It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair so as to get as far away from the telescreen as possible. To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up.
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
He rose deliberately from his chair and came towards them across the soundless carpet. A little of the official atmosphere seemed to have fallen away from him with the Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than usual, as though he were not pleased at being disturbed. The terror that Winston already felt was suddenly shot through by a streak of ordinary embarrassment. It seemed to him quite possible that he had simply made a stupid mistake. For what evidence had he in reality that O’Brien was any kind of political conspirator? Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single equivocal remark: beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on a dream. He could not even fall back on the pretence that he had come to borrow the dictionary, because in that case Julia’s presence was impossible to explain. As O’Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped.
Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue.
‘You can turn it off!’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said O’Brien, ‘we can turn it off. We have that privilege.’
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“Sauron was become now a sorcerer of dreadful power, master of shadows and of phantoms, foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, lord of werewolves; his dominion was torment.”
From “The Silmarillion”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien, 1977
"I think the SSmart phone is ‘walking point’ - I think that if one were to try to protect one’s self from whatever it is that’s driving the massive increase in suicide, that turning off that high-powered, next-to-skull delivery mechanism would be a good first step. But I think it’s just the Primary Delivery Mechanism within a large suite of things leading to that behavioral moment, that across-the-globe suicide increase, mortality increase, et al.
It’s not just phones, it’s the general DOR level in the environment, created, concentrated and enhanced by the tower network. Those who never picked up a SSmart phone are bathed in it, surrounded by it. There’s the low-lifeforce diet, there’s the weaponized-food diet, there’s injections of vaccines containing aluminum and God knows what else. There’s low-fat diets (afflicting moreso the females), starving the 80%-cholesterol brain, wasting the neurons throughout the body, depriving them of their basic substance.
I feel as if my brief foray into SSmart phone penetration and the phenomena we’re investigating shows correlation. My guess is that a saturation point, a tipping point has to be reached, in both the individual and within the larger environment they inhabit. But my conclusion is just a guess, at this point. And of course correlation strongly implies but does not confirm causation."
Jeff Miller private e-mail to Don Croft, 2017
"I wonder if it’s possible to see whether the suicides have common factors, such as corporate-food diet (obesity/starvation), enslavement to the pharma cartel, smartphones, low intelligence, conformity addiction, etc. Those seem related to me, sort of like how welfare moms generally have huge, expensive TVs. Perhaps low intelligence and ‘social networking’ on a smartphone are directly correlated.
The more data you compile the clearer this will become and I think it’s worth pursuing but just broaching the subject is a pioneering effort. One of Israel’s minor prophets said, ‘My people perish for lack of knowledge.’ It reminds me a bit of all the activists who still die of fast cancer and energy weaponry because they don’t know about zappers and orgonite. The herd-mentality masses are even farther from applying solutions. I’ve had to remind a lot of intelligent associates to use a zapper after getting poisoned after they forgot and did stints in hospitals. Three of the Africans died in those circumstances in 2008. That’s not happening much, these days–quite a relief."
Don Croft private e-mail to Jeff Miller, 2017
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats
Yes me friend, me friend, me friend
Dem set me free again
The bars could not hold me
Force could not control me now
From “Duppy Conqueror”, by Bob Marley, 1973
(In Jamaican, “duppy” means “ghost” - ed)
“Only the existence of a field of force can account for the motions of the bodies observed, and its assumption dispenses with space curvature. All literature on this subject is futile and destined for oblivion. So are all attempts to explain the workings of the universe without recognizing the evidence of the ether and the indispensable function in the phenomena. My second discovery was of a physical truth of the greatest importance. As I have searched the entire scientific records in more than a half dozen languages for a long time without the least anticipation, I consider myself the original discoverer of this truth, which can be expressed by the statement: there is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment.”
- Nicola Tesla
“Materialism can no longer claim to be a scientific philosophy.”
From “Janus: A Summing Up”, by Arthur Koestler, 1978
“Materialism’s first deadly legacy is the rejection of reason and objective truth. Nineteenth-century materialists depicted our thoughts as the irrational products of environment or heredity or brain chemistry. As a consequence, the intellectual classes became convinced that only the reality was material, and thus the only true explanations were reductive. If you wanted to explain a flower, you described its cell structure, not its beauty. If you wanted to explain human beings, you looked not to their greatest achievements, but to the raw materials that made them up. This sort of reductionism permeates contemporary society, from politics and the social sciences to literature and the performing arts.”
From “C.S. Lewis and Materialism”, by John G. West, August 2, 2012
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
- Nicola Tesla
“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the “wisdom” of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious.”
—From “The Abolition of Man”, by C.S. Lewis, 1943
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
- Nicola Tesla
“In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist… The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
― From “Life on the Mississippi”, by Mark Twain, 1883
“The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.
― From “Rediscovering Lost Values”, by Martin Luther King Jr., 1954
"Yet mad I am not…and very surely do I not dream.”
― From “The Black Cat”, by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843
“I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges.”
― From “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World”, by Paul Stamets, 2005
RAY: Mr. Mayor, we are here tonight because a psychomagnotheric slime flow of immense proportions is building beneath the city.
EGON: Negative human emotions are materializing in the form of a viscous, psychoreactive plasm with explosive supernormal potential.
From “Ghostbusters II”, written by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, 1989
(The Ghostbusters examine the psychomanotheric slime flow beneath New York)
The incidence of schizophrenia is 100% higher in cities than it is in rural areas.
The incidence of mental disorder or insanity is 82% higher in areas near the center of the city, vs. the residential sections near the outskirts.
The incidence of psychosis is 77% higher in urban areas than in rural areas.
The depression rate is 40% higher in cities than it is in rural areas.
The rate of cognitive decline is 32% faster in cities than in rural areas.
The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is 6-19% higher in cities than it is in rural areas.
That’s because moral and mental health vary directly with that of the subject’s etheric environment.
“Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.”
― From “The Crisis”, by Thomas Paine, 1775
‘How came you to know of this?’ he cried. And then, with some return of his truculent manner: ‘What business is it of yours?’
‘My name is Sherlock Holmes,’ said my companion. ‘Possibly it is familiar to you. In any case, my business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law. It seems to me that you have much to answer for.’
Sir Robert glared for a moment, but Holmes’s quiet voice and cool, assured manner had their effect.
From “The Adventure of Shoscombe Olde Place”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in Liberty Magazine, 1927
“Bond looked at the beautiful day and smiled. And no man, not even Mr. Big, would have liked the expression on his face.”
― From “Live and Let Die”, by Ian Fleming, 1954
(Sean Connery, as James Bond in “Goldfinger”, 1965). (Jeff Miller, Brooklyn, New York, 2020)
Ringo: “Which wallet is yours?”
Jules: "It’s the one that says ‘Bad Motherfucker’ ".
From “Pulp Fiction”, by Quentin Tarantino, 1994
(Samuel L. Jackson, as Jules, with “Bad Motherfucker” wallet, from “Pulp Fiction”, by Quentin Tarentino, 1994)
“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”
From “Goldfinger”, by Ian Fleming, 1959
From Dr. Watson’s summary list of Sherlock Holmes’s strengths and weaknesses:
-
Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
-
Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
-
Plays the violin well.
-
Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
-
Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
From “A Study in Scarlet”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887
“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”
Sherlock Holmes, from “A Study in Scarlet”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887
“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”
Sherlock Holmes, from “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891
“The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.”
From “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – A Case of Identity”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892
"I like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded. Real crime - you’d know at once.”
― Miss Howard, from “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, by Agatha Christie, 1920
“The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.”
― From “The Blue Cross: A Father Brown Mystery”, by G.K. Chesterton, The Blue Cross: A Father Brown Mystery, 1910
“Are you a communist?"
“No I am an anti-fascist”
“For a long time?”
"Since I have understood fascism.”
From “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, by Ernest Hemingway, 1940
(Woody Gurthrie)
fascism noun, often capitalized
fas· cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm \
Kids Definition of fascism
: a political system headed by a dictator in which the government controls business and labor and opposition is not permitted
Jake Blues: “What’s going on?”
Police Officer: “Aw, those bums won their court case and they’re marching today.”
Jake: “What bums?”
Officer: “The U.S. Nazi Party.”
Elwood Blues: (knowingly) “Illinois Nazi’s.”
Jake: “I hate Illinois Nazi’s.”
From “The Blues Brothers”, by Dan Akroyd and John Landis, 1980
“There appears to be what is called ‘generational satanists,’ and they bring up their children to participate in the way that they themselves have as children,” Farnell said. He alleged that the sisters were abused by their grandparents as well as by their father (now deceased), their mother and other adults in rituals that took place in caves, probably in the San Bernardino mountains.
“These are things that are admittedly quite bizarre, but these things do happen, they have happened and they can be documented by people other than these three victims,” Farnell said. “The people who perpetuate these kinds of offenses should realize that they are not safe from their victims’ remembering and coming after them.”
From “Forced to Kill Her Baby, Woman Says”, the Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1991
Beautiful woman in night gown: (frightened) “Oh, thank God, you’re here!”
First Emergency Responder: “O.K., let’s see your I.D., sweet-stuff.”
Woman: “I.D.? But there’s a man chasing after me.”
Second Emergency Responder: “What Man?”
Woman: “He’s right behind me, he’s a black man, he’s wearing a suit, and he’s on roller skates!”
Second responder: “I’m sure he’s got (unintelligible) too!”
Woman: “No, really! I was at the convent, reading the Bible, and this girl appeared out of nowhere, and she took me to meet this guy, and he was some kind of s*x maniac, and he had all these dildo’s and all this weird stuff, and then she took me to this house where I was auctioned off in front of this clergyman and this Senator, and this guy who was dressed up as a Nazi, and they sold me for ten thousand dollars, and I didn’t like the guy, so I escaped, and this black guy that worked there started chasing after me, and he was just about to catch me when you guys came up, and that’s the truth, officers, really.”
From the adult film “Raunchy to Say No”, 1985
Malibu Police Chief: Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don’t draw shit, Lebowski. Now we got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don’t like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don’t like your jerk-off name. I don’t like your jerk-off face. I don’t like your jerk-off behavior, and I don’t like you, jerk-off. Do I make myself clear?
The Dude: [after a pause] I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.
(Chief throws a full ceramic coffee cup into the Dude’s forehead)
From “The Big Lebowski”, by Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998
(Walter Sobchak and the Dude scatter Donnie’s ashes on the ancient human sacrifice platform at Point Fermin, California, from “The Big Lebowski”, 1998)
“Satanists come in all ages and from all backgrounds, says Post. There are ‘some local elected officials’ involved, but he won’t name them.
He says he is currently investigating a person who is “a church pastor on Sunday and a Satanic cult leader during the week.” He knows of a former SDSU professor, he says, who heads a local cult. San Diego County is crawling with Satanic cult groups, in Post’s view, including the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Order of Thelema, the Temple of Set, the Brotherhood of the Mind, the Rainbow Children, a group that meets in Balboa Park called the Knights of Satan, and a Satanic “enforcement arm” of a group of bikers in the meth trade known as the Crystal Circle. A local motorcycle gang, the Mongols, “have contact with Satanists” as well, according to Post.”
