But quoth Parmenio that brave Commander, Was I as great, as is great Alexander, Darius offers I would not reject, 134 But th'kingdomes and the Lady soon accept. To which proud Alexander made reply, And so if I Parmenio was, would I. He now to Gaza goes, and there doth meet, His Favorite Ephestion with his Fleet, Where valiant Betis stoutly keeps the town, (A loyal Subject to Darius Crown) For more repulse the Grecians here abide Then in the Persian Monarchy beside; And by these walls so many men were slain, That Greece was forc'd to yield supply again. But yet this well defended Town was taken, For 'twas decree'd, that Empire should be shaken; Thus Betis ta'en had holes bor'd through his feet, And by command was drawn through every street To imitate Achilles in his shame, Who did the like to Hector (of more fame) What hast thou lost thy magnimity, Can Alexander deal thus cruelly? Sith valour with Heroicks is renown'd, Though in an Enemy it should be found; If of thy future fame thou hadst regard, Why didst not heap up honours and reward? From Gaza to Jerusalem he goes, But in no hostile way, (as I suppose) Him in his Priestly Robes high Jaddus meets, Whom with great reverence Alexander greets; The Priest shews him good Daniel's Prophesy, How he should overthrow this Monarchy, By which he was so much encouraged, No future dangers he did ever dread. From thence to fruitful Egypt marcht with speed, Where happily in's wars he did succeed; To see how fast he gain'd was no small wonder, For in few dayes he brought that Kingdome under. Then to the Phane of Jupiter he went, To be install'd a God, was his intent. The Pagan Priest through hire, or else mistake, The Son of Jupiter did streight him make: He Diobolical must needs remain, That his humanity will not retain. Thence back to Egypt goes, and in few dayes; 135 Fair Alexandria from the ground doth raise; Then setling all things in less Asia; In Syria, Egypt, and Phenicia, Unto Euphrates marcht and overgoes, For no man's there his Army to oppose; Had Betis now been there but with his band, Great Alexander had been kept from Land. But as the King, so is the multitude, And now of valour both are destitute. Yet he (poor prince) another Host doth muster, Of Persians, Scythians, Indians in a cluster; Men but in shape and name, of valour none Most fit, to blunt the Swords of Macedon. Two hundred fifty thousand by account, Of Horse and Foot his Army did amount; For in his multitudes his trust still lay, But on their fortitude he had small stay; Yet had some hope that on the spacious plain, His numbers might the victory obtain. About this time Darius beautious Queen, Who had sore travail and much sorrow seen, Now bids the world adue, with pain being spent, Whose death her Lord full sadly did lament. Great Alexander mourns as well as he, The more because not set at liberty; When this sad news (at first Darius hears, Some injury was offered he fears: But when inform'd how royally the King, Had used her, and hers, in every thing, He prays the immortal Gods they would reward Great Alexander for this good regard; And if they down his Monarchy will throw, Let them on him this dignity bestow. And now for peace he sues as once before, And offers all he did and Kingdomes more; His eldest daughter for his princely bride, (Nor was such match in all the world beside) And all those Countryes which (betwixt) did lye Phanisian Sea, and great Euphrates high: With fertile Egypt and rich Syria, And all those Kingdomes in less Asia. With thirty thousand Talents to be paid, 136 For the Queen Mother, and the royal maid; And till all this be well perform'd, and sure, Ochus his Son for Hostage should endure. To this stout Alexander gives no ear, No though Parmenio plead, yet will not hear; Which had he done. (perhaps) his fame he'd kept, Nor Infamy had wak'd, when he had slept, For his unlimited prosperity Him boundless made in vice and Cruelty. Thus to Darius he writes back again, The Firmament, two Suns cannot contain. Two Monarchyes on Earth cannot abide, Nor yet two Monarchs in one world reside; The afflicted King finding him set to jar, Prepares against to morrow, for the war, Parmenio, Alexander, wisht that night, To force his Camp, so vanquish them by flight. For tumult in the night doth cause most dread, And weakness of a Foe is covered, But he disdain'd to steal a victory: The Sun should witness of his valour be, And careless in his bed, next morne he lyes, By Captains twice is call'd before hee'l rise, The Armyes joyn'd a while, the Persians fight, And spilt the Greeks some bloud before their flight But long they stood not e're they're forc'd to run, So made an end, As soon as well begun. Forty five thousand Alexander had, But is not known what slaughter here was made, Some write th'other had a million, some more, But Quintus Curtius as before. At Arbela this victory was gain'd, Together with the Town also obtain'd; Darius stript of all to Media came, Accompan'ed with sorrow, fear, and shame, At Arbela left his Ornaments and Treasure, Which Alexander deals as suits his pleasure. This conqueror to Babylon then goes, Is entertain'd with joy and pompous showes, With showrs of flours the streets along are strown, And incense burnt the silver Altars on. The glory of the Castle he admires, 137 The strong Foundation and the lofty Spires, In this, a world of gold and Treasure lay, Which in few hours was carried all away. With greedy eyes he views this City round, Whose fame throughout the world was so renownd And to possess he counts no little bliss The towres and bowres of proud Semiramis, Though worne by time, and rac'd by foes full sore, Yet old foundations shew'd and somewhat more. With all the pleasures that on earth are found, This city did abundantly abound, Where four and thirty dayes he now did stay, And gave himself to banqueting and play: He and his souldiers wax effeminate, And former discipline begin to hate. Whilst revelling at Babylon he lyes, Antipater from Greece sends fresh supplyes. He then to Shushan goes with his new bands, But needs no force, tis rendred to his hands. He likewise here a world of treasure found; For 'twas the seat of Persian Kings renownd. Here stood the royal Houses of delight, Where Kings have shown their glory wealth and might The sumptuous palace of Queen Esther here, And of good Mordicai, her kinsman dear, Those purple hangings, mixt with green and white Those beds of gold, and couches of delight. And furniture the richest in all lands, Now fall into the Macedonians hands. From Shushan to Persipolis he goes, Which news doth still augment Darius woes. In his approach the governour sends word, For his receipt with joy they all accord, With open gates the wealthy town did stand, And all in it was at his high command. Of all the Cities that on earth was found, None like to this in riches did abound: Though Babylon was rich and Shushan too Yet to compare with this they might not doe: Here lay the bulk of all those precious things That did pertain unto the Persian Kings: For when the souldiers rifled had their pleasure, 138 And taken money plate and golden treasure, Statues some gold, and silver numberless, Yet after all, as storyes do express The share of Alexander did amount To an hundred thousand talents by account. Here of his own he sets a Garison, (As first at Shushan and at Babylon) On their old Governours titles he laid, But on their faithfulness he never staid, Their place gave to his Captains (as was just) For such revolters false, what King can trust? The riches and the pleasures of this town Now makes this King his virtues all to drown, That wallowing in all licentiousness, In pride and cruelty to high excess. Being inflam'd with wine upon a season, Filled with madness, and quite void of reason, He at a bold proud strumpets leud desire, Commands to set this goodly town on fire. Parmenio wise intreats him to desist And layes before his eyes if he persist His fames dishonour, loss unto his state, And just procuring of the Persians hate: But deaf to reason, bent to have his will, Those stately streets with raging