"When the majority refused to accept Lenin's full program, he formed his own 'Zimmerwald Left.'"
Ol' V.I. showing off his famous non-sectarianism.
--Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism
For context, if anyone is interested.
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"And if an Elf of the Wood does not know, how shall a Man answer?"
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
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Two books open on my table right now.
The first is an author I'm in a more or less permanent state of revisiting:
"quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore"
And,
"They are neither tortured by dread of impending disaster nor under the strain of hopes of future bliss."
"Booksellers took most of the profits from their works, so they relied on patrons to survive."
Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr
"The bat rider collapsed and rolled on the ground in pain."
Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes, Storm Riders
"'Courtesy of my son,' Picard replied, indicating for her to follow him to his work area and to the seat positioned in front of his desk."
Dayton Ward, Star Trek The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms
Post Christmas and New Year bumper edition.
"They bled him, purged him with something that emptied his stomach and bowels violently, made him ingest various unpleasant liquids, shaved his groin, and daubed on a burning, foul-smelling black ointment twice a day."
Guy Gavriel Kay, Sailing to Sarantum
"Without answering he walked past her, towards noise."
Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space
"Två lysande röda ögon d~~&r upp framför oss och en antilop dunsar över motorhuven, bilen kastar sig igenom ett buskage och sedan ut i den öppna sandterrängen igen."
("Two shining red eyes turns up in front of us, and an antelope bounces across the hood, the car throws itself through the shrubs and then out into the open sand terrain again.")
Johan Persson & Martin Schibbye, 438 Dagar (438 Days)
"She stood close than he found really comfortable; he could have put his arm around her and found her no closer."
Elizabeth Moon, Surrender None (in the omnibus edition called Legacy of Honor)
"It doesn't mean anything."
Ian Rankin, Saints of the Shadow Bible.
"God, however, was great."
Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword
"'Where's the reeve?' a militiaman bellowed, the hair on his chest and groin as grizzled as that on his head."
Juliet E McKenna, Irons in the Fire
"Branca knew better than to suggest that."
Juliet E McKenna, Banners in the Wind
And a slight cheat, since I bought Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 4 for the sake of one short story, and that short story doesn't have 55 pages, I'll just pick one sentence I enjoyed:
"So she always counted the money carefully when it came in, and hid it in her special hiding place, a big book called Toads and their Discontents.
Ellen Kushner, A Wild and Wicked Youth
Edit: And apparently the Swedish words for "dives" is not okay with the forum profanity filter...
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"'You have found it,' said Eomer."
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
"She said, in a low voice meant to carry no farther than the courtyard walls, 'I'm a traveler, and I'm headed out of town.'"
Kate Elliot, Shadow Gate
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"He [Sir Henry Morgan] did not get on well with Lord Vaughan, who complained of his 'imprudence and unfitness to have anything to do with civil government' and his habit of drinking and gaming in the taverns of Port Royal."
--Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly
"But the Scarecrow did not mind how long it took him to fill the basket, for it enabled him to keep away from the fire, as he feared a spark might get into his straw and burn him up."
--L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
"One thing became more and more evident the longer I gazed; an artist, and one with a most scrupulous eye for form, had superintended all these arrangements."
--Edgar Allan Poe, "Landor's Cottage," Tales
"These formulas are not so much untrue as schematic and one-dimensional; accordingly, they lead to serious political miscaluclations and mistakes."
--Eugene D. Genovese, "Class and Nationality in Black America," collected in In Red and Black: Marxian Explorations in Southern and Afro-American History
"Within [C.E.] Ruthenberg himself, the struggle between doctrinal orthodoxy and mass influence went on unceasingly."
--Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia
Kelsier raised an eyebrow. "That's unexpected."
~ Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
"There's also an Earl Beesley, and he did pitch, but not in the Pacific Coast League."
-- Rob Neyer, Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends
"Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round itself, it makes what we call day and night; and every time it goes entirely round the Sun it makes what we call a year; consequently our world turns three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, in going once round the Sun.*
---
"*Those who supposed that the sun went round the earth every 24 hours made the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in fact, that should make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat turning round itself toward the fire."
--The Age of Reason, Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology by Thomas Paine, Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution and Author of "Common Sense," "The Crisis," "Rights of Man," Etc. on the 8th of Pluvoise in the Second Year of the French Republic, one and indivisible.
"Sosiel has provided Aron with much needed ballast and support in his life."
- Neil Spicer, NPC description of Aron Kir in Sword of Valor
"What I have said of the unspecifiability of skills is closely related to the findings of Gestalt psychology."
- Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge
"The suspicions that haunt our day-to-day lives usually feature our families, neighbors, and coworkers, even if we don't believe they're puppets of a Satanic cabal."
- Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia
"As one observer remarked, the Government takes a census of migrant birds but not of migrant human beings."
--Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States
"A few rounds after the death or redemption of the Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, the Ineluctable Prison shakes with the sound of thunder and a muffled bellow echoes through the structure."
-- Wolfgang Baur, Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth
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"The Lord Ruler thought it could be beaten."
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
"Her abdomen was full of blood; he sponged away, looking for the source, and saw that the hemorrhage issued from a six-inch rupture in the back of the uterus."
--John Irving, The Cider House Rules
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"BALLARAT."
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" as published in The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury: Revised & Expanded
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"His name survives only in cartouches found in an ancient network of earthworks now known as the Slave Trenches of Hakotep."
-- Crystal Frasier, Empty Graves
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"Most of the area before them was full of the products of Harry King's noisome profession, conveyor belts coming and going from who knows where, being loaded and unloaded and sorted by goblins and free golems."
Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
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"Most of the area before them was full of the products of Harry King's noisome profession, conveyor belts coming and going from who knows where, being loaded and unloaded and sorted by goblins...."
Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
Sounds right.
Finally, Premise 5 is already an effective certainty, as it is true even if historicity is true, and is so well verified in background evidence that its prior probability is as near to 100% as makes all odds.
On the Historicity of Jesus - Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt by Richard Carrier
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"He hadn't believed he was an alcoholic, Jack thought, as Al's telephone began ringing in his ear."
-- Stephen King, The Shining
"In Germany, the law does not permit the issue of shares for less than one thousand marks denomination, and the magnates of German finance look with an envious eye at England, where the issue of one-pound shares ( = 20 marks, about 10 rubles) is permitted."
--V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline
That means a good long session with the belt - and Grinder doesn't care where the strap lands, whole skin or fresh scars, it's all the same to him - and then a night or two down the hole, where there's no light and no warmth and nothing for company except for the big hairy Muddy York rats who'll come and nibble at whatever's left of you, if you manage to fall asleep.
--Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
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"But the most meaningful (in the sense of longest) part of the ceremony was the Parade of Athletes, in which competitors from many nations marched around the stadium and stood together, reminding us that the true meaning of the Olympics is international understanding, which means not making fun of foreign people because they have funny names."
-- Dave Barry, Boogers are My Beat
"But the publication of the Melville family diaries and correspondences, with a connecting narrative, by Melville's oldest grandchild, Eleanor Melville Metcalf, Herman Melville, Cycle and Epicycle (Harvard University Press, 1953), is perhaps the most directly revealing introduction to the author as man."
--Harold Beaver, "Bibliography" in Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories by Herman Melville
"They passed dark hallways and open, unlighted doors, and sometimes the hair on his neck bristled with the feeling of human nearness, inimical, watching."
-- C.L. Moore, "Black Thirst" in Northwest of Earth
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"After winning nineteen games in 1921 - albeit with an unimpressive ERA - Kerr asked for a $500 raise."
-- Rob Neyer, Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups
Thumbs up to that, friend.
"Despite the jaw-dropping impact of the 'get tough' movement on the African American community, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans revealed any inclination to slow the rate of incarceration."
--Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
"Then he straightened up so I could get a better look."
-- Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl
"It was hardly conceivable."
--Sir Arthur Conan the Barbarian Doyle, The Lost World
"She's laughing."
Divergent by Veronica Roth
At least that's what it says is the 5th sentence on my kindle. Couldn't say if its the same for the dead tree copy.
"Ts'ao Ts'ao had a silken sack made for Lord Kuan to protect his beard"
- Three Kingdoms by Lo Kuan-chung
"Europeans would have been impressed by these numbers; Michael Williams, a historical geographer at Oxford, argued that the eastern U.S. forest may have been more populous in 1600 than even "densely settled parts of western Europe."
-- Charles C. Mann, 1493
"The Company agrees to not mix radials and bias ply tires on the same unit."
--National Master United Parcel Service Agreement and New England Supplemental Agreement For the Period: August 1, 2013 through July 31, 2018 by, For the Employees
For the Employer
UPS Negotiating Committee, Michael J. Rosentrater, Chair; John McDevitt, Co-Chair; Al Gudim, Richard Gough, Brian McCabe, Dan Guerrero, Joe Tringale, Stokes Nelson, Tony Coleman, Eric Bringe, Craig Holmes, Steve Haney, Ed Lynch, Matt Hoffman, Mark Aaron, Bill Leanues, Headley Chambers, Matt Loughlin, Tim Hoy, Brian Person, Dan Hoyer, Chuck Schmidbauer, Lindsay Marshall, Mike Szloch, Chuck Martorana, Jim Wells, Frank Maxwell, Chris Langan, Sharon Ring, Ben Miloro, Sue Davis, Steve Brennan, Dennie Gandee, Steve Musson, Denise Gasti, Brian D!*$s
Poor Brian D@%+s. His name doesn't make it through the profanity filter.