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Laws And Rules Of Conduct Are For The State Of Childhood; Education Is An Emancipation.

-Andre Gide

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Laws And Rules Of

Andre Gide

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Laws And Rules Of Conduct Are For The State Of Childhood; Education Is An Emancipation.

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The Important Thing Is Being Capable Of Emotions, But To Experience Only One's Own Would Be A Sorry Limitation.

Obtain From Yourself All That Makes Complaining Useless. No Longer Implore From Others What You Yourself Can Obtain.

I Wished For Nothing Beyond Her Smile, And To Walk With Her Thus, Hand In Hand, Along A Sun Warmed, Flower Bordered Path.

Though A Revolution May Call Itself "national," It Always Marks The Victory Of A Single Party.

I Would Like The Events Never To Be Told Directly By The Author, But Rather To Be Introduced (and Several Times, From Various Angles) By Those Among The Characters On Whom They Will Have Had Any Effect. I Would Like Those Events, In The Account They Will Make Of Them, To Appear Slightly Distorted; A Kind Of Interest Stems, For The Reader, From The Simple Fact That He Should Need To Restore. The Story Requires His Collaboration In Order To Properly Take Shape.

Do Not Scorn Little Victories.

We No Longer Admit Any Other Truth Than That Which Is Expedient; For There Is No Worse Error Than The Truth That May Weaken The Arm That Is Fighting.

Everything Has Been Said Before, But Since Nobody Listens We Have To Keep Going Back And Beginning All Over Again.

When You Have Nothing To Say, Or To Hide, There Is No Need To Be Prudent.

There Are Admirable Potentialities In Every Human Being.

Great Minds Tend Toward Banality. It Is The Noblest Effort Of Individualism. But It Implies A Sort Of Modesty, Which Is So Rare That It Is Scarcely Found Except In The Greatest, Or In Beggars.

Profound Optimism Is Always On The Side Of The Tortured.

What I Dislike Least In My Former Self Are The Moments Of Prayer.

I Do Not Love Men: I Love What Devours Them.

Most Quarrels Amplify A Misunderstanding.

The Most Important Things To Say Are Those Which Often I Did Not Think Necessary For Me To Say - Because They Were Too Obvious.

It Is With Noble Sentiments That Bad Literature Gets Written.

It Is Only In Adventure That Some People Succeed In Knowing Themselves - In Finding Themselves.

The Truth Is, I Hoped The Cure Would Dislike Me. I Tried To Think Of Disagreeable Things To Say To Him -- I Could Hit On Nothing That Wasn't Charming. It's Wonderful How Hard I Find It Not To Be Fascinating.

I Believe That In Every Circumstance I Have Been Able To See Rather Clearly The Most Advantageous Course I Could Follow, Which Is Very Rarely The One I Did Follow.

No Encounter Occured That Day, And I Was Glad Of It; I Took Out Of My Pocket A Little Homer I Had Not Opened Since Leaving Marseilles, Reread Three Lines Of The Odyssey, Learned Them By Heart; Then, Finding Sufficient Sustenance In Their Rhythm And Reveling In Them At Leisure, I Closed The Book And Remained, Trembling, More Alive Than I Had Thought Possible, My Mind Numb With Happiness.

If Life Were Organized, There Would Be No Need For Art.

The Most Decisive Actions Of Life Are Most Often Unconsidered Actions.

Our Deeds Attach Themselves To Us Like The Flame To Phosphorus. They Constitute Our Brilliance, To Be Sure, But Only In So Far As They Consume Us.

The Work Of Art Is The Exaggeration Of An Idea.

Never Have I Been Able To Settle In Life. Always Seated Askew, As If On The Arm Of A Chair; Ready To Get Up, To Leave.

Each Of Us Really Understands In Others Only Those Feelings He Is Capable Of Producing Himself.

One Is Always Wrong To Open A Conversation With The Devil, For, However He Goes About It, He Always Insists Upon Having The Last Word.

The Very Act Of Sacrifice Magnifies The One Who Sacrifices Himself To The Point Where His Sacrifice Is Much More Costly To Humanity Than Would Have Been The Loss Of Those For Whom He Is Sacrificing Himself. But In His Abnegation Lies The Secret Of His Grandeur.

Without Mysticism Man Can Achieve Nothing Great.

