#stan

As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved. ↗

— Henry L. Stimson

#approved #before #general #getting #had

The men were smashing windows and aiming their weapons through them. The driver had opened the door and was shouting for the women and children to get out and run and hide. But Ilina realized in some vague way that he never managed to actually say the word "hide." He really said, "Women and children, get out, get out, get out! Run and..." The clerk's wife thought it was odd that he had stopped in the middle of a sentence, and even stranger that she herself knew the word, heard the word "hide" in her head when the driver stopped talking. ↗

— Clark Zlotchew

#cia #dagestan #espionage-thriller #iran #novel

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise. ↗

— Samuel Lover

#instruments #rulers #weak #wise

Rather than the strength it takes to not lose, it's the strength to stand back up after a loss that is sometimes more valuable. ↗

— Kyo Shirodaira

#motivation #stand #strength #motivational

The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons. ↗

— Jean Renoir

#reason #reasoning #reasons #understanding #motivational

Resistance is a powerful motivator precisely because it enables us to fulfill our longing to achieve our goals while letting us boldly recognize and name the obstacles to those achievements. ↗

— Derrick A. Bell

#goals #motivation #obstacles #resistance #success

People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway. ↗

— Simeon Strunsky

#buses #democracy #less #library #more

Seasons of the heart. To get through what I must I'm often encased in ice and for months he chips away until he can see my face and after a while, I begin to thaw. As warmth and feeling returns, my emotions continue to build until my personality is set on fire. When he leaves, the fire dwindles until there is but a flicker. Then there is stillness and winter returns. ↗

— Donna Lynn Hope

#distance #fire #heat #long-distance-love #long-distance-relationships

I think he just gets like this sometimes. Like he needs to pull away. I think of it like winter. During winter, it isn't that the sun is gone (or cheating on you with another planet). You can still see it in the sky. It's just farther away. ↗

— Rainbow Rowell

#relationships #relationship

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#drama #the-kite-runner #smile