From “So many demonic sightings in East San Diego County”, the San Diego Post, December 1991
“Officials chuckled when the first letter arrived at corporate headquarters in Illinois. An Ohio woman wanted to know if it was true that company owner Ray Kroc donated 20 per cent of the fast-food chain’s profits to the Church of Satan in California. The company sifted through stacks of correspondence in an effort to determine the origin of the rumour. The Rev. John McFarland, pastor of Kenmore Church of God, explained to the McDonald’s communications department that a former parishioner had told him that she saw Kroc being interviewed on The Phil Donahue Show.”
From “Satan’s choice: Was Ronald McDonald in league with the Devil”, from Canada’s Waterloo Chronicle, November 2012
(The Reverend John McFarland, in a Satanic green shirt)
Ray Kroc’s bald-faced admission on national television has been memory-holed, and pretty successfully. The stories about it even point you to the wrong show, nay, wrong shows, in hopes no original VHS tape of the right one ever shows up. Here’s a picture of the TV Guide page showing it was the Mike Douglas show, not Phil Donhonhue, as falsely claimed later:
(TV Guide issue featuring the Mike Douglas Show with Joel Grey, Dionne Warwick, Dan Haggerty and Ray Kroc Televised on Tuesday, June 7, 1978)
“Confronted with the facts, McFarland published a retraction and an apology to McDonald’s in his next issue of Moments of Sunshine. Overall, he found the incident to be “really embarrassing.” As for the parishioner who spread the false information, he said: “She evidently wanted to hear it so bad, she just heard what she wanted.”
From “Satan’s choice: Was Ronald McDonald in league with the Devil”, from Canada’s Waterloo Chronicle, November 2012
(Self-described member of the Church of Satan Ray Kroc being interviewed on an unidentified TV show)
“A former pastor who spent 26 years serving churches in Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach pleaded guilty Friday to 13 felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with minors and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
(Convicted serial felon and child molester Reverend John McFarland)
John Rodgers McFarland, 68, was first arrested in Escondido in December 2018 and charged in San Diego County with two felony counts of molesting a girl under 14, police and prosecutors reported at the time of his arrest.
McFarland was also a chaplain for 20 years for the Fountain Valley Police Department until his retirement a few years ago.”
From “Former Orange County church pastor pleads guilty, sentenced to 15 years to life for child molestation”, from the Daily Pilot, February 2021
(McDonald’s representatives saying “I love you!” in American Sign Language, saying that they want to “rock on”, signaling their support for the Texas Longhorns football team, or praising their dark Lord, Satan, depending upon your point of view)
“The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?”
Sherlock Holmes, from “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
The pictures that follow are from a Don Bradley post from the Cloudbusters forum from 2004. Don Bradley is a generational Satanist double-agent who infiltrated the Orgonite movement in its early days.
These photos are submitted here for your edification re: fair-seeming, barely-closeted Death-worshippers gaining elected office:
(Agent Don Bradley: “Taken summer 1987, boys out and about. Kurt Cobain on right, then the drummer (before Dave Grohl joined the band (Nirvana - ed) and bassist on left, Krist).
(Kurt Cobain, (drummer) and Krist Novoselic, 1987. Agent Don Bradley: “Pic taken in Krist’s mother’s basement, christmas 1987. Boys play, right after killing and feeding on a young lady, 14 years old. And don’t think this is a stage shot, look behind the drummer. You can see the curtains and plugs running off the elect in the ceiling and stuff, like in basements.” That’s Kurt Cobain on the left, and Krist Novoselic on the right.)
June 8, 2009 - Nirvana Bassist Turns Politician | News | Clash Magazine
(Former Nirvana Bassist Krist Novoselic, pointing to his chin with his left hand in a purportedly-secret Illuminist “gesture of recognition”)
Wiki - Novoselic remains active in politics making appearances to advocate electoral reform (especially instant-runoff voting and proportional representation) and running the website. He considered a 2004 run for Lieutenant Governor of Washington as a Democrat, challenging an incumbent of the same party, but ultimately decided against it. He also joined the board of FairVote, then the Center for Voting and Democracy, and was appointed chair in January 2008
The woman, call her “Red Bird,” claims her three-year-old grandson was abducted and murdered by a cult. His body was found in a Spring Valley dumpster. According to Red Bird, his heart and liver had been removed. His eyelids had been cut open or removed, and his eyes had been replaced with “something blue.” His feet were painted black. Symbols were painted on his hands, though she doesn’t know what kind. The suspect apprehended in the case hanged himself in jail. (Local law-enforcement officials say the investigation is still open, so they cannot comment on Red Bird’s account.)
From “So many demonic sightings in East San Diego County”, San Diego Reader, December 1991
Piercing blue eyes undimmed by the passing of 1,300 years, this is the Lady of the Mask – a mummy whose discovery could reveal the secrets of a lost culture.
Archaeologists said the child discovered with the adult mummies at Huaca Pucllana was most likely sacrificed.”
From “Oh mummy! Archaeologists unearth ancient tribe members sacrificed 1,300 years ago”, Daily Mail, August 27, 2008
“I related it more to my upbringing, I grew up in a very Christian environment — a very healthy environment and a loving a family — but there were parameters that I didn’t understand, that I questioned it, and it took me until my adult years until I could really try new things… That was satanism, it works really well, I made a pact and the movie came out, so… No, you’re really dealing with certain things as you grow up and you’ve got to try things on for yourself and really figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. I just relate to that time, it’s a very personal time, it’s a comfort system and you cut the tether and find yourself very on your own with nothing to hold on to.”
- Brad Pitt
(Self-described Satanist Brad Pitt in “Fight Club”, 1996)
“The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.”
From “Fight Club”, written by Chuck Palahniuk, 1996
“The idea of Antichrist is an unspoken knowledge that every person has, it’s just the acceptance of yourself as a powerful being who can make their own decisions. It is not someone with a 666 on their head.”
—Marilyn Manson, 1996
“For who makes the fairest show makes most deceit”
- Pericles
“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas."
(“The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.”)”
From "Le Spleen de Paris", by Charles Baudelaire, 1869
Sherlock: I’ve been neglecting my hobby. I’m going to visit Swirl-Theory.com and discuss conspiracy theories.
Watson: Your hobby is conspiracy theories?
Sherlock: No, of course not. They’re pure sophistry. Large groups of people cannot keep secrets. My hobby is conspiracy theorists. I adore them, as one with a barmy uncle or a pet that can’t stop walking into walls.
From the T.V. show “Elementary”, posted on Reddit’s “r/conspiratard” subgroup
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
― From film “The Wizard of Oz”, screenplay written by Noel Langley, 1939
“Spies are, by nature and necessity, pathological liars who strive to make their endgames justify their meanness.”
― Stewart Stafford
“Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethro’s and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.”
Rusty, from “Ocean’s Eleven”, 2001
“…but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.”
From “Orthodoxy”, by G.K. Chesterton, 1908
“Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but it’s not practical. There are no stereotypes.”
― Ted Bundy
(Ted Bundy, career politician, serial rapist, and serial killer)
Ted Bundy served on the Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979) presidential campaign in 1968 and the successful reelection campaign of Washington governor Dan Evans. Bundy was appointed to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee, and later became an assistant to Ross Davis, the chairman of the Washington State Republican Party.
The University of Oxford’s psychologist Kevin Dutton found ten professions with an unusually high proportion of psychopaths: chief executive officers, lawyers, television and radio news anchors and analysts, salespersons, surgeons journalists, police officers, clergy, chiefs and civil servants.
“The 16 characteristics of psychopaths:
- Intelligent
- Rational
- Calm
- Unreliable
- Insincere
- Without shame or remorse
- Having poor judgment
- Without capacity for love
- Unemotional
- Poor insight
- Indifferent to the trust or kindness of others
- Overreactive to alcohol
- Suicidal
- Impersonal sex life
- Lacking long-term goals
- Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
― From “The Mask of Sanity”, by Hervey M. Cleckley, 1941
"We do not have to be mental health professionals to identify the traits of the possible sociopaths among us.”
― From “Type 1 Sociopath - When Difficult People Are More Than Difficult People”, by P.A. Speers, 2014
“I regularly comment on my desire to exploit my admirers or to kill babies and cute animals, and I don’t even need to laugh or smile for people to think I am joking.”
― From "Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight", by M. E. Thomas, 2013
"I made several attempts to make myself clear: Just a neighbor come to call and ask the doctor’s advice about gobbling some LSD in the shack just down the hill from his house. I did, after all, have weapons. And I liked to shoot them - especially at night, when the great blue flame would leap out, along with all that noise…and, yes, the bullets, too. WE couldn’t ignore that. Big balls of lead/alloy flaying around the valley at speeds up to 3700 feet per second…
But I always fired into the nearest hill, or, failing that, into blackness. I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to kill more than I could eat."
- From “The Great Shark Hunt”, by Hunter S. Thompson, 1979
And after a while, you can work on points for style.
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake,
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile.
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to,
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You’ll get the chance to put the knife in.
From “Dogs”, by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, from the Album “Animals”, 1977
“The duplicity of others must always be shocking when one is unconscious of one’s own.”
― From “The Mask of Dimitrios”, by Eric Ambler, 1944
“Crime causes so much horror, even to them [criminals], that they would like, in order to escape from the necessity they feel to be bad, to be believed and always to be depicted as virtuous.”
― From “Justines, or The Misfortunes of Virtue”, by the Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, 1791
“There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are merely accomplices.”
― From “The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude”, by Étienne de La Boétie, 1577
“Every successful conspiracy remains secret after completion. There is only the desired effect which will always be attributed to reasonable, plausible but false causes.”
― From “The Key of Ahknaton”, by Graeme Rodaughan
“Put Neidermeyer on it. He’s a sneaky little shit just like you.”
Dean Vernon Wormer, from “Animal House”, by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller, 1978
(Mark Metcalf as Doug Niedermeyer, Animal House, 1978)
Mole - In espionage jargon, a mole (also called a “penetration agent”, “deep cover agent”, or “sleeper agent”) is a long-term spy (espionage agent) who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization.
"Do not have the Fairy for your enemy. For the rest — you laugh at them.”
“The Fairy?”
“Yes. Her they call the Fairy. Oh my God, a terrible Inglesaccia! She is the head of our police, the Institutional Police. Ecco, she come. I will present you. Miss Hardcastle, permit that I present to you Mr. Studdock.”
Mark found himself writhing from the stoker’s or carter’s hand-grip of a big woman in a black, short-skirted uniform. Despite a bust that would have done credit to a Victorian barmaid, she was rather thickly built than fat and her iron-grey hair was cropped short. Her face was square, stern, and pale, and her voice deep. A smudge of lip- stick laid on with violent inattention to the real shape of her mouth was her only concession to fashion and she rolled or chewed a long black cheroot, unlit, between her teeth. As she talked she had a habit of removing this, staring intently at the mixture of lipstick and saliva on its mangled end, and then replacing it more firmly than before. She sat down immediately in a chair close to where Mark was standing, flung her right leg over one of the arms, and fixed him with a gaze of cold intimacy."
