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Purification Is Never For The Selfishly Idle, It Accrues Only To The Selflessly Industrious.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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Purification Is Never For

Mahatma Gandhi

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Purification Is Never For The Selfishly Idle, It Accrues Only To The Selflessly Industrious.

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A Satyagrahi Has Infinite Patience, Abundant Faith In Others, And Ample Hope.

Civil Disobedience Is A Stimulation For The Fighters And A Challenge To The Opponent, In The Present Instance, Authority.

Islam Appeals To People Because It Appeals Also To Reason.

For A Bowl Of Water Give A Goodly Meal; For A Kindly Greeting Bow Thou Down With Zeal; For A Simple Penny Pay Thou Back With Gold; If Thy Life Be Rescued, Life Do Not Withhold. Thus The Words And Actions Of The Wise Regard; Every Little Service Tenfold They Reward. But The Truly Noble Know All Men As One, And Return With Gladness Good For Evil Done.

All The Great Religions Of The World Inculcate Equality And Brotherhood Of Mankind And The Virtue Of Toleration.

Let No One Charge Me With Ever Having Abused Or Encouraged Weakness Or Surrendered On Matters Of Principle. But I Have Said, As I Say Again, That Every Trifle Must Not Be Dignified Into A Principle.

Satyagraha, Of Which Civil Resistance Is But A Part, Is To Me The Universal Law Of Life.

Satyagraha Is An Attribute Of The Spirit Within.

No Agreement Between The British And Muslims Can Affect Me. An Agreement Between Hindus And Muslims Alone Will Affect Me.

Hinduism Has Made Marvelous Discoveries In Things Of Religion, Of The Spirit, Of The Soul. We Have No Eye For These Great And Fine Discoveries. We Are Dazzled By The Material Progress That Western Science Has Made. Ancient India Has Survived Because Hinduism Was Not Developed Along Material But Spiritual Lines.

A Thousand Candles Can Be Lighted From The Flame Of One Candle, And The Life Of The Candle Will Not Be Shortened. Happiness Can Be Spread Without Diminishing That Of Yourself.

Every Single Act Of One Who Would Lead A Life Of Purity Should Be In The Nature Of Yajna.

I Have Not Hesitated To Call The System Of Government Under Which We Are Labouring 'satanic' And I Withdraw Naught Out Of It.

No One Should Dogmatize About The Capacity Of Human Nature For Degradation Or Exaltation.

The Weak Can Never Forgive. Forgiveness Is The Attribute Of The Strong.

Harshness Is Conquered By Gentleness, Hatred By Love, Lethargy By Zeal And Darkness By Light.

The Spirit Of Democracy... Requires Change Of The Heart... Requires The Inculcation Of The Spirit Of Brotherhood.

Democracy Is Not A State In Which People Act Like Sheep.

I Own No Property And Yet I Feel That I Am Perhaps The Richest Man In The World.

Continue To Grow And Evolve.

Diversity There Certainly Is In The World, But It Means Neither Inequality Nor Untouchability.

No Man Loses His Freedom Except Through His Own Weakness.

Whenever You Take A Step Forward, You Are Bound To Disturb Something. You Disturb The Air As You Go Forward, You Disturb The Dust, The Ground. You Trample Upon Things. When A Whole Society Moves Forward, This Trampling Is On A Much Bigger Scale; And Each Thing That You Disturb, Each Vested Interest Which You Want To Remove, Stands As An Obstacle.

Sacrifice That Causes Pain Is No Sacrifice At All. True Sacrifice Is Joy-giving And Uplifting.

There Is No Such Thing As Compulsion In The Scheme Of Nonviolence.

The World Easily Finds An Honourable Place For The Magician Who Produces New And Dazzling Things.

When Doubts Haunt Me, When Disappointments Stare Me In The Face, And I See Not One Ray Of Hope On The Horizon, I Turn To Bhagavad-gita And Find A Verse To Comfort Me; And I Immediately Begin To Smile In The Midst Of Overwhelming Sorrow. Those Who Meditate On The Gita Will Derive Fresh Joy And New Meanings From It Every Day.

How Can I Make Difference So That I May Bring Peace To This World That I Love And Cherish So Much? A Name Flickers Instantly In My Mind.

