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Freedom Consists Not In Refusing To Recognize Anything Above Us, But In Respecting Something Which Is Above Us; For By Respecting It, We Raise Ourselves To It, And, By Our Very Acknowledgment, Prove That We Bear Within Ourselves What Is Higher, And Are Worthy To Be On A Level With It.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Freedom Consists Not In

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Freedom Consists Not In Refusing To Recognize Anything Above Us, But In Respecting Something Which Is Above Us; For By Respecting It, We Raise Ourselves To It, And, By Our Very Acknowledgment, Prove That We Bear Within Ourselves What Is Higher, And Are Worthy To Be On A Level With It.

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The Best Government Is That Which Teaches Us To Govern Ourselves.

Lay Hold Of Life With Both Hands, Whenever Thou Mayest Seize It, It Is Interesting.

As In Rome There Is, Apart From The Romans, A Population Of Statues, So Apart From This Real World There Is A World Of Illusion, Almost More Potent, In Which Most Men Live.

There Is Nothing More Frightful Than Ignorance In Action.

He Who Knows No Foreign Languages Knows Nothing Of His Own.

Faith Is Hidden Household Capital.

Most Pioneers Are At The Mercy Of Doubt At The Beginning, Whether Of Their Worth, Of Their Theories, Or Of The Whole Enigmatic Field In Which They Labour.

Since I Have Heard Often Enough That Everyone In The End Has His Own Religion, Nothing Seemed More Natural To Me Than To Fashion My Own.

Lord Byron Is Only Great As A Poet; As Soon As He Reflects He Is A Child.

It Is Not Always Needful For Truth To Take A Definite Shape; It Is Enough If It Hovers About Us Like A Spirit And Produces Harmony; If It Is Wafted Through The Air Like The Sound Of A Bell, Grave And Kindly.

He Who Does Not Expect A Million Readers Should Not Write A Line.

One Spares Old People Just As One Spares Children.

Our Wishes Are Presentiments Of The Abilities That Lie In Us, Harbingers Of What We Will Be Able To Accomplish.

In The End We Retain From Our Studies Only That Which We Practically Apply.

I Have Heard Myself Accused Of Being An Opponent, An Enemy Of Mathematics, Which No One Can Value More Highly Than I, For It Accomplishes The Very Thing Whose Achievement Has Been Denied Me.

Forget Not That The Man Who Cannot Enjoy His Own Natural Gifts In Silence, And Find His Reward In The Exercise Of Them, Will Generally Find Himself Badly Off.

Truth Must Be Repeated Again And Again, Because Error Is Constantly Being Preached Round About.

Again And Again

Our Passions Are The True Phoenixes; When The Old One Is Burnt Out, A New One Rises From Its Ashes.

If We Could Do Away With Death, We Wouldn't Object; To Do Away With Capital Punishment Will Be More Difficult. Were That To Happen, We Would Reinstate It From Time To Time.

After Fifteen Minutes Nobody Looks At A Rainbow.

I Am Proud Of My Heart Alone, It Is The Sole Source Of Everything, All Our Strenght, Happiness & Misery. All The Knowledge I Possess Everyone Else Can Acquire, But My Heart Is All My Own

Talk Well Of The Absent Whenever You Have The Opportunity.

Painting Predicates What Man Wants To See, And What Man Ought To See, Not What He Ordinarily Sees.

We Must Not Take The Faults Of Our Youth With Us Into Old Age, For Age Brings Along Its Own Defects.

Our Passions Are True Phoenixes; As The Old Burn Out The New Straight Rise Up From The Ashes.

Enjoy When You Can, And Endure When You Must.

We Often Feel That We Lack Something, And Seem To See That Very Quality In Someone Else, Promptly Attributing All Our Own Qualities To Him Too, And A Kind Of Ideal Contentment As Well. And So The Happy Mortal Is A Model Of Complete Perfection--which We Have Ourselves Created.

First Let A Man Teach Himself, And Then He Will Be Taught By Others.

By The Artist's Seizing Any One Object From Nature, That Object No Longer Is Part Of Nature. One Can Go So Far As To Say That Theartist Creates The Object In That Very Moment By Emphasizing Its Significant, Characteristic, And Interesting Aspects Or, Rather, By Adding The Higher Values.

