“At the end of one of the bookshelves she picked up a very old book. It was truly ancient, and woven into the cover was a motif of joined hands which merged into three words: Aonaibh Ri Chéile. The dedication on the inside cover was simply “To Elbeth with Love.” The author was someone called Angus Ferguson””
“The skies were filled with an unreal fire; blue, burnt with amber, red, orange and yellow. This fire was no natural thing. It clawed across the sky, and below it all life shivered and retreated. The land lay scorched, the mountains and glens trembling.The man stood pale in the false light, a statue, watching. Then he moved, shaking off the stillness, and looked towards the power that shook the world. His clenched fist opened and clean white light leapt to the sky. A huge concussion rocked the mountains. All light was quenched. The sky turned black, then clear and blue. A distant rainbow promised that all was well and God still cared for this lost land.Alastair Munro fell back, the soft heather a safety net, all power gone, all anger lost. Angus Ferguson was beside him as ever, a reassuring voice, a reminder of why Munro was there, why he must go on, why this was his destiny””
“This life is back to front. It’s terrible, unendurable. . . . No one comes back from the dead, no one has come into the world without crying. No one asks when you want to enter the world, no one asks when you want to leave . . . How empty and meaningless life is. We bury a person; follow him to the grave, throw three shovels of dirt over him. We drive out in a coach and drive back in a coach, and console ourselves with the thought of our own long lives. But really, how long is three score and ten? Why not just get it over with straight away? Why not stay out there, hop down into the grave ourselves and draw lots to see who has the bad luck to be the last one alive, the one to throw the last three shovels of dirt over the last dead person? (Either/Or, 1843) In””
“Marry, you’ll regret it; don’t marry, you’ll regret that too; marry or don’t marry, you’ll regret it either way; whether you marry or you don’t marry, either way, you’ll regret it. Laugh at the world’s follies, you’ll regret it; weep over them, you’ll regret that too; laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, you’ll regret it either way; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, either way, you’ll regret it. Believe a girl, you’ll regret it; don’t believe her, you’ll regret that too; believe a girl or don’t believe her, you’ll regret it either way; whether you believe a girl or don’t believe her, either way, you’ll regret it. Hang yourself, you’ll regret it; don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or you don’t hang yourself, either way, you’ll regret it. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all life’s wisdom. (Either/Or, 1843) Bracing””
Robert Ferguson was a Scottish author and scholar known for his contributions to the fields of onomastics and geography. His work often explored the intricacies of names and their significance, as see...
“Jim Crow was not merely about the physical separation of blacks and whites. Nor was segregation strictly about laws, despite historians' tendency to fix upon legal landmarks as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In order to maintain dominance, whites needed more than the statutes and signs that specified "whites" and "blacks" only; they had to assert and reiterate black inferiority with every word and gesture, in every aspect of both public and private life. Noted theologian Howard Thurman dissected the "anatomy" of segregation with chilling precision in his classic 1965 book, The Luminous Darkness. A white supremacist society must not only "array all the forces of legislation and law enforcement, " he wrote; "it must falsify the facts of history, tamper with the insights of religion and religious doctrine, editorialize and slant news and the printed word. On top of that it must keep separate schools, separate churches, separate graveyards, and separate public accommodations-all this in order to freeze the place of the Negro in society and guarantee his basic immobility." Yet this was "but a partial indication of the high estimate" that the white South placed upon African Americans. "Once again, to state it categorically, " Thurman concludes, "the measure of a man's estimate of your strength is the kind of weapons he feels he must use in order to hold you fast in a prescribed place.””
“I don't mean to mock the gods, but Freyja seems to me a bitch.- Hjalti Skjeggjason””
“When police abuse and racial killings are in the news, from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri, to Columbia Junction, Fox summons Fuhrman in his tailored suit and “in your face” attitude to explain why police brutality is justified.””
“I had no real idea how ugly the subject of punishment would become when I began this study, and it has been enough to bear me down at times. What people will do to other people is indeed a hell in our midst.””
“In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu.33 In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.34””
“its parameters are fluid, but based on the unmoving fact that, at the start of the period, roughly speaking all the Scandinavian peoples were Heathens; and by the time it ends, roughly speaking all the Scandinavian peoples thought of themselves as Christian.””
“The Irish would close theirs with the Battle of Clontarf in 1016.””
“With the exhibits sorted into these three basic groupings of stone, bronze and iron, an exhibition opened to the public in the Trinitatis Church loft in 1819. This was the first time the tripartite division of the past into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages was used.””
“Still others prefer the idea that the design reflects the same sort of syncretic instincts that led the makers to transform the Christian lion into a Scandinavian horse and the Christian snake into the world-encircling Midgard serpent of Æsir mythology, offering familiarity as an enticement to acceptance in much the same way as designers of the first railway carriages in the nineteenth century deliberately designed them to look like horse-drawn wagons so that people would dare to step on board.””
“Kierkegaard’s most remarkable and subtle observations, that life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards. I think it means you have to turn around and start walking backwards, facing the past, if the present is going to make any sense at all.””
“America’s still-segregated modern life is marked by three realities. First, geographic segregation has meant that”
“Something wonderful happened to me. I was transported into the Seventh Heaven. All the gods sat there in assembly. By special grace I was granted the favour of a wish. Said Mercury: ‘Will you have Youth, or Beauty, or Power, or Longevity, or the most beautiful girl, or any of the other delights we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but you may only choose one thing.’ For a moment I was at a loss, and then I addressed the gods in this fashion: ‘My most honoured contemporaries, I choose one thing, and that is always to have laughter on my side.’ In reply not one of the gods said a single word. Instead they all began to laugh. From this I gathered that my wish had been granted. I learned, too, that the gods had style: it would, after all, have been inappropriate had they answered, in all solemnity: Your wish is hereby granted. (Either/Or, 1843)””
“Of all ridiculous things, it seems to me what is most ridiculous is to be busy in this world, to be a man who hastens to his food and hastens to his work. That is why, when at some critical moment I see a fly land on the nose of one of these businessmen, or he gets soaked by some carriage driving by in even greater haste than his own, or he has to wait while the river bridge goes up in front of him, or a tile falls from the roof and kills him, I laugh heartily. Who, after all, could fail to laugh? What is it, actually, that they achieve, these furiously busy people? Is there any difference between them and the woman who, in her confusion when a fire broke out in the house, salvaged the fire-tongs? Do they really salvage anything more from the great conflagration of life? (Either/Or, 1843) Kierkegaard””
“She had an old friend from the vaudeville days named Buck Mack who lived with her. Buck had been part of a vaudeville team called Miller & Mack and had been an extra in Citizen Kane. In modern terms, he was a personal assistant: he ran the house, kept everything running smoothly, and watched over her. At first, Buck regarded me as an interloper, but it wasn't long before he saw that Barbara and I genuinely loved each other, and he and I became good friends. Because of the age difference, neither of us wanted to have our relationship in the papers, and with the help of Helen Ferguson, her publicist and one of her best friends, we kept it quiet. There were only a few people who knew about us. Nancy Sinatra Sr. was one of them, because she and Barbara were close friends. I didn't tell anybody at Fox about our affair, although Harry Brand might have known, if only because Harry knew everything. Likewise, I always assumed that Darryl Zanuck knew, although he never said a word about it to me. That might have been because Darryl and Barbara had something of a history, a bad one: Barbara told me that Darryl had chased her around his office years earlier, and I got the distinct impression that she hadn't appreciated the exercise.””