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Please Send Me Your Last Pair Of Shoes, Worn Out With Dancing As You Mentioned In Your Letter, So That I Might Have Something To Press Against My Heart.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Please Send Me Your

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Please Send Me Your Last Pair Of Shoes, Worn Out With Dancing As You Mentioned In Your Letter, So That I Might Have Something To Press Against My Heart.

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More From Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If You Wish To Advance Into The Infinite, Explore The Finite In All Directions.

What Is Not Started Today Is Never Finished Tomorrow.

What Is The Path? There Is No Path. On Into The Unknown.

Every Situation--nay, Every Moment--is Of Infinite Worth; For It Is The Representative Of A Whole Eternity.

There Is Repetition Everywhere, And Nothing Is Found Only Once In The World.

If You Wish To Know The Mind Of A Man, Listen To His Words.

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.

Power Is Neither Male Nor Female.

The Moment One Definitely Commits Oneself, Then Providence Moves, Too. All Sorts Of Things Occur To Help One That Would Never Have Otherwise Occurred...unforeseen Incidents And Meetings And Material Assistance, Which No Man Could Have Dreamed Would Have Come His Way.

A Well-bred Carriage Is Difficult To Imitate; For In Strictness It Is Negative, And It Implies A Long-continued Previous Training.

The Deed Is Everything, The Glory Is Naught.

Age Does Not Make Us Childish, As Some Say; It Finds Us True Children.

They Teach In Academies Far Too Many Things, And Far Too Much That Is Useless.

Do Not Hurry; Do Not Rest.

Wild Dreams Torment Me As I Lie. And Though A God Lives In My Heart, Though All My Power Waken At His Word, Though He Can Move My Every Inmost Part - Yet Nothing In The Outer World Is Stirred. Thus By Existence Tortured And Oppressed I Crave For Death, I Long For Rest.

He Who Possesses Science And Art, Possesses Religion As Well; He Who Possesses Neither Of These, Had Better Have Religion.

Science And Religion

Solitude Is Fine When You Are At Peace With Yourself And Have Something Definite To Do.

It Is In Human Nature To Relax, When Not Compelled By Personal Advantage Or Disadvantage.

Art Rests On A Kind Of Religious Sense, On A Deep, Steadfast Earnestness; And On This Account It Unites So Readily With Religion.

Self Knowledge Is Best Learned Not By Contemplation, But By Action.

Woman Is Mistress Of The Art Of Completely Imbittering The Life Of The Person On Whom She Depends.

Be Above It! Make The World Serve Your Purpose, But Do Not Serve It.

I Think That I Am Better Than The People Who Are Trying To Reform Me.

Thank God When He Lays A Burden On Thee, And Thank Him When He Takes It Off.

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

Foreign Language

Some Of Our Weaknesses Are Born In Us, Others Are The Result Of Education; It Is A Question Which Of The Two Gives Us Most Trouble.

If One Mistreats Citizens Of Foreign Countries, One Infringes Upon One's Duty Toward One's Own Subjects; For Thus One Exposes Themto The Law Of Retribution.

Enjoy When You Can, And Endure When You Must.

Woe To Him Who Would Ascribe Something Like Reason To Chance, And Make A Religion Of Surrendering To It.

Everything That We Call Invention Or Discovery In The Higher Sense Of The Word Is The Serious Exercise And Activity Of An Original Feeling For Truth, Which, After A Long Course Of Silent Cultivation, Suddenly Flashes Out Into Fruitful Knowledge.

There Is Nothing Worse Than Aggressive Stupidity.

Most Men, Even The Most Accomplished, Are Of Limited Faculties; Every One Sets A Value On Certain Qualities In Himself And Others: These Alone He Is Willing To Favour, These Alone Will He Have Cultivated.

Let Him Who Believes In Immortality Enjoy His Happiness In Silence; He Has No Reason To Give Himself Airs About It.

Age Merely Shows What Children We Remain.

