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We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something--and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being.
Ayn RandDear God, help me. Do not forget me on this tiny cinder lost in a galaxy that is lostโa heart no bigger than a speck of dust beating, beating against death, against meaninglessness, against guilt, against sorrow.
Anne RiceIt struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against oneโs own body... On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.
George OrwellA tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I blush to think of.
Charles Dickens[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate themโฆ it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone.
John StottMost codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.
Thomas JeffersonMilitary metaphors are rarely exact, but sending Republicans against Democrats when the issue hangs in the balance is nearly always as futile as sending George B. McClellan against Robert E. Lee, the Italians against Marshal Montgomery's desert rats or an Arab armored division against an Israeli rifle company. The copy desk can write the headline before the battle begins and take the rest of the night off.
Wesley PrudenI might as well enquire,โ replied she, โwhy with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?
Jane AustenThis definition about against their will, that's a made up term. Did any of those little kids say I didn't want to come here? Did they say I was brought here against my will? Some of them were walking across the border on their own, lots of them, and we'll see them coming across every day at McCallum, Texas. They're still pouring across the border. They know what they're doing. It's not against their will.
Steve KingThe task must be to banish from mankind's thought the idea that anybody has the right to use force against righteousness, against justice, against mutual agreements.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynWhen should we nudge and when should we shove, I think, it's a political judgment. Obviously in some situations we need shoves, we need laws. Fraud is against the law, murder is against the law, drunk-driving is against the law. We don't need just nudges.
Richard ThalerLaughter is something we have against oppression and oppressive people. Dictators hate people who laugh at them. It's easy for them to destroy people who resist them. But if you create jokes against them, write funny poems or articles against them, then they feel helpless and desperate. They can't do anything.
Burhan SonmezI am not against money - remember. Don't misinterpret me: I am not against money. I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become more happy. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable.
RajneeshWrite against patterns. Go against the devils. Write what you never write. Lie. Validate what you donโt validate. Indulge what you donโt like. Wallow in it. Write the opposite of what you always write, think, speak. Do everything against the grain!
Deena MetzgerThe trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.
Frederick BuechnerJustice implies knowledge of the right and proper place for a thing or a being to be; of right as against wrong; of the mean and limit; of spiritual gain as against loss; of truth as against falsehood.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-AttasThe first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours.
Robert Baden-PowellI'm not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I'm against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I'm against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government.
Ron PaulTea Party people know that I stood against the Wall Street scam from Day One, that I voted against TARP, that I voted against repealing Glass-Steagall Act that kept these guys under some control.
Russ FeingoldThe difference between true and false repentance lies in this: the man who truly repents cries out against his heart; but the other, as Eve, against the serpent, or something else.
John BunyanThis is God's standards [against same-sex marriage and abortions]. And just because public opinion may have changed or somebody takes a poll - this is just one of the issues. And it doesn't matter what people say or what people think. It doesn't matter about the opinion polls. It's what God says, and God says this is a sin. And it's a sin against him, and he's going to judge sin.
Franklin GrahamThe violence perpetrated by men against women must stop - and it's up to men to stop it. It is up to men to speak up and step in when they witness violence against women, and it is up to men to condemn the indefensible actions of the few and assert the will of the many.
UnknownClimbing is not a battle with the elements, nor against the law of gravity. It's a battle against oneself.
Walter BonattiI struggle against photography. I struggle against the fact that it is silent, that it is just a piece of paper on the wall, often presented in a tedious white matt frame.
Michael LightHomosexuality is against nature. Sexual expression is permitted only within marriage, between man and woman, male and female. Anything else is an abnormality and is against nature.
Pope Shenouda III of AlexandriaBetter risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.
William JamesOh please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?" "I've used it against him," Harry said quietly. "It saved my life last June.
J. K. RowlingArcher was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.
Edith WhartonThe world is against individuality. It is against your being just your natural self. It wants you just to be a robot, and because you have agreed to be a robot you are in trouble. You are not a robot.