flame did fill. Then to Darius he directs his way, Who was retir'd as far as Media, And there with sorrows, fears & cares surrounded Had now his army fourth and last compounded. Which forty thousand made, but his intent Was these in Bactria soon to augment: But hearing Alexander was so near, Thought now this once to try his fortunes here, And rather chose an honourable death, Then still with infamy to draw his breath: But Bessus false, who was his chief Commander Perswades him not to fight with Alexander. With sage advice he sets before his eyes The little hope of profit like to rise: If when he'd multitudes the day he lost, Then with so few, how likely to be crost. This counsel for his safety he pretended, 139 But to deliver him to's foe intended. Next day this treason to Darius known Transported sore with grief and passion, Grinding his teeth, and plucking off his hair, Sate overwhelm'd with sorrow and dispair: Then bids his servant Artabasus true, Look to himself, and leave him to that crew, Who was of hopes and comforts quite bereft, And by his guard and Servitors all left. Straight Bessus comes, & with his trait'rous hands Layes hold on's Lord, and binding him with bands Throws him into a Cart, covered with hides, Who wanting means t'resist these wrongs abides, Then draws the cart along with chains of gold, In more despight the thraled prince to hold, And thus t'ward Alexander on he goes, Great recompence for this, he did propose: But some detesting this his wicked fact, To Alexander flyes and tells this act, Who doubling of his march, posts on amain, Darius from that traitors hands to gain. Bessus gets knowledg his disloyalty Had Alexanders wrath incensed high, Whose army now was almost within sight, His hopes being dasht prepares himself for flight: Unto Darius first he brings a horse, And bids him save himself by speedy course: The wofull King his courtesie refuses, Whom thus the execrable wretch abuses, By throwing darts gave him his mortal wound, Then slew his Servants that were faithfull found, Yea wounds the beasts that drew him unto death, And leaves him thus to gasp out his last breath. Bessus his partner in this tragedy, Was the false Governour of Media. This done, they with their host soon speed away, To hide themselves remote in Bactria. Darius bath'd in blood, sends out his groans, Invokes the heav'ns and earth to hear his moans: His lost felicity did grieve him sore, But this unheard of treachery much more: But above all, that neither Ear nor Eye 140 Should hear nor see his dying misery; As thus he lay, Polistrates a Greek, Wearied with his long march, did water seek, So chanc'd these bloudy Horses to espy, Whose wounds had made their skins of purple dye To them repairs then looking in the Cart, Finds poor Darius pierced to the heart, Who not a little chear'd to have some eye, The witness of this horrid Tragedy; Prays him to Alexander to commend The just revenge of this his woful end: And not to pardon such disloyalty, Of Treason, Murther, and base Cruelty. If not, because Darius thus did pray, Yet that succeeding Kings in safety may Their lives enjoy, their Crowns and dignity, And not by Traitors hands untimely dye. He also sends his humble thankfulness, For all the Kingly grace he did express; To's Mother, Children dear, and wife now gone. Which made their long restraint seem to be none: Praying the immortal Gods, that Sea and Land Might be subjected to his royal hand, And that his Rule as far extended be, As men the rising, setting Sun shall see, This said, the Greek for water doth intreat, To quench his thirst, and to allay his heat: Of all good things (quoth he) once in my power, I've nothing left, at this my dying hour; Thy service and compassion to reward, But Alexander will, for this regard. This said, his fainting breath did fleet away, And though a Monarch late, now lyes like clay; And thus must every Son of Adam lye, Though Gods on Earth like Sons of men they dye. Now to the East, great Alexander goes, To see if any dare his might oppose, For scarce the world or any bounds thereon, Could bound his boundless fond Ambition; Such as submits again he doth restore Their riches, and their honours he makes more, On Artabaces more then all bestow'd, 141 For his fidelity to's Master show'd. Thalestris Queen of th'Amazons now brought Her Train to Alexander, (as 'tis thought.) Though most of reading best and soundest mind, Such Country there, nor yet such people find. Then tell her errand, we had better spare To th'ignorant, her title will declare: As Alexander in his greatness grows, So dayly of his virtues doth he lose. He baseness counts, his former Clemency, And not beseeming such a dignity; His past sobriety doth also bate, As most incompatible to his State; His temperance is but a sordid thing, No wayes becoming such a mighty King; His greatness now he takes to represent His fancy'd Gods above the Firmament. And such as shew'd but reverence before, Now are commanded strictly to adore; With Persian Robes himself doth dignifie, Charging the same on his nobility, His manners habit, gestures, all did fashion After that conquer'd and luxurious Nation. His Captains that were virtuously inclin'd, Griev'd at this change of manners and of mind. The ruder sort did openly deride, His feigned Diety and foolish pride; The certainty of both comes to his Ears, But yet no notice takes of what he hears: With those of worth he still desires esteem, So heaps up gifts his credit to redeem And for the rest new wars and travails finds, That other matters might take up their minds, And hearing Bessus, makes himself a King, Intends that Traitor to his end to bring. Now that his Host from luggage might be free, And with his burthen no man burthened be; Commands forthwith each man his fardle bring, Into the market place before the King; VVhich done, sets fire upon those goodly spoyles, The recompence of travails wars and toyles. And thus unwisely in a mading fume, 142 The wealth of many Kingdomes did consume, But marvell 'tis that without mutiny, The Souldiers should let pass this injury; Nor wonder less to Readers may it bring, Here to observe the rashness of the King. Now with his Army doth he post away False Bessus to find out in Bactria: But much distrest for water in their march, The drought and heat their bodies sore did parch. At length they came to th'river Oxus brink, Where so immoderately these thirsty drink, Which more mortality to them did bring, Then all their warrs against the Persian King. Here Alexander's almost at a stand, To pass the River to the other land. For boats here's none, nor near it any wood, To make them Rafts to waft them o're the flood: But he that was resolved in his mind, Would without means some transportation find. Then from the Carriages the hides he takes, And stuffing them with straw, he bundles makes. On these together ti'd, in six dayes space, They all pass over to the other place. Had Bessus had but valour to his will, With little pain there might have kept them still: But Coward durst not fight, nor could he fly, Hated of all for's former treachery, Is by his own now bound in iron chains, A Coller of the same, his neck contains. And in this sort they rather drag then bring This Malefactor vile before the King, Who to Darius brother gives the wretch, With racks and tortures every limb to stretch. Here was of Greeks a town in Bactria, Whom Xerxes from their Country led away, These not a little joy'd, this day to see, Wherein their own had got the sov'raignty And now reviv'd, with hopes held up their head From bondage long to be Enfranchised. But Alexander puts them to the sword Without least cause from them in deed or word; Nor Sex, nor age, nor one, nor other spar'd, 143 But in his cruelty alike they shar'd: Nor reason could he give for this great wrong, But that they had forgot their mother tongue. While thus some time he spent in Bactria, And in his camp strong and securely lay, Down from the mountains twenty thousand came And there most fiercely set upon the same: Repelling these, two marks of honour got Imprinted in his leg, by arrows