By Nature We Have No Defect That Could Not Become A Strength, No Strength That Could Not Become A Defect.

You Must Be Either The Servant Or The Master, The Hammer Or The Anvil.

If Youth Is A Fault, It Is One That One Gets Rid Of Soon Enough.

I Have Come To The Frightening Conclusion That I Am The Decisive Element. It Is My Personal Approach That Creates The Climate. It Is My Daily Mood That Makes The Weather....in All Situations, It Is My Response That Decides Whether A Crisis Is Escalated Or De-escalated, And A Person Is Humanized Or Is Dehumanized.

Where A Man Has A Passion For Meditating Without The Capacity Of Thinking, A Particular Idea Fixes Itself Fast, And Soon Creates A Mental Disease.

One Must Be Something To Be Able To Do Something.

Human Condition

It Is Not Given To Us To Grasp The Truth, Which Is Identical With The Divine, Directly. We Perceive It Only In Reflection, In Example And Symbol, In Singular And Related Appearances. It Meets Us As A Kind Of Life Which Is Incomprehensible To Us, And Yet We Cannot Free Ourselves From The Desire To Comprehend It.

The Brilliant Passes, Like The Dew At Morn; The True Endures, For Ages Yet Unborn.

It Is Easier To Perceive Error Than To Find Truth, For The Former Lies On The Surface And Is Easily Seen, While The Latter Lies In The Depth, Where Few Are Willing To Search For It.

How Can You Come To Know Yourself? Never By Thinking, Always By Doing. Try To Do Your Duty, And You'll Know Right Away What You Amount To.

What Is The Destiny Of Man, But To Fill Up The Measure Of His Sufferings, And To Drink His Allotted Cup Of Bitterness?

I Will Say With Lorenzo De Medici That Those Who Do Not Hope For Another Life Are Always Dead To This One.

What Is My Life If I Am No Longer Useful To Others.

A Judge Who Cannot Punish, In The End Associates Themselves With The Criminal.

What A Torment It Is To See So Much Loveliness Passing And Repassing Before Us, And Yet Not Dare To Lay Hold Of It!

There Is Nothing Worth Thinking But It Has Been Thought Before; We Must Only Try To Think It Again.

We Love A Girl For Very Different Qualities Than Understanding. We Love Her For Her Beauty, Her Youth, Her Mirth, Her Confidingness, Her Character, With Its Faults, Caprices And God Knows What Other Inexpressible Charms; But We Do Not Love Her Understanding.

The Best Genius Is That Which Absorbs And Assimilates Everything Without Doing The Least Violence To Its Fundamental Destiny.

Tomorrow Sees Undone, What Happens Not To-day; Still Forward Press, Nor Never Tire! The Possible, With Steadfast Trust, Resolve Should Be By The Forelock Grasp. Then She Will Ne'er Let Go Her Clasp, And Labors On, Because She Must.

No One Is Willing To Believe That Adults Too, Like Children, Wander About This Earth In A Daze And, Like Children, Do Not Know Where They Come From Or Where They Are Going, Act As Rarely As They Do According To Genuine Motives, And Are As Thoroughly Governed As They Are By Biscuits And Cake And The Rod.

Know Thyself? If I Knew Myself I Would Run Away.

Destiny Grants Us Our Wishes, But In Its Own Way, In Order To Give Us Something Beyond Our Wishes.

One Criticizes The English For Carrying Their Teapots Wherever They Go, Even Lugging Them Up Mount Etna. But Doesn't Every Nationhave Its Teapot, In Which, Even When Traveling, It Brews The Dried Bundles Of Herbs Brought From Home?

Men Are So Constituted That Every One Undertakes What He Sees Another Successful In, Whether He Has Aptitude For It Or Not.

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

Let Everyone Sweep In Front Of His Own Door, And The Whole World Will Be Clean.

If A Man Sets Out To Study All The Laws, He Will Have No Time Left To Transgress Them.

Everything Is Both Simpler Than We Can Imagine And More Entangled Than We Can Conceive.

