When you look

"When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."

~Friedrich Nietzsche

You could not

You could not make this shit up. Holy-Crap-Balls. Talk about your career suicide! At least he is doing it so publicly for our amusement.

~ Unknown

(Either it was Charlie Sheen or was it someone else referring to Charlie Sheen.)

I'm here

I’m here to collect. They’re going to lose.

- Charlie Sheen

We're definitely at war

"We're definitely at war. They're trying to destroy my family. I take great umbrage with that. Defeat is not an option. They picked a fight with a warlock."

~Charlie Sheen

Clearly, I have defeated

Clearly, I have defeated this earthworm with my words – imagine what I would have done with my fire-breathing fists.

~Charlie Sheen

People don't

"People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life."

~Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs

The only

The only real enemy in this life is despair, my friend.

~Riverworld, Samuel Clemens

I have

I have X'd myself from your world.

~Charles Manson

There comes a pause

There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure to dance without cessation; and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.

~Lewis Carroll

Love

Love conquers all?
Never has, never will.

~Augustus Hill, OZ

Your scorn for mediocrity

"Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring -- but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down."

~Trevanian

Wars based on principle

Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.

~Alan Watts

My greatest point

My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.

— Bjorn Borg

Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures

Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence. There are a lot of people out there with good and marketable ideas, but pure entrepreneurial types almost never accept defeat.

— Lisa M. Amos

Difficulty

"Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted."

~ William Hastie

It began with the forging of the Great Rings

It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern over each race. But they were all of them deceived, for a new ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all. One by one, the free peoples of Middle Earth fell to the power of the Ring. But there were some who resisted. A last alliance of men and elves marched against the armies of Mordor, and on the very slopes of Mount Doom, they fought for the freedom of Middle-Earth. Victory was near, but the power of the ring could not be undone. It was in this moment, when all hope had faded, that Isildur, son of the king, took up his father's sword. And Sauron, enemy of the free peoples of Middle-Earth, was defeated. The Ring passed to Isildur, who had this one chance to destroy evil forever, but the hearts of men are easily corrupted. And the ring of power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur, to his death. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, the ring ensnared another bearer. The ring came to the creature Gollum, who took it deep into the tunnels under the Misty Mountains, and there it consumed him. The ring gave to Gollum unnatural long life. For five hundred years it poisoned his mind; and in the gloom of Gollum's cave, it waited. Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and the Ring of Power perceived. Its time had now come. It abandoned Gollum. But then something happened that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable. A hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire. For the time will soon come when hobbits will shape the fortunes of all...

~Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings

If Aragorn survives

If Aragorn survives this war, you will still be parted. If Sauron is defeated and Aragorn made king and all that you hope for comes true you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality. Whether by the sword or the slow decay of time, Aragorn will die. And there will be no comfort for you, no comfort to ease the pain of his passing. He will come to death an image of the splendor of the kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. But you, my daughter, you will linger on in darkness and in doubt as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Here you will dwell bound to your grief under the fading trees until all the world is changed and the long years of your life are utterly spent.

~Elrond, The Lord of the Rings

What do you fear

Aragorn: What do you fear, my lady?
Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.

~Aragorn and Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings

Where is the horse and the rider?

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?

~Theoden, Lord of the Rings

I can tell you

I can tell you that it takes great strength to surrender. You have to know that you are not going to collapse. Instead, you are going to open to a power that you don't even know, and it is going to come to meet you. In the process of healing, this is one of the huge things that I have discovered. People recognized the energy coming to meet them. When they opened to another energy, a love, a divine love, came through to meet them. That is what is known as grace. We all sing about amazing grace. It is a gift.

I think that it comes through the work that we do. For some people, it can come out of the blue, but I know that in my own situation, the grace came through incredible vigilance.

-Marion Woodman