Words that inspire you

[Jude99]

The Special Air Service. This was a saying of theirs, right?

The S.A.S are our most Elite services...... The chosen few.

 

[Jude99]

...... followed closely by the Royal Marine Commandos.

 

[Elea]

The S.A.S are our most Elite services...... The chosen few.

I respect what the S.A.S do. My grandfather led an elite reconnaissance group through WW2. His men were ambushed 2 weeks before the end of the war. He had lost no men until then. His nerves were ruined. He could no longer feel safe. My father says he was never the same.

If I sought a hardy band to kick in a door, defuse a bomb, release hostages and bag some wayward blackguards, I would not dare gainsay you, Jude99. However, if I sought to construct a rocket and chart its course, perform intricate surgery on the human brain, or, you know, draft a legal contract, I might seek elites of a different sort. The SAS would not be my chosen few. Moreover, a friend of my father knew a former SAS man who rammed someone's car for a minor offence...So perhaps a kind of general intelligence can sometimes attend this field.

I shan't be bagging armed tangos, tampering with rockets or brains or dabbling in legal affairs any time soon. You have my humble assurance, Jude99. These skills are beyond my ken just now. I want to exchange some meaningful words accessible to anyone with a library card.

 

[megs233]

A library card. I do have one .. plus one or two book cases but i still use the LIBRARY.

 

[Elea]

A library card. I do have one .. plus one or two book cases but i still use the LIBRARY.

.....GOOD. I have 3 book cases. And I pile books next to my bed (a temporary measure). Once I get through them, they will be gone.

Are there books on those bookcases? Or are they as empty and inane as you pretend to be? lol

 

[Elea]

“Everything always rests or moves whenever it is against what is equal, and what is travelling is always in the now. The travelling arrow is motionless.” - Zeno: The Arrow Paradox

In essence, if motion is just a series of frozen instants (like a flip book), a flying arrow is static each instant. Thus, motion is an illusion.

 

[megs233]

.....GOOD. I have 3 book cases. And I pile books next to my bed (a temporary measure). Once I get through them, they will be gone.

Are there books on those bookcases? Or are they as empty and inane as you pretend to be? lol

pardon? go get a life and live one , i am not inane nor are my book cases empty . now go lose yourself where the sun don't shine.

 

[midget_gem]

please, thank you, excuse me and your welcome ..... all free, simple words mean a lot and go a long way in life. ok maybe not inspirational but hay still say alot.

 

[Jude99]

I was just referring to our Elite regiments. We are lucky to have them.

 

[Elea]

please, thank you, excuse me and your welcome ..... all free, simple words mean a lot and go a long way in life. ok maybe not inspirational but hay still say alot.

Then I would show manners myself, not recommend them to others.

I wasn't as discourteous as I could have been. From the first time we spoke, I believe megs233 has purposefully tried to provoke me. I thought this was a joke. She would obfuscate or prevaricate and I would respond. It would be hard to take her poem any other way. Perhaps if she'd read my last response carefully, she wouldn't have been offended by tongue in cheek barbs. And had you done the same, perhaps you'd have seen my last response for what it was... If she was mortally wounded by what I wrote, her family have my sincerest condolences. As for Jude99, she is welcome to believe what she likes about the S.A.S., but she will allow that others hold different views... But I'm not justifying myself to you or anyone. This is so petty! I didn't start this thread for an argument. I want to hear something from the depths of the soul. This is how I know I'm not the only human on Earth. You can read character in words pierced by feeling, beauty and vision. And beneath character is the soul which shatters solipsism. That's why I created this thread.

I'll not be catechized by you. Thanks.

 

[Altair]

'Solipsism'. A word not often used. Yet it should be. Apt in many ways...

 

[midget_gem]

Then I would show manners myself, not recommend them to others.

I wasn't as discourteous as I could have been. From the first time we spoke, I believe megs233 has purposefully tried to provoke me. I thought this was a joke. She would obfuscate or prevaricate and I would respond. It would be hard to take her poem any other way. Perhaps if she'd read my last response carefully, she wouldn't have been offended by tongue in cheek barbs. And had you done the same, perhaps you'd have seen my last response for what it was... If she was mortally wounded by what I wrote, her family have my sincerest condolences. As for Jude99, she is welcome to believe what she likes about the S.A.S., but she will allow that others hold different views... But I'm not justifying myself to you or anyone. This is so petty! I didn't start this thread for an argument. I want to hear something from the depths of the soul. This is how I know I'm not the only human on Earth. You can read character in words pierced by feeling, beauty and vision. And beneath character is the soul which shatters solipsism. That's why I created this thread.

I'll not be catechized by you. Thanks.

my post is not to characterise anyone, to criticise anyone, offend anyone, maybe its not from the depths of my toes, but if this post was above is aimed me....you have taken the "simple" words the wrong way. It my philosophy in life that simple curtious words i quoted above are free and go along way in life. and its not petty as u quote. it was a general and genuine comment with no malice or nastiness behind it!!!!! so it wasn't a poem or quote with fancy words.... sorry we are not all Wordsworth's in life.

 

[Jude99]

A library card. I do have one .. plus one or two book cases but i still use the LIBRARY.

I do have a library card but dont use it now.........my whole house is a library with many bookcases full of books in every room. Thats what happens when you have many studious sons and their books weigh more than a ton.

 

[Jude99]

'Solipsism'. A word not often used. Yet it should be. Apt in many ways...

