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I Can Find No Words For What I Feel. My Consciousness Is Withdrawn Into Itself; I Hear My Heart Beating, And My Life Passing. It Seems To Me That I Have Become A Statue On The Banks Of The River Of Time, That I Am The Spectator Of Some Mystery, And Shall Issue From It Old, Or No Longer Capable Of Age.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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I Can Find No

Henri Frederic Amiel

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I Can Find No Words For What I Feel. My Consciousness Is Withdrawn Into Itself; I Hear My Heart Beating, And My Life Passing. It Seems To Me That I Have Become A Statue On The Banks Of The River Of Time, That I Am The Spectator Of Some Mystery, And Shall Issue From It Old, Or No Longer Capable Of Age.

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If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

Our Greatest Illusion Is To Believe That We Are What We Think Ourselves To Be.

Time Is The Supreme Illusion. It Is But The Inner Prism By Which We Decompose Being And Life, The Mode Under Which We Perceive Successively What Is Simultaneous In Idea.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith, And Exercises An Inevitable And Silent Influence.

Pure Truth Cannot Be Assimilated By The Crowd; It Must Be Communicated By Contagion.

The More A Man Loves, The More He Suffers. The Sum Of Possible Grief For Each Soul Is In Proportion To Its Degree Of Perfection.

Philosophy Means The Complete Liberty Of The Mind, And Therefore Independence Of All Social, Political Or Religious Prejudice... It Loves One Thing Only... Truth.

It Would Have Been A Joy To Me To Be Smiled Upon, Loved, Encouraged, Welcomed, And To Obtain What I Was So Ready To Give, Kindness And Goodwill. But To Hunt Down Consideration And Reputation - To Force The Esteem Of Others - Seemed To Me An Effort Unworthy Of Myself, Almost A Degradation.

Destiny Has Two Ways Of Crushing Us - By Refusing Our Wishes And By Fulfilling Them.

We Only Understand That Which Already Is Within Us.

Our Dependence Outweighs Our Independence, For We Are Independent Only In Our Desire, While We Are Dependent On Our Health, On Nature, On Society, On Everything In Us And Outside Us.

Materialism Coarsens And Petrifies Everything, Making Everything Vulgar, And Every Truth False.

Every Landscape Is, As It Were, A State Of The Soul, And Whoever Penetrates Into Both Is Astonished To Find How Much Likeness There Is In Each Detail.

I Do Not Deny The Rights Of Democracy, But I Have No Illusions As To The Uses That Will Be Made Of Those Rights So Long As Wisdom Is Rare And Pride Abundant

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism; Reason And Justice Presuppose, At Their Origin, Emotion.

Men Prefer The False Due To Habit, Passion, Will. Preference For Truth Is Rare. Men Are Ruled By Their Fear Of Truth.

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The Immense Majority Of Our Species Are Candidates For Humanity, And Nothing More.

Learn To... Be What You Are, And Learn To Resign With A Good Grace All That You Are Not.

In Health There Is Freedom. Health Is The First Of All Liberties.

I Am A Spectator, So To Speak, Of The Molecular Whirlwind Which Men Call Individual Life; I Am Conscious Of An Incessant Metamorphosis, An Irresistible Movement Of Existence, Which Is Going On Within Me - And This Phenomenology Of Myself Serves As A Window Opened Upon The Mystery Of The World.

Joy Is The Vital Air Of The Soul.

Will Localizes Us, Thought Universalizes Us.

What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things; They Are The Beginning, The Embryo, And It Is The Point Of Departure Which, Generally Speaking, Decides The Whole Future Of An Existence. One Single Black Speck May Be The Beginning Of Gangrene, Of A Storm, Of A Revolution.

We Are Always Making God Our Accomplice So That We May Legalize Our Own Inequities.

Great Men Are The Real Men, In Them Nature Has Succeeded.

The Art Which Is Grand And Yet Simple Is That Which Presupposes The Greatest Elevation Both In Artist And In Public.

Time Is But The Space Between Our Memories; As Soon As We Cease To Perceive This Space, Time Has Disappeared.

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Blessed Be Childhood, Which Brings Down Something Of Heaven Into The Midst Of Our Rough Earthliness.

Self-interest Is An Inexhaustible Source Of Convenient Illusions. The Number Of Beings Who Wish To See Truly Is Extraordinarily Small.

Life Alone Can Rekindle Life.

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

The Tragic Solemnity Of Existence Strikes Us With Terrible Force On That Morning When We Wake To Find The Mournful Words "too Late" Ringing In Our Ears.