There Are Very Few Monsters Who Warrant The Fear We Have Of Them.

Great Authors Are Admirable In This Respect: In Every Generation They Make For Disagreement. Through Them We Become Aware Of Our Differences.

Our Judgements About Things Vary According To The Time Left Us To Live -that We Think Is Left Us To Live.

Humanity Cherishes Its Swaddling Clothes; But It Shall Not Grow Up Unless It Can Free Itself From Them. Turning Down His Mother's Breast Does Not Make The Weaned Child Ungrateful. ... Rise Up Naked, Valiant; Make The Sheaths Crack; Push Aside The Stakes; To Grow Straight You Need No More Than The Thrust Of Your Sap And The Call Of The Sun.

What Seems Different In Yourself; That's The Rare Thing You Possess. The One Thing That Gives Each Of Us His Worth, And That's Just What We Try To Suppress. And We Claim To Love Life.

The Only Really Christian Art Is That Which, Like St. Francis, Does Not Fear Being Wedded To Poverty. This Rises Far Above Art-as-ornament.

Mozart's Joy Is Made Of Serenity, And A Phrase Of His Music Is Like A Calm Thought; His Simplicity Is Merely Purity. It Is A Crystalline Thing In Which All The Emotions Play A Role, But As If Already Celestially Transposed. Moderation Consists In Feeling Emotions As The Angels Do.

A Work Of Art Is An Exaggeration.

Then You Think That One Can Keep A Hopeless Love In One's Heart For So Long As That?...and That Life Can Breathe Upon It Every Day, Without Extinguishing It?

"let The Dead Bury The Dead." There Is Not A Single Word Of Christ To Which The Christian Religion Has Paid Less Attention.

It Is Unthinkable For A Frenchman To Arrive At Middle Age Without Having Syphilis And The Cross Of The Legion Of Honor.

One Completely Overcomes Only What One Assimilates.

One Doesn't Discover New Lands Without Consenting To Lose Sight, For A Very Long Time, Of The Shore.

The Miser Puts His Gold Pieces Into A Coffer; But As Soon As The Coffer Is Closed, It Is As If It Were Empty.

Other People's Appetites Easily Appear Excessive When One Doesn't Share Them.

The Anxiety We Have For The Figure We Cut, For Our Personage, Is Constantly Cropping Out. We Are Showing Off And Are Often More Concerned With Making A Display Than With Living. Whoever Feels Observed Observes Himself.

The Most Subtle Art, The Strongest And Deepest Art - Supreme Art - Is The One That Does Not At First Allow Itself To Be Recognized.

The Scholar Seeks Truth, The Artist Finds.

If Only We Could Lean Over The Soul We Love And See As In A Mirror The Image We Cast!

Too Chaste A Youth Leads To A Dissolute Old Age.

The Bad Novelist Constructs His Characters; He Directs Them And Makes Them Speak. The True Novelist Listens To Them And Watches Them Act; He Hears Their Voices Even Before He Knows Them.

It Is With Fine Sentiments That Bad Literature Is Made. Descend To The Bottom Of The Well If You Wish To See The Stars.

Faith Can Move Mountains; True: Mountains Of Stupidity.

Through Fear Of Resembling One Another, Through Horror Of Having To Submit, Through Uncertainty As Well, Through Skepticism And Complexity, There Is A Multitude Of Individual Little Beliefs For The Triumph Of Strange Little Individuals.

God Depends On Us. It Is Through Us That God Is Achieved.

If A Young Writer Can Refrain From Writing, He Shouldn’t Hesitate To Do So.

There Is No Feeling So Simple That It Is Not Immediately Complicated And Distorted By Introspection.

Man Is More Interesting Than Men. God Made Him And Not Them In His Image. Each One Is More Precious Than All.

Do Not Do What Someone Else Could Do As Well As You. Do Not Say, Do Not Write What Someone Else Could Say, Could Write As Well As You. Care For Nothing In Yourself But What You Feel Exists Nowhere Else. And, Out Of Yourself Create, Impatiently Or Patiently, The Most Irreplaceable Of Beings.

So Long As We Live Among Men, Let Us Cherish Humanity.

When I Cease To Be Indignant I Will Have Begun My Old Age.