From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
“Most Gen Z’ers are more likely to turn down or temporarily pause some social media sites rather than abandoning them completely, so there’s no need to panic.”
Lesley Bielby, Chief Strategy Officer at Hill Holliday
(Lesley Bielby, Chief Strategy Officer at Hill Holiday)
“Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realizable.”
Review of “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945 by George Orwell, Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945
"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”
― George Orwell
“Let me control the media and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs.”
- Joseph Goebbels
“Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations—that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
"Although generally regarded as the man who first swept to power (in 1922) as the savior of his country from communism, this book shows that, on the contrary, while communism was almost no threat at this time, by 1945, as a direct result of Mussolini’s reign, communism was set to spread rapidly in Europe, because he deliberately chose to turn Italy into a ‘social minefield’ primed to explode after his death, should he be defeated.
It is (next to the history of the Third Reich) the most extraordinary case-study of a man whose skill was in building myths about himself and his movement that convinced not just a whole country but the international governments of his day. He had a brilliant and monumental talent for deceit, which he exercised so effectively that he eventually fell victim to it himself, fooled by his own propaganda into entering a war his country could only lose, in a terrible way."
From “Mussolini”, by Denis Mack Smith, 1982
“We are oft to blame in this, -
'tis too much proved, - that with devotion’s visage,
and pious action we do sugar o’er
the devil himself.”
― From “Hamlet”, by William Shakespeare, 1603
(Kim Komando Show advertisement - note red hair, fair skin, blue eyes, Satanic purple background, Satanic green blouse, purportedly-secret Illuminist “gesture of recognition” with her left hand)
November 1954 - JOURNAL ARTICLE - Why the Devil Wears Green - D. W. Robertson, Jr.
October 14, 2009 - Red hair came from Neanderthals - Understanding Genetics
October 2, 2013 - Only 2% of the World Has Red Hair
October 22, 2018 - In Gothic stained-glass windows, green was the color of demons, sorcerers, dragons, and the Devil himself.
“…the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. If men were entirely good this precept would not hold, but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a prince legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance. Of this endless modern examples could be given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made void and of no effect through the faithlessness of princes; and he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.
But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander VI did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankind."
From “The Prince”, by Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532
"iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses.’
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
—Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
(Wikipedia) Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 BCE; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.
(“Welcome to Costco…I love you”, from “Idiocracy”, by Mike Judge, 2006)
“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
- Joseph Goebbels
“Horizontal propaganda thus is very hard to make (particularly because it needs so many instructors), but it is exceptionally efficient through its meticulous encirclement of everybody, through the effective participation of all present, and through their public declarations of adherence. It is peculiarly a system that seems to coincide perfectly with egalitarian societies claiming to be based on the will of the people and calling themselves democratic: each group is composed of persons who are alike, and one actually can formulate the will of such a group. But all this is ultimately much more stringent and totalitarian than explosive propaganda. Thanks to this system Mao has succeeded in passing from subversive propaganda to integration propaganda.”
― From “Propaganda: the Formation of Men’s Attitudes”, by Jacques Ellul, 1973
“All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao’s stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: “I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!” Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide?”
― From “Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China”, by Jung Chang, 1991
“But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”
- British double agent Adolph Hitler
Double agent - noun- an agent who pretends to act as a spy for one country or organization while in fact acting on behalf of an enemy
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“You mean you’ve engineered the disturbances?” said Mark. To do him justice, his mind was reeling from this new revelation. Nor was he aware of any decision to conceal his state of mind: in the snugness and intimacy of that circle he found his facial muscles and his voice, without any conscious volition, taking on the tone of his colleagues. “That’s a crude way of putting it,” said Feverstone. “It makes no difference,” said Filostrato. “This is how things have to be managed.” “Quite,” said Miss Hardcastle. “It’s always done. Anyone who knows police work will tell you. And as I say, the real thing—the big riot—must take place within the next forty-eight hours.”
― From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
“Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a ‘categorical pledge’ were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“They have an engine called the Press whereby the people are deceived.”
From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk
Music loud and women warm, I’ve been kicked around
Since I was born
And now it’s alright, it’s okay
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times’ effect on man
From “Stayin’ Alive”, by Morris Gibb, Robin Gibb and Barry Gibb, 1977
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
― George Orwell
“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”
― From “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, by Hunter S. Thompson, 1971
“But how are we to write it tonight if the thing doesn’t even happen till tomorrow at the earliest?” Everyone burst out laughing.
― From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
Don’t wanna be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information Age of hysteria
It’s calling out to idiot America
Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alien nation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
From “American Idiot”, by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, 2004
“Untruth naturally afflicts historical information. There are various reasons that make this unavoidable. One of them is partisanship for opinions and schools. If the soul is impartial in receiving information, it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation the information deserves, and its truth or untruth thus becomes clear. However, if the soul is infected with partisanship for a particular opinion or sect, it accepts without a moment’s hesitation the information that is agreeable to it. Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The result is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.”
— Ibn Khaldun, 1379 A.D.
“Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That’s how we get things done. Any opposition to the NICE is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it’s done properly, you get each side outbidding the other in support of us - to refute the enemy slanders. Of course we’re nonpolitical. The real power always is.”
― From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
- Joseph Goebbels
All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true within itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
— From “Mein Kampf”, by British double agent Adolf Hitler, 1925
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
John 8:32, the King James Bible
“In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“Cunning grows in deceit at seeing itself discovered, and tries to deceive with truth itself.”
― From “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, by Balthasar Gracian, 1647
“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
― From “The Maltese Falcon”, by Dashiell Hammett, 1929
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
“In politics, all abstract terms conceal treachery.”
From “The Black Jacobins”, by C.L.R. James, 1938
A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
From “Politics and the English Language”, by George Orwell, 1946
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“…he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”
From “The Prince”, by Niccolo Machiavelli Niccolo, 1532
“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.”
― René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
"Guard yourself from lying; there is he who deceives and there is he who is deceived.”
― Sextus
“We are men of action. Lies do not become us.”
Westley, from “The Princess Bride”, by William Goldman, 1973
Well I’m accustomed to a smooth ride
Or maybe I’m a dog who’s lost its bite
I don’t expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don’t expect to sleep through the night
Some people say a lie is just a lie
But I say why
Why deny the obvious child?
Why deny the obvious child?
From “The Obvious Child”, by Paul Simon, 1990
“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
“Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.”
― Lysander Spooner
“Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar.”
C.S. Lewis, from “The Screwtape Letters”, 1942
“I don’t believe the polls anymore.”
Donald Trump, 2016
“I don’t believe the polls.”
Joe Biden, 2022
“I’m telling you a lie in a vicious effort that you will repeat my lie over and over until it becomes true”
― Lady Gaga
“Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.”
Niccolo Machiavelli’s instructions to diplomat Raffaello Girlami
"All beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
COVID-19 - noun - A highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
-id- suffix - of or pertaining to; appended to words to make an English adjective or noun form.
Covin - noun - from Old French, from medieval Latin convenium, from Latin convenire (see convene).
collusive agreement between two or more persons to the detriment of a third : conspiracy. b archaic : fraud, trickery
-īnus (feminine -īna, neuter -īnum) - suffix - Of or pertaining to;
Catalan: -í
English: -ine
French: -in
Galician: -iño, -ino
Italian: -ino
Portuguese: -ino, -inho
Romanian: -in
Spanish: -ino
Compare with coven:
Coven - noun - mid 17th century: variant of covin.
a group or gathering of witches who meet regularly.
often derogatory
a secret or close-knit group of associates.
“covens of militants within the party”
En - suffix - of or pertaining to, “having the qualities of”, “resembling”, “like”.
“In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
Santa Clara, California’s actual Covid-19 infection fatality rate of .12% to .2% is between 1,482% and 3,150% lower than the county’s official mortality rate of 3.9%.
“County, state and federal health experts have consistently acknowledged that the number of COVID-19 cases is far higher than the official statistics show, a problem they attribute largely to the lack of widespread testing.”
In May 2020, livescience.com said “The death rate from seasonal flu is typically around 0.1% in the U.S.”
“One who never anticipates deceit or expects duplicity, and yet is the first to recognize such things – is that not a sage indeed?”
― From “The Analects”, by Confucius, 1533
I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.
- Aeschylus
“A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life.”
― Honore de Balzac
"You may plainly perceive the traitor through his mask; he is well known every-where in his true colors; his rolling eyes and his honeyed tones impose only on those who do not know him. People are aware that this low-bred fellow, who deserves to be pilloried, has, by the dirtiest jobs, made his way in the world; and that the splendid position he has acquired makes merit repine and virtue blush. Yet whatever dishonourable epithets may be launched against him everywhere, nobody defends his wretched honour. Call him a rogue, an infamous wretch, a confounded scoundrel if you like, all the world will say “yea, ” and no one contradicts you. But for all that, his bowing and scraping are welcome everywhere; he is received, smiled upon, and wriggles himself into all kinds of society; and, if any appointment is to be secured by intriguing, he will carry the day over a man of the greatest worth. Zounds! these are mortal stabs to me, to see vice parleyed with; and sometimes times I feel suddenly inclined to fly into a wilderness far from the approach of men.”
― From “The Misanthrope”, by Molière, 1666
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fifteenth century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment!
Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.
From “The American Crisis, No. 1”, by Thomas Paine, 1776
“Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends: they wound those who resort to them, worse than their enemies.”
From “Wuthering Heights”, by Emily Brontë, 1847“
“How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly.”
― From “Wives and Daughters”, by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1864
“To live is - to war with trolls
In the holds of the heart and mind”
― Henrik Ibsen
“And now that you have seen a really evil man, you will know how evil they can be and you will go after them to destroy them in order to protect yourself and the people you love. You won’t wait to argue about it. You know what they look like now and what they can do to people.”
James Bond’s French colleague, Mathis, From “Casino Royale”, by Ian Fleming , 1953
“Between ourselves, Watson, it’s a sporting duel between this fellow Milverton and me. He had, as you saw, the best of the first exchanges, but my self-respect and my reputation are concerned to fight it to the finish.”
Sherlock Holmes, from “The Adventures of Charles Agustus Milverton”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1904
“Wormtongue?” said Gandalf, looking sharply at the guard. “Say no more! My errand is not to Wormtongue, but to the Lord of the Mark himself. I am in haste. Will you not go or send to say that we are come?” His eyes glinted under his deep brows as he bent his gaze upon the man.
“Yes I will go,” he answered slowly. But what names shall I report? And what shall I say of you? Old and weary you seem now, but fell and grim you are beneath, I deem."
“Well do you see and speak,” said the Wizard. For I am Gandalf. I have returned."
From “The Two Towers”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954
Irene Adler: (On Moriarty) Please don’t underestimate him. He’s just as brilliant as you are. And infinitely more devious.