Mutual Respect Implies Discretion And Reserve Even In Love Itself; It Means Preserving As Much Liberty As Possible To Those Whose Life We Share. We Must Distrust Our Instinct Of Intervention, For The Desire To Make One's Own Will Prevail Is Often Disguised Under The Mask Of Solicitude.

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

Composition Is A Process Of Combination, In Which Thought Puts Together Complementary Truths, And Talent Fuses Into Harmony The Most Contrary Qualities Of Style. So That There Is No Composition Without Effort, Without Pain Even, As In All Bringing Forth. The Reward Is The Giving Birth To Something Living--something, That Is To Say, Which, By A Kind Of Magic, Makes A Living Unity Out Of Such Opposed Attributes As Orderliness And Spontaneity, Thought And Imagination, Solidity And Charm.

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The Masses Are The Material Of Democracy, But Its Form-that Is To Say, The Laws Which Express The General Reason, Justice, And Utility-can Only Be Rightly Shaped By Wisdom, Which Is By No Means A Universal Property.

We Become Actors Without Realizing It, And Actors Without Wanting To.

Great Men Are True Men, The Men In Whom Nature Has Succeeded. They Are Not Extraordinary - They Are In The True Order. It Is The Other Species Of Men Who Are Not What They Ought To Be.

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

Men Of Genius Supply The Substance Of History, While The Mass Of Men Are But The Critical Filter, The Limiting, Slackening, Passive Force Needed For The Modification Of Ideas Supplied By Genius.

Blessed Be Childhood, Which Brings Down Something Of Heaven Into The Midst Of Our Rough Earthliness.

Time And Space Are Fragments Of The Infinite For The Use Of Finite Creatures.

Religion Is Not A Method, It Is A Life, A Higher And Supernatural Life, Mystical In Its Root And Practical In Its Fruits; A Communion With God, A Calm And Deep Enthusiasm, A Love Which Radiates, A Force Which Acts, A Happiness Which Overflows.

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The Ideal, After All, Is True Than The Real: For The Ideal Is The Eternal Element In Perishable Things.

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Faith Is Certitude Without Proofs ... Faith Is A Sentiment, For It Is A Hope; It Is An Instinct, For It Precedes All Outward Instruction.

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Truth Above All, Even When It Upsets Us And Overwhelms Us.

Order Is A Great Person's Need And Their True Well Being.

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Common Sense Is The Measure Of The Possible.

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True Love Is That Which Ennobles The Personality, Fortifies The Heart, And Sanctifies The Existence.

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Order Is Man's Greatest Need, And His True Well-being.

It Is Work Which Gives Flavor To Life.

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Self Improvement

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Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

Nothing Finite Is True, Is Interesting, Is Worthy To Fix My Attention. All That Is Particular Is Exclusive, And All That Is Exclusive Repels Me.

It Is Not What He Had, Or Even What He Does Which Expresses The Worth Of A Man, But What He Is.

A Musical Theme Once Exhausted, Finds Its Due Refuge And Repose In Silence.

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

The Unfinished Is Nothing.

Happiness Does Away With Ugliness, And Even Makes The Beauty Of Beauty.

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

He Who Is Too Much Afraid Of Being Duped Has Lost The Power Of Being Magnanimous.

Mother Of Marvels, Mysterious And Tender Nature, Why Do We Not Live More In Thee.

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

Our Systems, Perhaps, Are Nothing More Than An Unconscious Apology For Our Faults, A Gigantic Scaffolding Whose Object Is To Hide From Us Our Favorite Sin.

The Spirit Of Sarcasm Lives And Thrives In The Midst Of Universal Wreck; Its Balls Are Enchanted And Itself Invulnerable, And It Braves Retaliations And Reprisals Because Itself Is A Mere Flash, A Bodiless And Magical Nothing.

Uncertainty Is The Refuge Of Hope.

Time And Space Are Fragments Of The Infinite For The Use Of Finite Creatures.

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What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things.

To Know How To Suggest Is The Art Of Teaching.

Without Passion Man Is A Mere Latent Force And Possibility, Like The Flint Which Awaits The Shock Of The Iron Before It Can Give Forth Its Spark.

Civilization Is First Of All A Moral Thing. Without Truth, Respect For Duty, Love Of Neighbor, And Virtue, Everything Is Destroyed. The Morality Of A Society Is Alone The Basis Of Civilization.

To Know How To Suggest Is The Great Art Of Teaching. To Attain It We Must Be Able To Guess What Will Interest; We Must Learn To Read The Childish Soul As We Might A Piece Of Music. Then, By Simply Changing The Key, We Keep Up The Attraction And Vary The Song.

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By Science.

Action Is Coarsened Thought; Thought Becomes Concrete, Obscure, And Unconscious.