Commonplaceness, The Surrender To The Average, That Good Which Is Not Bad But Still The Enemy Of The Best - That Is Our Besetting Danger.

Always To Distrust Is An Error, As Well As Always To Trust.

The Child, Offered The Mother's Breast, Will Not In The Beginning Grab It; But Soon It Clings To It With Zest. And Thus At Wisdom's Copious Breasts You'll Drink Each Day With Greater Zest.

What Is Not Fully Understood Is Not Possessed.

Experience Is Only Half Of Experience.

If We Meet Someone Who Owes Us A Debt Of Gratitude, We Remember The Fact At Once. How Often We Can Meet Someone To Whom We Owe A Debt Of Gratitude Without Thinking About It At All!

A Life Without Love, Without The Presence Of The Beloved, Is Nothing But A Mere Magic-lantern Show. We Draw Out Slide After Slide, Swiftly Tiring Of Each, And Pushing It Back To Make Haste For The Next.

Beauty Is At Once The Ultimate Principle And The Highest Aim Of Art.

A Stated Truth Loses Its Grace, But A Repeated Error Appears Insipid And Ridiculous.

The Intelligent Man Finds Almost Everything Ridiculous, The Sensible Man Hardly Anything.

A Joy Shared Is A Joy Doubled.

We Who Didn't Inherit Political Power Nor Are Made To Acquire Riches Like Nothing Better Than That Which Expands And Solidifies The Power Of The Spirit.

Higher Aims Are In Themselves More Valuable, Even If Unfulfilled, Than Lower Ones Quite Attained.

Whoever Would Understand The Poet Must Go Into The Poet's Country. [ger., Wer Den Dichter Will Verstehen Muss In Dichters Lande Gehen.]

The Human Mind Will Not Be Confined To Any Limits.

Every Solution Of A Problem Is A New Problem.

Yes, My Love, Who Soever Lives, Loses, . . . But He Also Wins. [ger., Ja, Meine Liebe, Wer Lebt, Verliebt . . . Aber Er Gewinnt Auch.]

Sin Writes Histories, Goodness Is Silent. [ger., Das Uebel Macht Eine Geschichte Und Das Gute Keine.]

Talent Develops In Quiet, Alone; Character Is Sharpened In The Torrent Of The World.

The Mortal Race Is Far Too Weak Not To Grow Dizzy On Unwonted Brights. [ger., Das Sterbliche Geschlecht Ist Viel Zu Schwach In Ungewohnter Hohe Nicht Zu Schwindeln.]

Each Traveler Should Know What He Has To See, And What Properly Belongs To Him, On A Journey.

When One Is Polite In German, One Lies.

Don't Judge Anyone Harshly Until You Yourself Have Been Through His Experiences

Mysteries Are Not Necessarily Miracles.

The Aim Of Living Is Life Itself.

Manners Form The Great Charm Of Women.

Do The Duty Which Lies Nearest To Thee.

He Who Does Not Stretch Himself According To The Coverlet Finds His Feet Uncovered.

One Mind Is Enough For A Thousand Hands.

The Artist Has A Twofold Relation To Nature; He Is At Once Her Master And Her Slave.

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

To Know Of Someone Here And There Whom We Accord With, Who Is Living On With Us, Even In Silence - - This Makes Our Earthly Ball A Peopled Garden.

There Is Nothing More Frightful Than Ignorance In Action.

A Man Would Create Another Man If One Did Not Already Exist, But A Woman Might Live An Eternity Without Even Thinking Of Reproducing Her Own Sex.

As Long As You Are Not Aware Of The Continual Law Of Die And Be Again, You Are Merely A Vague Guest On A Dark Earth.

If In The Infinite You Want To Stride, Just Walk In The Finite To Every Side.

I Laugh At My Heart, And Do Its Will

Mere Curiosity Adds Wings To Every Step.

The March Of Intellect, Which Licks All The World Into Shape, Has Even Reached The Devil.