Sherlock Holmes: We’ll see about that.
From the film “Sherlock Holmes”, written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, Simon Kinberg and Lionel Wigram, 2009
(Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes, in “Sherlock Holmes”, 2009)
“Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang from his chair.”
From “Sherlock Holmes: Adventure of the Creeping Man”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1923
“You’ll be able to spit nails, kid. Like the guy says, you’re gonna eat lightning and you’re gonna crap thunder. You’re gonna become a very dangerous person.”
Micky Goldmill (to Rocky), from “Rocky”, 1976
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”
- Muhammad Ali
(Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali stands over Sonny Liston and taunts him to get up during their title fight, 1964)
“Bond’s car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4½-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war. It was still serviced every year and, in London, a former Bentley mechanic, who worked in a garage near Bond’s Chelsea flat, tended it with jealous care.”
From “Casino Royale”, by Ian Fleming, 1954
(Q explains the devices on Bond’s Aston Martin DB5)
Q: Now this one I’m particularly keen about. You see the gear lever here? [points to transmission lever] Now, if you take the top off, you will find a little red button. Whatever you do, don’t touch it!
Bond: Why not?
Q: Because you’ll release [points out roof] this section of the roof, and engage and then fire the passenger ejector seat. Whish!
Bond: Ejector seat? You’re joking!
Q: I never joke about my work, 007. [Bond falls silent]
From the film “Goldfinger”, written by Richard Maibaum & Paul Dehn, 1964, based on the novel by Ian Fleming
“You know my methods. Apply them.”
― Sherlock Holmes, from “The Sign of the Four”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890
"All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.””
From “The Prince”, by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532
(Niccolo Machiavelli)
“Gandalf stood for a moment in thought. 'Maybe,’ he muttered. 'Maybe even your foolishness helped, my lad. Let me see: some five days ago now he would discover that we had thrown down Saruman, and had taken the Stone. Still what of that? We could not use it to much purpose, or without his knowing. Ah! I wonder. Aragorn? His time draws near. And he is strong and stern underneath, Pippin; bold, determined, able to take his own counsel and dare great risks at need. That may be it. He may have used the Stone and shown himself to the Enemy, challenging him, for this very purpose.”
From “The Return of the King”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
(J.R.R. Tolkien)
“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli
“You have too much at stake to hesitate. You ought not to think an hour upon the matter, but to spring to action at once…Now our time and turn is come, and perhaps the finishing stroke is reserved for us. When we look back on the dangers we have been saved from, and reflect on the success we have been blessed with, it would be sinful either to be idle or to despair.”
From “The Crisis No. IV”, by Thomas Paine, 1777
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.”
- Mark Twain
“They want us dead,’ said Bond calmly. 'So we have to stay alive.”
From “Moonraker”, by Ian Fleming, 1955
Thunder and lightning
The hexagram Chên represents the eldest son, who seizes rule with energy and power. A yang line develops below two yin lines and presses upward forcibly. This movement is so violent that it arouses terror. It is symbolised by thunder, which bursts forth from the earth and by its shock causes fear and trembling.
The shock that comes from the manifestation of God within the depths of the earth makes man afraid, but this fear of God is good, for joy and merriment can follow upon it.
When a man has learned within his heart what fear and trembling mean, he is safeguarded against any terror produced by outside influences. Let the thunder roll and spread terror a hundred miles around: he remains so composed and reverent in spirit that the sacrificial rite is not interrupted. This is the spirit that must animate leaders and rulers of men - a profound inner seriousness from which all terrors glance off harmlessly.
From the I Ching, Hexagram 51 - Chên - The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. ”
- From “The Screwtape Letters”, by C.S. Lewis, 1942
Matt Farrell: Seriously, you probably shouldn’t antagonize them, since they have all the guns.
Lucy McClain: Listen, will you just take a minute and dig deep for a bigger set of balls, 'cause you’re gonna need 'em before we’re through.
From the film “Live Free or Die Hard”, written by Mark Bomback, 2007
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
― Thomas Paine
“If i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.”
― Sherlock Holmes, to Moriarty, from “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1927
Lt. Hicox approaches Stiglitz
LT. HICOX: Stiglitz, right?
STIGLITZ: That’s right, sir.
Stiglitz continues bringing the blade’s edge up, then down on the leather strap
LT. HICOX: I hear you’re pretty good with that? (meaning the blade)
Stiglitz doesn’t answer
LT. HICOX: You know, we’re not looking for trouble right now. We’re simply making contact with our agent. Should be uneventful. However, on the off chance I’m wrong, and things prove eventful, I need to know we can all remain calm.
The renegade Gerry Lieutenant stops his blade’s progress and looks up at the limey lieutenant.
STIGLITZ: I don’t appear calm to you?
From the script of “Inglourious Basterds”, written by Quentin Tarantino, 2008
How do we know you are the Strider that Gandalf speaks about?’ (Sam) demanded. ‘You never mentioned Gandalf, till this letter came out. You might be a play-acting spy…, trying to get us to go with you. You might have done in the real Strider and took his clothes. What have you to say to that?’
‘That you are a stout fellow,’ answered Strider; ‘but I am afraid my only answer to you, Sam Gamgee, is this. If I had killed the real Strider, I could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. If I was after the Ring, I could have it — NOW!’
He stood up, and seemed suddenly to grow taller. In his eyes gleamed a light, keen and commanding. Throwing back his cloak, he laid his hand on the hilt of a sword that had hung concealed by his side… Sam sat wide-mouthed staring at him dumbly.
‘But I am the real Strider, fortunately,’ he said, looking down at them with his face softened by a sudden smile. 'I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.’
From “The Fellowship of the Ring”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954
Granny Hawkins: So you’ll be Josey Wales.
Josey Wales: Now how might you know that, Granny?
Granny Hawkins: Soldiers were here looking for you 'bout two hours ago.
[Josey looks at Carstairs]
Sim Carstairs: Uh, I was goin’ to mention that to you… as soon as I got the chance.
Granny Hawkins: They say you killed your own men.
Jamie: Those lying, blue scum-bellies…
Granny Hawkins: They say you’re a hard put and desperate man, Josey Wales. They’re goin’ to heel and hide you to a barn door. You know what I say?
Josey Wales: What’s that?
Granny Hawkins: I say that big talk’s worth doodly-squat. Now them poultices be laced with feathermoss and mustard root. Mind you drop water on 'em occasional and keep 'em damp. [Walks off]
Granny Hawkins: You can pay me when you see me again, Josey Wales.
Josey Wales: I reckon so.
From “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, written by Asa Earl Carter, 1976
(Madeleine Taylor Holmes as Granny Hawkins, from “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, 1976)
“I think that there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.”
Sherlock Holmes, from “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1904
John McClane: You know what you get for being a hero? Nothin’. You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah, blah, blah, attaboy. You get divorced. Your wife can’t remember your last name. Your kids don’t want to talk to you. You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me, kid, nobody wants to be that guy.
Matt Farrell: Then why are you doing this?
John McClane: Because there’s no body else to do it right now, that’s why. Believe me, if there were somebody else to do it, I’d let them do it, but there’s not. So we’re doing it.
Matt Farrell: Ah. That’s what makes you that guy.
From the film “Live Free or Die Hard”, written by Mark Bomback, 2007
(Bruce Willis, as John McClane, in “Live Free or Die Hard”)
“Have no fears - indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We will strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see.” Then a far-away look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home drifted across the vision of her mind; for she said very gently, and as one who muses, “But that I know God guides us and will give us success, I had a liefer keep sheep than endure these perils.”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
(Joan of Arc (C1412-1431), French National Heroine, Oil on canvas, by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1879)
“It’s every man’s business to see justice done.”
From “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1893
The two American service members who tackled a suspected terrorist on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris rushed him even though he was fully armed, then grabbed him by the neck and beat him over the head with his own automatic rifle until he was unconscious, one of them said in television interviews here on Saturday.
The suspect entered the train car carrying an AK-47 and a handgun, and “I looked over at Spencer and said, ‘Let’s go,’” said Alek Skarlatos, identified as an Oregon National Guardsman returning from Afghanistan. “And he jumped, I followed behind him by about three seconds. Spencer got the guy first, grabbed the guy by the neck, I grabbed the handgun,” said Mr. Skarlatos, referring to Spencer Stone, a friend and member of the Air Force. The Pentagon confirmed their identities.
Mr. Stone was severely cut by the suspect in the neck and hand and is receiving treatment at a hospital in northern France, though his injuries are not life threatening. An amateur video taken in the immediate aftermath shows the suspect on the ground with his legs in the air, his hands tied, while another man – apparently Mr. Stone, kneels shirtless and evidently in pain. Groans are heard, and a voice saying, “Dude, I tried to shoot him.”
The suspect wounded several passengers before the Americans subdued him and their quick action averted what officials said could have been a bloodbath. On Saturday morning, the French press, government and social media praised their actions and President Obama also hailed their bravery. They were decorated with an honor by the French city of Arras, where the train, an Amsterdam-Paris express, pulled in after the incident.
The suspect, identified as a 26-year-old man of Moroccan origin known to Spanish authorities as a terrorism suspect, was being interrogated by French police in the Paris region. French media reported that he denied having terrorist aims, and merely intended to rob the passengers. But his arsenal —several guns, a sack of ammunition, a sharp blade —suggested otherwise.
At least two other passengers were also involved in restraining the suspect after the two servicemen subdued him. One of them, Chris Norman, a British businessman interviewed on television, said: “the guy actually came up, he pulled out a cutter, started cutting Spencer. He cut Spencer behind the neck, he nearly cut his thumb off, we eventually got him under control. It could have been a real carnage.”
Passengers spoke of hearing gunshots as the train was traveling through the countryside, and of seeing bloodied individuals rolling out into the grass when the train lurched to a stop during a chaotic few minutes of shooting.
From “2 American Service Members Foil Gunman in Train Attack”, the New York Times, August 21, 2015
“You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that bring the victories in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods’ gift of a stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them. I have noticed this point too, my friends, that in soldiering the people whose one aim is to keep alive usually find a wretched and dishonorable death, while the people who, realizing that death is the common lot of all men, make it their endeavour to die with honour, somehow seem more often to reach old age and to have a happier life when they are alive. These are facts which you too should realize (our situation demands it) and should show that you yourselves are brave men and should call on the rest to do likewise.”
― From “The Persian Expedition”, by Xenophon, 370 B.C.
Mancuso: Conn, aye. All stop.
Dallas Conn: All stop, aye.
Mancuso: All right. We just unzipped our fly. Mr. Thompson, open the outer doors. Firing point procedures. Now, if that bastard so much as twitches, I’m going to blow him right to Mars.
Captain Borodin: All stop rudder amid ship.
Marko Ramius: What’s going on? Can you identify the contact?
Red October Sonar: American Los Angeles-class attack submarine bearing - Captain, he may be trying to open his torpedo tube doors.
Dallas Fire Control: Outer doors are open on tubes one and two. We’re ready to shoot.