RajneeshThere was an agitation against Mumbai Express: because part of it is an English word. There is no Tamil word for Mumbai Express. I am sure all those who were against it, even they wouldn't say 'I love you' to their lovers in Tamil. Many don't even thank in Tamil.
Kamal HaasanI wrote a letter to the magazine [Time magazine] pointing out that [Richard] Corliss's comparison of Christopher Lee's Saruman to Osama Bin Laden, and the vastly outnumbered defenders of Helm's Deep united against the Orcs to the "Coalition of the Willing" fighting the good fight against Muslim hordes, displayed the simplistic, xenophobic, and arrogant worldview that makes the government of the United States feared and mistrusted around the world. The editors claimed they had no space to print my brief letter, which I felt was dishonest and cowardly.
Viggo MortensenAgainst the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.
Graham GreeneI was 32 years old, and I've changed my mind. And the biggest reason that I changed my mind was my seven years as a federal prosecutor. What I learned in those seven years was that we were spending too much time talking about gun laws against law- abiding citizens and not nearly enough time talking about enforcing the gun laws strongly against criminals.
Chris ChristieTheology created the fiction of Satan which represents the revolt if an infinite being against the existence of an absolute infinity, against God.
Mikhail BakuninDo you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you?" He pulled me tighter against his hard chest, tucking my head under his chin. I pressed my lips against his snow-cold neck. "I know how much I love you," I answered. You compare one small tree to the entire forest." I rolled my eyes, but he couldn't see. "Impossible.
Stephenie MeyerI think that always myself is my worst opponent. I always playing against myself first and then to the other one. So I'm playing against two guys during the match...It's like mentally I don't know what is gonna happen in the next ten minutes. Maybe I get depressed in ten minutes. I don't know myself too much...Yeah, I was working with a psychology, and I still.
Gaston GaudioThe best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.
Marjane SatrapiThe Arab rulers are basically unpopular. They are supported by the United States against the wishes of their people. In all of this rather heady mixture of violence and policies that are remarkably unpopular right down to the last iota, it's not hard for demagogues, especially people who claim to speak in the name of religion, in this case Islam, to raise a crusade against the United States and say that we must somehow bring America down.
Edward SaidTaking away the peace of a people, committing every act of violence, or consenting to such acts, especially when directed against the weakest and defenseless, is a profoundly grave sin against God.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of ConstantinopleWhen dams were erected on the Columbia, salmon battered themselves against the concrete, trying to return home. I expect no less from us. We too must hurl ourselves against and through the literal and metaphorical concrete that contains and constrains us, that keeps us from talking about what is most important to us, that keeps us from living the way our bones know we can, that bars us from our home. It only takes one person to bring down a dam.
Derrick JensenIn 1979, you had the revolution in Iran. You had the Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan, which are the laws that are notoriously used against women, which are theoretically used against thieves although they're never carried out - an actual amputation or an actual stoning. The blasphemy laws, again, never actually carried out, though they're there, heavy with menace on the statute books.
Sadakat KadriBlind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary.
Che GuevaraWhile a lot of people want to join the left to react against the mainstream or right, I in many ways react against the left - not a lot of its fundamental commitments, but its often dismal tone, righteousness, defeatism, etc.
Rebecca SolnitMany people say, "Oh, we have nothing against Puerto Ricans," and I wanted a way to unmask the people that say that they have nothing against gay people.
Luis NegronIf as an environmentalist we are against anything... it is against the arrogance of power and the most obcene ways it shows up, which is in greed.
John DenverYou want to have strong legs. You're in the trenches going against bigger guys in there, and you want to be able to have some force against them.
Brandon SpikesIn the '60s we fought for peace, when the Vietnam war was on. We were against the cops and against the politicians, and there was a lot of waving banners and all that. And I think in a way, just as they were enjoying that machoism of war, we were enjoying the machismo of being anti-war, you know?
Yoko Ono