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Say What You Will Of Fortitude, But Show Me The Man Who Can Patiently Endure The Laughter Of Fools When They Have Obtained An Advantage Over Him. 'tis Only When Their Nonsense Is Without Foundation That One Can Suffer It Without Complaint.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Say What You Will

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Say What You Will Of Fortitude, But Show Me The Man Who Can Patiently Endure The Laughter Of Fools When They Have Obtained An Advantage Over Him. 'tis Only When Their Nonsense Is Without Foundation That One Can Suffer It Without Complaint.

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That Is The Way Of Youth And Life In General: That We Do Not Understand The Strategy Until After The Campaign Is Over.

It Is Always A Sign Of An Unproductive Time When It Concerns Itself With Petty And Technical Aspects [in Philology], And Likewiseit Is A Sign Of An Unproductive Person To Pursue Such Trifles.

Just As, Out Of Habit, One Consults A Run-down Clock As Though It Were Still Going, So Too One May Look At The Face Of A Beautiful Woman As Though He Still Loved Her.

Many People Take No Care Of Their Money Till They Come Nearly To The End Of It, And Others Do Just The Same With Their Time.

Greatest Wealth

Ye Great Teachers: Listen To What You Say!

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

If The Whole World I Once Could See On Free Soil Stand, With The People Free Then To The Moment Might I Say, Linger Awhile. . .so Fair Thou Art.

All Beginnings Are Delightful; The Threshold Is The Place To Pause.

The Best Pleasures Of This World Are Not Quite True.

A Person Places Themselves On A Level With The Ones They Praise.

To Live Within Limits. To Want One Thing. Or A Few Things Very Much And Love Them Dearly. Cling To Them, Survey Them From Every Angle. Become One With Them - That Is What Makes The Poet, The Artist, The Human Being.

Let There Be Truth Between Us.

Magic Is Believing In Yourself, If You Can Do That, You Can Make Anything Happen.

If Any Man Wish To Write In A Clear Style, Let Him Be First Clear In His Thoughts; And If Any Would Write In A Noble Style, Let Him First Possess A Noble Soul.

Our Foibles Are Really What Make Us Lovable.

Judge A Man's Character By What He Finds Ridiculous.

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

The Greatest Joy Of A Thinking Man Is To Have Searched The Explored And To Quietly Revere The Unexplored.

There Is Strong Shadow Where There Is Much Light.

The True, Prescriptive Artist Strives After Artistic Truth; The Lawless Artist, Following Blind Instinct, After An Appearance Of Naturalness. The One Leads To The Highest Peaks Of Art, The Other To Its Lowest Depths.

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

Are We Not Also Married To Conscience Which We Would Love To Get Rid Of Often Enough Since It Is More Bothersome Than A Man Or A Woman Ever Could Become?

All That Is Transitory Is But A Metaphor.

I Am A Part Of The Part That At First Was All, Part Of The Darkness That Gave Birth To The Light, That Supercilious Light Which Now Disputes With Mother Night Her Ancient Rank And Space, And Yet Cannot Succeed; No Matter How It Struggles, It Sticks To Matter And Can't Get Free. Light Flows From Substance, Makes It Beautiful.

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

I Am Certain That I Have Been Here As I Am Now A Thousand Times Before, And I Hope To Return A Thousand Times... Man Is A Dialogue Between Nature And God. On Other Planets This Dialogue Will Doubtless Be Of A Higher And Profounder Character. What Is Lacking Is Self-knowledge. After That The Rest Will Follow.

There Is Nothing So Terrible As Activity Without Insight.

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

Things Which Matter Most Must Never Be At The Mercy Of Things Which Matter Least.

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

Writing History Is A Method Of Getting Rid Of The Past.

But One Must Know Where One Stands, And Where The Others Wish To Go.

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

Someone Criticized An Elderly Man For Wooing Young Women. He Replied That That Was The Only Way To Rejuvenation, Which Was, Afterall, Everybody's Wish.

There Are People Who Pay Attention To The Weaknesses Of Their Friends; That Is To No Avail. I Have Always Closely Watched And Profited From The Strengths Of My Adversaries.

Whatever You Cannot Understand, You Cannot Possess.