To Live As One Likes Is Plebian The Noble Man Aspires To Order And Law.

Rest Not. Life Is Sweeping By; Go And Dare Before You Die. Something Mighty And Sublime, Leave Behind To Conquer Time.

I Am What I Am, So Take Me As I Am!.

Take Me As I Am

Misunderstandings And Neglect Create More Confusion In This World Than Trickery And Malice. At Any Rate, The Last Two Are Certainly Much Less Frequent.

One Never Goes Further Than When They Do Not Know Where They Are Going.

Beautiful Is Greater Than Good, For It Includes The Good.

Courage And Modesty Are The Most Unequivocal Of Virtues, For They Are Of A Kind That Hypocrisy Cannot Imitate; They Too Have This Quality In Common, That They Are Expressed By The Same Color.

The Sum Which Two Married People Owe To One Another Defies Calculation. It Is An Infinite Debt, Which Can Only Be Discharged Through All Eternity.

One Mind Is Enough For A Thousand Hands.

Action Has Magic, Grace And Power In It.

As For Solitude, I Cannot Understand How Certain People Seek To Lay Claim To Intellectual Stature, Nobility Of Soul And Strength Of Character, Yet Have Not The Slightest Feeling For Seclusion; For Solitude, I Maintain, When Joined With A Quiet Contemplation Of Nature, A Serene And Conscious Faith In Creation And The Creator, And A Few Vexations From Outside Is The Only School For A Mind Of Lofty Endowment.

Hypotheses Are Lullabies For Teachers To Sing Their Students To Sleep.

You Acquire A Language Most Readily In The Country Where It Is Spoken; You Study Mineralogy Best Among Miners; And So With Everything Else.

Thinking Is Easy, Acting Is Difficult, And To Put One's Thoughts Into Action Is The Most Difficult Thing In The World.

Ill-humor Is Nothing More Than An Inward Feeling Of Our Own Want Of Merit, A Dissatisfaction With Ourselves Which Is Always United With An Envy That Foolish Vanity Excites.

Because Everyone Uses Language To Talk, Everyone Thinks He Can Talk About Language.

The Little Man Is Still A Man.

The Soul That Sees Beauty May Sometimes Walk Alone.

Superstition Is The Poetry Of Life. It Is Inherent In Man's Nature; And When We Think It Is Wholly Eradicated, It Takes Refuge In The Strangest Holes And Corners, Whence It Peeps Out All At Once, As Soon As It Can Do It With Safety.

Objects In Pictures Should So Be Arranged As By Their Very Position To Tell Their Own Story.

Only By Joy And Sorrow Does A Person Know Anything About Themselves And Their Destiny. They Learn What To Do And What To Avoid.

I Had Toward The Poetic Art A Peculiar Relation Which Was Only Practical After I Had Cherished In My Mind For A Long Time A Subject Which Possessed Me, A Model Which Inspired Me, A Predecessor Who Attracted Me, Until At Length, After I Had Molded It

A World Without Love Would Be No World.

There Is Nothing Outside Of Us That Is Not At The Same Time In Us, And As The External World Has Its Colors The Eye, Too, Has Colors.

I Never Knew A More Presumptuous Person Than Myself. The Fact That I Say That Shows That What I Say Is True.

Names Are But Noise And Smoke, Obscuring Heavenly Light.

He Who Would Reproach An Author For Obscurity Should Look Into His Own Mind To See Whether It Is Quite Clear There. In The Dusk The Plainest Writing Is Illegible.

Then To The Depths! - I Could As Well Say Height: It's All The Same.

Mathematicians Are Like Frenchmen: Whatever You Say To Them They Translate Into Their Own Language And Forthwith It Is Something Entirely Different.

He Is Happy As Well As Great Who Needs Neither To Obey Nor To Command In Order To Be Something.

What Makes People Happy Is Activity; Changing Evil Itself Into Good By Power, Working In A God Like Manner.

For Precisely When Concepts Fail One, Words Are Found At The Right Time.

What By A Straight Path Cannot Be Reached By Crooked Ways Is Never Won.

The Church Alone Beyond All Question Has For Ill-gotten Goods The Right Digestion.

A Man Sees In The World What He Carries In His Heart.