Action Is Coarsened Thought; Thought Becomes Concrete, Obscure, And Unconscious.

We Are Always Making God Our Accomplice So That We May Legalize Our Own Inequities.

Doing Easily What Others Find Difficult Is Talent; Doing What Is Impossible For Talent Is Genius.

I'm Not Interested In Age. People Who Tell Me Their Age Are Silly. You're As Old As You Feel.

Dreams Are Excursions Into The Limbo Of Things, A Semi-deliverance From The Human Prison.

Order Means Light And Peace, Inward Liberty And Free Command Over One's Self; Order Is Power.

I Have Never Felt Any Inward Assurance Of Genius, Or Any Presentiment Of Glory Or Of Happiness. I Have Never Seen Myself In Imagination Great Or Famous, Or Even A Husband, A Father, An Influential Citizen. This Indifference To The Future, This Absolute Self-distrust, Are, No Doubt, To Be Taken As Signs. What Dreams I Have Are All Vague And Indefinite; I Ought Not To Live, For I Am Now Scarcely Capable Of Living.

To Win True Peace, A Man Needs To Feel Himself Directed, Pardoned, And Sustained By A Supreme Power, To Feel Himself In The Right Road, At The Point Where God Would Have Him Be - In Order With God And The Universe. This Faith Gives Strength And Calm.

Latent Genius Is But A Presumption. Everything That Can Be, Is Bound To Come Into Being, And What Never Comes Into Being Is Nothing.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

One May Guess The Why And Wherefore Of A Tear And Yet Find It Too Subtle To Give Any Account Of. A Tear May Be The Poetical Resume Of So Many Simultaneous Impressions, The Quintessence Of So Many Opposing Thoughts! It Is Like A Drop Of One Of Those Precious Elixirs Of The East Which Contain The Life Of Twenty Plants Fused Into A Single Aroma.

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About Jesus We Must Believe No One But Himself.

We Only Understand That Which Already Is Within Us.

Mutual Respect Implies Discretion And Reserve Even In Love Itself; It Means Preserving As Much Liberty As Possible To Those Whose Life We Share. We Must Distrust Our Instinct Of Intervention, For The Desire To Make One's Own Will Prevail Is Often Disguised Under The Mask Of Solicitude.

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

Whatever Impatience We May Feel Towards Our Neighbor, And Whatever Indignation Our Race May Rouse In Us, We Are Chained One To Another, And, Companions In Labour And Misfortune, Have Everything To Lose By Mutual Recrimination And Reproach. Let Us Be Silent As To Each Other's Weakness, Helpful, Tolerant, Many, Tender Towards Each Other! Or, If We Cannot Feel Tenderness, May We At Least Feel Pity!

Time Wasted Is A Theft From God.

Thankfulness Is The Beginning Of Gratitude. Gratitude Is The Completion Of Thankfulness. Thankfulness May Consist Merely Of Words. Gratitude Is Shown In Acts.

Life Is Short And We Have Never Too Much Time For Gladdening The Hearts Of Those Who Are Travelling The Dark Journey With Us. Oh Be Swift To Love, Make Haste To Be Kind.

Dreams Are Excursions Into The Limbo Of Things, A Semi-deliverance From The Human Prison.

The Philosopher Aspires To Explain Away All Mysteries, To Dissolve Them Into Light. Mystery On The Other Hand Is Demanded And Pursued By The Religious Instinct; Mystery Constitutes The Essence Of Worship, The Power Of Proselytism.

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

Nothing Is More Characteristic Of A Man Than The Manner In Which He Behaves Toward Fools.

The Musician Of The Present Day, Not Being Able To Give Us What Is Beautiful, Torments Himself To Give Us What Is New.

The Test Of Every Religious, Political, Or Educational System, Is The Man Which It Forms. If A System Injures The Intelligence It Is Bad. If It Injures The Character It Is Vicious. If It Injures The Conscience It Is Criminal.

Doubt Is The Accomplice Of Tyranny.

He Who Is Silent Is Forgotten; He Who Does Not Advance Falls Back; He Who Stops Is Overwhelmed; Out Distanced, Crushed; He Who Ceases T Grow Becomes Smaller; He Who Leaves Off, Gives Up; The Condition Of Standing Still Is The Beginning Of The End.

Love Is Like Swallowing Hot Chocolate Before It Has Cooled Off. It Takes You By Surprise At First, But Keeps You Warm For A Long Time.

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By Science.

True Humility Is Contentment.

A Man Must Be Able To Cut A Knot, For Everything Cannot Be Untied; He Must Know How To Disengage What Is Essential From The Detail In Which It Is Enwrapped, For Everything Cannot Be Equally Considered; In A Word, He Must Be Able To Simplify His Duties, His Business And His Life.

