My parents' convictions, when it came to discipline, were not very strong. For my bar mitzvah, I gave out a mix tape of '90s grunge - if you got it now, you would think it was the 'Singles' soundtrack.
If a strong government finds that it can, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
When folk have set before them a true purpose and then pursue it unmoved with bravery and courage, when they withstand with a strong heart every trial which Heaven sends upon them, then one day at the last Almighty Providence will yet grant them the fruits of their struggle and of their sacrifices. For God has never abandoned any man upon this earth unless he has first abandoned himself.
Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so strong in the historian--if he be a readable historian--is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements.
I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised.
Not gold but only men can makeA people great and strong;Men who for truth and honors sakeStand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep,Who dare while others flyThey build a nations pillars deepAnd lift them to the sky.
In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best, it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment's sake. While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.
There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.
I think when tragic things happen it is on surface. It is like the ocean. One the surface a waves and sometimes the wave is very serious and strong. But it comes and goes, comes and goes, and underneath, the ocean always remains calm. Tibetans have a saying: "If bad news comes to you listen here" (points to the right ear) "and let it our here" (points to the left ear).
If, technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there's no key - there's no door at all - then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?
To forget is the great secret of strong creative natures; to forget is the way nature herself who knows no past and who at every hour begins the mysteries of her untiring labors afresh.
My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.