To Be Active Is The Primary Vocation Of Man.

It's True That Nothing In This World Makes Us So Necessary To Others As The Affection We Have For Them.

It Is A Mistake For A Taciturn, Serious-minded Woman To Marry A Jovial Man, But Not For A Serious-minded Man To Marry A Lighthearted Woman.

Marriage Is The Beginning And Pinnacle Of Civilization.

Art Is Long, Life Short, Judgment Difficult, Opportunity Transient. To Act Is Easy, To Think Is Hard; To Act According To Our Thought Is Troublesome. Every Beginning Is Cheerful: The Threshold Is The Place Of Expectation.

Out Of Moderation A Pure Happiness Springs.

The Rabble Also Vent Their Rage In Words. [ger., Es Macht Das Volk Sich Auch Mit Worten Lust.]

One Is Never Satisfied With A Portrait Of Persons Whom One Knows. That Is Why I Have Always Pitied Portraitists. One Demands So Seldom Of Others The Impossible, But Demands Just That Of The Portraitists.

A Joy Shared Is A Joy Doubled.

Opponents Fancy They Refute Us When They Repeat Their Own Opinion And Pay No Attention To Ours.

Hope Is The Second Soul Of The Unhappy.

Happy Is It, Indeed, For Me That My Heart Is Capable Of Feeling The Same Simple And Innocent Pleasure As The Peasant Whose Table Is Covered With Food Of His Own Rearing, And Who Not Only Enjoys His Meal, But Remembers With Delight The Happy Days And Sunny Mornings When He Planted It, The Soft Evenings When He Watered It, And The Pleasure He Experienced In Watching Its Daily Growth.

Self-knowledge Comes From Knowing Other Men.

Those Who Make Use Of Devotion As A Means And End Generally Are Hypocrites.

There Is No Patriotic Art.

I Hate All Bungling As I Do Sin, But Particularly Bungling In Politics, Which Leads To The Misery And Ruin Of Many Thousands And Millions Of People.

With Knowledge Grows Doubt.

Austere Perseverance, Hash And Continuous... Rarely Fails Of Its Purpose, For Its Silent Power Grows Irresistible Greater With Time.

We Are Never Deceived; We Deceive Ourselves.

We Blame Equally Him Who Is Too Proud To Put A Proper Value On His Own Merit And Him Who Prizes Too Highly His Spurious Worth.

To Hard Necessity Ones Will And Fancy Must Conform.

The Coward Only Threatens When He Is Safe.

Beloved Brother, Let Us Not Forget That Man Can Never Get Away From Himself. [ger., Lass Uns, Geliebter Bruder, Nicht Vergessen, Dass Von Sich Selbst Der Mensch Nicht Scheiden Kann.]

There Is No Better Deliverance From The World Than Through Art, And A Man Can Form No Surer Bond With It.

How Many Years You Have To Keep On Doing, Until You Know What To Do And How To Do!

Several Classical Sayings That One Likes To Repeat Had Quite A Different Meaning From The Ones Later Times Attributed To Them.

I Do Not Know Myself, And God Forbid That I Should.

People Will Allow Their Faults To Be Shown Them; They Will Let Themselves Be Punished For Them; They Will Patiently Endure Many Things Because Of Them; They Only Become Impatient When They Have To Lay Them Aside.

The Greatest Evil That Can Befall Man Is That He Should Come To Think Ill Of Himself.

Care Is Taken That Trees Do Not Grow Into The Sky.

To Have A Positive Religion Is Not Necessary. To Be In Harmony With Yourself And The Universe Is What Counts, And This Is Possible Without Positive And Specific Formulation In Words.

Architecture Is Frozen Music. [ger., Die Backunst Ist Eine Erstarrte Musik.]

Never By Reflection, But Only By Doing Is Self- Knowledge Possible To One.

A Wounded Heart Can With Difficulty Be Cured. [ger., Doch Ein Gekranktes Herz Erholt Sich Schwer.]

Wishes Are Premonitions Of Abilities.

People Should Talk Less And Draw More. Personally, I Would Like To Renounce Speech Altogether And, Like Organic Nature, Communicate Everything I Have To Say Visually.

Napoleon Affords Us An Example Of The Danger Of Elevating One's Self To The Absolute, And Sacrificing Everything To The Carrying Out Of An Idea.