What Man Does Not Know, Or Has Not Thought Of, Wanders In The Night Through The Labyrinth Of The Mind.

Not The Maker Of Plans And Promises, But Rather The One Who Offers Faithful Service In Small Matters. This Is The Person Who Is Most Likely To Achieve What Is Good And Lasting.

Nature! We Are Enveloped And Embraced By Her, Incapable Of Emerging From Her And Incapable Of Entering Her More Deeply. Unbidden And Unwarned, She Receives Us Into The Circuits Of Her Dance, Drifting Onward With Us Herself, Until We Grow Tired And Drop From Her Arms.

A Vain Man Can Never Be Altogether Rude. Desirous As He Is Of Pleasing, He Fashions His Manners After Those Of Others.

A Purpose You Impart Is No Longer Your Own.

He Who Cannot Draw On Three Thousand Years Is Living From Hand To Mouth.

Mannerism Always Wants To Be Finished And Doesn't Enjoy The Process. Genuine, Truly Great Talent, However, Finds Its Greatest Satisfaction In The Production.

Nature Is So Perfect That The Trinity Couldn't Have Fashioned Her Any More Perfect. She Is An Organ On Which Our Lord Plays And The Devil Works The Bellows.

An Absent Friend Gives Us Friendly Company When We Are Well Assured Of His Happiness.

Democracy Does Not Race, It Reaches The Finish Slowly But Surely.

What Government Is The Best? That Which Teaches Us To Govern Ourselves. [ger., Welche Regierung Die Beste Sei? Diejenige Die Uns Lehrt Uns Selbst Zu Regieren.]

Great Passions Are Incurable Diseases.

Incurable Disease

Individuality Of Expression Is The Beginning And End Of All Art.

The Force Of A Language Does Not Consist Of Rejecting What Is Foreign But Of Swallowing It.

You Don't Have To Travel Around The World To Understand That The Sky Is Blue Everywhere

It Is A Great Error To Take Oneself For More Than One Is, Or For Less Than One Is Worth.

The Mark Of Highest Originality Lies In The Ability To Develop A Familiar Idea So Fruitfully That It Would Seem No One Else Would Ever Have Discovered So Much To Be Hidden In It.

Nature Has Neither Kernel Nor Shell

Architecture Is Crystallized Music.

When I Make A Mistake Everyone Can See It, But Not When I Lie.

Reason Looks At Necessity As The Basis Of The World; Reason Is Able To Turn Chance In Your Favor And Use It. Only By Having Reasonremain Strong And Unshakable Can We Be Called A God Of The Earth.

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

When Scholars Study A Thing, They Strive To Kill It First, If It's Alive; Then They Have The Parts And The'be Lost The Whole, For The Link That's Missing Was The Living Soul.

Flowers Are The Beautiful Hieroglyphics Of Nature With Which She Indicates How Much She Loves Us.

And Future Deeds Crowded Round Us As The Countless Stars In The Night. [ger., Und Kunftige Thaten Drangen Wie Die Sterne Rings Um Uns Her Unzahlig Aus Der Nacht.]

It Is Better For You To Suffer An Injustice Than For The World To Be Without Law. Therefore, Let Everyone Submit To The Law.

How Often Do I Lull My Seething Blood To Rest, For You Have Never Seen Anything So Unsteady, So Uncertain, As This Heart.

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.

To Every One [nature] Appears In A Form Of His Own. She Hides Herself In A Thousand Names And Terms, And Is Always The Same.

If Everyone Sweeps Before His Own Front Door, Then The Street Is Clean.

National Literature Does Not Mean Much These Days; Now Is The Age Of World Literature, And Every One Must Contribute To Hasten Thearrival Of That Age.

The Real Scholar Learns How To Evolve The Unknown From The Known, And Draws Near The Master.

Being Brilliant Is No Great Feat If You Respect Nothing.

People Who Think Honestly And Deeply Have A Hostile Attitude Towards The Public.

