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1 " Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way-in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves....I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them. "
― Barack Obama , The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
2 " Back in the days when gladiators hacked away at each other, there was always the man who decided whether the defeated should live or die. The job is usually given to the Emperor in movies, but in fact any senior man could have been the designated thumbs-up-thumbs-down guy. The official title for this fellow was...the editor. (evil laughter in background) "
― Gary Corby
3 " We find an abundance of anger and the desire to destroy the opposition in any competitive human environment. Hate sparks contest, and in the modern world, attorneys are the paid gladiators of warring parties. Attorneys are for hire to the highest bidder. Attorneys ply their trade by dealing in the commerce of anger and hatred. "
― , Dead Toad Scrolls
4 " Divided - No tides of time or distance will wash away your step. It does not fleet as they do, those gladiators and their mighty spears or the beasts that howl into the dark for release. Our story carves deeper, pitilessly, infinitely. A wound that bleeds the ink that stained your palm and the tears of an impossible tomorrow. "
― R.J. Arkhipov
5 " Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that. I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but " crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all--except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him. They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then. "
6 " Humiliating events have a way of capturing the public's imagination. So it has been since antiquity, when gladiators were pitted against each other and the legions of Spartacus were crucified in endless rows on the way to Rome. "