Sacrificing Everything

Wouldst Thou Ever Roam Abroad? See, What Is Good Lies By Thy Side. Only Learn To Catch Happiness, For Happiness Is Ever By You.

Who Longs In Solitude To Live, Ah! Soon His Wish Will Gain: Men Hope And Love, Men Get And Give, And Leave Him To His Pain.

Whatever Is The Lot Of Humankind I Want To Taste Within My Deepest Self. I Want To Seize The Highest And The Lowest, To Load Its Woe And Bliss Upon My Breast, And Thus Expand My Single Self Titanically And In The End Go Down With All The Rest.

True Love Is Love That Stays Constant For Ever, Whatever It's Fortune; Whether Requited Or Scored, Filled Or Sent Empty Away.

All Rights And Laws Are Still Transmitted, Like An Eternal Sickness To The Race. [ger., Es Erben Sich Gesetz And Rechte Wie Eine Ew'ge Krankheit Fort.]

So Then The Year Is Repeating Its Old Story Again. We Are Come Once More, Thank God! To Its Most Charming Chapter. The Violets And The Mayflowers Are As Its Inscriptions Or Vignettes. It Always Makes A Pleasant Impression On Us, When We Open Again At These Pages Of The Book Of Life.

A Leaf That Is Destined To Grow Large Is Full Of Grooves And Wrinkles At The Start. Now If One Has No Patience And Wants It Smooth Offhand Like A Willow Leaf, There Is Trouble Ahead.

The World Remains Ever The Same.

There Is No Patriotic Art And No Patriotic Science.

The Sickness Of The Heart Is Most Easily Got Rid Of By Complaining And Soothing Confidence.

Whoever Gives Himself Up To Solitude, Ah! He Is Soon Alone.

If Children Grew Up According To Early Indications, We Should Have Nothing But Geniuses.

Every Person Above The Ordinary Has A Certain Mission That They Are Called To Fulfill.

The Field Of Experience Is The Whole Universe In All Directions. Theory Remains Shut Up Within The Limits Of Human Faculties.

Mannerism Is Always Longing To Have Done, And Has No True Enjoyment In Work. A Genuine, Really Great Talent, On The Other Hand, Has Its Greatest Happiness In Execution.

To The Man Of Thought Almost Nothing Is Really Ridiculous.

The Important Thing Is Not To Know More Than All Men, But To Know More At Each Moment Than Any Particular Man.

The Web Of This World Is Woven Of Necessity And Chance. Woe To Him Who Has Accustomed Himself From His Youth Up To Find Something Necessary In What Is Capricious, And Who Would Ascribe Something Like Reason To Chance And Make A Religion Of Surrendering To It.

What Do People Mean When They Talk About Unhappiness? It Is Not So Much Unhappiness As Impatience That From Time To Time Possesses Men, And Then They Choose To Call Themselves Miserable.

Certain Faults Are Necessary For The Existence Of The Individual. We Would Resent It If Old Friends Were To Get Rid Of Certain Peculiarities.

What Sort Of God Would It Be, Who Only Pushed From Without.

The Right Man Is The One Who Seizes The Moment.

Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine.

Life Is Too Short

Wer Fremde Sprachen Nicht Kennt, Weiss Nichts Von Seiner Eigenen.he Who Is Ignorant Of Foreign Languages, Knows Not His Own.

Foreign Language

We Always Hope, And In All Things It Is Better To Hope Than To Despair.

The Misfortune In The State Is, That Nobody Can Enjoy Life In Peace, But That Everybody Must Govern; And In Art, That Nobody Will Enjoy What Has Been Produced, But That Every One Wants To Reproduce On His Own Account.

People Are Always Talking About Originality, But What Do They Mean? As Soon As We Are Born, The World Begins To Work Upon Us, And This Goes On To The End.

Whatever You Can Do Or Dream, Begin It.

Should I Not Be Proud, When For Twenty Years I Have Had To Admit To Myself That The Great Newton And All The Mathematicians And Noble Calculators Along With Him Were Involved In A Decisive Error With Respect To The Doctrine Of Color, And That I Among Millions Was The Only One Who Knew What Was Right In This Great Subject Of Nature?