If I Love You, What Business Is It Of Yours?

Funny Relationship

Nothing Is More Disgusting Than The Majority: Because It Consists Of A Few Powerful Predecessors, Of Rogues Who Adapt Themselves, Of Weak Who Assimilate Themselves, And The Masses Who Imitate Without Knowing At All What They Want.

Art Is Long, Life Is Short; Judgement Difficult, Opportunity Transient.

Against Great Advantages In Another, There Are No Means Of Defending Ourselves Except Love.

Pain And Pleasure, Good And Evil, Come To Us From Unexpected Sources. It Is Not There Where We Have Gathered Up Our Brightest Hopes, That The Dawn Of Happiness Breaks. It Is Not There Where We Have Glanced Our Eye With Affright, That We Find The Deadliest Gloom. What Should This Teach Us? To Bow To The Great And Only Source Of Light, And Live Humbly And With Confiding Resignation.

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

One Should Not Search For Anything Behind The Phenomena. They Themselves Are The Message.

If You Don't Know Foreign Languages, You Don't Know Anything About Your Own.

Foreign Language

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.]

Old Age Is Never Honored Among Us, But Only Indulged, As Childhood Is; And Old Men Lose One Of The Most Precious Rights Of Man,--that Of Being Judged By Their Peers.

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

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

You Will Find The Most Pronounced Hatred Of Other Nations On The Lowest Cultural Levels. There Is, Though, A Level Where The Hatred Disappears Completely And Where One So To Speak Stands Above The Nations And Where One Experiences Fortune Or Misfortune Of A Neighboring Country As If They Had Happened To One's Own.

Disappear Completely

First And Last, What Is Demanded Of Genius Is Love Of Truth.

You Can Put Up With Everything In This World Except Not With A Long Stretch Of Beautiful Days.

As All Nature's Thousands Changes But One Changeless God Proclaim; So In Art's Wide Kingdom Ranges One Sole Meaning Still The Same: This Is Truth, Eternal Reason, Which From Beauty Takes Its Dress, And Serene Through Time And Season Stands Aye In Loveliness.

When You Praise Someone You Call Yourself His Equal.

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

As Man Is, So Is His God. And Thus Is God Oft Strangely Odd.

A Good Man, Through Obscurest Aspirations Has Still An Instinct Of The One True Way.

Colors Are Light's Suffering And Joy

Smoothly And Lightly The Golden Seed By The Furrow Is Covered.

The Man Of Understanding Finds Everything Laughable.

Certain Defects Are Necessary For The Existence Of Individuality.

People Can Only Live With Their Equals, And Not Even With Them; For In The Long Run They Cannot Tolerate That Someone Is Their Equal.

Rash Combat Oft Immortalizes Man; If He Should Fall, He Is Renowned In Song; But After-ages Reckon Not The Ceaseless Tears Which The Forsaken Woman Sheds. Poets Tell Us Not Of The Many Nights Consumed In Weeping, Or Of The Dreary Days Wherein Her Anguished Soul Vainly Yearns To Call Her Loved One Back.

He Who Possesses Art And Science Has Religion; He Who Does Not Possess Them, Needs Religion.

Wood Burns Because It Has The Proper Stuff For That Purpose In It; And A Man Becomes Renowned Because He Has The Necessary Stuff In Him. Renown Is Not To Be Sought, And All Pursuit Of It Is Vain. A Person May, Indeed, By Skillful Conduct And Various Artificial Means, Make A Sort Of Name For Himself; But If The Inner Jewel Is Wanting, All Is Vanity, And Will Not Last A Day.

Were The Eye Not Of The Sun, How Could We Behold The Light? If God's Might And Ours Were Not As One, How Could His Work Enchant Our Sight?

It Is Delivery That Makes The Orators Success.

Don't Give Us Your Doubts, Gives Us Your Certainties, For We Have Doubts Enough Of Our Own.

