A Quote by J. M. Coetzee

Scapegoating worked in practice while it still had religious powers behind it. You loaded the sins of the city on to the goat’s back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed. It worked because everyone knew how to read the ritual, including the gods. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you had to cleanse the city without divine help. Real actions were demanded instead of symbolism The censor was born, in the Roman sense. Watchfulness became the watchword: the watchfulness of all over all. Purgation was replaced by the purge.

J. M. Coetzee

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Actions Back Became Because Behind Born Censor City Cleanse Demanded Died Divine Divine Help Drove Everyone Goat Gods Had Help How Including Instead Knew Loaded Out Over Powers Practice Purge Read Real Religious Replaced Ritual Roman Sense Sins Still Sudden Symbolism Then Watchfulness Were While Without Worked

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J. M. Coetzee
South African - Novelist
Born: February 9, 1940

Speaking of the murder of the younger Hanan, and other eminent nobles and hierarchs, Josephus says, "I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge His sanctuary by fire, that He cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers; while those that a little before had worn the sacred garments and presided over the public worship, and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt in the whole habitable earth, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts."

Frederic Farrar

I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without the City of God; that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City.

Ronald Reagan

I had worked for ten years in theater; I had worked at Second City in Chicago. Then I got to Hollywood, and I was like, naively, 'Where's my pilot?'

Nia Vardalos

When you are in deep meditation, you feel a great serenity, a joy that is unknown to you, a watchfulness that is a new guest. Soon this watchfulness will become the host. The day the watchfulness becomes the host, it remains twenty-four hours with you. And out of this watchfulness, whatever you do has a wisdom in it. Whatever you do shows a clarity, a purity, a spontaneity, a grace.

Rajneesh

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

Ronald Reagan

It was if the city knew about Percy's dream of Gaea. It knew that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood for thousands if years, was saying back at her: You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot. In other words, it was the Coach Hedge of mortal cities- only taller.

Rick Riordan

The city was asleep on its right side and shaking with violent nightmares. Long puffs of snoring came out of the chimneys. Its feet were sticking out because the clouds did not cover it altogether. There was a hole in them and the white feathers were falling out. The city had untied all its bridges like so many buttons to feel at ease. Wherever there was a lamplight the city scratched itself until it went out.

Anais Nin

[On Las Vegas:] ... The City That Never Sleeps. The City That Sins and Smiles and Lives On the Edge. The city where vices become virtues, become what everyone is here to do.

Karen Kijewski

I have a lot of land. I bought it because I had a very strong feeling. I was in my early twenties, and I had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen that city slide off into the sea from the city I knew as a little kid. It lost its identity - suddenly there was cement everywhere and the green was gone and the air was bad - and I wanted out.

Robert Redford

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people. In the '90s, it became kind of a hard and unwelcoming city in many ways. It became conservative, like the whole country.

Mikhail Baryshnikov

The thing about playing gods, whether you're playing Thor and Loki or Greco Roman gods or Indian gods or characters in any mythology, the reason that gods were invented was because they were basically larger versions of ourselves.

Tom Hiddleston

I had proposed to HBO a series about the city cops in Rome at the time of Nero. What had interested me was the idea of order without law. The Praetorian Guard, who were the emperor's guards, understood how they were to proceed. But for the city cops, who were called the Urban Cohorts, there was no law at all.

David Milch

I always had a kind of strange relationship with New York City, with total love affair in the beginning then retreat during the kind of conservatives of politics and real estate and business came, and then I am again kind of fighting for the justice to the city, to open the city for the artists.

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Violence and hatefulness have never been - nor will they ever be - who we are. This is the city I was born in, the city I was raised in and the city I love. Portland is also a united city.

Ted Wheeler

A city's soul is best observed during the morning, what is the culture of the city, how are the people, you also get to know whether the city is cosmopolitan or religious.

Vivek Agnihotri

For 10 years while I was at ESPN, I lived at the Residence Inn in Southington, Connecticut, near Bristol. I did that because my wife had a great job in New York City, and we had a place in New York City, at 54th and 8th. On Friday, I would come back, and then on Sunday evening I would go back to the Residence Inn.

Skip Bayless

A Quote by J. M. Coetzee

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