No One Feels Himself Easy In A Garden Which Does Not Look Like The Open Country.

Don't Feel Guilty If You Don't Immediately Love Your Stepchildren As You Do Your Own, Or As Much As You Think You Should. Everyoneneeds Time To Adjust To The New Family, Adults Included. There Is No Such Thing As An "instant Parent." Actually, No Concrete Object Lies Outside Of The Poetic Sphere As Long As The Poet Knows How To Use The Object Properly.

To Rule Is Easy, To Govern Difficult.

Mozart Is A Human Incarnation Of The Divine Force Of Creation.

Alas, That We Should Be So Unwilling To Listen To The Still And Holy Yearnings Of The Heart! A God Whispers Quite Softly In Our Breast, Softly Yet Audibly; Telling Us What We Ought To Seek And What To Shun.

My Worthy Friend, Gray Are All Theories And Green Alone Life's Golden Tree.

Only Learn To Seize Good Fortune, For Good Fortune's Always Here.

Nature! We Are Surrounded By Her And Locked In Her Clasp: Powerless To Leave Her, And Powerless To Come Closer To Her. Unasked And Unwarned She Takes Us Up Into The Whirl Of Her Dance, And Hurries On With Us Till We Are Weary And Fall From Her Arms.

Alas, I Have Studied Philosophy, The Law As Well As Medicine, And To My Sorrow, Theology; Studied Them Well With Ardent Zeal, Yet Here I Am, A Wretched Fool, No Wiser Than I Was Before.

Life Seems So Vulgar, So Easily Content With The Commonplace Things Of Every Day, And Yet It Always Nurses And Cherishes Certain Higher Claims In Secret, And Looks About For The Means Of Satisfying Them.

Try Novelties For Salesman's Bait, For Novelty Wins Everyone.

What Is Uttered From The Heart Alone, Will Win The Hearts Of Others To Your Own.

If Each One Does Their Duty As An Individual And If Each One Works In Their Own Proper Vocation, It Will Be Right With The Whole.

Begin By Instructing Yourself, Then You Will Receive Instruction From Others.

The Shudder Of Awe Is Humanity's Highest Faculty, Even Though This World Is Forever Altering Its Values.

The Mortal Race Is Far Too Weak Not To Grow Dizzy On Unwonted Brights.

Our Earthly Ball A Peopled Garden.

The Work Of Art May Have A Moral Effect, But To Demand Moral Purpose From The Artist Is To Make Him Ruin His Work.

Music Is Either Sacred Or Secular. The Sacred Agrees With Its Dignity, And Here Has Its Greatest Effect On Life, An Effect That Remains The Same Through All Ages And Epochs. Secular Music Should Be Cheerful Throughout.

The Happy Do Not Believe In Miracles.

Believe In Miracles

What Reason Would Grope For In Vain, Spontaneous Impulse Ofttimes Achieves At A Stroke, With Light And Pleasureful Guidance.

A Really Great Talent Finds Its Happiness In Execution.

Art Is Constitutive-the Artist Determines Beauty. He Does Not Take It Over.

A Vain Man Can Never Be Utterly Ruthless: He Wants To Win Applause And Therefore He Accommodates Himself To Others

I Laugh At My Heart, And Do Its Will

The Philosophers Must Station Themselves In The Middle.

The Flowers Of Life Are But Illusions. How Many Fade Away And Leave No Trace.

It Is The Strange Fate Of Man, That Even In The Greatest Of Evils The Fear Of The Worst Continues To Haunt Him.

The Suffering May Be Moral Or Physical; And In My Opinion It Is Just As Absurd To Call A Man A Coward Who Destroys Himself, As To Call A Man A Coward Who Dies Of A Malignant Fever.

One Is Never Satisfied With The Portrait Of A Person That One Knows.

An Angel! Nonsense! Everybody So Describes His Mistress; And Yet I Find It Impossible To Tell You How Perfect She Is, Or Why She Is So Perfect: Suffice It To Say She Has Captivated All My Senses.

The Experiences Show Us Just As We Are; They Make Us See Our Own Defects.

As Our Inclinations, So Our Opinions.

What Right Those Who Govern Have To Govern They Don't Question, They Just Govern. Whether The People Have A Right To Depose Them That Doesn't Concern Them. All They Are Concerned With Is That The People Will Not Be Tempted To Depose Them.