shot. The Bactrians against him now rebel; But he their stubborness in time doth quell. From hence he to Jaxartis River goes, Where Scythians rude his army doth oppose, And with their outcryes in an hideous sort Beset his camp, or military court, Of darts and arrows, made so little spare, They flew so thick, they seem'd to dark the air: But soon his souldiers forc'd them to a flight, Their nakedness could not endure their might. Upon this rivers bank in seventeen dayes A goodly City doth compleatly raise, Which Alexandria he doth likewise name, And sixty furlongs could but round the same. A third Supply Antipater now sent, Which did his former forces much augment; And being one hundred twenty thousand strong; He enters then the Indian Kings among: Those that submit, he gives them rule again, Such as do not, both them and theirs are slain. His warrs with sundry nations I'le omit, And also of the Mallians what is writ. His Fights, his dangers, and the hurts he had, How to submit their necks at last they're glad. To Nisa goes by Bacchus built long since, Whose feasts are celebrated by this prince; Nor had that drunken god one who would take His Liquors more devoutly for his sake. When thus ten days his brain with wine he'd soakt, And with delicious meats his palate choakt: To th'River Indus next his course he bends, Boats to prepare, Ephestion first he sends, Who coming thither long before his Lord, 144 Had to his mind made all things to accord, The vessels ready were at his command, And Omphis King of that part of the land, Through his perswasion Alexander meets, And as his Sov'raign Lord him humbly greets Fifty six Elephants he brings to's hand, And tenders him the strength of all his land; Presents himself first with a golden crown, Then eighty talents to his captains down: But Alexander made him to behold He glory sought, no silver nor no gold; His presents all with thanks he did restore, And of his own a thousand talents more. Thus all the Indian Kings to him submit, But Porus stout, who will not yeild as yet: To him doth Alexander thus declare, His pleasure is that forthwith he repair Unto his Kingdomes borders, and as due, His homage to himself as Soveraign doe: But kingly Porus this brave answer sent, That to attend him there was his intent, And come as well provided as he could, But for the rest, his sword advise him should. Great Alexander vext at this reply, Did more his valour then his crown envy, Is now resolv'd to pass Hydaspes flood, And there by force his soveraignty make good. Stout Porus on the banks doth ready stand To give him welcome when he comes to land. A potent army with him like a King, And ninety Elephants for warr did bring: Had Alexander such resistance seen On Tygris side, here now he had not been. Within this spacious River deep and wide Did here and there Isles full of trees abide. His army Alexander doth divide With Ptolemy sends part to th'other side; Porus encounters them and thinks all's there, When covertly the rest get o're else where, And whilst the first he valiantly assail'd, The last set on his back, and so prevail'd. Yet work enough here Alexander found, 145 For to the last stout Porus kept his ground: Nor was't dishonour at the length to yield, When Alexander strives to win the field. The kingly Captive 'fore the Victor's brought, In looks or gesture not abased ought, But him a Prince of an undaunted mind Did Alexander by his answers find: His fortitude his royal foe commends, Restores him and his bounds farther extends. Now eastward Alexander would goe still, But so to doe his souldiers had no will, Long with excessive travails wearied, Could by no means be farther drawn or led, Yet that his fame might to posterity Be had in everlasting memory, Doth for his Camp a greater circuit take, And for his souldiers larger Cabbins make. His mangers he erected up so high As never horse his Provender could eye. Huge bridles made, which here and there he left, Which might be found, and for great wonders kept Twelve altars then for monuments he rears, Whereon his acts and travels long appears. But doubting wearing time might these decay, And so his memory would fade away, He on the fair Hydaspes pleasant side, Two Cities built, his name might there abide, First Nicea, the next Bucephalon, Where he entomb'd his stately Stalion. His fourth and last supply was hither sent, Then down Hydaspes with his Fleet he went; Some time he after spent upon that shore, Whether Ambassadors, ninety or more, Came with submission from the Indian Kings, Bringing their presents rare, and precious things, These all he feasts in state on beds of gold, His Furniture most sumptuous to behold; His meat & drink, attendants, every thing, To th'utmost shew'd the glory of a King. With rich rewards he sent them home again, Acknowledged their Masters sovereign; Then sailing South, and coming to that shore, 146 Those obscure Nations yielded as before: A City here he built, call'd by his Name, Which could not sound too oft with too much fame Then sailing by the mouth of Indus floud, His Gallyes stuck upon the flats and mud; Which the stout Macedonians amazed sore, Depriv'd at once the use of Sail and Oar: Observing well the nature of the Tide, In those their fears they did not long abide. Passing fair Indus mouth his course he steer'd To th'coast which by Euphrates mouth appear'd; Whose inlets near unto, he winter spent, Unto his starved Souldiers small content, By hunger and by cold so many slain, That of them all the fourth did scarce remain. Thus winter, Souldiers, and provisions spent, From hence he then unto Gedrosia went. And thence he marcht into Carmania, And so at length drew near to Persia, Now through these goodly Countryes as he past, Much time in feasts and ryoting did waste; Then visits Cyrus Sepulchre in's way, Who now obscure at Passagardis lay: Upon his Monument his Robe he spread, And set his Crown on his supposed head. From hence to Babylon, some time there spent, He at the last to royal Shushan went; A wedding Feast to's Nobles then he makes, And Statyra, Darius daughter takes, Her Sister gives to his Ephestian dear, That by this match he might be yet more near; He fourscore Persian Ladies also gave, At this same time unto his Captains brave: Six thousand guests unto this Feast invites, Whose Sences all were glutted with delights. It far exceeds my mean abilities To shadow forth these short felicities, Spectators here could scarce relate the story, They were so rapt with this external glory: If an Ideal Paradise a man would frame, He might this Feast imagine by the same; To every guess a cup of gold he sends, 147 So after many dayes the Banquet ends. Now Alexanders conquests all are done, And his long Travails past and overgone; His virtues dead, buried, and quite forgot, But vice remains to his Eternal blot. 'Mongst those that of his cruelty did tast, Philotus was not least, nor yet the last, Accus'd because he did not certifie The King of treason and conspiracy: Upon suspition being apprehended, Nothing was prov'd wherein he had offended But silence, which was of such consequence, He was judg'd guilty of the same offence, But for his fathers great deserts the King His royal pardon gave for this foul thing. Yet is Phylotas unto judgment brought, Must suffer, not for what is prov'd, but thought. His master is accuser, judge and King, Who to the height doth aggravate each thing, Inveighs against his father now absent, And's brethren who for him their lives had spent. But Philotas his unpardonable crime, No merit could obliterate, or time: He did the Oracle of Jove deride, By which his Majesty was diefi'd. Philotas thus o'recharg'd with wrong and grief Sunk in despair without hope of Relief, Fain would have spoke and made his own defence, The King would give no ear, but went from thence To his malicious Foes delivers him, To wreak their spight and hate on every limb. Philotas after him sends out this cry, O Alexander, thy free clemency My foes exceeds in malice, and their hate Thy kingly word can easily terminate. Such torments great as wit could worst invent, Or