A Quote by Polybius
Nor ought we ever to allow any growing power to acquire such a degree of strength as to be able to tear from us, without resistance, our natural, undisputed rights.
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Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.
Compassion is an emotion of which we ought never to be ashamed. Graceful, particularly in youth, is the tear of sympathy, and the heart that melts at the tale of woe. We should not permit ease and indulgence to contract our affections, and wrap us up in a selfish enjoyment; but we should accustom ourselves to think of the distresses of human, life, of the solitary cottage; the dying parent, and the weeping orphan. Nor ought we ever to sport with pain and distress in any of our amusements, or treat even the meanest insect with wanton cruelty.
I write these words to bear witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in any situation of domination (even within family life); to the strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance and the profound conviction that these forces can be healing, can protect us from dehumanization and despair.
Life is the will to power; our natural desire to dominate and reshape the world to fit our own preferences and assert our personal strength to the fullest degree.
The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.
Healthy things grow, and growing things change. If we allow fear or doubt or shame or insecurity to hold us back from something new God is calling us to do, we may miss out on his greatest purpose for our life. As believers, we go from strength to strength, from glory to glory. And in order to keep expanding God's kingdom, we have to keep growing and trying new things.
Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.
By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever.
The bond of family blesses us with an immeasurable power. But we also must accept what comes with it. It gives us a responsibility to love without condition, without apology. We can never waver from the power of that bond, even if it's tested. The bond nourishes us, gives us strength. Without that power, we are nothing.
Let us keep before us the fact that, almost without exception, every race or nation that has ever got upon its feet has done so through struggle and trial and persecution; and that out of this very resistance to wrong, out of the struggle against odds, they have gained strength, self-confidence, and experience which they could not have gained in any other way.
Our situation here, without any exaggeration, is beyond description almost; it is such as eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it ever entered into the heart of men to conceive Boston ever to arrive at.
Trees acquire strength by growing slowly and flexing with the pressures of nature. Us too.
We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.
Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.
That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.
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