One Must Be Something, In Order To Do Something.

Love Is An Ideal Thing, Marriage A Real Thing; A Confusion Of The Real With The Ideal Never Goes Unpunished.

No One Has Ever Learned Fully To Know Themselves.

From Desire I Plunge To Its Fulfilment, Where I Long Once More For Desire.

Error Is To Truth As Sleep Is To Waking. I Have Observed That One Turns, As If Refreshed, From Error Back To Truth.

Love Of Truth Shows Itself In This, That A Man Knows How To Find And Value The Good In Everything.

Our Virtues And View Spring From One Root.

Nothing Should Be Valued Higher Than The Value Of The Day.

To Witness Two Lovers Is A Spectacle For The Gods.

Take Life Too Seriously, And What Is It Worth? If The Morning Wake Us To No New Joys, If The Evening Bring Us Not The Hope Of New Pleasure, Is It Worthwhile To Dress And Undress?

These Auspicious Aspects, Which The Astrologers Subsequently Interpreted For Me, May Have Been The Causes Of My Preservation.

The Destiny Of Any Nation At Any Given Time Depends On The Opinion Of Its Young People, Those Under Twenty-five.

This Being Busied With Thoughts Of Immortality Is For The Noble Classes And Especially For Women With Nothing To Do. A Solid Person, Though, Someone Who Already Intends To Be Something Worthy Here, And Who Therefore Has To Strive Daily, Has To Struggle And Work, Gives The World To Come A Rest.

A Man's Name Is Not Like A Mantle Which Merely Hangs About Him...but A Perfectly Fitting Garment, Which, Like The Skin, Has Grown Over Him, At Which One Cannot Rake And Scrape Without Injuring The Man Himself.

We Don't Get To Know Anything But What We Love.

Patriotism Corrupts History.

Man's Highest Merit Always Is, As Much As Possible, To Rule External Circumstances And As Little As Possible To Let Himself Be Ruled By Them.

Man's Restlessness Makes Him Strive.

Everything Factual Is, In A Sense, Theory. The Blue Of The Sky Exhibits The Basic Laws Of Chromatics. There Is No Sense In Looking For Something Behind Phenomena: They Are Theory.

We Are Our Own Aptest Deceiver.

One Needs Only To Get Old To Become Milder; I Don't See Anyone Make A Mistake I Hadn't Also Made.

How Many Years Must A Man Do Nothing, Before He Can At All Know What Is To Be Done And How To Do It!

All Theory, Dear Friend, Is Gray, But The Golden Tree Of Life Springs Ever Green.

He Who Cannot Love Must Learn To Flatter.

If A Man Or Woman Is Born Ten Years Sooner Or Later, Their Whole Aspect And Performance Shall Be Different.

No Matter What One Says, You Can Recognize Only Those Matters That Are Equal To You. Only Rulers Who Possess Extraordinary Abilities Will Recognize And Esteem Properly Extraordinary Abilities In Their Subjects And Servants.

A Man May Twist As He Pleases, And Do What He Pleases, But He Inevitably Comes Back To The Track To Which Nature Has Destined Him.

At The Moment Of Commitment The Entire Universe Conspires To Assist You.

But The Valid Issue Is The Extent To Which Man Knows How To Form And Master The Material At His Command.

Theories Are Usually The Over-hasty Efforts Of An Impatient Understanding That Would Gladly Be Rid Of Phenomena, And So Puts In Their Place Pictures, Notions, Nay, Often Mere Words.

What You Can Do, Or Think You Can, Begin It.

Decision Making

Help Me To Discover Thy Truth, O Lord, And Preserve Me From Those Who Have Already Found It

Patriotism Ruins History.

It Is A Great Pleasure To Transport One's-self Into The Spirit Of The Times; To See How A Wise Man Has Thought Before Us, And To What A Glorious Height We Have At Last Carried It.

It Is Better To Be Doing The Most Insignificant Thing Than To Reckon Even A Half-hour Insignificant.

Insignificant Things

Everything Which Is Properly Business We Must Keep Carefully Separate From Life. Business Requires Earnestness And Method; Life Must Have A Freed Handling.

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