flesh and life could bear, till both were spent Were now inflicted on Parmenio's son He might accuse himself, as they had done, At last he did, so they were justifi'd, And told the world, that for his guilt he di'd. But how these Captains should, or yet their master 148 Look on Parmenio, after this disaster They knew not, wherefore best now to be done, Was to dispatch the father as the son. This sound advice at heart pleas'd Alexander, Who was so much ingag'd to this Commander, As he would ne're confess, nor yet reward, Nor could his Captains bear so great regard: Wherefore at once, all these to satisfie, It was decreed Parmenio should dye: Polidamus, who seem'd Parmenio's friend To do this deed they into Media send: He walking in his garden to and fro, Fearing no harm, because he none did doe, Most wickedly was slain without least crime, (The most renowned captain of his time) This is Parmenio who so much had done For Philip dead, and his surviving son, Who from a petty King of Macedon By him was set upon the Persian throne, This that Parmenio who still overcame, Yet gave his Master the immortal fame, Who for his prudence, valour, care and trust Had this reward, most cruel and unjust. The next, who in untimely death had part, Was one of more esteem, but less desert; Clitus belov'd next to Ephestian, And in his cups his chief companion; When both were drunk, Clitus was wont to jeer, Alexander to rage, to kill, and swear; Nothing more pleasing to mad Clitus tongue, Then's Masters Godhead to defie and wrong; Nothing toucht Alexander to the quick, Like this against his Diety to kick: Both at a Feast when they had tippled well, Upon this dangerous Theam fond Clitus fell; From jest to earnest, and at last so bold, That of Parmenio's death him plainly told. Which Alexanders wrath incens'd so high, Nought but his life for this could satisfie; From one stood by he snatcht a partizan, And in a rage him through the body ran, Next day he tore his face for what he'd done, 149 And would have slain himself for Clitus gone: This pot Companion he did more bemoan, Then all the wrongs to brave Parmenio done. The next of worth that suffered after these, Was learned, virtuous, wise Calisthenes, VVho lov'd his Master more then did the rest, As did appear, in flattering him the least; In his esteem a God he could not be, Nor would adore him for a Diety: For this alone and for no other cause, Against his Sovereign, or against his Laws, He on the Rack his Limbs in pieces rent, Thus was he tortur'd till his life was spent. Of this unkingly act doth Seneca This censure pass, and not unwisely say, Of Alexander this th'eternal crime, VVhich shall not be obliterate by time. VVhich virtues fame can ne're redeem by far, Nor all felicity of his in war. VVhen e're 'tis said he thousand thousands slew, Yea, and Calisthenes to death he drew. The mighty Persian King he overcame, Yea, and he kill'd Calistthenes of fame. All Countryes, Kingdomes, Provinces, he wan From Hellispont, to th'farthest Ocean. All this he did, who knows' not to be true? But yet withal, Catisthenes he slew. From Macedon, his Empire did extend Unto the utmost bounds o' th'orient: All this he did, yea, and much more, 'tis true, But yet withal, Catisthenes he slew. Now Alexander goes to Media, Finds there the want of wise Parmenio; Here his chief favourite Ephestian dies, He celebrates his mournful obsequies: Hangs his Physitian, the Reason why He suffered, his friend Ephestian dye. This act (me-thinks) his Godhead should a shame, To punish where himself deserved blame; Or of necessity he must imply, The other was the greatest Diety. The Mules and Horses are for sorrow shorne, 150 The battlements from off the walls are torne. Of stately Ecbatane who now must shew, A rueful face in this so general woe; Twelve thousand Talents also did intend, Upon a sumptuous monument to spend: What e're he did, or thought not so content, His messenger to Jupiter he sent, That by his leave his friend Ephestion, Among the Demy Gods they might inthrone. From Media to Babylon he went, To meet him there t'Antipater he'd sent, That he might act also upon the Stage, And in a Tragedy there end his age. The Queen Olimpias bears him deadly hate, Not suffering her to meddle with the State, And by her Letters did her Son incite, This great indignity he should requite; His doing so, no whit displeas'd the King, Though to his Mother he disprov'd the thing. But now Antipater had liv'd so long, He might well dye though he had done no wrong; His service great is suddenly forgot, Or if remembred, yet regarded not: The King doth intimate 'twas his intent, His honours and his riches to augment; Of larger Provinces the rule to give, And for his Counsel near the King to live. So to be caught, Antipater's too wise, Parmenio's death's too fresh before his eyes; He was too subtil for his crafty foe. Nor by his baits could be insnared so: But his excuse with humble thanks he sends, His Age and journy long he then pretends; And pardon craves for his unwilling stay, He shews his grief, he's forc'd to disobey. Before his Answer came to Babylon, The thread of Alexanders life was spun; Poyson had put an end to's dayes ('twas thought) By Philip and Cassander to him brought, Sons to Antipater, and bearers of his Cup, Lest of such like their Father chance to sup; By others thought, and that more generally, 151 That through excessive drinking he did dye: The thirty third of's Age do all agree, This Conquerour did yield to destiny. When this sad news came to Darius Mother, She laid it more to heart, then any other, Nor meat, nor drink, nor comfort would she take, But pin'd in grief till life did her forsake; All friends she shuns, yea, banished the light, Till death inwrapt her in perpetual night. This Monarchs fame must last whilst world doth stand, And Conquests be talkt of whilest there is land; His Princely qualities had he retain'd, Unparalled for ever had remain'd. But with the world his virtues overcame, And so with black beclouded, all his fame; Wise Aristotle Tutor to his youth. Had so instructed him in moral Truth: The principles of what he then had learn'd Might to the last (when sober) be discern'd. Learning and learned men he much regarded, And curious Artist evermore rewarded: The Illiads of Homer he still kept. And under's pillow laid them when he slept. Achilles happiness he did envy, 'Cause Homer kept his acts to memory. Profusely bountifull without desert, For such as pleas'd him had both wealth and heart Cruel by nature and by custome too, As oft his acts throughout his reign doth shew: Ambitious so, that nought could satisfie, Vain, thirsting after immortality, Still fearing that his name might hap to dye, And fame not last unto eternity. This Conqueror did oft lament (tis said) There were no more worlds to be conquered. This folly great Augustus did deride, For had he had but wisdome to his pride, He would had found enough there to be done, To govern that he had already won. His thoughts are perisht, he aspires no more, Nor can he kill or save as heretofore. A God alive, him all must Idolize, 152 Now like a mortal helpless man he lyes. Of all those Kingdomes large which he had got, To his Posterity remain'd no jot; For by that hand which still revengeth bloud, None of his kindred, nor his race long stood: But as he took delight much bloud to spill, So the same cup to his, did others fill. Four of his Captains now do all divide, As Daniel before had prophysi'd. The Leopard down, the four wings 'gan to rise, The great horn broke, the less did tyranize. What troubles and contentions did ensue We may hereafter shew in season due. Aridæus. Great Alexander dead, his Armyes left, Like to that Giant of his Eye bereft; When of his monstrous bulk it was the guide, His matchless force no creature could abide. But by Ulisses having lost his sight, All men began streight to contemn his might; For aiming still amiss, his dreadful blows Did harm himself, but never reacht his Foes. Now Court and Camp all in confusion be, A King they'l have, but who, none can agree; Each Captain wisht this prize to bear away, But none so hardy found as so durst say: Great Alexander did leave Issue none, Except by Artabasus daughter one; And Roxane fair whom late he married, Was near her time to be delivered. By natures right these had enough to claim, But meaness of their mothers bar'd the same, Alledg'd by those who by their subtile Plea Had hope themselves to bear the Crown away. A Sister Alexander had, but she Claim'd not, perhaps, her Sex might hindrance be. After much tumult they at last proclaim'd His base born brother Aridæus nam'd, That so under his feeble wit and reign, Their ends they might the better still attain. This choice Perdiccas vehemently disclaim'd, And Babe unborn of Roxane he proclaim'd; 153 Some wished him to take the style of King, Because his Master gave to him his Ring, And had to him still since Ephestion di'd More then to th'rest his favour testifi'd. But he refus'd, with feigned modesty, Hoping to be elect more generally. He hold on this occasion should have laid, For second offer there was never made. 