Even A Little Untruth Destroys A Man, As A Drop Of Poison Ruins Milk.

Forces Of Nature Act In A Mysterious Manner. We Can But Solve The Mystery By Deducing The Unknown Result From The Known Results Of Similar Events.

The Bravery Of The Nonviolent Is Vastly Superior To That Of The Violent.

Anger And Intolerance Are The Twin Enemies Of Correct Understanding.

There Is A World-wide Conflict Between Capital And Labour, And The Poor Envy The Rich.

The Ideally Non-violent State Will Be An Ordered Anarchy.

I Claim To Be No More Than An Average Man With Below Average Capabilities.

I Believe In What Max Muller Said Years Ago, Namely, That Truth Needed To Be Repeated As Long As There Were Men Who Disbelieved It.

I Like Your Christ. I Do Not Like Your Christians. Your Christians Are So Unlike Your Christ.

The Essence Of True Religious Teaching Is That One Should Serve And Befriend All.

We Have To Make Truth And Non-violence Not Matters For Mere Individual Practice But For Practice By Groups And Communities And Nations. That At Any Rate Is My Dream. I Shall Live And Die In Trying To Realize It. My Faith Helps Me To Discover New Truths Every Day.

All Satyagraha And Fasting Is A Species Of Tyaga. It Depends For Its Effects Upon An Expression Of Wholesome Public Opinion Shorn Of All Bitterness.

Faith Is Not Imparted Like Secular Subjects. It Is Given Through The Language Of The Heart.

Animal Experimentation Is The Blackest Of All The Black Crimes That A Man Is At Present Committing... We Should Be Able To Refuse To Live If The Price Of Living Be The Torture Of Sentient Beings... I Abhor [animal] Experimentation With My Whole Soul. All The Scientific Discoveries Stained With Innocent Blood I Count As Of No Consequence... The Greatness Of A Nation And Its Moral Progress Can Be Judged By The Way Its Animals Are Treated.

Ahimsa Is The Attribute Of The Soul, And Therefore, To Be Practiced By Everybody In All Affairs Of Life. If It Cannot Be Practiced In All Departments, It Has No Practical Value.

Morality Which Depends Upon The Helplessness Of A Man Or Woman Has Not Much To Recommend It. Morality Is Rooted In The Purity Of Our Hearts.

Nations Are Not Formed In A Day, The Formation Requires Years.

If We Had Attained The Full Vision Of Truth, We Would No Longer Be Seekers, But Become One With God, For Truth Is God.

True Morality Consists Not In Following The Beaten Track, But In Finding The True Path For Ourselves, And Fearlessly Following It.

There Is Always Enough For The Needy, There Is Never Enough For The Greedy.

Prosecution Of The Constructive Programme Means Constructing The Structure Of Swaraj.

Intolerance Betrays Want Of Faith In One's Cause.

Freedom Battles Are Not Fought Without Paying Heavy Prices.

Never Make A Promise In Haste.

Insistence On Truth Can Come Into Play When One Party Practices Untruth Or Injustice. Only Then Can Love Be Tested. True Friendship Is Put To The Test Only When One Party Disregards The Obligation Of Friendship.

Though We Are Politically Free, We Are Hardly Free From The Subtle Domination Of The West.

Man Has Always Desired Power. Ownership Of Property Gives This Power. Man Hankers Also After Posthumous Fame Based On Power.

Journalism Should Never Be Prostituted For Selfish Ends Or For The Sake Of Merely Earning A Livelihood Or, Worse Still, For Amassing Money.

It Is A Sad Thing That Our Schoolboys Look Upon Manual Labour With Disfavour, If Not Contempt.

It Is The Duty Of A Non-co-operator To Preach Disaffection Towards The Existing Order Of Things. Non-co-operators Are But Giving Disciplined Expression To A Nation's Outraged Feelings.

I Will Not Be A Traitor Of God To Please The Whole World.

God Chooses As His Instrument The Humblest And Weakest Of His Creatures To Fulfill Himself.

World Has Things Which Full Fill Man Needs, But Not Greeds.

The First Condition Of Nonviolence Is Justice All Round, In Every Department Of Life.