Gonna have to look this one up.

 

[Elea]

"We are in the position of a little child
entering a huge library
filled with books in many different languages.

The child knows that someone
must have written those books.

It does not know how.

It does not understand the languages
in which they are written.

The child dimly suspects a mysterious order
in the arrangement of the books
but it does not know what it is.

That, it seems to me, is the attitude
of even the most intelligent human being toward God." - Einstein

 

[Elea]

“There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it's heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: 'Yes, this is true, this is good.' This . . . this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don't forgive anything, because there is no longer anything to forgive. You don't really love — oh, what is here is higher than love! What's most frightening is that it's so terribly clear, and there's such joy. If it were longer than five seconds — the soul couldn't endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it's worth it. To endure ten seconds one would have to change physically..." - Dostoevky: The Possessed

 

[Elea]

my post is not to characterise anyone, to criticise anyone, offend anyone, maybe its not from the depths of my toes, but if this post was above is aimed me....you have taken the "simple" words the wrong way. It my philosophy in life that simple curtious words i quoted above are free and go along way in life. and its not petty as u quote. it was a general and genuine comment with no malice or nastiness behind it!!!!! so it wasn't a poem or quote with fancy words.... sorry we are not all Wordsworth's in life.

Then I apologize.

 

[midget_gem]

Then I apologize.

to many people jump to conclusions in this world now a days

 

[Elea]

A contemplation on the human condition. Forgive the length of this one. I read the book over seven years ago, yet never forgot this passage:

"It was just a minute before the execution," began the prince, readily, carried away by the recollection and evidently forgetting everything else in a moment; "just at the instant when he stepped off the ladder on to the scaffold. He happened to look in my direction: I saw his eyes and understood all, at once--but how am I to describe it? I do so wish you or somebody else could draw it, you, if possible. I thought at the time what a picture it would make. You must imagine all that went before, of course, all--all. He had lived in the prison for some time and had not expected that the execution would take place for at least a week yet--he had counted on all the formalities and so on taking time; but it so happened that his papers had been got ready quickly. At five o'clock in the morning he was asleep--it was October, and at five in the morning it was cold and dark. The governor of the prison comes in on tip-toe and touches the sleeping man's shoulder gently. He starts up. 'What is it?' he says. 'The execution is fixed for ten o'clock.' He was only just awake, and would not believe at first, but began to argue that his papers would not be out for a week, and so on. When he was wide awake and realized the truth, he became very silent and argued no more--so they say; but after a bit he said: 'It comes very hard on one so suddenly' and then he was silent again and said nothing.

"The three or four hours went by, of course, in necessary preparations--the priest, breakfast, (coffee, meat, and some wine they gave him; doesn't it seem ridiculous?) And yet I believe these people give them a good breakfast out of pure kindness of heart, and believe that they are doing a good action. Then he is dressed, and then begins the procession through the town to the scaffold. I think he, too, must feel that he has an age to live still while they cart him along. Probably he thought, on the way, 'Oh, I have a long, long time yet. Three streets of life yet! When we've passed this street there'll be that other one; and then that one where the baker's shop is on the right; and when shall we get there? It's ages, ages!' Around him are crowds shouting, yelling--ten thousand faces, twenty thousand eyes. All this has to be endured, and especially the thought: 'Here are ten thousand men, and not one of them is going to be executed, and yet I am to die.' Well, all that is preparatory.

"At the scaffold there is a ladder, and just there he burst into tears--and this was a strong man, and a terribly wicked one, they say! There was a priest with him the whole time, talking; even in the cart as they drove along, he talked and talked. Probably the other heard nothing; he would begin to listen now and then, and at the third word or so he had forgotten all about it.

"At last he began to mount the steps; his legs were tied, so that he had to take very small steps. The priest, who seemed to be a wise man, had stopped talking now, and only held the cross for the wretched fellow to kiss. At the foot of the ladder he had been pale enough; but when he set foot on the scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became the colour of paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must have become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a choking in his throat--you know the sudden feeling one has in moments of terrible fear, when one does not lose one's wits, but is absolutely powerless to move? If some dreadful thing were suddenly to happen; if a house were just about to fall on one;--don't you know how one would long to sit down and shut one's eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible feeling came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross to his lips, without a word--a little silver cross it was- and he kept on pressing it to the man's lips every second. And whenever the cross touched his lips, the eyes would open for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he kissed the cross greedily, hurriedly--just as though he were anxious to catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him afterwards, though he could hardly have had any connected religious thoughts at the time. And so up to the very block.

"How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly-- probably hard, hard, hard--like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his head--all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!--like this, for instance: 'That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!' And meanwhile he notices and remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and knows-- that's the point, he knows that he is just now about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head. If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some people declare that when the head flies off it is conscious of having flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness were to last for even five seconds!

"Draw the scaffold so that only the top step of the ladder comes in clearly. The criminal must be just stepping on to it, his face as white as note-paper. The priest is holding the cross to his blue lips, and the criminal kisses it, and knows and sees and understands everything. The cross and the head--there's your picture; the priest and the executioner, with his two assistants, and a few heads and eyes below. Those might come in as subordinate accessories--a sort of mist. There's a picture for you." The prince paused, and looked around." - Dostoevsky: The Idiot

 

[Jude99]

OMFG..........do you really expect us to read all that crip?