Art That Submits To Orthodoxy, To Even The Soundest Doctrines, But Lacks Imagination And Deep Self-expression Is Lost Leaving Only The Craftsmanship.

There Is No Work Of Art That Is Without Short Cuts.

Most Often It Happens That One Attributes To Others Only The Feelings Of Which One Is Capable Oneself.

The Color Of Truth Is Gray.

To Understand Is Nothing, But To Be Understood-that Is The Problem And The Source Of Anguish. The Soul Throbs And Would Have The Other Know-but Can Not And Feels Isolated. Then Come Gestures, Words, Awkward Explanations And Material Symbols For Imponderable Outbursts Of Feeling-and The Soul Despairs.

The Artist Who Is After Success Lets Himself Be Influenced By The Public. Generally Such An Artist Contributes Nothing New, For The Public Acclaims Only What It Already Knows, What It Recognizes.

Complete Possession Is Proved Only By Giving. All You Are Unable To Give Possesses You.

Man Is Extraordinarily Clever In Preventing Himself From Being Happy; It Would Seem That The Less Able He Is To Endure Misfortune The More Apt He Is To Attach Himself To It.

When Intelligent People Pride Themselves On Not Understanding, It Is Quite Natural They Should Succeed Better Than Fools.

The Individual Man Tries To Escape The Race. And As Soon As He Ceases To Represent The Race, He Represents Man.

Understand That The Only Possession Of Any Value Is Life.

A Straight Path Never Leads Anywhere Except To The Objective.

One Should Want Only One Thing And Want It Constantly. Then One Is Sure Of Getting It. But I Desire Everything, And Consequently Get Nothing.

Pay Attention Only To The Form; Emotion Will Come Spontaneously To Inhabit It. A Perfect Dwelling Always Finds An Inhabitant. The Artist's Business Is To Build The Dwelling; As For The Inhabitant, It Is Up To The Reader To Provide Him.

I Find Just As Much Profit In Cultivating My Hates As My Loves.

Sadness Is Almost Never Anything But A Form Of Fatigue.

Throw Away My Book: You Must Understand That It Represents Only One Of A Thousand Attitudes. You Must Find Your Own. If Someone Else Could Have Done Something As Well As You, Don’t Do It. If Someone Else Could Have Said Something As Well As You, Don’t Say It—or Written Something As Well As You, Don’t Write It. Grow Fond Only Of That Which You Can Find Nowhere But In Yourself, And Create Out Of Yourself, Impatiently Or Patiently, Ah! That Most Irreplaceable Of Beings.

It Is Now, And In This World, That We Must Live.

There Is No Prejudice That The Work Of Art Does Not Finally Overcome.

Life Never Presents Us With Anything Which May Not Be Looked Upon As A Fresh Starting Point, No Less Than As A Termination.

Work And Struggle And Never Accept An Evil That You Can Change.

It Is Essential To Persuade The Soldier That Those He Is Being Urged To Massacre Are Bandits Who Do Not Deserve To Live; Before Killing Other Good, Decent Fellows Like Himself, His Gun Would Fall From His Hands.

To What A Degree The Same Past Can Leave Different Marks - And Especially Admit Of Different Interpretations.

The Belief That Becomes Truth For Me... Is That Which Allows Me The Best Use Of My Strength, The Best Means Of Putting My Virtues Into Action.

There Are Many Things That Seem Impossible Only So Long As One Does Not Attempt Them.

With Each Book You Write You Should Lose The Admirers You Gained With The Previous One.

The Less Intelligent The White Man Is, The More Stupid He Thinks The Black.

In Other People's Company I Felt I Was Dull, Gloomy, Unwelcome, At Once Bored And Boring.

The Novelist Does Not Long To See The Lion Eat Grass. He Realizes That One And The Same God Created The Wolf And The Lamb, Then Smiled, “seeing That His Work Was Good.”

The Pettiness Of A Mind Can Be Measured By The Pettiness Of Its Adoration Or Its Blasphemy.

We Prefer To Go Deformed And Distorted All Our Lives Rather Than Not Resemble The Portrait Of Ourselves Which We Ourselves Have First Drawn. It’s Absurd. We Run The Risk Of Warping What’s Best In Us

At Times Is It Seems That I Am Living My Life Backward, And That At The Approach Of Old Age My Real Youth Will Begin. My Soul Was Born Covered With Wrinkles. Wrinkles My Ancestors And Parents Most Assiduously Put There And That I Had The Greatest Trouble Removing.