'Mongst these contentions, tumults, jealousies, Seven dayes the corps of their great master lies Untoucht, uncovered slighted and neglected, So much these princes their own ends respected: A Contemplation to astonish Kings, That he who late possest all earthly things, And yet not so content unless that he Might be esteemed for a Diety; Now lay a Spectacle to testifie, The wretchedness of mans mortality. After some time, when stirs began to calm, His body did the Egyptians embalme; His countenance so lively did appear, That for a while they durst not come so near: No sign of poyson in his intrails sound, But all his bowels coloured, well and sound. Perdiccas seeing Arideus must be King, Under his name began to rule each thing. His chief Opponent who Control'd his sway, Was Meleager whom he would take away, And by a wile he got him in his power, So took his life unworthily that hour. Using the name, and the command of th'King To authorize his acts in every thing. The princes seeing Perdiccas power and pride, For their security did now provide. Antigonus for his share Asia takes, And Ptolemy next sure of Egypt makes: Seleucus afterward held Babylon, Antipater had long rul'd Macedon. These now to govern for the king pretends, But nothing less each one himself intends. Perdiccas took no province like the rest, But held command of th'Army (which was best) 154 And had a higher project in his head, His Masters sister secretly to wed: So to the Lady, covertly he sent, (That none might know, to frustrate his intent) But Cleopatra this Suitor did deny, For Leonatus more lovely in her eye, To whom she sent a message of her mind, That if he came good welcome he should find. In these tumultuous dayes the thralled Greeks, Their Ancient Liberty afresh now seeks. And gladly would the yoke shake off, laid on Sometimes by Philip and his conquering son. The Athenians force Antipater to fly To Lamia where he shut up doth lye. To brave Craterus then he sends with speed For succours to relieve him in his need. The like of Leonatus he requires, (Which at this time well suited his desires) For to Antipater he now might goe, His Lady take in th'way, and no man know. Antiphilus the Athenian General With speed his Army doth together call; And Leonatus seeks to stop, that so He joyne not with Antipater their foe. The Athenian Army was the greater far, (Which did his Match with Cleopatra mar) For fighting still, while there did hope remain The valiant Chief amidst his foes was slain. 'Mongst all the princes of great Alexander For personage, none like to this Commander. Now to Antipater Craterus goes, Blockt up in Lamia still by his foes, Long marches through Cilicia he makes, And the remains of Leonatus takes: With them and his he into Grecia went, Antipater releas'd from prisonment: After which time the Greeks did never more Act any thing of worth, as heretofore: But under servitude their necks remain'd, Nor former liberty or glory gain'd. Now di'd about the end of th'Lamian war Demosthenes, that sweet-tongue'd Orator, 155 Who fear'd Antipater would take his life For animating the Athenian strife: To end his dayes by poison rather chose Then fall into the hands of mortal foes. Craterus and Antipater now joyne, In love and in affinity combine, Craterus doth his daughter Phila wed Their friendship might the more be strengthened. Whilst they in Macedon do thus agree, In Asia they all asunder be. Perdiccas griev'd to see the princes bold So many Kingdomes in their power to hold, Yet to regain them, how he did not know, His souldiers 'gainst those captains would not goe To suffer them go on as they begun, Was to give way himself might be undone. With Antipater to joyne he sometimes thought, That by his help, the rest might low be brought, But this again dislikes; he would remain, If not in stile, in deed a soveraign; (For all the princes of great Alexander Acknowledged for Chief that old Commander) Desires the King to goe to Macedon, Which once was of his Ancestors the throne, And by his presence there to nullifie The acts of his Vice-Roy now grown so high. Antigonus of treason first attaints, And summons him to answer his complaints. This he avoids, and ships himself and son, goes to Antipater and tells what's done. He and Craterus, both with him do joyne, And 'gainst Perdiccas all their strength combine. Brave Ptolemy, to make a fourth then sent To save himself from danger imminent. In midst of these garboyles, with wondrous state His masters funeral doth celebrate: In Alexandria his tomb he plac'd, Which eating time hath scarcely yet defac'd. Two years and more, since natures debt he paid, And yet till now at quiet was not laid. Great love did Ptolemy by this act gain, And made the souldiers on his side remain. 156 Perdiccas hears his foes are all combin'd, 'Gainst which to goe, is not resolv'd in mind. But first 'gainst Ptolemy he judg'd was best, Neer'st unto him, and farthest from the rest, Leaves Eumenes the Asian Coast to free From the invasions of the other three, And with his army unto Egypt goes Brave Ptolemy to th'utmost to oppose. Perdiccas surly cariage, and his pride Did alinate the souldiers from his side. But Ptolemy by affability His sweet demeanour and his courtesie, Did make his own, firm to his cause remain, And from the other side did dayly gain. Perdiccas in his pride did ill intreat Python of haughty mind, and courage great. Who could not brook so great indignity, But of his wrongs his friends doth certifie; The souldiers 'gainst Perdiccas they incense, Who vow to make this captain recompence, And in a rage they rush into his tent, Knock out his brains: to Ptolemy then went And offer him his honours, and his place, With stile of the Protector, him to grace. Next day into the camp came Ptolemy, And is receiv'd of all most joyfully. Their proffers he refus'd with modesty, Yields them to Python for his courtesie. With what he held he was now more content, Then by more trouble to grow eminent. Now comes there news of a great victory That Eumenes got of the other three. Had it but in Perdiccas life ariv'd, With greater joy it would have been receiv'd. Thus Ptolemy rich Egypt did retain, And Python turn'd to Asia again. Whilst Perdiccas encamp'd in Affrica, Antigonus did enter Asia, And fain would Eumenes draw to their side, But he alone most faithfull did abide: The other all had Kingdomes in their eye, But he was true to's masters family, 157 Nor could Craterus, whom he much did love. From his fidelity once make him move: Two Battles fought, and had of both the best, And brave Craterus slew among the rest: For this sad strife he poures out his complaints, And his beloved foe full sore laments. I should but snip a story into bits And his great Acts and glory much eclipse, To shew the dangers Eumenes befel, His stratagems wherein he did excel: His Policies, how he did extricate Himself from out of Lab'rinths intricate: He that at large would satisfie his mind, In Plutarchs Lives his history may find. For all that should be said, let this suffice, He was both