Quotes
What one does is never enough. I don't want this challenge we're facing to defeat us. I want to do my bit, I want future generations to understand how hard we fought to stop the triumph of the unacceptable. (V)
It takes enormous trust and courage to allow yourself to remember.
As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.
Honesty isn’t betrayal; it’s courage. Stop sugarcoating your experiences and allow the truth to free you. People often misrepresent their relationships and experiences because they’re too afraid to admit what’s true. But denial will keep you from breaking free from your past.
You, somehow, have the greatest potential of all my hosts, and are one of the dumbest, at the same time.
“Gee, thanks for the confidence booster.”
On the contrary, it is brave stupid people who change the world. The smart ones are usually too smart to even try.
p. 325
Grandma Dorothy, in an effort to encourage our minds to leap, would tell us, "Of course we know how to walk on the water, of course we know how to fly; fear of sinking, though, sometimes keeps us from the first crucial move, then too, the terrible educations you liable to get is designed to make you destruct the journey entire. So send your minds on home to the motherland and just tell the tale, you little honeys." And my mama-not one to traffic in metaphors usually, being a very scientific woman-would add, "Yeah, speak your speak, 'cause every silence you maintain is liable to become first a lump in your throat, then a lump in your lymphatic system."
However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don't mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords. That has always been the problem with us Vikings. I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.
Although this is the part of the story that the bards tend to focus on as the bit where Hiccup was particularly heroic, I do not agree. It is a lot easier to be brave when you know you have no alternative. Hiccup knew in his heart of hearts that the Monster intended to kill them all anyway. So he didn't have a lot to lose.
"There's no courage", The Prophet said, "before the war has begun."
Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war.
But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice.
I'm astonished by the man who wants purity
And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begin...
When a man beats a carpet again and again
It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it.
With the words Sira Eiliv had spoken the day before still in her mind, she suddenly realized that as fearful as she had been for her reckless sons and as sternly as she had often admonished them because she was tormented with anguish for their sakes, she would have been less content with her children if they have been meek and timid.
p. 399
All the same, an officer should never be parted from his men in the moment of danger on any account whatsoever. Danger is the supreme moment of his career, his chance to show his manhood at its best. Honour and gallantry make him the master of the hour. What is more sublime than to face death at the head of a hundred men? Such a one will never find obedience fail him, for courage runs through the ranks like wine.
Vagabonding is about gaining courage to loosen your grip on the so-called certainties of this world. Vagabonding is about refusing to exile travel to some other, seemingly more appropriate, time of your life. Vagabonding is about taking control of your circumstances instead of passively waiting for them to decide your fate. Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. Vagabonding starts now. Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility.
