Quotes About Defeat

Nothingness is staring you in the face. Utter and permanent oblivion. You will cease to be. To be, Jack. The dier accepts this and dies. The killer, in theory, attempts to defeat his own death by killing others. He buys time, he buys life. - Murray (WN 291)

L'azione è verità, e la verità vacilla quando la guerra finisce e gli abitanti del villaggio sono liberi di tornare ai loro campi. Sopravviviamo, e siamo nuovamente sconfitti.

There is a darkness attached to them, a foreboding. They make me wary not of personal failure and defeat but of something more general, something large in scope and content.

If we want our customers' ears to perk up when we talk about our products and services, we should position those products and services as weapons they can use to defeat a villain. And the villain should be dastardly.

The more you talk about the villain, the more people will want a tool to help them defeat the villain.

must always know who the hero is, what the hero wants, who the hero has to defeat to get what they want, what tragic thing will happen

If you can accept losing, you already lost.

With distaste, Harriet reflected upon how life had beaten down the adults she knew, every single grown-up. Something strangled them as they grew older, made them doubt their own powers-laziness? Habit? Their grip slackened; they stopped fighting and resigned themselves to what happened. That's Life. That's what they all said. That's Life, Harriet, that's just how it is, you'll see.

And that was it: infinite loop; no alt-tab out. You could force close, shut down the computer, start all over and run it again, and the game would still lock up and freeze at the same place. Where's Popper? No cheat code. Game over. There was no way past that moment.

Or--to quote another paradoxical gem of my dad's: sometimes you have to lose to win.

another paradoxical gem of my dad's: sometimes you have to lose to win.

I began dividing life in absolutes... Things and people were either perfectly bad, or perfectly good, and when life didn't obey this black-and-white rule, when things or people were complex or contradictory, I pretended otherwise. I turned every defeat into a disaster, every success into an epic triumph, and separated all people into heroes or villains. Unable to bear ambiguity, I built a barricade of delusions against it.

Aikido," my teacher had said again and again, "is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you're already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.

Cortés proved the shrewder of the two. As he did with the Aztecs, he did with his Castilian rival: he defeated Narváez's larger force with a smaller one.

And for a moment she was the heroine again. Battling the odds. But just for a moment. Because suddenly it was clear to me again that all she could do was take it, powerless. And lose. And I remember thinking at least it's not me. If I wanted to I could even join them. For that moment, thinking that, I had power.

I spied my shadow slinking up behind me in the night, I issued it a challenge, and we started in to fight. I wrestled with that shadow, but it wasn't any fun, I tried my very hardest— all the same, my shadow won.

this slow dissipation, the gradual abandonment of all expectations, a defeat that had killed everything without a battle.

Everyone yearns for heaven, and nothing binds you to the hope of eternal life like that kind of defeat on earth.

Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy.

How do you get to be the sort of victor who can claim to be the vanquished also?

Y a mí, ya que prefiero escoger mis derrotas, quiero que me recuerdes derrotado, como quien algo espera más allá de los tiempos y los hechos

Y a mí, ya que prefiero escoger mis derrotas, quiero que me recuerdes derrotado, como quien algo espera más allá de los tiempos y los hechos. Quizás porque haga falta haberlo presagiado o porque, en todo caso, nadie sabe dónde acaban los sueños.

I may be empty inside, hollowed and devoured by Oxana, and I may be alone and beyond redemption, but I will not be broken. Fuck them all. I will not be broken.

I smile. No plan can take everything into account. Other people will raise their heads, others will desert. Time will go on spreading victory and defeat among those who pursue the struggle. I sip with satisfaction. We deserve the warmth of baths. May the days be aimless. Do not advance the action according to a plan.