Mancuso: Very well. My orders are specific, Mr. Ryan.
Borodin: He’s opened his outer doors. He’s preparing to fire.
Ramius: Flood tubes three and four and plot a solution.
Red October Fire Control: Captain, flood tubes three and four. Plot solution. Shall I open the torpedo tube door, sir? Captain, shall I open outer doors?
Ramius: No. Lock the firing solution into the computer. Do not open the doors.
Red October Fire Control: Aye, Captain. Lock solution into computer.
Jones: Conn, Sonar. Target’s flooded his tubes.
Mancuso: Has he opened his outer doors?
Jones: Negative, Captain. He’s just sitting there. Hold on. Target’s coming shallow.
Jack Ryan: What’s that mean?
Mancuso: That means he’s a very cool customer, your Russian. He knows we’re here and ready to shoot. He’s not provoking us. He’s heading to periscope depth to see what’s on the surface. We’ll play along.
From “The Hunt For Red October”, by Tom Clancy, 1990
(Captain Bart Mancuso, from “The Hunt For Red October”, 1992)
“There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy.”
From “The Prince”, by Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532
“The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music of St. James’s Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.”
Dr. John Watson, from “The Red Headed League”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891
"For a while the king sat silent. At last he spoke. ‘So we come to it in the end,’ he said: ‘the great battle of our time, in which many things shall pass away. But at least there is no longer need for hiding. We will ride the straight way and the open road and with all our speed. The muster shall begin at once, and wait for none that tarry. Have you good store in Minas Tirith? For if we must ride now in all haste, then we must ride light, with but meal and water enough to last us into battle.’
‘We have very great store long prepared,’ answered Hirgon. ‘Ride now as light and as swift as you may!’
‘Then call the heralds, Éomer,’ said Théoden. ‘Let the Riders be marshalled!’
From "The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
When we presently stood in the presence, in front of a crowd of glittering officers of the army, Joan greeted us with a winning smile, and she appointed all of us to places in her household, because she wanted her old friends by her. It was a beautiful surprise, to have ourselves honored like this when she could have had people of birth and consequence instead, but we couldn’t find our tongues to say so, she was become so great and high above us now. One at a time we stepped forward and each received his warrant from the hand of our chief, D’Aulon. All of us had honorable places; the two knights stood highest; then Joan’s two brothers; I was first page and secretary, a young gentleman named Raymond was second page; Noel was her messenger; she had two heralds, and also a chaplain and almoner, whose name was Jean Pasquerel. She had previously appointed a maitre d’hotel and number of domestics. Now she looked around and said:
“But where is the Paladin?”
The Sieur Bertrand said:
“He thought he was not sent for, your Excellency.”
“Now that is not well. Let him be called.”
The Paladin entered humbly enough. He ventured no further than just within the door. He stopped there, looking embarrassed and afraid Then Joan spoke pleasantly and said:
“I watched you on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it out.”
It was fine to see the Paladin’s face light up when she said that. “Will you follow where I lead?”
“Into the fire!” he said; and I said to myself “By the ring of that, I think she has turned this braggart into a hero. It is another of her miracles, I make no doubt of it.”
“I believe you,” said Joan. “Here - take my banner. You will ride with me in every field, and when France is saved, you will give it me back.”
He took the banner, which is now the most precious of the memorials that remain of Joan of Arc, and his voice was unsteady with emotion when he said:
“If I ever disgrace this trust, my comrades here will know how to do a friend’s office upon my body, and this charge I lay upon them, knowing that they will not fail me.”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
Jack Reacher: (pay phone ringing) MP’s are on the way now. If it were up to me, I’d just kill you. It’s just going to keep on ringing.
Sheriff Wood: (Answers phone) Sheriff Raymond Wood. (To Reacher) Who the hell are you?
Jack Reacher: The guy you didn’t count on.
From the film “Jack Reacher, Never Go Back”, written by Edward Zwick, 2016
[Missouri guerillas come upon Josey sitting by his family’s graves]
“Bloody Bill” Anderson: Name’s Anderson. Bloody Bill’s what they call me. [Looks around] Red Legs? You’ll find them up in Kansas. They’re with the Union. And we’re going up there and set things aright.
Josey Wales: I’ll be coming with you.
From “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, written by Forrest Carter, 1976
“When we were half-way to Chinon we happened upon yet one more squad of enemies. They burst suddenly out of the woods, and in considerable force, too; but we were not the apprentices we were ten or twelve days before; no, we were seasoned to this kind of adventure now; our hearts did not jump into our throats and our weapons tremble in our hands. We had learned to be always in battle array, always alert, and always ready to deal with any emergency that might turn up. We were no more dismayed by the sight of these people than our commander was. Before they could form, Joan had delivered the order, “Forward!” and were down upon them with a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered, we plowing through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our last ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous rascal, the King’s own minister and favorite, De la Tremouille.”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
We had flames comin’ from out of the side
Feel the tension, man, what a ride!
I said, “Look out, boys, I’ve got a license to fly!”
And that Caddy pulled over and let us by
From “Hot Rod Lincoln”, by Charles Ryan, W Stevenson and W S Stevenson, 1955
“Spread love and understanding,” Reacher said. “Use force if necessary.”
Jack Reacher, from “Never Go Back”, by Lee Child, 2013
(Bruce Lee)
"Now silently the host of Rohan moved forward into the field of Gondor, pouring in slowly but steadily, like the rising tide through breaches in a dike that men have thought secure. But the mind and will of the Black Captain were bent wholly on the falling city, and as yet no tidings came to him warning that his designs held any flaw.
After a while the king led his men away somewhat eastward, to come between the fires of the siege and the outer fields. Still they were unchallenged, and still Theoden gave no signal. At last he halted once again. The City was now nearer. A smell of burning was in the air and a very shadow of death. The horses were uneasy. But the king sat upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or by dread. He seemed to shrink down, cowed by age. Merry himself felt as if a great weight of horror and doubt had settled on him. His heart beat slowly. Time seemed poised in uncertainty. They were too late! Too late was worse than never! Perhaps Theoden would quail, bow his old head, turn, slink away to hide in the hills.
Then suddenly Merry felt it at last, beyond doubt: a change. Wind was in his face! Light was glimmering. Far, far away, in the South the clouds could be dimly seen as remote grey shapes, rolling up, drifting: morning lay beyond them.
But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle: and then as the darkness closed again there came rolling over the fields a great boom.
At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:
Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Eomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new tire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and the darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.
From “The Return of the King”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
We reached Jargeau and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy force which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and gained a footing and fought hard to keep it; but it presently began to fall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her battle-cry and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire. The Paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her standard from his failing hand and plunged on through the ruck of flying missiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries; and then for a good time one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion of struggling multitudes, and the hoarse bellowing of the guns; and then the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke - a firmament through which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then, giving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond; and always at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white mail which was the center and soul of our hope and trust, and whenever we saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that all was well. At last a great shout went up - a joyous roar of shoutings, in fact - and that was sign sufficient that the farbourgs were ours.
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
Jamie: “You can’t get ‘em all, Josie!”
Josie Wales: “That’s a fact.”
Jamie: “How come you’re doing this, then?”
Josie Wales: “Because I ain’t got nothing better to do.”
From “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, written by Forrest Carter, 1976
(Clint Eastwood as Josey Wales, in “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, 1976)
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.”
Major General George S. Patton, Jr.
(Major General George S. Patton) (Jeff Miller, Brooklyn, New York, 2020)
“Winning isn’t everything–but wanting to win is.”
― Vince Lombardi
“I haven’t celebrated coming in No. 2 too many times.”
― Mark Messier
(Satchel Paige - brought to the Majors by Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck in 1948, Paige helped the Tribe win the World Series that year. Paige then followed Veeck to St. Louis, where in 1952 the 46-year-old right-hander was a remarkable 12-10 with a 3.07 ERA for a Browns team that lost 90 games. On Aug. 6, 1952, Paige became the oldest Major League player to throw a complete game or a shutout (a record since surpassed) by beating the Detroit Tigers, 1-0, in 12 innings.)
THE NEXT day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the feast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were too pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But privately they profaned it with plottings, a sort of industry just in their line. They decided to do the only thing proper to do now in the new circumstances of the case—feign an attack on the most important bastille on the Orleans side, and then, if the English weakened the far more important fortresses on the other side of the river to come to its help, cross in force and capture those works. This would give them the bridge and free communication with the Sologne, which was French territory. They decided to keep this latter part of the program secret from Joan.
Joan intruded and took them by surprise. She asked them what they were about and what they had resolved upon. They said they had resolved to attack the most important of the English bastilles on the Orleans side next morning—and there the spokesman stopped. Joan said:
“Well, go on.”
“There is nothing more. That is all.”
“Am I to believe this? That is to say, am I to believe that you have lost your wits?” She turned to Dunois, and said, “Bastard, you have sense, answer me this: if this attack is made and the bastille taken, how much better off would we be than we are now?”
The Bastard hesitated, and then began some rambling talk not quite germane to the question. Joan interrupted him and said:
“That will not do, good Bastard, you have answered. Since the Bastard is not able to mention any advantage to be gained by taking that bastille and stopping there, it is not likely that any of you could better the matter. You waste much time here in inventing plans that lead to nothing, and making delays that are a damage. Are you concealing something from me? Bastard, this council has a general plan, I take it; without going into details, what is it?”
“It is the same it was in the beginning, seven months ago—to get provisions for a long siege, then sit down and tire the English out.”
“In the name of God! As if seven months was not enough, you want to provide for a year of it. Now ye shall drop these pusillanimous dreams—the English shall go in three days!”
Several exclaimed:
“Ah, General, General, be prudent!”
“Be prudent and starve? Do ye call that war? I tell you this, if you do not already know it: The new circumstances have changed the face of matters. The true point of attack has shifted; it is on the other side of the river now. One must take the fortifications that command the bridge. The English know that if we are not fools and cowards we will try to do that. They are grateful for your piety in wasting this day. They will reinforce the bridge forts from this side to-night, knowing what ought to happen to-morrow. You have but lost a day and made our task harder, for we will cross and take the bridge forts. Bastard, tell me the truth—does not this council know that there is no other course for us than the one I am speaking of?”
Dunois conceded that the council did know it to be the most desirable, but considered it impracticable; and he excused the council as well as he could by saying that inasmuch as nothing was really and rationally to be hoped for but a long continuance of the siege and wearying out of the English, they were naturally a little afraid of Joan’s impetuous notions.
He said:
“You see, we are sure that the waiting game is the best, whereas you would carry everything by storm.”
“That I would!—and moreover that I will! You have my orders—here and now. We will move upon the forts of the south bank to-morrow at dawn.”
“And carry them by storm?”
“Yes, carry them by storm!”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte”, by Mark Twain, 1896
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
“Now, do you need me to elaborate, or can we just crack on?”
From the film “Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows”, written by Kieran Mulroney, 2011
Vincent: A “please” would be nice.
Winston Wolf: Come again?
Vincent: I said a “please” would be nice.