My Religion Teaches Me That I Should, By My Personal Conduct, Instill Into The Minds Of Those Who Might Hold Different Views The Conviction That Cow Killing Is A Sin.

Even If Masses Of People Were To Burn Khadi Publicly And Say That It Is An Insane Programme, I Will Declare That Those People Have Gone Mad.

A Born Democrat Is A Born Disciplinarian.

We May Never Be Strong Enough To Be Entirely Non-violent In Thought, Word And Deed. But We Must Keep Non-violence As Our Goal And Make Steady Progress Towards It.

The Khadi Spirit Means Also An Infinite Patience.

I Like Their Christ, But I Don't Like Their Christians.

'physician, Heal Thyself' Is More True In Matters Religious Than Mundane.

When You Are Right,you Have No Need To Be Angry. When You Are Wrong, You Have No Right To Be Angry.

God Has No Religion.

I Shall Never Know God If I Do Not Wrestle With And Against Evil, Even At The Cost Of Life Itself.

My Life Is Dedicated To The Service Of Indians Through The Religion Of Nonviolence Which I Believe To Be The Root Of Hinduism.

I Am Endeavouring To See God Through Service Of Humanity; For I Know That God Is Neither In Heaven, Nor Down Below, But In Everyone.

Non-co-operation Is Not A Movement Of Drag, Bluster Or Bluff.

Nonviolent Non-co-operation With Evil Means Co-operation With All That Is Good.

Violent Nationalism, Otherwise Known As Imperialism, Is A Curse.

Calling Them Devadasis We Insult God Himself In The Name Of Religion.

We Are Too Near The Scene Of Tragedy To Realize That This Canker Or Untouchability Has Traveled Far Beyond Its Prescribed Limits And Has Sapped The Very Foundation Of The Whole Nation.

I May Have Become Christian, Were It Not For Christians.

Journalism Has A Distinct Place In Familiarizing And Expressing Public Opinion.

A Perfect Mind Comes From A Perfect Heart, Not The Heart Known By A Doctor's Stethoscope But The Heart Which Is The Seat Of God.

God Has Enabled Me To Affect The Life Of The Country Since 1920 Without The Necessity Of Office.

Democracy Necessarily Means A Conflict Of Will And Ideas, Involving Sometimes A War Of The Knife Between Different Ideas.

Renunciation Is Everyone's Prerogative.

Perfection Is Only An Ideal For Man; It Cannot Be Attained, For Man Is Made Imperfect.

I Must Fight Unto The Death The Unholy Attempt To Impose British Methods And British Institutions On India.

The Nation's Non-co-operation Is An Invitation To The Government To Co-operate With It On Its Own Terms, As Is Every Nation's Right And Every Good Government's Duty.

There Can Be In The Eyes Of God No Distinction Between Man And Man, Even As There Is No Distinction Between Animal And Animal.

Those Who Cannot Renounce Attachment To The Results Of Their Work Are Far From The Path.

I Am Not Anti-english, I Am Not Anti-british, I Am Not Anti-any Government, But I Am Anti-untruth, Anti-humbug And Anti-injustice.

It Was Not Through Democratic Methods That Britain Bagged India.

Nonviolence And Cowardice Go Ill Together.

Increase Of Material Comforts, It May Be Generally Laid Down, Does Not In Any Way Whatsoever Conduce To Moral Growth.

There Is Little That Separates Humans From Other Sentient Beings - We All Feel Joy, We All Deeply Crave To Be Alive And To Live Freely, And We All Share This Planet Together.

The Golden Rule To Apply In All Such Cases Is Resolutely To Refuse To Have What Millions Cannot.

In The Application Of Satyagraha, I Discovered, In The Earliest Stages, That Pursuit Of Truth Did Not Admit Of Violence Being Inflicted On One's Opponent, But That He Must Be Weaned From Error By Patience And Sympathy. For, What Appears To Be Truth To The One May Appear To Be Error To The Other. And Patience Means Self-suffering. So The Doctrine Came To Mean Vindication Of Truth, Not By Infliction Of Suffering On The Opponent But One's Own Self.

Even If You Are A Minority Of One, The Truth Is The Truth.

Speak Your Mind

If It Had Not Been For The Christians That I Have Known I Might Have Been A Christian.

