I, the sultan of sultans, and the strongest ruler, the loftiest king who defeats the kingdoms around the world, and the shadow of Allah in the Earth, am the son of Sultan Selim who is the son of Sultan Beyazid, Sultan Suleiman, Caesar of Rome, the sultan of Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, and Thrace, and Anatolia, and Karaman and the City of Dulkadir and Diyarbakir and Kurdistan, and Iran and Damascus and Aleppo and Egypt and Mecca and Medinah and Jerusalem and the whole Arab land and Yemen and many more lands that our lofty ancestors conquered with their crushing powers and I conquered with my fire-scattering sword...
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Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet, Through echoing forest and echoing street, With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam, All men are our kindred, the world is our home. Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed, The laughter and beauty of women long dead; The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings, And happy and simple and sorrowful things. What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow? Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go. No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait: The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.
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Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shorless seas. The good Mate said, Now we must pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say? Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on! My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak! The stout Mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wavewashed his swarthy cheek. What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn? Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the Mate; This mad sea shows its teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word; What shall we do when hope is gone? The words leapt like a leaping sword; Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on! Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck And peered through darkness. Ah! that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck -- A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its greatest lesson: On! sail on!
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My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
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Whenever any affliction assails me, I have the keys of my prison in mine own hand, and no remedy presents it selfe so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. Often meditation of this hath wonne me to a charitable interpretation of their action, who dy so: and provoked me a little to watch and exagitate their reasons, which pronounce so peremptory judgments upon them.
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O Sword, you are the younger brother, the latter-born,...
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Projectile - n. the final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were resolved by physical contact of the disputants with such arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times would supply - sword, spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by all. Its capital defect ( in Bierce's day ) has been that it requires personal attendance at the point of launch.
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The curve is more powerful than the sword
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The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.
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We hear much of chivalry of men towards women; but ... it vanishes like dew before the summer sun when one of us comes into competition with the manly sex. Let a woman sit, weep, wring her hands, and exult in her own helplessness, and the modern knight buckles on his imaginary breastplate and draws his sword in her behalf; but when the woman girds up her loins for the battle of life, ready to fight like a lioness, if need be, to put food in the mouths of her children, let her select for her field the living-room or the cooking range.
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Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave,...
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When kings the sword of justice first lay down; They art no kings, though they posess the crown; Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, The good of subjects is the end of kings.
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Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen.
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No sword bites so fiercly as an evil tongue.
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...a sword never kills anybody it's a tool in the killer's hand. From Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Letters to Lucilius on Morals, Letter 87, c.63-65
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Yet each man kills the thing he loves, from all let this be heard. Some does it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss the brave man with the sword
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When the sword of rebellion is drawn, the sheath should be thrown away.
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Great is my envy of death whose curt hard sword Carried her whom I called my life away; Me he disdains, and mocks me from her eyes!
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Great anger is more destructive than the sword
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The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in England there shall be dear bread -- in Ireland, sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old English Tory days; hail to the coming time!
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All virtues come down to courage, at the sharp end of the sword. But courage must be tempered by prudence. Courage wasted by misdirection is the most heart-breaking of all tragedies. If there is an eighth deadly sin, it ought to be stupidity, by which all virtues run out into dry sands. Yet...where does prudence end and cowardice begin? That's a very good damn question!
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I wear my Pen as others do their Sword. To each affronting sot I meet, the word Is Satisfaction: straight to thrusts I go, And pointed satire runs him through and through.
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So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find something to worship...What is essential is that all may be together in it. The craving for community worship is the chief misery of...all humanity. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword.
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Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealous will instantly inspire the inclination to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive...
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Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.
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Wizard's First Rule: People can be made to believe any lie, either because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it's true. Wizard's Second Rule: The greatest harm can result from the best intentions. Wizard's Third Rule: Passion rules reason. Wizard's Fourth Rule: There is Magic to heal. In the forgiveness you grant, and more so in the forgiveness you recieve. Wizard's Fifth Rule: Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie. Wizard's Sixth Rule: The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason. Wizard's Seventh Rule: Life is the future, not the past.
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When kings the sword of justice first lay down;
They art no kings, though they posess the crown;
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things,
The good of subjects is the end of kings.
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And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
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Confidence is Going after Moby Dick in a rowboat, And taking the tarter sauce with you. A Bullfighter who goes in the ring with mustard on his sword.
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Terrorist are picadors and matadors. They prick the bull until it bleeds and is blinded by rage, then they snap the red cape of bloody terror in its face. The bull charges again and again until, exhausted, it can charge no more. Then the matador, though smaller and weaker, drives the sword into the soft spot between the shoulder blades of the bull. For the bull has failed to understand that the snapping cape was but a provocation to goad it into attacking and exhausting itself for the kill.
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