Winston Wolf: Get it straight, Buster. I’m not here to say “please”. I’m here to tell you what to do. And if self-preservation is an instinct you possess, you better fucking do it and do it quick. I’m here to help. If my help’s not appreciated, lots of luck, gentlemen.
Jules: No no, Mr. Wolfe, it’s not like that. Your help is definitely appreciated.
Vincent: Look, Mr. Wolfe, I respect you. I just don’t like people barking orders at me, that’s all.
Winston Wolf: If I’m curt with you, it’s because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you two guys to act fast if you want to get out of this. So pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the fucking car.
From “Pulp Fiction”, by Quentin Tarantino, 1994
(Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf in “Pulp Fiction”, by Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Joan lay on the grass, weak and suffering, hour after hour, but still insisting that the fight go on. Which it did, but not to much purpose, for it was only under her eye that men were heroes and not afraid. They were like the Paladin; I think he was afraid of his shadow—I mean in the afternoon, when it was very big and long; but when he was under Joan’s eye and the inspiration of her great spirit, what was he afraid of? Nothing in this world—and that is just the truth.
Toward night Dunois gave it up. Joan heard the bugles. “What!” she cried. “Sounding the retreat!”
Her wound was forgotten in a moment. She countermanded the order, and sent another, to the officer in command of a battery, to stand ready to fire five shots in quick succession. This was a signal to the force on the Orleans side of the river under La Hire, who was not, as some of the histories say, with us. It was to be given whenever Joan should feel sure the boulevard was about to fall into her hands—then that force must make a counter-attack on the Tourelles by way of the bridge.
Joan mounted her horse now, with her staff about her, and when our people saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once eager for another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to the fosse where she had received her wound, and standing there in the rain of bolts and arrows, she ordered the Paladin to let her long standard blow free, and to note when its fringes should touch the fortress. Presently he said: “It touches.”
“Now, then,” said Joan to the waiting battalions, “the place is yours—enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then—all together—go!”
And go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the ladders and over the battlements like a wave—and the place was our property. Why, one might live a thousand years and never see so gorgeous a thing as that again.
There, hand to hand, we fought like wild beasts, for there was no give-up to those English—there was no way to convince one of those people but to kill him, and even then he doubted. At least so it was thought, in those days, and maintained by many.
From "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc", by Mark Twain, 1896
“Great results, can be achieved with small forces.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
Hans Gruber: Do you really think you have a chance against us Mr. cowboy?
John McClane: Yippie Ki Yay Motherfucker.
From the movie “Die Hard”, written by Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart, 1988
Capt. Bart Mancuso: [suspiciously] What’s so funny?
Jack Ryan: Ah, the Captain seems to think you’re some kind of…cowboy.
Captain Ramius: [in Russian] You speak Russian.
Jack Ryan: [in Russian] A little. It is wise to study the ways of one’s adversary. Don’t you think?
Captain Ramius: [in English] It is.
From the film “The Hunt For Red October”, 1990, from the book written by Tom Clancy, 1984
(Still from “The Hunt For Red October”, 1990)
Professor James Moriarty: Now, are you sure you want to play this game?
Sherlock Holmes: I’m afraid, you would lose.
From “Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows”, written by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney, 2011
Based on characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(From “Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows”, written by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney, 2011)
We moved down the shore and Joan planted her standard before the bastille of the Augustins, the first of the formidable works that protected the end of the bridge. The trumpets sounded the assault, and two charges followed in handsome style; but we were too weak, as yet, for our main body was still lagging behind. Before we could gather for a third assault the garrison of St. Prive were seen coming up to reinforce the big bastille. They came on a run, and the Augustins sallied out, and both forces came against us with a rush, and sent our small army flying in a panic, and followed us, slashing and slaying, and shouting jeers and insults at us.
Joan was doing her best to rally the men, but their wits were gone, their hearts were dominated for the moment by the old-time dread of the English. Joan’s temper flamed up, and she halted and commanded the trumpets to sound the advance. Then she wheeled about and cried out:
‘If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is enough—follow me!’
Away she went, and after her a few dozen who had heard her words and been inspired by them. The pursuing force was astonished to see her sweeping down upon them with this handful of men, and it was their turn now to experience a grisly fright—surely this is a witch, this is a child of Satan! That was their thought—and without stopping to analyze the matter they turned and fled in a panic.
Our flying squadrons heard the bugle and turned to look; and when they saw the Maid’s banner speeding in the other direction and the enemy scrambling ahead of it in disorder, their courage returned and they came scouring after us.
La Hire heard it and hurried his force forward and caught up with us just as we were planting our banner again before the ramparts of the Augustins. We were strong enough now. We had a long and tough piece of work before us, but we carried it through before night, Joan keeping us hard at it, and she and La Hire saying we were able to take that big bastille, and must. The English fought like—well, they fought like the English; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made assault after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening cannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place with a rush, and planted our standard on its walls.
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
“Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
“I cry you mercy!” interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a dangerous enthusiasm rising in the King’s face. “March upon Paris? Does your Excellency forget that the way bristles with English strongholds?”
“That for your English strongholds!” and Joan snapped her fingers scornfully. “Whence have we marched in these last days? From Gien. And whither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English strongholds. What are they now? French ones—and they never cost a blow!” Here applause broke out from the group of generals, and Joan had to pause a moment to let it subside. “Yes, English strongholds bristled before us; now French ones bristle behind us. What is the argument? A child can read it. The strongholds between us and Paris are garrisoned by no new breed of English, but by the same breed as those others—with the same fears, the same questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to see the heavy hand of God descending upon them. We have but to march!—on the instant—and they are ours, Paris is ours, France is ours!”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
“Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?”
“Have you good spurs, prince?”
“Why? Will they make us run away?”
“Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours—they are lost. They will fly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs. Forward—close up!”
By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered our presence. Talbot’s force was marching in three bodies. First his advance-guard; then his artillery; then his battle-corps a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his advance-guard, and five hundred picked archers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to pass, and hoped to hold this position till his battle-corps could come up. Sir John Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her opportunity and ordered La Hire to advance—which La Hire promptly did, launching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his customary fashion.
The duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said—
“Not yet—wait.”
So they waited—impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was ready—gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing, calculating—by shades, minutes, fractions of minutes, seconds—with all her great soul present, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of body—but patient, steady, master of herself—master of herself and of the situation.
And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and falling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire’s godless crew, La Hire’s great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a flagstaff.
“Oh, Satan and his Hellions, see them go!” Somebody muttered it in deep admiration.
And now he was closing up—closing up on Fastolfe’s rushing corps.
And now he struck it—struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned, trembling with excitement, to Joan, saying—
“Now!”
But she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and said again—
“Wait—not yet.”
Fastolfe’s hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming and cursing after it.
Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance with her sword. “Follow me!” she cried, and bent her head to her horse’s neck and sped away like the wind!
We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang “Halt!”
The Battle of Patay was won.
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
(Saint Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain, published by Harper & Brothers, New York 1919)
“My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like wine. But everyone drinks water.”
- From Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1885
“I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others need no preparation and got none.”
― Mark Twain
(Mark Twain)
In his autobiography, “My Inventions: the autobiography of Nikola Tesla,” the pioneer in electrical engineering and physics told of an illness he’d suffered earlier in his life from which he nearly did not recover.
“… my condition became so desperate that I was given up by physicians. During this period I was permitted to read constantly, obtaining books from the Public Library which had been neglected and entrusted to me for classification of the works and preparation of the catalogues. One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state. They were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed. Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship between us, I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that great man of laughter burst into tears.”
― Nikola Tesla
(Mark Twain in Nicola Tesla’s lab, 1894)
“If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you can’t learn any other way."
– Mark Twain
“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
― Nikola Tesla
(Nicola Tesla)
The sky now was quickly clearing and the sinking moon was shining brightly. But the light brought little hope to the Riders of the Mark. The enemy before them seemed to have grown rather than diminished, and still more were pressing up from the valley through the breach. The sortie upon the Rock gained only a brief respite. The assault on the gates was redoubled. Against the Deeping Wall the hosts of Isengard roared like a sea. Orcs and hillmen swarmed about its feet from end to end. Ropes with grappling hooks were hurled over the parapet faster than men could cut them or fling them back. Hundreds of long ladders were lifted up. Many were cast down in ruin, but many more replaced them, and Orcs sprang up them like apes in the dark forests of the South. Before the wall’s foot the dead and broken were piled like shingle in a storm; ever higher rose the hideous mounds, and still the enemy came on.
The men of Rohan grew weary. All their arrows were spent, and every shaft was shot; their swords were notched, and their shields were riven. Three times Aragorn and Éomer rallied them, and three times Andúril flamed in a desperate charge that drove the enemy from the wall.
Then a clamour arose in the Deep behind. Orcs had crept like rats through the culvert through which the stream flowed out. There they had gathered in the shadow of the cliffs, until the assault above was hottest and nearly all the men of the defence had rushed to the wall’s top. Then they sprang out. Already some had passed into the jaws of the Deep and were among the horses, fighting with the guards.
Down from the wall leapt Gimli with a fierce cry that echoed in the cliffs. ‘Khazâd! Khazâd!’ He soon had work enough.
‘Ai-oi!’ he shouted. ‘The Orcs are behind the wall. Ai-oi! Come, Legolas! There are enough for us both. Khazâd ai-mênu!’
Gamling the Old looked down from the Hornburg, hearing the great voice of the dwarf above all the tumult. ‘The Orcs are in the Deep!’ he cried. ‘Helm! Helm! Forth Helmingas!’ he shouted as he leaped down the stair from the Rock with many men of Westfold at his back.
From “The Two Towers”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954
A broad stairway climbed from the Deep up to the Rock and the rear-gate of the Hornburg. Near the bottom stood Aragorn. In his hand still Andúril gleamed, and the terror of the sword for a while held back the enemy, as one by one all who could gain the stair passed up towards the gate. Behind on the upper steps knelt Legolas. His bow was bent, but one gleaned arrow was all that he had left, and he peered out now, ready to shoot the first Orc that should dare to approach the stair.
‘All who can have now got safe within, Aragorn,’ he called. ‘Come back!’
Aragorn turned and sped up the stair; but as he ran he stumbled in his weariness. At once his enemies leapt forward. Up came the Orcs, yelling, with their long arms stretched out to seize him. The foremost fell with Legolas’ last arrow in his throat, but the rest sprang over him. Then a great boulder, cast from the outer wall above, crashed down upon the stair, and hurled them back into the Deep. Aragorn gained the door, and swiftly it clanged to behind him.
‘Things go ill, my friends,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his brow with his arm.
‘Ill enough,’ said Legolas, ‘but not yet hopeless, while we have you with us. Where is Gimli?’
‘I do not know,’ said Aragorn. ‘I last saw him fighting on the ground behind the wall, but the enemy swept us apart.’
‘Alas! That is evil news,’ said Legolas.
‘He is stout and strong,’ said Aragorn. ‘Let us hope that he will escape back to the caves. There he would be safe for a while. Safer than we. Such a refuge would be to the liking of a dwarf.’