My Method Is Conversion, Not Coercion, It Is Self-suffering, Not The Suffering Of The Tyrant. I Know That Method To Be Infallible.

I Have Pinned My Faith To The Spinning Wheel. On It, I Believe, The Salvation Of This Country Depends.

It Is Impossible To Wait And Weigh, In Golden Scales, The Sentiments Of Prejudice And Superstition That Have Gathered Round The Priests Who Are Considered To Be The Custodians Of Hinduism.

Nonviolence To Be A Creed Has To Be All-pervasive.

If Your Heart Acquires Strength, You Will Be Able To Remove Blemishes From Others Without Thinking Evil Of Them.

Ahimsa Is The Highest Duty. Even If We Cannot Practice It In Full, We Must Try To Understand Its Spirit And Refrain As Far As Is Humanly Possible From Violence.

There Is Every Reason For Being Cautious About Founding New Universities Till India Has Digested Her Newly Acquired Freedom.

The Willing Sacrifice Of The Innocents Is The Most Powerful Retort To Insolent Tyranny That Has Yet To Be Conceived By God Or Man.

Mortification Of The Flesh Has Been Held All The World Over As A Condition Of Spiritual Progress.

I Desire No Honour If I Have To Conceal My Religious Beliefs In Order To Have It.

Now The Man On Duty Used To Be Changed From Time To Time. Once One Of These Men, Without Giving Me The Slightest Warning, Without Even Asking Me To Leave The Footpath, Pushed And Kicked Me Into The Street. I Was Dismayed. Before I Could Question Him As To His Behaviour, Mr Coates, Who Happened To Be Passing The Spot On Horseback, Hailed Me And Said: 'gandhi, I Have Seen Everything. I Shall Gladly Be Your Witness In Court If You Proceed Against The Man. I Am Very Sorry You Have Been So Rudely Assaulted.'

Satyagraha Can Rid Society Of All Evils, Political, Economic And Moral.

God Is The Shield Of The Nonviolent.

An Institution That Suffers From A Plethora Of Leaders Is Surely In A Bad Way.

If I Am True To Myself, If I Am True To Mankind, If I Am True To Humanity, I Must Understand All The Faults That Human Flesh Is Heir To.

The Aim Of University Education Should Be To Turn Out True Servants Of The People Who Will Live And Die For The Country's Freedom.

Your Capacity To Keep Your Vow Will Depend On The Purity Of Your Life.

If Blood Be Shed, Let It Be Our Own. Let Us Cultivate The Calm Courage To Die Without Killing.

Islam Stands For The Unity And Brotherhood Of Mankind, And Not For Disrupting The Oneness Of The Human Family.

Individual Civil Disobedience Was Everybody's Inherent Right, Like The Right Of Self-defence In Normal Life.

Restore The Spinning Wheel To Its Place And You Will Solve The Problem Of Poverty.

Start Changing Yourself If You Want To Change The Life Around You.

Change Yourself

Let India Become Alive By Self-purification, That Is Self-restraint And Self-denial, And She Will Be A Boon To Herself And Mankind.

Learn As If You Will Live Forever.

A Man Who Is Intentionally Unarmed Relies Upon The Unseen Force Called God By Poets, But Called The Unknown By Scientists.

Civil Disobedience And Excitement And Intoxication Go Ill Together.

The Taking Of Vows That Are Not Feasible Or That Are Beyond One's Capacity Would Betray Thoughtlessness And Want Of Balance.

Interdependence Is And Ought To Be As Much The Ideal Of Man As Self-sufficiency. Man Is A Social Being.

Meditation Is Waiting On God.

External Fears Cease Of Their Own Accord When Once We Have Conquered These Traitors Within The Camp.

Civil Disobedience Is The Assertion Of A Right Which Law Should Give But Which It Denies.

The One Condition For Fighting For Peace And Liberty Is To Acquire Self-restraint.

What Crimes, For Which We Condemn The Government As Satanic, Have Not We Been Guilty Of Towards Our Own Untouchable Brethren?

My Patriotism Is Not An Exclusive Thing. It Is All Embracing. The Conception Of My Patriotism Is Nothing If It Is Not Always, In Every Case, Without Exception, Consistent With The Broadest Good Of Humanity At Large.