If You Must Tell Me Your Opinions, Tell Me What You Believe In. I Have Plenty Of Doubts Of My Own.

The People Rate Strength Before Everything.

To Appear At Church Every Sunday; To Look Down Upon, And Let Himself Be Looked At For An Hour By The Congregation, Is The Best Means Of Becoming Popular Which Can Be Recommended To A Young Sovereign.

It Is One Of Heaven's Best Gifts To Hold Such A Dear Creature In One's Arms.

Don't Dissipate Your Powers; Strive To Concentrate Them. Genius Thinks It Can Do Whatever It Sees Others Doing, But It Will Surely Repent Of Every Ill-judged Outlay.

And I Like Those Authors Best Whose Scenes Describe My Own Situation In Life-- And The Friends Who Are About Me Whose Stories Touch Me With Interest, From Resembling My Own Homely Existence.

Situations In Life

A Man Avails Himself Of The Truth So Long As It Is Serviceable; But He Seizes On What Is False With A Passionate Eloquence As Soon As He Can Make A Momentary Use Of It.

The Passions Are Like Those Demons With Which Afrasahiab Sailed Down The Orus. Our Only Safety Consists In Keeping Them Asleep. If They We Are Lost.

Whether One Show One's Self A Man Of Genius In Science Or Compose A Song, The Only Point Is, Whether The Thought, The Discovery, The Deed, Is Living And Can Live On.

No Doubt You Are Right... There Would Be Far Less Suffering Amongst Mankind If Men... Did Not Employ Their Imaginations So Assiduously In Recalling The Memory Of Past Sorrow, Instead Of Bearing Their Present Lot With Equanimity.

The Wealth That Cannot Be Administered Is A Burden.

My Poor Head Is In Such A Whirl, My Mind Is All In Bits.

Nature Is The Living, Visible Garment Of God.

This World Could Not Exist If It Were Not So Simple. The Ground Has Been Tilled A Thousand Years, Yet Its Powers Remain Ever The Same; A Little Rain, A Little Sun, And Each Spring It Grows Green Again.

A Clever Man Commits No Minor Blunders.

Every Man Bears Something Within Him That, If It Were Publicly Announced, Would Excite Feelings Of Aversion.

We Can't Form Our Children On Our Own Concepts; We Must Take Them And Love Them As God Gives Them To Us.

The Thinking Person Has The Strange Characteristic To Like To Create A Fantasy In The Place Of The Unsolved Problem, A Fantasy That Stays With The Person Even When The Problem Has Been Solved And Truth Made Its Appearance.

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

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.

Everything Has Been Thought Of Before, But The Problem Is To Think Of It Again.

One Glance, One Word From You Gives More Pleasure Than All The Wisdom Of This World.

Human Life Runs Its Course In The Metamorphosis Between Receiving And Giving.

He Who Wishes To Exert A Useful Influence Must Be Careful To Insult Nothing. Let Him Not Be Troubled By What Seems Absurd, But Concentrate His Energies To The Creation Of What Is Good. He Must Not Demolish, But Build. He Must Raise Temples Where Mankind May Come And Partake Of The Purest Pleasure.

When We Treat Man As He Is, We Make Him Worse Than He Is; When We Treat Him As If He Already Were What He Potentially Could Be, We Make Him What He Should Be.

Whatever Liberates Our Spirit, Without Also Giving Us Mastery Over Ourselves, Is Destructive.

Behavior Is A Mirror In Which Every One Shows His Image. [ger., Das Betragen Ist Ein Spiegel In Welchem Jeder Sein Bild Zeigt.]

Time Is A Strange Thing. It Is A Whimsical Tyrant, Which In Every Century Has A Different Face For All That One Says And Does.

Different Faces

Whoso Shrinks From Ideas Ends By Having Nothing But Sensations.

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

If You Wish A Wise Answer, You Must Put A Rational Question.

They Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves, All These Sober People!

The Ideal Of Beauty Is Simplicity And Tranquility.

Precaution Is Better Than Cure.

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