The Germs Of All Things Are In Every Heart, And The Greatest Criminals As Well As The Greatest Heroes Are But Different Modes Of Ourselves.

The Unfinished Is Nothing.

Do Not Despise Your Situation; In It You Must Act, Suffer, And Conquer. From Every Point On Earth We Are Equally Near To Heaven And To The Infinite.

Man Is A Willful And Covetous Animal, Who Makes Use Of His Intellect To Satisfy His Inclinations, But Who Cares Nothing For Truth, Who Rebels Against Personal Discipline, Who Hates Disinterested Thought And The Idea Of Self-education. Wisdom Offends Him, Because It Rouses In Him Disturbance And Confusion, And Because He Will Not See Himself As He Is.

Great Men Are True Men, The Men In Whom Nature Has Succeeded. They Are Not Extraordinary - They Are In The True Order. It Is The Other Species Of Men Who Are Not What They Ought To Be.

A Man Only Understands What Is Akin To Something Already Existing In Himself.

If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

Philosophy Starts With Doubt And Loves Only Truth.

Let Us Be True: This Is The Highest Maxim Of Art And Of Life, The Secret Of Eloquence And Of Virtue, And Of All Moral Authority.

The Stationary Condition Is The Beginning Of The End

There Is No Repose For The Mind Except In The Absolute; For Feeling, Except In The Infinite; For The Soul, Except In The Divine.

How True It Is That Our Destinies Are Decided By Nothings And That A Small Imprudence Helped By Some Insignificant Accident, As An Acorn Is Fertilized By A Drop Of Rain, May Raise The Trees On Which Perhaps We And Others Shall Be Crucified.

Let Mystery Have Its Place In You ; Do Not Be Always Turning Up Your Whole Soil With The Ploughshare Of Self-examination, But Leave A Little Fallow Corner In Your Heart Ready For Any Seed The Winds May Bring.

It Is By Teaching That We Teach Ourselves, By Relating That We Observe, By Affirming That We Examine, By Showing That We Look, By Writing That We Think, By Pumping That We Draw Water Into The Well.

Sacrifice Still Exists Everywhere, And Everywhere The Elect Of Each Generation Suffers For The Salvation Of The Rest.

Before Crime Is Committed Conscience Must Be Corrupted, And Every Bad Man Who Succeeds In Reaching A High Point Of Wickedness Begins With This.

A Man Without Passion Is Only A Latent Force, Only A Possibility, Like A Stone Waiting For The Blow From The Iron To Give Forth Sparks.

Peace Is Not In Itself A Dream, But We Know It Only As The Result Of A Momentary Equilibrium--an Accident.

Our Life Is Nothing, It Is True, But Our Life Is Divine. A Breath Of Nature Annihilates Us, But We Surpass Nature In Penetrating Far Beyond Her Vast Phantasmagoria To The Changeless And The Eternal.

To Repel One's Cross Is To Make It Heavier.

Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Constant Renunciations, To The Steady Failure Of Our Claims, Our Hopes, Our Powers, Our Liberty.

The Mind Must Have For Ballast The Clear Conception Of Duty, If It Is Not To Fluctuate Between Levity And Despair.

To Understand Is To Possess The Thing Understood, First By Sympathy And Then By Intelligence.

Pure Truth Cannot Be Assimilated By The Crowd; It Must Be Communicated By Contagion.

A Microscopic Phantom Of The Universe; This Is All That We Are Able To Be.

Destiny Has Two Ways Of Crushing Us - By Refusing Our Wishes And By Fulfilling Them.

[i]t Is Truth Alone-scientific, Established, Proved, And Rational Truth-which Is Capable Of Satisfying Nowadays The Awakened Minds Of All Classes. We May Still Say Perhaps, 'faith Governs The World,'-but The Faith Of The Present Is No Longer In Revelation Or In The Priest-it Is In Reason And In Science.

To Learn New Habits Is Everything, For It Is To Reach The Substance Of Life. Life Is But A Tissue Of Habits.

Happiness Gives Us The Energy Which Is The Basis Of Health.

Life Is But A Daily Oscillation Between Revolt And Submission.

Every Situation Is An Equilibrium Of Forces; Every Life Is A Struggle Between Opposing Forces Working Within The Limits Of A Certain Equilibrium

Each Man Enters Into God So Much As God Enters Into Him.

There Are 2 Sorts Of Pride: One In Which We Approve Others, The Other In Which We Cannot Accept Ourselves.