‘That must be my hope,’ said Legolas. ‘But I wish that he had come this way. I desired to tell Master Gimli that my tale is now thirty-nine.’
‘If he wins back to the caves, he will pass your count again,’ laughed Aragorn. ‘Never did I see an axe so wielded.’
From “The Two Towers”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954
"One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.”
From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
(Bruce Lee, blindfolded Chi Sao. Chi Sao (Chi Sau) or “sticking hands” is unique to Wing Chun. This technique helps students to develop their reflexes, sensitivity, structure and form)
Though hordes of devils fill the land
All threatening to devour us,
We tremble not, unmoved we stand;
They cannot overpower us.
Let this world’s tyrant rage;
In battle we’ll engage!
His might is doomed to fail;
God’s judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.
From “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, by Martin Luther, 1531
“The best fighter is never angry.”
― From “Tao Te Ching”, by Lao Tzu, 6th Century B.C.
(Michelle Yeoh as Shu Lien from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, 2000)
Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
EXT. RIVER - DAY
(Jen finally catches up to Li, who is standing on a rock
about a few feet wide amid the rapids. Jen vaults onto the
rock and scuffles with Li. Jen loses her balance.)
JEN: What do you want?
LI: What I’ve always wanted, to teach you.
JEN: All right. If you can take back the sword in three moves, I’ll go with you.
(Li simply takes the sword back).
JEN: Give it back!
LI: Kneel!
JEN: Never!
LI: Then you have no use for the sword.
(Li throws the sword into the rapids.)
From the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, screenplay by Hui-Ling Wang, James Schamus and Kuo Jung Tsai, 2000
(Jen and Li from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, 2000
“Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so any army avoids strength and strikes weakness. And as water shapes its flow in accordance with the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy. And as water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions. Thus, one able to gain the victory by modifying his tactics in accordance with the enemy situation may be said to be divine. Of the five elements, none is always predominant: of the four seasons, none lasts forever; of the days, some are long and some short, and the moon waxes and wanes.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.
All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.
“You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!”
The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.
“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.
And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
From “The Return of the King”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
“Théoden King of the Mark had reached the road from the Gate to the River, and he turned towards the City that was now less than a mile distant. He slackened his speed a little, seeking new foes, and his knights came about him, and Dernhelm was with them. Southward beyond the road lay the main force of the Haradrim, and there their horsemen were gathered about the standard of their chieftain. And he looked out, and in the growing light he saw the banner of the king, and that it was far ahead of the battle with few men about it. Then he was filled with a red wrath and shouted aloud, and displaying his standard, black serpent upon scarlet, he came against the white horse and the green with great press of men; and the drawing of the scimitars of the Southrons was like a glitter of stars.
Then Théoden was aware of him, and would not wait for his onset, but crying to Snowmane he charged headlong to greet him. Great was the clash of their meeting. But the white fury of the Northmen burned the hotter, and more skilled was their knighthood with long spears and bitter. Fewer were they but they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest. Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel’s son, and his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent foundered. Then all that was left unslain of their cavalry turned and fled far away.”
From “The Return of the King“, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
Inigo Montoya: You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, ah?
Man in Black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.
Inigo Montoya: Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro?
Man in Black: Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. Don’t you?
Inigo Montoya: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa…which I have!
From the 1987 film “The Princess Bride”, adapted by William Goldman from his 1973 novel
(Sword fight from “The Princess Bride”, 1987)
“What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.”
― From “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu, 5th Century B.C.
(Bruce Lee)
And there stood Meriadoc the hobbit in the midst of the slain… and he looked on the face of the king, fallen in the midst of his glory. For Snowmane in his agony had rolled away from him again; yet he was the bane of his master.
Then Merry stooped and lifted his hand to kiss it, and lo! Théoden opened his eyes, and they were clear, and he spoke in a quiet voice though laboured.
‘Farewell, Master Holbytla!’ he said. ‘My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed. I felled the black serpent. A grim morn, and a glad day, and a golden sunset!’
From “The Return of the King”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
Sam drew a deep breath. There was a path, but how he was to get up the slope to it he did not know. First he must ease his aching back. He lay flat beside Frodo for a while. Neither spoke. Slowly the light grew. Suddenly a sense of urgency which he did not understand came to Sam. It was almost as if he had been called: ‘Now, now, or it will be too late!’ He braced himself and got up. Frodo also seemed to have felt the call. He struggled to his knees.
‘I’ll crawl, Sam,’ he gasped.
So foot by foot, like small grey insects, they crept up the slope.
From “The Return of the King”, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
No bother feel no way
It’s coming close pay day I say
No bother feel no way
Every man get paid accord his work this day
It’s coming close pay day I say
Every man get paid accord his work this day
It’s coming close pay day I say
From “Feel No Way”, by Peter Tosh, 1983
“I love to watch the Television in Babylon, especially the news because it’s so full of corruption. I-man know that it’s so full of corruption, there is bound to be an eruption!”
- Peter Tosh
(Peter Tosh)
The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath
The revolution WILL put you in the driver’s seat
The revolution will not be televised
WILL not be televised, WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live
From “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, by Gil Scott-Heron, 1970
(Gil Scott-Heron)
“Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?”
“I do.”
“Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?”
Ah, then she was indignant!
“No! Not even these chains”—and she shook them—“not even these chains can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!”—she rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words burst forth as in a flood—“I warn you now that before seven years a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of Orleans! and—”
“Silence! Sit down!”
“—and then, soon after, they will lose all France!”
Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The French cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this, Joan made that prophecy—made it with perfect confidence—and it came true. For within five years Paris fell—1436—and our King marched into it flying the victor’s flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then fulfilled—in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our hands, the fulfillment of the rest of it was assured.
Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town—Calais.
Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan’s. At the time that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that, with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, “I give you twenty years to do it in.”
She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish it.
Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody’s prophecy turns up correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan’s prophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to this day.
Twenty-five years after Joan’s death the record was produced in the great Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon and me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the record in their testimony.”
From “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, by Mark Twain, 1896
“Wither knew that everything was lost. It is incredible how little this knowledge moved him. What had been in his far-off youth a merely aesthetic repugnance to realities that were crude or vulgar, had deepened and darkened, year after year, into a fixed refusal of everything that was in any degree other than himself. He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through logical Positivism, and out at last into the complete void. The indicative mood now corresponded to no thought that his mind could entertain. He had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him.”
― From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
“On the whole, the best fortress you can have, is in not being hated by your subjects. If they hate you no fortress will save you.”
From “The Prince”, by Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532
“Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.”
- Sophocles
“In fighting those who serve devils one always his this on one’s side; their Masters hate them as much as they hate us. The moment we disable the human pawns enough to make them useless to Hell, their own Masters finish the work for us. they break their tools.”
― From “That Hideous Strength”, by C.S. Lewis, 1945
“…and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through”
― From “The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1927
“And what happened then? Well…in Whoville they say, that the Grinch’s small heart Grew three sizes that day!”
From “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”, by Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Giesel, 1957
“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”
From “The Decay of Lying”, by Oscar Wilde, 1889
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.”
From “Prince Caspian”, by C.S. Lewis, 1951
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
― Andy Warhol, from “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol”, 1975
“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do.”
― Steve Jobs
Watson: “You may be right.”
Holmes: "The probability lies in that direction.”
From “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
- Mark Twain
(Brooklyn, New York, 1970’s)
(Brooklyn, New York, same view, 2019)
“The world order is only parasitic…so there’s no reason to fear them. We are the ones in charge and it only takes a few people of conscience, focusing on the solutions to problems, to turn things around.”
- Don Croft
“All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”
― Nikola Tesla
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
― Thomas Paine
“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.”
― Nikola Tesla
“Bishop to Bishop eight, discovered check, and, incidentally, mate."
Sherlock Holmes, from “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, written by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney, 2011
(From “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, 2011)
EPILOGUE
Is Jeff Miller the only one on the planet?
I feel deeply honored that Jeff is re-posting his Positive Changes reports after the NSA assassinated our webmaster and destroyed our forum, last month. He’s probably the only living human being who is documenting the fact that just about everything in the world is getting better. It’s clean, raw compiled data from the public record and is contrary to the incessant rantings to the contrary of the media, academia, no-account politicians and bureaucrats.
In this Ether War that the Old Parasite have been waging against our species throughout history Jeff’s ongoing compilation of evidence of positive changes is a potent strategic weapon. We entered this war almost accidentally by sharing some new etheric healing devices on the internet in 2001. Orgonite is the strategic weapon that ordinary people around the world (like Carol and I) are using to undermine and transmute the death-energy matrix that had been painstakingly woven throughout the world, over centuries and perhaps millenia, by The Old Parasite, which is my term for the corporate/occult world order.
Parasites are essentially weak, so they have to rely on hiding in order to do their work. Jeff’s monumental research work exposes the parasite like nothing else has done, in my opinion. In 1996 I started a business that I casually called, ‘World Without Parasites,’ but my main focus was the parasites inside bodies, which our zappers destroy with harmless (to the host) microcurrent. I soon found orgonite and recognized its potential for disagling the two legged parasites that live to excrete their spiritual (etheric) poison into the body politic and then I found Carol, who had the insight and skill to see the powerful and empowering dynamics of orgonite.
Before that, the Old Parasite was losing control of the course of history, I believe that is because humanity had started to wake up and be accountable for the first time in our history. I think this is why the enemy’s stated goal of reducing humanity to a half a million souls before the year 2000 utterly failed, for instance,
But it wasn’t until enough people around the world took responsibility for disabling the untold millions of then-new death towers in 2002 that the condition of our planet began to improve in a measurable way. It started slow in those early years but is building momentum, now. and Jeff is documenting it for the record. I think he’s earned an admirable and unique place in history and we’re ALL making history, now ;-).
Don Croft, on his Etheric Warriors forum, August 15, 2017
(Don Croft and Jeff Miller, Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, Summer 2016)
HOW I MOVED TO MY OWN MAILING LIST
I joined the Etheric Warriors forum in 2007. I began writing the “Positive Changes That Are Occurring” thread on June 12, 2013.
This is that first post:
“I related the following privately to a fellow gifter on this forum, and they related they thought it would make a good post, and so I am - with a mind toward having others provide their own examples, as they might, to exemplify the massive positive changes going on around us at this time. The wholly-coopted mainstream media doesn’t provide much good news, and I look forward to logging on to EW each day because this forum is one of the only places that good news is regularly reported. Many years ago, Don Bradley related the fact that the Medes of ancient Persia, from whom we get the word ‘Media’, were Black Magicians.
I related to my colleague that it’s been the most beautiful Spring and early Summer here in Pittsburgh, PA, USA…like I haven’t seen since I was a teenager (and I’m now 49). Rain in perfect measure, cool. The positive changes in the environment since the ridiculousness of the late 90’s, early 2000’s are stupendous, and it keeps my spirits high.
Lightning bugs coming back, birds I haven’t seen in years…
I feel things in my personal space improving inexorably, as well.
