A Fool S Endeavor

The king is dead, the child princess has been stolen away, and the court jester is left bleeding and drowning in the moat: Castle Acalathoy has been dealt a mortal blow. With the only heir to the throne taken in the night, the fate of the kingdom is sealed. The soldiers have been slaughtered, the knights laid waste, and there is no hero foolish enough to go after the princess.But Jester Lure has survived, and he will not be detoured.Against all odds, the fate of the princess lies in the hands of her personal jester, a peculiar man who hides more than his face under his mask. He has nothing left to lose and no intention of turning back. He, along with a small group of similarly unlikely companions- an apprentice who is merely an extension of his master and a knight driven only by guilt- must risk their lives in a hopeless journey across a dangerous land. Wildlife running havoc, bandits, pale folk with saccharine smiles, and other dangers are waiting along their path. It is them against an unrelenting world, and the group must learn to function together if they plan on surviving. With tension within the group, inexperience, and a lack of even basic weapons, this is easier said than done.It's foolish to believe that they can save the princess from a fate nearly worse than death, but a foolish endeavor is not yet a hopeless one, and their trials have only just begun. For the fate of the princess, for the fate of their lives, and all relying on a foolish endeavor.

Lev Tolstoi was not only one of the world's most famous writers, he was also a deeply concerned thinker and hugely influential critic of the Church whose impact was felt long after his death. For an entire generation, Tolstoi set the agenda for ethical and religious thought, in Russia and beyond. Most of Tolstoi's main ideas drew on his Christian heritage – selected and creatively combined. While he claimed that his life's work consisted of rediscovering the pure doctrine of Christ as it had been before the Church perverted it, in fact he radically reinterpreted the Christian faith he had encountered in his own life, Russian Orthodoxy. This book offers a new and comprehensive account of Tolstoi's relationship with the Orthodox Church and its teachings, and shows how the Russian Church reacted to the “Tolstoi phenomenon” and attempted to counteract the influence of this new “heretic" - with scant success.

Collects more than 1,400 English-language proverbs that arose in the 20th and 21st centuries, organized alphabetically by key words and including information on date of origin, history and meaning.

Money issues have long been the number one cause of relationship disharmony and divorce, yet when it comes to identifying and changing unhealthy money patterns and behaviors, many couples feel helpless. Money coach Deborah Price has taught thousands of people how to work together to resolve money conflicts and create a financially empowered future. In these pages, she presents strategies and tools for creating financial intimacy while learning to communicate about money issues calmly and reflectively, rather than reactively. With inspirational stories and practical techniques and exercises, this book will help you and your partner: * learn the language of financial intimacy and talk about money in a healthy and empowering way * recognize and change unhealthy money patterns * identify which of the eight money types apply to each of you and understand the impact they have on your life, your relationship, and your finances * build a mutual sense of financial security and confidence * work through setbacks and challenges to make your relationship stronger than ever before

Based upon the author's own experiences this study explores the Israeli government's attitude to the West Bank and Gaza over a period of 30 years. The "fools" in the book's title refers not only to the Arabs who rejected Israeli peace offers but to the Israelis themselves.

This study examines fully the role that the historic European left has played in developing and espousing anti-Semitic views.

What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory, if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? A New Stoicism proposes an answer to that question, offered from within the stoic tradition but without the metaphysical and psychological assumptions that modern philosophy and science have abandoned. Lawrence Becker argues that a secular version of the stoic ethical project, based on contemporary cosmology and developmental psychology, provides the basis for a sophisticated form of ethical naturalism, in which virtually all the hard doctrines of the ancient Stoics can be clearly restated and defended. Becker argues, in keeping with the ancients, that virtue is one thing, not many; that it, and not happiness, is the proper end of all activity; that it alone is good, all other things being merely rank-ordered relative to each other for the sake of the good; and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave figure, emotionally detached and capable mainly of endurance, resignation, and coping with pain. To the contrary, he holds that while stoic sages are able to endure the extremes of human suffering, they do not have to sacrifice joy to have that ability, and he seeks to turn our attention from the familiar, therapeutic part of stoic moral training to a reconsideration of its theoretical foundations.