valiant, faithfull, patient, wise. Python now chose Protector of the state, His rule Queen Euridice begins to hate, Sees Arrideus must not King it long, If once young Alexander grow more strong, But that her husband serve for supplement, To warm his seat, was never her intent. She knew her birth-right gave her Macedon, Grand-child to him who once sat on that throne Who was Perdiccas, Philips eldest brother, She daughter to his son, who had no other. Pythons commands, as oft she countermands; What he appoints, she purposely withstands. He wearied out at last would needs be gone, Resign'd his place, and so let all alone: In's room the souldiers chose Antipater, Who vext the Queen more then the other far. From Macedon to Asia he came, That he might settle matters in the same. He plac'd, displac'd, control'd rul'd as he list, And this no man durst question or resist; For all the nobles of King Alexander Their bonnets vail'd to him as chief Commander. When to his pleasure all things they had done, The King and Queen he takes to Macedon, Two sons of Alexander, and the rest, All to be order'd there as he thought best. 158 The Army to Antigonus doth leave, And Government of Asia to him gave. And thus Antipater the ground-work layes, On which Antigonus his height doth raise, Who in few years, the rest so overtops, For universal Monarchy he hopes. With Eumenes he diverse Battels fought, And by his slights to circumvent him sought: But vain it was to use his policy, 'Gainst him that all deceits could scan and try. In this Epitome too long to tell How finely Eumenes did here excell, And by the self same Traps the other laid, He to his cost was righteously repaid. But while these Chieftains doe in Asia fight, To Greece and Macedon lets turn our sight. When great Antipater the world must leave, His place to Polisperchon did bequeath, Fearing his son Cassander was unstaid, Too rash to bear that charge, if on him laid. Antigonus hearing of his decease On most part of Assyria doth seize. And Ptolemy next to incroach begins, All Syria and Phenicia he wins, Then Polisperchon 'gins to act in's place, Recalls Olimpias the Court to grace. Antipater had banish'd her from thence Into Epire for her great turbulence; This new Protector's of another mind, Thinks by her Majesty much help to find. Cassander like his Father could not see, This Polisperchons great ability, Slights his Commands, his actions he disclaims, And to be chief himself now bends his aims; Such as his Father had advanc'd to place, Or by his favours any way had grac'd Are now at the devotion of the Son, Prest to accomplish what he would have done; Besides he was the young Queens favourite, On whom (t'was thought) she set her chief delight: Unto these helps at home he seeks out more, Goes to Antigonus and doth implore, 159 By all the Bonds 'twixt him and's Father past, And for that great gift which he gave him last. By these and all to grant him some supply, To take down Polisperchon grown so high; For this Antigonus did need no spurs, Hoping to gain yet more by these new stirs, Streight furnish'd him with a sufficient aid, And so he quick returns thus well appaid, With Ships at Sea, an Army for the Land, His proud opponent hopes soon to withstand. But in his absence Polisperchon takes Such friends away as for his Interest makes By death, by prison, or by banishment, That no supply by these here might be lent, Cassander with his Host to Grecia goes, Whom Polisperchon labours to oppose; But beaten was at Sea, and foil'd at Land, Cassanders forces had the upper hand, Athens with many Towns in Greece beside, Firm (for his Fathers sake) to him abide. Whil'st hot in wars these two in Greece remain, Antigonus doth all in Asia gain; Still labours Eumenes, would with him side, But all in vain, he faithful did abide: Nor Mother could, nor Sons of Alexander, Put trust in any but in this Commander. The great ones now began to shew their mind, And act as opportunity they find. Aridæus the scorn'd and simple King, More then he bidden was could act no thing. Polisperchon for office hoping long, Thinks to inthrone the Prince when riper grown; Euridice this injury disdains, And to Cassandar of this wrong complains. Hateful the name and house of Alexander, Was to this proud vindicative Cassander; He still kept lockt within his memory, His Fathers danger, with his Family; Nor thought he that indignity was small, When Alexander knockt his head to th'wall. These with his love unto the amorous Queen, Did make him vow her servant to be seen. 160 Olimpias, Aridæus deadly hates, As all her Husbands, Children by his mates, She gave him poyson formerly ('tis thought) Which damage both to mind and body brought; She now with Polisperchon doth combine, To make the King by force his Seat resigne: And her young grand-child in his State inthrone, That under him, she might rule, all alone. For aid she goes t'Epire among her friends, The better to accomplish these her ends; Euridice hearing what she intends, In haste unto her friend Cassander sends, To leave his siege at Tegea, and with speed, To save the King and her in this their need: Then by intreaties, promises and Coyne, Some forces did procure with her to joyn. Olimpias soon enters Macedon, The Queen to meet her bravely marches on, But when her Souldiers saw their ancient Queen, Calling to mind what sometime she had been; The wife and Mother of their famous Kings, Nor darts, nor arrows, now none shoots or flings. The King and Queen seeing their destiny, To save their lives t'Amphipolis do fly; But the old Queen pursues them with her hate, And needs will have their lives as well as State: The King by extream torments had his end, And to the Queen these presents she did send; A Halter, cup of poyson, and a Sword, Bids chuse her death, such kindness she'l afford. The Queen with many a curse, and bitter check, At length yields to the Halter her fair neck; Praying that fatal day might quickly haste, On which Olimpias of the like might taste. This done the cruel Queen rests not content, 'Gainst all that lov'd Cassander she was bent; His Brethren, Kinsfolk and his chiefest friends, That fell within her reach came to their ends: Dig'd up his brother dead, 'gainst natures right, And threw his bones about to shew her spight: The Courtiers wondring at her furious mind, Wisht in Epire she had been still confin'd. 161 In Peloponesus then Cassander lay, Where hearing of this news he speeds away, With rage, and with revenge he's hurried on, To find this cruel Queen in Macedon; But being stopt, at streight Thermopoly, Sea passage gets, and lands in Thessaly: His Army he divides, sends post away, Polisperchon to hold a while in play; And with the rest Olimpias pursues, For all her cruelty, to give her dues. She with the chief o' th'Court to Pydna flyes, Well fortifi'd, (and on the Sea it lyes) There by Cassander she's blockt up so long, Untill the Famine grows exceeding strong, Her Couzen of Epire did what he might, To raise the Siege, and put her Foes to flight. Cassander is resolved there to remain, So succours and endeavours proves but vain; Fain would this wretched Queen capitulate, Her foe would give no Ear, (such is his hate) The Souldiers pinched with this scarcity, By stealth unto Cassander dayly fly; Olimpias means to hold out to the last, Expecting nothing but of death to tast: But his occasions calling him away, Gives promise for her life, so wins the day. No sooner had he got her in his hand, But made in judgement her accusers stand; And plead the blood of friends and kindreds spilt, Desiring justice might be done for guilt; And so was he acquitted of his word, For justice sake she being put to th'Sword: This was the end of this most cruel Queen, Whose fury scarcely parallel'd hath been. The daughter, sister, Mother, Wife to Kings, But Royalty no good conditions brings; To Husbands death ('tis thought) she gave consent, The murtherer she did so much lament: With Garlands crown'd his head, bemoan'd his fates, His Sword unto Apollo consecrates. Her Outrages too tedious to relate, How for no cause but her inveterate hate; 162 Her