The Difficulty One Experiences In Meeting Himsa Arises From Weakness Of Mind.

A Man Is But The Product Of His Thoughts What He Thinks, He Becomes.

My Faith Runs So Very Much Faster Than My Reason That I Can Challenge The Whole World And Say, 'god Is, Was And Ever Shall Be'.

I Have Not Know A Worthy Son To Whom His Mother Appeared Ugly.

Find Yourself By Losing Yourself For Others.

Finding Yourself

Losing Yourself

We Are Aware That The Business Of Swaraj Will Thrive Only If The Boycott Of Foreign Cloth Is Successful.

The Greatest Help You Can Give Me Is To Banish Fear From Your Hearts.

In His Boundless Love God Permits The Atheist To Live.

I Still Believe That Man, Not Having Been Given The Power Of Creation, Does Not Posses The Right Of Destroying The Meanest Creature That Lives. The Perogative Of Destruction Belongs Solely To The Creator Of All That Lives.

The Rich Cannot Accumulate Wealth Without The Co-operation Of The Poor In Society.

To Observe Morality Is To Attain Mastery Over Our Mind And Our Passions.

God Is The Vital Force Or Spirit Which Is All-pervading, All-embracing And, Therefore, Beyond Human Ken.

Boycott Of Foreign Cloth Through Picketing May Easily Be Violent; Through The Use Of Khadi It Is Most Natural And Absolutely Nonviolent.

A True Man Of Piety Will Consider Himself A Sinner And, Therefore, Untouchable.

Our Children Should Not Be So Taught As To Despise Labour.

My Notion Of Democracy Is That Under It The Weakest Shall Have The Same Opportunities As The Strongest.

How Heavy Is The Toll Of Sins And Wrong That Wealth, Power And Prestige Exact From Man.

To Shirk Taking Of Vows Betrays Indecision And Want Of Resolution.

An Unjust Law Is Itself A Species Of Violence. Arrest For Its Breach Is More So.

Literacy Is Not The End Of Education Nor Even The Beginning.

What Is Truth? A Difficult Question; But I Have Solved It For Myself By Saying That It Is What The 'voice Within' Tells You.

Difficult Questions

It Dawned Upon Me That Fasting Could Be Made As Powerful A Weapon Of Indulgence As Of Restraint

Experience Convinces Me That Permanent Good Can Never Be The Outcome Of Untruth & Violence. Even If My Belief Is A Fond Delusion, It Will Be Admitted That It Is A Fascinating Delusion.

My Personal Religion Enables Me To Serve My Countrymen Without Hurting The English Or, For That Matter, Anybody Else.

I Look Only To The Good Qualities Of Men. Not Being Faultless Myself, I Won't Presume To Probe Into The Faults Of Others.

I Claim To Be No More Than The Average Person With Less Than Average Ability. I Have Not The Shadow Of A Doubt That Any Man Or Woman Can Achieve What I Have, If He Or She Would Make The Same Effort And Cultivate The Same Hope And Faith.

Personally I Like To Believe That All Become Honest, The Millennium Is Round The Corner!

All Have Not The Same Capacity. I Would Allow A Man Of Intellect To Earn More, I Would Not Cramp His Talent.

Rama Was Not Only On The Lips Of Hanuman. He Was Enthroned In His Heart. He Gave Hanuman Exhaustless Strength.

I Do Not Want My House To Be Walled In On All Sides And My Windows To Be Stuffed. I Want The Culture Of All Lands To Be Blown About My House As Freely As Possible. But I Refuse To Be Blown Off My Feet By Any

Prayer Is The Only Means Of Bringing About Orderliness And Peace And Repose In Our Daily Acts.

I Claim To Have Been A Lifelong And Wholly Disinterested Friend Of The British People.

Only This Much I Knew - That Under Ideal Conditions, True Education Could Be Imparted Only By The Parents, And That Then There Should Be The Minimum Of Outside Help.

Swaraj Will Favour Hinduism No More Than Islam, Nor Islam More Than Hinduism.

It Is Better To Allow Our Lives To Speak For Us Than Our Words. God Did Not Bear The Cross Only Two Thousand Years Ago. He Bears It Today, And He Dies And Is Resurrected From Day To Day. It Would Be A Poor Comfort To The World If It Had To Depend On A Historical God Who Died Two Thousand Years Ago. Do Not, Then, Preach The God Of History, But Show Him As He Lives Today Through You.