I had a coaching session with Dooney some months back and that was invaluable – having someone assist by saying, ‘yes, that’s it, now you’ve got it’ is invaluably helpful. Most remarkably, she was moving up through my chakras, and when she got to one of the upper ones, she said ‘holy cow – do you consider yourself psychic?’ I allowed I never had, although I’ve considered myself very sensitive, certainly.
That’s the sum of it. In the late 90’s, early 2000’s, for those who recall, serious, widespread drought had been effected, and when it did rain, it rained rediculously hard, in an unnatural way. My Uncle was the only person other than me who commented at the time - kind of like everone assiduously didn’t notice (and still do not, for the most part) the spray planes criss crossing the sky above. It was terrible and hot, the sky was white, and I myself readily believed that the planet was warming precipitously. In fact it was, driven by changes in the Sun and also via the new network of DOR-based weather weaponry that are known colloquially as ‘cell towers’.
When the first spray planes came over my town in 1998, they were coming over super low, compared to later. I took a coworker to the window, pointed at one going right over our building, and said to her “what is that?” She put her hand over her mouth and ran from the room.
The good news is that it’s been so cool for so many years that a scoundrel at Penn State’s Climate Lab was led to prattle that he’d found the ‘trick’ to ‘hide the decline’ in temperatures that, despite the devious efforts of that scoundrel and many others, has scuttled the Global Warming scam. You may recall said scoundrel was outed by a concerned individual at the lab who posted the entirety of the lab’s e-mails to the internet, so that people could come to their own subjective conclusions as to the character and motivations of a subset of the scientists who were (and are) working there. See how simple exposure eliminates parasites and brings down tyranny?
You may also have noticed that they have since been forced to rebrand from ‘Global Warming!’ to Climate Change , ah, mirth. Ever wonder why the World’s Greatest And Most Truthful movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, is rarely ever shown on TV?
I have distributed 300 TB’s since I began gifting in 2002 or 2003. Maybe 500? Compare this to the Herculean efforts of some of the posters on this forum, with tens of thousands of TB’s spread across whole nations - and sometimes I feel that I don’t do enough. Yet, wow, the positive changes I’ve seen where I live, where I gift - I can see the direct impact of what I’m doing. I’m posting this to say ‘every bit helps’, and not to think one needs to have a personal factory, or something.
But the core of this thread is ‘Positive Changes That Are Occurring.’ I used to send doom and gloom links to my friends, trying to ‘wake them up’, like Paul Revere, ‘the British are coming!’. Now I send positive links from mainstream media that proves my thesis: that there is a rising tide of what Reich called Positive Orgone Radiation, and that tide is driven by the distribution of simple Orgonite, unknitting the ancient web of Black Magic and dark energy that has been literally milennia in the making.”
Signally, the very first response to my thread was from the person who would later become the moderator of the forum after Don Croft passed away:
“Thanks Jeff! I don’t know why but Westerners like us have a tendency to see more the negative side of things. It’s likely due to the centuries-old programming. I hope this post of yours, together specially with the positive, engaging reports of our tireless African friends will inspire more of us, including myself, to look more to the positive changes we experience and report about it.”
I thought the Africans were legit back then, as did Don, right up until he passed on. I don’t feel that way any longer, for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here.
Don’s response to my first post (he’s the friend mentioned within it):
“Thanks a lot, Jeff. This post is more like the announcement, ‘The British are Leaving, The British are Leaving!’ and I suppose the only people who will hear that voice are the ones who are the most determined NOT to remain asleep, hopeless and neck deep in ‘taxes.’ The pajama people are a diminishing demographic, fortunately, and they’re the old order’s power base.
Getting these observable results where you live, which is a large city in case our readers don’t know it, with just a few hundred TBs is actually more significant news than a report about ten thousand TBs distributed but wihout any observational data to speak of. I’ve constantly reminded folks (here) of this but your post will probably make a deeper impression because it’s a vital example of that simple truth.
The power of utterance (even electronically, through a keyboard) is massive. That’s why the best paid people on the planet are media actors and news-reader whores who are well trained to look knowledgeable and sincere and, sure, magic is being used in addition to all the tech stuff. Our magic is a lot stronger than theirs, though, and a proof of that, in addition to what Jeff shared, is that we’re not dead now, considering the damage we’ve all done to this ancient organization’s infrastructure.
Their weather warfare apparatus was fully operational by the time they caused the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to flood and severely damage the economy of a big part of the US in 1991. Some said it was ‘Because Clinton had put all the dikes in the White House’ but of course it was weather warfare because the jet stream was shown moving in a straight line for the weeks that the storm lasted in the Midwest.
I think they managed to cover much of the US, at least, with brown smog before the death towers sprouted everywhere like mushrooms in late 2001 because Carol and I travelled (with our first cloudbuster) across the continent earlier that year and the smog and drought conditions were the worst we’d ever seen, before or since. Chemtrails might have caused a lot of that, as Jeff also feels, because after they became commonplace I was alarmed that the deciduous trees in entire forests along Interstate 5 in Oregon suddenly were covered in the winter of 98/99 with irridescent green fungus. It was like surreal spring in January, but that fungus gradually went a few years later and I think most of the trees survived.
It might have been from chemtrail poisons lowering the pH back in the brief years (before 2003) that it took for thousands of orgonite cloudbusters to proliferate and quickly and very quietly disabled whatever secret agendae that the chemtrails were being used for.
I’ve only heard of a few low-altitude chemtrail assaults over the years. I think some of that was tried for a period after the orgonite cloudbusters made it impossible to do it from the stratosphere any more but my guess is that was so obvious to the PJ folks (and alarming, as you noted) that they didn’t establish it as a routine. Dooney once got dosed with powder by a low-flying, four engine airplane. She got deathly ill until we worked on her a few hours alter in teh chatroom. Her mate, STevo, was in the house at the time and was unaffected. The psychics all saw nanoweaponry in that dust and the US Air Force and the Chinese military running that apparent experiment in Western Montana at the time. That was six years ago, or so, and I haven’t heard of anything like that, since. Between 2003 and then I occasionally heard from activists around the country who got dosed with ‘chemtrails’ or something similar from very low flying, small airplanes. I think those were individual attacks and zappers cured those problems.
I’m completely sure that a truth (even a truthful observation) uttered in an obscure forum like this one has a more profound effect than a billion dollar Hollywood/CIA extravaganza possibly could, which is why it seems critically important to me for us to keep sharing credible accounts like Jeff’s and the East Africans.’
According to what some have observed, these expressed truths are like homing beacons to starving seekers, many of whom are tired of the stink of glamorous disinfo on the web and so have become more determined than ever to hone their discernment. There are only a few reliable websites like this one in case you didnt know. There are a lot of previously-credible websites, also a lot of good sites whose owners were so savaged by the corporate order that the sites are gone.
Even that should be an encouraging sign for a seeker because if the coprorate order were as powerful as the disinformants claim, rather than just a parasite there would be NO useful websites on the internet.
I have no question that a process of guidance happens within these individuals on account of this. I don’t think it matters what we believe is the source of that. Disinformants will do their best to label and dogmatize something like that (that kills it when we subscribe to their horse $#!+), so why try to figure it out? Until the dirty-juju media (including their horde of clever fakers on the web) are finally disregarded by enough people we’ll probably keep flying by the seat of our pants when we examine reality.”
Don Croft wrote this to me in an e-mail on January 17, 2018: “You’re definitely standing on your own and in your own class. It’s a good thing to be the first as long as they don’t kill us for it.”
On July 15, 2017, Chuck Tellechea was murdered, and the Etheric Warriors forum that he had administered and protected was destroyed a week later.
That got rid of three years of my “Positive Changes That Are Occurring” material. When the blog got underway, I kept right on posting, and built up quite a collection over a year or more.
As a side-benefit, that move back to a forum allowed the introduction of a large new coterie of operatives posing as honest forum members, which is a control vehicle that Don Croft brought me to awareness of.
On the old forum, after one of my stooge beat-downs, someone privately said something to me to the effect of “geez, remind me never to piss you off!”
Bruce Lee’s school of martial arts, Jeet Kun Do, translates as “The way of the intercepting fist.” When someone attacks you, you are completely within your rights to intercept them at the place where they enter your space. It’s very simple, and spiritually pure.
Don passed away in a paragliding accident in July 2018.
About three months later, after skirmishing with me a few times about moles I wanted out of the forum whom he did not, the new forum moderator said:
“Jeff, I’ve been observing your reports on smartphone usage and deaths for some time now and have yet to see a demonstration of causation.”
I reposted an extensive article I’d written on Alzheimer’s, phone use and radiation. There are pullouts from it in this current article.
The following is a comment exchange that occurred shortly thereafter, which gave me the clear impression that the fox was, indeed, in the henhouse. I’m documenting it here for the record, including my last post from 10/31/2018, after eleven years on the forum, and five years of work on this thread.
Forum member A - “I believe the original purpose of Etheric warriors was for people to post gifting reports. I’m kind of sorry to see this kind of documentation has ground almost to a halt now. With so much front page space beings spent on these news reports, the rest kind of drowns out, in my opinion.
New forum moderator - I really apreciate you making us more accountable for our contributions here, member A. The focus should be more on gifting reports, you’re absolutely right. That’s also the impression I got from (two other founding forum members) some time ago, so maybe we can tone down the non-gifting posts and do our best to write more reports about actual ground work.
(Signally, those two founding forum members never talked to me about that, and I was quite close with one of them, who said to me, after the destruction of the old forum, (sic) “your posts are the best thing about the forum.” – ed)
Forum member B – I finally do get it. After i posted that post last night, i realized exactly what you just said in your last post, and also if we focus too much on the death tech, then EW becomes just another fear porn site and it defeats the purpose of trying to uplift and heal the planet, break free from our oppressors, and how we use orgonite for those purposes; which im sure is the intent of this website; rather than being drug down by all the negativity like many other sights. I tend to get stuck on one thing sometimes, thanks for narrowing my focus.
New forum moderator - You’re welcome, Member B. I’m thankful to Member A for kickstarting this as he was the first to mention it, publicly.
It’s important to keep each other and this website from becoming too distracted, so this kind of frank discussion becomes sometimes necessary. I know it’s not easy what with all the propaganda out there designed to rile us up. I think we do ok.”
(Where it is clearly inferred that my thread is “propaganda designed to rile us up”, with “out there” added on for plausible-deniablity. – ed)
Jeff Miller: Sure thing, I understand.
In January 2019, I got an automatic e-mail from the forum telling me my password had changed, and that, if I hadn’t changed it, I should contact the forum’s new administrator.
So I said to the new administrator “I didn’t change my password.”
They replied “You did quit (the forum), right?”
I replied “no, I did not quit (the forum).”
They replied “let me know when you want to post again.”
I replied “I’d like to post again, perhaps today, did not terminate my membership, and want no lapse in my membership.”
And I followed with “What, specifically, are you basing your assumption that I’d quit the forum on, please?”
The reader will have to come to their own subjective conclusions on the matter.