Husbands wives and Children after's death, Some slew, some fry'd, of others stopt the breath: Now in her Age she's forc'd to tast that Cup, Which she had others often made to sup. Now many Towns in Macedon supprest, And Pellas fain to yield among the rest; The Funerals Cassander celebrates, Of Aridæus and his Queen with State: Among their Ancestors by him they're laid, And shews of lamentation for them made. Old Thebes he then rebuilt so much of fame, And Cassandria rais'd after his name. But leave him building, others in their Urne, Let's for a while, now into Asia turn. True Eumenes endeavours by all Skill, To keep Antigonus from Shushan still; Having command o'th' Treasure he can hire, Such as no threats, nor favour could acquire. In divers Battels he had good success, Antigonus came off still honourless; When Victor oft he'd been, and so might still, Peucestes did betray him by a wile. T'Antigonus, who took his Life unjust, Because he never would forgoe his trust; Thus lost he all for his fidelity, Striving t'uphold his Masters Family. But to a period as that did haste, So Eumenes (the prop) of death must tast; All Persia now Antigonus doth gain, And Master of the Treasure sole remain: Then with Seleucus streight at odds doth fall, And he for aid to Ptolomy doth call, The Princes all begin now to envy Antigonus, he growing up so high; Fearing his force, and what might hap e're long, Enters into a Combination strong, Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander joynes, Lysimachus to make a fourth combines: Antigonus desirous of the Greeks, To make Cassander odious to them seeks, Sends forth his declarations near and far, And clears what cause he had to make this war, 163 Cassanders outrages at large doth tell, Shews his ambitious practises as well. The mother of their King to death he'd put, His wife and son in prison close had shut: And aiming now to make himself a king, And that some title he might seem to bring, Thessalonica he had newly wed, Daughter to Philip their renowned head: Had built and call'd a City by his name, Which none e're did, but those of royal fame: And in despight of their two famous Kings Hatefull Olinthians to Greece rebrings. Rebellious Thebes he had reedified, Which their late King in dust had damnified, Requires them therefore to take up their arms And to requite this traitor for these harms. Then Ptolemy would gain the Greeks likewise, And he declares the others injuryes: First how he held the Empire in his hands, Seleucus driven from Goverment and lands, The valiant Eumenes unjustly slain, And Lord of royal Shushan did remain; Therefore requests their help to take him down Before he wear the universal Crown. These princes at the sea soon had a fight, Where great Antigonus was put to flight: His son at Gaza likewise lost the field, So Syria to Ptolemy did yield: And Seleucus recovers Babylon, Still gaining Countryes eastward he goes on. Demetrius with Ptolemy did fight, And coming unawares, put him to flight; But bravely sends the prisoners back again, With all the spoyle and booty he had tane. Courteous as noble Ptolemy, or more, VVho at Gaza did the like to him before. Antigonus did much rejoyce, his son VVith victory, his lost repute had won. At last these princes tired out with warrs, Sought for a peace, and laid aside their jarrs: The terms of their agreement, thus express That each should hold what now he did possess, 164 Till Alexander unto age was grown, VVho then should be enstalled in the throne. This toucht Cassander sore for what he'd done, Imprisoning both the mother and the son: He sees the Greeks now favour their young Prince Whom he in durance held, now, and long since, That in few years he must be forc'd or glad, To render up such Kingdomes as he had; Resolves to quit his fears by one deed done, So puts to death the Mother and her Son. This Roxane for her beauty all commend, But for one act she did, just was her end. No sooner was great Alexander dead, But she Darius daughters murthered. Both thrown into a well to hide her blot, Perdiccas was her Partner in this plot. The heavens seem'd slow in paying her the same; But at the last the hand of vengeance came. And for that double fact which she had done, The life of her must goe, and of her son Perdiccas had before for his amiss, But by their hands who thought not once of this. Cassanders deed the princes do detest, But 'twas in shew; in heart it pleas'd them best. That he is odious to the world, they'r glad: And now they were free Lords of what they had. When this foul tragedy was past and done, Polysperchon brings the other son Call'd Hercules, and elder then his brother, (But Olimpias would prefer the other) The Greeks toucht with the murther done of late, This Orphan prince 'gan to compassionate, Begin to mutter much 'gainst proud Cassander, And place their hopes on th'heir of Alexander. Cassander fear'd what might of this ensue, So Polisperchon to his counsel drew, And gives Peloponesus for his hire, Who slew the prince according to desire. Thus was the race and house of Alexander Extinct by this inhumane wretch Cassander. Antigonus, for all this doth not mourn, He knows to's profit, this at last will turn, 165 But that some Title now he might pretend, To Cleopatra doth for marriage send; Lysimachus and Ptolemy the same, And lewd Cassander too, sticks not for shame: She then in Lydia at Sardis lay, Where by Embassage all these Princes pray. Choice above all, of Ptolemy she makes, With his Embassador her journy takes; Antigonus Lieutenant stayes her still, Untill he further know his Masters will: Antigonus now had a Wolf by th'Ears, To hold her still, or let her go he fears. Resolves at last the Princess should be slain, So hinders him of her, he could not gain; Her women are appointed for this deed, They for their great reward no better speed: For by command, they streight were put to death, As vile Conspirators that stopt her breath. And now he hopes, he's order'd all so well, The world must needs believe what he doth tell; Thus Philips house was quite extinguished, Except Cassanders wife who yet not dead. And by their means who thought of nothing less, Then vengeance just, against them to express; Now blood was paid with blood for what was done By cruel Father, Mother, cruel Son: Thus may we hear, and fear, and ever say, That hand is righteous still which doth repay. These Captains now the stile of Kings do take, For to their Crowns their's none can Title make; Demetrius first the royal stile assum'd, By his Example all the rest presum'd. Antigonus himself to ingratiate, Doth promise liberty to Athens State; With Arms and with provision stores them well, The better 'gainst Cassander to rebel. Demetrius thether goes, is entertain'd Not like a King, but like some God they feign'd; Most grosly base was their great Adulation, Who Incense burnt, and offered oblation: These Kings afresh fall to their wars again, Demetrius of Ptolemy doth gain. 166 'Twould be an endless Story to relate Their several Battels and their several fate, Their fights by Sea, their victories by Land, How some when down, straight got the upper hand Antigonus and Seleucus then fight Near Ephesus, each bringing all his might, And he that Conquerour shall now remain, The Lordship of all Asia shall retain; This day 'twixt these two Kings ends all the strife, For here Antigonus lost rule and life: Nor to his Son, did e're one foot remain Of those vast Kingdomes, he did sometimes gain. Demetrius with his Troops to Athens flyes, Hopes to find succours in his miseries; But they adoring in prosperity, Now shut their gates in his adversity: He sorely griev'd at this his desperate State Tryes Foes, sith friends will not compassionate. His peace he then with old Seleucus makes, Who his fair daughter Stratonica takes, Antiochus, Seleucus, dear lov'd Son, Is for this fresh young Lady quite undone; Falls so extreamly sick, all fear'd his life, Yet durst not say, he lov'd his Fathers wife, When his disease the skill'd Physitian found, His Fathers mind he wittily did sound, Who did no sooner understand the