Our True History Is Scarcely Ever Deciphered By Others. The Chief Part Of The Drama Is A Monologue, Or Rather An Intimate Debate Between God, Our Conscience, And Ourselves. Tears, Grieves, Depressions, Disappointments, Irritations, Good And Evil Thoughts, Decisions, Uncertainties, Deliberations --all These Belong To Our Secret, And Are Almost All Incommunicable And Intransmissible, Even When We Try To Speak Of Them, And Even When We Write Them Down.

The Philosopher Is Like A Man Fasting In The Midst Of Universal Intoxication. He Alone Perceives The Illusion Of Which All Creatures Are The Willing Playthings; He Is Less Duped Than His Neighbor By His Own Nature. He Judges More Sanely, He Sees Things As They Are. It Is In This That His Liberty Consists - In The Ability To See Clearly And Soberly, In The Power Of Mental Record.

There Is Only One Way Of Not Hating Those Who Do Us Wrong, And That Is By Doing Them Good.

If Man Was What He Ought To Be, He Would Be Adored By The Animals.

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Whenever Conscience Speaks With A Divided, Uncertain, And Disputed Voice, It Is Not The Voice Of God. Descend Still Deeper Into Yourself, Until You Hear Nothing But A Clear, Undivided Voice, A Voice Which Does Away With Doubt And Brings With It Persuasion, Light, And Serenity.

Man Never Knows What He Wants; He Aspires To Penetrate Mysteries And As Soon As He Has, Wants To Re-establish Them. Ignorance Irritates Him And Knowledge Cloys.

I Find Myself Regarding Existence As Though From Beyond The Tomb, From Another World; All Is Strange To Me; I Am, As It Were, Outside My Own Body And Individuality; I Am Depersonalized, Detached, Cut Adrift. Is This Madness?

Sacrifice Still Exists Everywhere, And Everywhere The Elect Of Each Generation Suffers For The Salvation Of The Rest.

Righteous Ends, Thus Approved, Absolve Of Guilt The Most Violent Means.

Mozart Has The Classic Purity Of Light And The Blue Ocean; Beethoven The Romantic Grandeur Which Belongs To The Storms Of Air And Sea, And While The Soul Of Mozart Seems To Dwell On The Ethereal Peaks Of Olympus, That Of Beethoven Climbs Shuddering The Storm-beaten Sides Of A Sinai. Blessed Be They Both! Each Represents A Moment Of The Ideal Life, Each Does Us Good. Our Love Is Due To Both.

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Music Is Harmony, Harmony Is Perfection, Perfection Is Our Dream, And Our Dream Is Heaven.

[t]he Habit Of Scientific Analysis ... Exhausts The Material Offered To It.

Scientific Method

Happiness Has No Limits, Because God Has Neither Bottom Nor Bounds, And Because Happiness Is Nothing But The Conquest Of God Through Love.

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

A Thousand Things Advance; Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine Retreat; That Is Progress.

One May Guess The Why And Wherefore Of A Tear And Yet Find It Too Subtle To Give Any Account Of. A Tear May Be The Poetical Resume Of So Many Simultaneous Impressions, The Quintessence Of So Many Opposing Thoughts! It Is Like A Drop Of One Of Those Precious Elixirs Of The East Which Contain The Life Of Twenty Plants Fused Into A Single Aroma.

Men Don't Achieve Truth Because They Lack Humility And Love Of Truth. They Won't Criticize Their Own Beliefs. Truth Would Overwhelm Them.

To Live We Must Conquer Incessantly, We Must Have The Courage To Be Happy.

Pay Bad People With Your Goodness; Fight Their Hatred With Your Kindness. Even If You Do Not Achieve A Victory Over Other People, You Will Conquer Yourself.

Melancholy Is At The Bottom Of Everything, Just As At The End Of All Rivers Is The Sea. Can It Be Otherwise In A World Where Nothing Lasts, Where All That We Have Loved Or Shall Love Must Die? Is Death, Then, The Secret Of Life? The Gloom Of An Eternal Mourning Enwraps, More Or Less Closely, Every Serious And Thoughtful Soul, As Night Enwraps The Universe.

If Man Was What He Ought To Be, He Would Be Adored By The Animals.

Righteous Ends, Thus Approved, Absolve Of Guilt The Most Violent Means.

Man Is A Passion Which Brings A Will Into Play, Which Works An Intelligence.

Pay Bad People With Your Goodness; Fight Their Hatred With Your Kindness. Even If You Do Not Achieve A Victory Over Other People, You Will Conquer Yourself.

The Immense Majority Of Our Species Are Candidates For Humanity, And Nothing More.

Common Sense Is The Measure Of The Possible.

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