Welcome Anything That Comes To You, But Do Not Long For Anything Else.

One Does Not Discover New Lands Without Consenting To Lose Sight Of The Shore For A Very Long Time.

No Theory Is Good Unless It Permits, Not Rest, But The Greatest Work. No Theory Is Good Except On Condition That One Use It To Go On Beyond.

The Want Of Logic Annoys. Too Much Logic Bores. Life Eludes Logic, And Everything That Logic Alone Constructs Remains Artificial And Forced.

I Can't Expect Others To Share My Virtues. It's Good Enough For Me If They Share My Vices.

Fear Of Ridicule Begets The Worst Cowardice.

He Who Wants A Rose Must Respect Her Thorn.

How Do You Know That The Fruit Is Ripe? Simply Because It Leaves The Branch.

Don't Think That Your Truth Could Be Found By Someone Else.

They Establish Distinctions And Reserves Which I Cannot Apply To Myself, For I Exist Only As A Whole; My Only Claim Is To Be Natural, And The Pleasure I Feel In An Action, I Take As A Sign That I Ought To Do It.

Atheism. There Is Not A Single Exalting And Emancipating Influence That Does Not In Turn Become Inhibitory.

Nothing Prevents Happiness Like The Memory Of Happiness.

Long Only For What You Have.

What Would There Be In A Story Of Happiness? Only What Prepares It, Only What Destroys It Can Be Told.

Be Faithful To That Which Exists Nowhere But In Yourself- And Thus Make Yourself Indispensable.

Christianity, Above All, Consoles; But There Are Naturally Happy Souls Who Do Not Need Consolation. Consequently Christianity Begins By Making Such Souls Unhappy, For Otherwise It Would Have No Power Over Them.

To Be Sure, Theory Is Useful. But Without Warmth Of Heart And Without Love It Bruises The Very Ones It Claims To Save.

True Eloquence Forgoes Eloquence.

Drunkenness Is Never Anything But A Substitute For Happiness.

If One Could Recover The Uncompromising Spirit Of One's Youth, One's Greatest Indignation Would Be For What One Has Become.

Whoever Starts Out Toward The Unknown Must Consent To Venture Alone.

Those Who Have Never Been Ill Are Incapable Of Real Sympathy For A Great Many Misfortunes

Every Perfect Action Is Accompanied By Pleasure. By That You Can Tell What You Ought To Do.

Prejudices Are The Props Of Civilization.

It Is Easier To Lead Men To Combat, Stirring Up Their Passion, Than To Restrain Them And Direct Them Toward The Patient Labors Of Peace.

The Individual Person Is More Interesting Than People In General; He And Not They Is The One Whom God Created In His Image.

Enduring Fame Is Promised Only To Those Writers Who Can Offer To Successive Generations A Substance Constantly Renewed; For Every Generation Arrives Upon The Scene With Its Own Particular Hunger.

The Difficulty Comes From This, That Christianity (christian Orthodoxy) Is Exclusive And That Belief In Its Truth Excludes Belief In Any Other Truth. It Does Not Absorb; It Repulses.

To Love The Truth Is To Refuse To Let Oneself Be Saddened By It.

The Most Beaten Paths Are Certainly The Surest, But Do Not Hope To Start Much Game On Them.

Laws And Rules Of Conduct Are For The State Of Childhood; Education Is An Emancipation.

Man! The Most Complex Of Creatures, And For This Reason The Most Dependant Of Creatures. On Everything That Has Formed You, You May Depend. Do Not Balk At This Apparent Slavery....a Debtor To Many, You Pay For Your Advantages By The Same Number Of Dependencies. Understand That Independence Is A Form Of Poverty; That Many Things Claim You, That Many Also Claim Kinship With You.

Wisdom Comes Not From Reason But From Love.

Sadness Is A State Of Sin.

Actions Whose Motives He Cannot Understand That Is, Actions Not Prompted By The Hope Of Profit.

Solitude Is Bearable Only With God.

The Wise Man Is He Who Constantly Wonders Afresh.

Art Is A Collaboration Between God And The Artist, And The Less The Artist Does The Better.