same, But willingly resign'd the beautious Dame: Cassander now must dye his race is run, And leaves the ill got Kingdomes he had won. Two Sons he left, born of King Philips daughter, Who had an end put to their dayes by slaughter; Which should succeed at variance they fell, The Mother would, the youngest might excell: The eld'st inrag'd did play the Vipers part, And with his Sword did run her through the heart: Rather then Philips race should longer live, He whom she gave his life her death shall give. This by Lysimacus was after slain, Whose daughter he not long before had ta'ne; Demetrius is call'd in by th'youngest Son, Against Lysimachus who from him won. 167 But he a Kingdome more then's friend did eye, Seaz'd upon that, and slew him traitrously. Thus Philips and Cassander's race both gone, And so falls out to be extinct in one; And though Cassander died in his bed, His Seed to be extirpt, was destined; For blood, which was decre'd that he should spill, Yet must his Children pay for Fathers ill; Jehu in killing Ahab's house did well, Yet be aveng'd must blood of Jezerel. Demetrius thus Cassander's Kingdoms gains, And now in Macedon as King he reigns; Though men and mony both he hath at will, In neither finds content if he sits still: That Seleucus holds Asia grievs him sore, Those Countryes large his Father got before. These to recover, musters all his might, And with his Son in Law will needs go fight; A mighty Navy rig'd, an Army stout, With these he hopes to turn the world about: Leaving Antigonus his eldest Son, In his long absence to rule Macedon. Demetrius with so many troubles met, As Heaven and Earth against him had been set; Disaster on disaster him pursue, His story seems a Fable more then true. At last he's taken and imprisoned Within an Isle that was with pleasures fed, Injoy'd what ere beseem'd his Royalty, Only restrained of his liberty: After three years he died, left what he'd won, In Greece unto Antigonus his Son. For his Posterity unto this day, Did ne're regain one foot in Asia; His Body Seleucus sends to his Son, Whose obsequies with wondrous pomp was done. Next di'd the brave and noble Ptolemp, Renown'd for bounty, valour, clemency, Rich Egypt left, and what else he had won, To Philadelphus his more worthy Son. Of the old Heroes, now but two remain, Seleucus and Lysimachus these twain, 168 Must needs go try their fortune and their might, And so Lysimachus was slain in fight; 'Twas no small joy unto Seleucus breast, That now he had out-lived all the rest: Possession of Europe thinks to take, And so himself the only Monarch make; Whilst with these hopes in Greece he did remain, He was by Ptolemy Ceraunus slain. The second Son of the first Ptolemy, Who for Rebellion unto him did fly; Seleucus was a Father and a friend, Yet by him had this most unworthy end. Thus with these Kingly Captains have we done, A little now how the Succession run, Antigonus, Seleucus and Cassander, With Ptolemy, reign'd after Alexander; Cassander's Sons soon after's death were slain, So three Successors only did remain: Antigonus his Kingdomes lost and life, Unto Seleucus, Author of that strife. His Son Demetrius, all Cassanders gains, And his posterity, the same retains; Demetrius Son was call'd Antigonus, And his again was nam'd Demetrius. I must let pass those many Battels fought, Betwixt those Kings, and noble Pyrrhus stout, And his Son Alexander of Epire, Whereby immortal honour they acquire; Demetrius had Philip to his Son, (Part of whose Kingdomes Titus Quintius won) Philip had Perseus, who was made a Thrale T'Emilius the Roman General; Him with his Sons in Triumph lead did he, Such riches too as Rome did never see: This of Antigonus, his Seed's the Fate, VVhose Empire was subdu'd to th'Roman State. Longer Seleucus held the royalty, In Syria by his Posterity; Antiochus Soter his Son was nam'd, To whom the old Berosus (so much fam'd,) His Book of Assurs Monarchs dedicates, Tells of their names, their wars, their riches, fates; 169 But this is perished with many more, VVhich oft we wish was extant as before. Antiochus Theos was Soter's Son, VVho a long war with Egypts King begun; The Affinityes and Wars Daniel sets forth, And calls them there the Kings of South & North, This Theos murther'd was by his lewd wife, Seleucus reign'd, when he had lost his life. A third Seleucus next sits on the Seat, And then Antiochus sirnam'd the great, VVhose large Dominions after was made small, By Scipio the Roman General; Fourth Seleucus Antiochus succeeds, And next Epiphanes whose wicked deeds, Horrid Massacres, Murthers, cruelties, Amongst the Jews we read in Machabees. Antiochus Eupater was the next, By Rebels and Impostors dayly vext; So many Princes still were murthered, The Royal Blood was nigh extinguished; Then Tygranes the great Armenian King, To take the Government was called in, Lucullus, Him, (the Roman General) Vanquish'd in fight, and took those Kingdomes all; Of Greece and Syria thus the rule did end, In Egypt next, a little time wee'l spend. First Ptolemy being dead, his famous Son Call'd Philadelphus, did possess the Throne. At Alexandria a Library did build, And with seven hundred thousand Volumes fill'd; The seventy two Interpreters did seek, They might translate the Bible into Greek. His Son was Evergetes the last Prince, That valour shew'd, virtue, or excellence, Philopater was Evergetes Son, After Epiphanes sate on the Throne; Philometor, Evergetes again, And after him, did false Lathurus reign: Then Alexander in Lathurus stead, Next Auletes, who cut off Pompeys head. To all these names, we Ptolemy must add, For since the first, they still that Title had. 170 Fair Cleopatra next, last of that race, Whom Julius Cæsar set in Royal place, She with her Paramour, Mark Anthony Held for a time, the Egyptian Monarchy, Till great Augustus had with him a fight At Actium, where his Navy's put to flight; He seeing his honour lost, his Kingdome end, Did by his Sword his life soon after send. His brave Virago Aspes sets to her Arms, To take her life, and quit her from all harms; For 'twas not death nor danger she did dread, But some disgrace in triumph to be led. Here ends at last the Grecian Monarchy, Which by the Romans had its destiny; Thus King & Kingdomes have their times & dates, Their standings, overturnings, bounds and fates: Now up, now down now chief, & then broght under, The heavn's thus rule, to fil the world with wonder The Assyrian Monarchy long time did stand, But yet the Persian got the upper hand; The Grecian them did utterly subdue, And millions were subjected unto few: The Grecian longer then the Persian stood, Then came the Roman like a raging flood; And with the torrent of his rapid course, Their Crowns their Titles, riches bears by force. The first was likened to a head of gold. Next Arms and breast of silver to behold, The third, Belly and Thighs of brass in sight, And last was Iron, which breaketh all with might; The stone out of the mountain then did rise, and smote those feet those legs, those arms & thighs Then gold, silver, brass, Iron and all the store, Became like Chaff upon the threshing Floor. The first a Lion, second was a Bear, The third a Leopard, which four wings did rear; The last more strong and dreadful then the rest, Whose Iron teeth devoured every Beast, And when he had no appetite to eat, The residue he stamped under feet; Yet shall this Lion, Bear, this Leopard, Ram, All trembling stand before the powerful Lamb. 171 With these three Monarchyes now have I done, But how the fourth, their Kingdomes from them won, And how from small beginnings it did grow, To fill the world with terrour and with woe; My tyred brain leavs to some better pen, This task befits not women like to men: For what is past, I blush, excuse to make, But humbly stand, some grave reproof to take; Pardon to crave for errours, is but vain, The Subject was too high, beyond my strain, To frame Apology for some offence, Converts our boldness into impudence: This my presumption some now to requite, Ne sutor ultra crepidum may write. The End of the Grecian Monarchy. ~ Anne Bradstreet,