5
" While significant strides have been made in the pursuit of life expectancy, healthcare, educational opportunities, and constitutional protections for women, the Supreme Court, in particular, still wrestles with their status, as evidenced by their problems in pursuing equal opportunity in education and employment, reproductive freedom, the military, and violence against women. "
― Vine Deloria Jr. , The Legal Universe: Observations of the Foundations of American Law
15
" She drank in the sight of him, sure that anything so perfect had to be a dream. He seemed bigger with just a towel wrapped around his waist. It was amazing what wonders clothing could hide. Over six feet of long muscled male. Bronzed skin, lightly dusted with hair seemed to glow as he walked towards her. He moved like an athlete. Strong, confident strides that ate up the distance between them in no time. Her hands wanted to touch him, anywhere, everywhere. His impossibly flat, firm stomach seemed to call out for her mouth to trace the ridges; her tongue eagerly memorizing every smooth, muscled inch. “Lose the towel.” She wasn’t asking, she was pleading. Jack let the cloth fall to the floor. Eyes wide Rose gasped. Mother Nature had been very kind to Jack Winston, and she was about to be a very grateful beneficiary. “Rose, sweetheart,” Jack stepped back when she would have touched him. “Oh, come on, Jack,” she groaned in frustration. “I’ve been a very good girl. Now it’s time for my reward. "
16
" They say in moments of great fear or desperation, a man will always make a choice—either to flee or face his enemy, but choice requires thought, and in the moment when you know for certain that death is stalking you with strides you cannot outrun, there is no time for thought. You do not choose. Like Betto, or Malchus, or Valens, you act, doing either one thing or the other. "
― Andrew Levkoff , A Mixture of Madness (The Bow of Heaven, #2)
17
" How can a man be still if he sees such a great wrong being instigated?'
'It's difficult, but it's necessary,' Professor While insisted. 'Science must go on unhindered, and if we bring politics into our work we will cease to be scientists.'
'Will we cease being human?' MacGregor demanded with the rudeness of justifying himself. 'Should we hand over our affairs to men we despise?'
'I suppose that is unanswerable.' Professor White was an deep into it now as MacGregor. 'But when we dabble in politics we suffer what you are suffering now, and it isn't worth it. Is it?'
'I don't know,' MacGregor said morosely.
'Then why destroy yourself?'
'I don't believe a man has much choice any more,' MacGregor said. 'There seems to be some kind of a battle going on for any existence, science and all.'
'You may be right,' the Professor said. 'We are certainly facing a situation of terrible choice. Only yesterday the physicist chaps back from America brought in a petition to sign against control and secrecy of information and research in nuclear physics. Once they start on this secrecy business there is no telling where it will end. It was bad enough when we were working at Tennessee. We cannot have those ignorant politicians telling us what we must do.'
'They are already telling us what we must do,' MacGregor argued. 'The military control so much research that the phyusicist are becoming straight-out weapon makers and nothing else.'
'It's not the physicists' fault...'
'Then why don't they stop working for the military. Now they are talking about radio-active dust clouds and the biologists are producing concentrates of bacteria for wholesale disease-making. What's the matter with them? Have the Generals got them so scared that they meekly do as they are told?'
'Weapons are a part of life,' the Professor commented sadly, 'and since the politicians refuse to be peaceful, at least they ask for weapons and give us a chance we would not otherwise have of making enormous strides in costly research.'
'Perhaps. But don't we care how the products of our research are used?'
'You are looking for logic where there isn't any,' the Professor said. 'It isn't science which shapes the world, young man.'
'No sir, but we are part of it.'
'Really a very small part of it. The ultimate decision on human affairs lies outside science. We may be part of it, but if you are looking for the deciding factor in the shape of existence then I don't know where you'll find it. "
― James Aldridge , The Diplomat
19
" He lowered his head and shook it from side to side, giving her a rueful smile. “I find it so ironic that someone I think of as sometimes so brave to the point of stupidity could be so terrified of her own happiness,”
Bree felt the shot hit home, and she couldn’t look at him. She ran her finger along the marble topped of the island. “That’s ridiculous. Who in their right mind is afraid of being happy?”
“Someone who has lost too much,” he moved slowly towards her in gentle careful strides as if he was afraid of startling her.
Fair enough, she did tend to attack him when he tried to corner her, but for some reason, Bree just couldn’t tonight. The much too relaxing bubble bath must be making her sluggish.
“Someone who is so used to being told she caused too much pain to others to ever be worthy of happiness herself,”
Bree closed her eyes. “Shut up. Please, Alessandro. "
― E. Jamie , The Vendetta (Blood Vows, #1)