Creative Collaboration

An Opinion, Though It Is Original, Does Not Necessarily Differ From The Accepted Opinion; The Important Thing Is That It Does Not Try To Conform To It.

Understanding Is The Beginning Of Approving.

Believe In Your Strength And Your Vision. Learn To Repeat To Yourself, 'it All Depends On Me'.

The Public Always Prefers To Be Reassured. There Are Those Whose Job This Is. There Are Only Too Many.

The World Will Be Saved By One Or Two People.

The Truth Is That As Soon As We Are No Longer Obliged To Earn Our Living, We No Longer Know What To Do With Our Life And Recklessly Squander It.

I Owe Much To My Friends; But, All Things Considered, It Strikes Me That I Owe Even More To My Enemies. The Real Person Springs Life Under A Sting Even Better Than Under A Caress.

Of Some Forty Families I Have Been Able To Observe, I Know Hardly Four In Which The Parents Do Not Act In Such A Way That Nothing Would Be More Desirable For The Child Than To Escape Their Influence.

The Individual Never Asserts Himself More Than When He Forgets Himself.

I Am Lost If I Attempt To Take Count Of Chronology. When I Think Over The Past, I Am Like A Person Whose Eyes Cannot Properly Measure Distances And Is Liable To Think Things Extremely Remote Which On Examination Prove To Be Quite Near.

Families, I Hate You! Shut-in Homes, Closed Doors, Jealous Possessors Of Happiness

Only Fools Don't Contradict Themselves

I Prefer Granting With A Good Grace What I Know I Shan't Be Able To Prevent.

'therefore' Is A Word The Poet Must Not Know.

I Have Never Produced Anything Good Except By A Long Succession Of Slight Efforts.

To Know How To Free Oneself Is Nothing; The Arduous Thing Is To Know What To Do With One's Freedom.

There Is A Law In Life: When One Door Closes To Us Another One Opens.

Let Every Emotion Be Capable Becoming An Intoxication To You. If What You Eat Fails To Make You Drunk, It Is Because You Are Not Hungry Enough.

He Who Makes Great Demands Upon Himself Is Naturally Inclined To Make Great Demands On Others.

But Can One Still Make Resolutions When One Is Over Forty? I Live According To Twenty-year-old Habits.

Know Thyself. A Maxim As Pernicious As It Is Ugly. Whoever Studies Himself Arrest His Own Development. A Caterpillar Who Seeks To Know Himself Would Never Become A Butterfly.

Oh, Would That My Mind Could Let Fall Its Dead Ideas, As The Tree Does Its Withered Leaves!

In Order To Judge Properly, One Must Get Away Somewhat From What One Is Judging, After Having Loved It. This Is True Of Countries, Of Persons, And Of Oneself.

Each Thought Becomes An Anxiety In My Brain. I Am Becoming The Ugliest Of All Things: A Busy Man.

Nothing Blocks Happiness Like Happiness Remembered.

The True Return To Nature Is The Definitive Return To The Elements-death.

To Read A Writer Is For Me Not Merely To Get An Idea Of What He Says, But To Go Off With Him And Travel In His Company.

We Live Counterfeit Lives In Order To Resemble The Idea We First Had Of Ourselves.

The Only Real Education Comes From What Goes Counter To You.

It Is The Special Quality Of Love Not To Be Able To Remain Stationary, To Be Obliged To Increase Under Pain Of Diminishing.

Happy Valentines Day

True Kindness Presupposes The Faculty Of Imagining As One's Own The Suffering And Joys Of Others.

It Is Only Through Restraint That Man Can Manage Not To Suppress Himself.

We Should Enjoy This Summer, Flower By Flower, As If It Were To Be The Last One We’ll See.

If The Flower Were Not Attached To Its Stem, It Would Flee At The Approach Of Man, Like The Insect Or The Bird; For The Attribute Of Man On The Earth, At Least As Long As He Does Not Better Understand His Role, Is To Worry And Frighten What He Is Not Interested In Taming For Utilitarian Purposes. Man Is Skillful In Mistreating Everything He Can Use

We Call "happiness" A Certain Set Of Circumstances That Makes Joy Possible. But We Call Joy That State Of Mind And Emotions That Needs Nothing To Feel Happy.