Mr. Gandhi, You Have Been Working Fifteen Hours A Day For Fifty Years. Don't You Think You Should Take A Vacation?" Gandhi Smiled And Replied, "i Am Always On Vacation.

Disease Increases In Proportion To The Increase In The Number Of Doctors In A Place.

It Is No Non-violence If We Merely Love Those That Love Us. It Is Non-violence Only When We Love Those That Hate Us.

Is She Not More Self-sacrificing, Has She Not Greater Courage? Without Her, Man Would Not Be. If Nonviolence Is To Be The Law Of Our Being, The Future Is With Women.

The Fight Of Satyagraha Is For The Strong In Spirit, Not The Doubter Or The Timid. Satyagraha Teaches Us The Art Of Living As Well As Dying.

Man And His Deed Are Two Distinct Things. Whereas A Good Deed Should Call Forth Approbation And A Wicked Deed Dis-approbation, The Doer Of The Deed, Whether Good Or Wicked Always Deserves Respect Or Pity As The Case May Be. Hate The Sin And Not The Sinner Is A Precept Which Though Easy Enough To Understand Is Rarely Practised, And That Is Why The Poison Of Hatred Spreads In The World.

My Hindu Instinct Tells Me That All Religions Are More Or Less True.

Prayer Has Been The Saviour Of My Life. Without It I Should Have Been A Lunatic Long Ago.

Truth And Nonviolence Are As Old As The Hills.

I Am Not At All Concerned With Appearing To Be Consistent. In My Pursuit After Truth I Have Discarded Many Ideas And Learnt Many New Things.

Nonviolence Is The Law Of Our Species As Violence Is The Law Of The Brute.

When Two Nations Are Fighting, The Duty Of A Votary Of Ahimsa Is To Stop The War.

I'm A Lover Of My Own Liberty, And So I Would Do Nothing To Restrict Yours.

Unwearied Ceaseless Effort Is The Price That Must Be Paid For Turning Faith Into A Rich Infallible Experience.

If One Takes Care Of The Means, The End Will Take Care Of Itself.

We Cannot, In A Moment, Get Rid Of Habits Of A Lifetime.

To A People Famishing And Idle, The Only Acceptable Form In Which God Can Dare Appear Is Work And Promise Of Food As Wages.

If The Village Worker Is Not A Decent Man Or Woman, Conducting A Decent Home, He Or She Had Better Not Aspire After The High Privilege And Honour Of Becoming A Village Worker.

I Can Not Give You The Reference Of Ram Chandar Or Krishna, Because They Were Not Historical Figures. I Can Not Help It But To Present To You The Names Of (hazrat) Abu Bakar (ra) And (hazrat) Umar Farooq (ra). They Were Leaders Of A Vast Empire, Yet They Lived A Life Of Austerity.

There's Enough On This Planet For Everyone's Needs But Not For Everyone's Greed.

Hunger And Poverty

A Satyagrahi Should Have A Living Faith In God.

Whenever You Are Confronted With An Opponent. Conquer Him With Love.

And Whilst He May Not Claim Superiority By Reason Of Learning, I Myself Must Not Withold That Meed Of Homage That Learning, Wherever It Resides, Always Commands.

A Nonviolent Action Accompanied By Nonviolence In Thought And Word Should Never Produce Enduring Violent Reaction Upon The Opponent.

If You Want To Change The World, Be That Change.

Ahimsa Magnifies One's Own Defects, And Minimizes Those Of The Opponent. It Regards The Mole In One's Own Eye As A Beam And The Beam In The Opponent's Eye As A Mole.

Contraceptives Are An Insult To Womanhood.

Men To Be Men Must Be Able To Trust Their Womenfolk, Even As The Latter Are Compelled To Trust Them.

Whatever I Do Is Out Of Love.

Men Like Me Feel That Untouchability Is No Integral Part Of Hinduism, It Is An Excrescence.

Unless Discipline Is Rooted In Nonviolence, It Might Prove To Be A Source Of Infinite Mischief.

I Crave To Die With My Hand At The Spinning Wheel.

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