The Sole Art That Suits Me Is That Which, Rising From Unrest, Tends Toward Serenity.

It Is Better To Be Hated For What You Are Than To Be Loved For Something You Are Not.

Most Often People Seek In Life Occasions For Persisting In Their Opinions Rather Than For Educating Themselves.

Oh, Would That My Mind Could Let Fall Its Dead Ideas, As The Tree Does Its Withered Leaves! And Without Too Many Regrets, If Possible! Those From Which The Sap Has Withdrawn. But, Good Lord, What Beautiful Colors!

Every Instant Of Our Lives Is Essentially Irreplaceable: You Must Know This In Order To Concentrate On Life.

Not Everyone Can Be An Orphan.

The Finest Virtues Can Become Deformed With Age. The Precise Mind Becomes Finicky; The Thrifty Man, Miserly; The Cautious Man, Timorous; The Man Of Imagination, Fanciful. Even Perseverance Ends Up In A Sort Of Stupidity. Just As, On The Other Hand, Being Too Willing To Understand Too Many Opinions, Too Diverse Ways Of Seeing, Constancy Is Lost And The Mind Goes Astray In A Restless Fickleness.

Please Do Not Understand Me Too Quickly.

An Unprejudiced Mind Is Probably The Rarest Thing In The World; To Nonprejudice I Attach The Greatest Value.

You Have To Let Other People Be Right' Was His Answer To Their Insults. 'it Consoles Them For Not Being Anything Else.

The True Hypocrite Is The One Who Ceases To Perceive His Deception, The One Who Lies With Sincerity.

It Is Not Becoming To Lay To Virtue The Weariness Of Old Age.

Man's First And Greatest Victory Must Be Won Against The Gods.

Greatest Victory

A Caterpillar Who Seeks To Know Himself Would Never Become A Butterfly

Art Begins With Resistance - At The Point Where Resistance Is Overcome. No Human Masterpiece Has Ever Been Created Without Great Labor.

Nothing Is Good For Everyone, But Only Relatively To Some People.

The Great Artist Is One Whom Constraint Exalts, For Whom The Obstacle Is A Springboard.

Only Those Things Are Beautiful Which Are Inspired By Madness And Written By Reason.

Do Not Think Your Truth Can Be Found By Anyone Else.

It Is Not Always By Plugging Away At A Difficulty And Sticking To It That One Overcomes It; Often It Is By Working On The One Next To It. Some Things And Some People Have To Be Approached Obliquely, At An Angle.

God Lies Ahead. I Convince Myself And Constantly Repeat To Myself That: He Depends On Us. It Is Through Us That God Is Achieved.

It Would Be Wisest Not To Worry Too Much About The Sterile Periods. They Ventilate The Subject And Instill Into It The Reality Of Daily Life.

The Reasons That Drive Me To Write Are Many And The Most Important Are The Most Secret, I Think. Perhaps Most Of All This: To Put Something Out Of Death's Reach.

The Itch Is A Mean, Unconfessable, Ridiculous Malady; One Can Pity Someone Who Is Suffering ; Someone Who Wants To Scratch Himself Makes One Laugh.

Are You Then Unable To Recognize Unless It Has The Same Sound As Yours?

The Most Beautiful Things Are Those That Madness Prompts And Reason Writes.

An Experience Teaches Only The Good Observer; But Far From Seeking A Lesson In It, Everyone Looks For An Argument In Experience, And Everyone Interprets The Conclusion In His Own Way.

Often The Best In Us Springs From The Worst In Us.

An Artist Cannot Get Along Without A Public; And When The Public Is Absent, What Does He Do? He Invents It, And Turning His Back On His Age, He Looks Toward The Future For What The Present Denies.

It Is Good To Follow One's Own Bent, So Long As It Leads Upward.

Fish Die Belly Upward, And Rise To The Surface. Its Their Way Of Falling.

What Another Would Have Done As Well As You, Do Not Do It. What Another Would Have Said As Well As You, Do Not Say It; What Another Would Have Written As Well, Do Not Write It. Be Faithful To That Which Exists Nowhere But In Yourself - And Thus Make Yourself Indispensable.

Often With Good Sentiments We Produce Bad Literature.

The Greatest Intelligence Is Precisely The One That Suffers The Most From Its Own Limitations.

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