Understanding And Love

The Sun Had, In The Meanwhile, Sunk Behind The Ettersberg. We Felt In The Wood The Chill Of The Evening, And Drove All The Quicker To Wiemar, And To Goethe's House. Goethe Urged Me To Go In With Him For A While, And I Did So. He Was In An Extremely Engaging Mood. He Talked A Great Deal About His Theory Of Colors, And Of His Obstinate Opponents; Remarking That He Was Sure That He Had Done Something In This Science.

The Written Word Has This Advantage, That It Lasts And Can Await The Time When It Is Allowed To Take Effect.

Men's Prejudices Rest Upon Their Character For The Time Being And Cannot Be Overcome, As Being Part And Parcel Of Themselves. Neither Evidence Nor Common Sense Nor Reason Has The Slightest Influence Upon Them.

There Is Nothing More Fearful Than Imagination Without Taste. [ger., Es Ist Nichts Furchterlicher Als Einbildungskraft Ohne Geschmack.]

One Never Learns To Understand Truly Anything But What One Loves.

One Would Give Generous Alms If One Had The Eyes To See The Beauty Of A Cupped Receiving Hand.

How Can We Know Ourselves? Never By Reflection, But Only Through Action. Begin At Once To Do Your Duty And Immediately You Will Know What Is Inside You.

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.

Character Is Constructed Amidst The Tempests Of The World

The Present Is A Powerful Deity. [ger., Die Gegenwart Ist Eine Machtige Gottin.]

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.

It Is As Certain As It Is Strange That Truth And Error Come From One And The Same Source. Thus It Is That We Are Often Not At Liberty To Do Violence To Error, Because At The Same Time We Do Violence To Truth.

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

I Have, Alas! Philosophy, Medicine, Jurisprudence Too, And To My Cost Theology, With Ardent Labor, Studied Through. And Here I Stand, With All My Lore, Poor Fool, No Wiser Than Before.

The Most Fortunate Of Men, Be He A King Or Commoner, Is He Whose Welfare Is Assured In His Own Home.

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

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

Everything In The World May Be Endured Except Continual Prosperity.

The Loss Of A Much-prized Treasure Is Only Half Felt When We Have Not Regarded Its Tenure As Secure.

The Smallest Hair Throws Its Shadow. [ger., Das Kleinste Harr Wirft Seinen Schatten.]

The Spectacle Of Nature Is Always New, For She Is Always Renewing The Spectators. Life Is Her Most Exquisite Invention; And Death Is Her Expert Contrivance To Get Plenty Of Life.

To Make Something You Have To Be Something.

The People Rate Strength Before Everything.

Properly Speaking, Such Work Is Never Finished; One Must Declare It So When, According To Time And Circumstances, One Has Done One's Best.

My Counsel Is, To Force Nothing, And Rather To Trifle And Sleep Away All Unproductive Days And Hours, Than On Such Days To Compose Something That Will Afterwards Give No Pleasure.

There Are People Who Make No Mistakes Because They Never Wish To Do Anything Worth Doing.

Yes, I Have Finally Arrived To This Capital Of The World! I Now See All The Dreams Of My Youth Coming To Life... Only In Rome Is It Possible To Understand Rome.

It Will Be! The Mass Is Working Clearer! Conviction Gathers, Truer, Nearer! The Mystery Which For Man In Nature Lies We Dare To Test, By Knowledge Led; And That Which She Was Wont To Organize We Crystallize, Instead.

On Every Mountain Height Is Rest.

The New Vulcanism Is Really A Daring Attempt To Connect The Present, Incomprehensible World To A Past, Unknown One.

For To Give Is The Business Of The Rich. [lat., Denn Geben Ist Sache Des Reichen.]

Colors Are Light's Suffering And Joy

The Modern Age Has A False Sense Of Superiority, Because Of The Great Mass Of Data At Its Disposal. But The Valid Criterion Of Distinction Is Rather The Extent To Which Man Knows How To Form And Master The Material At His Command.

Anecdotes And Maxims Are Rich Treasures To The Man Of The World, For He Knows How To Introduce The Former At Fit Place In Conversation.

Common Sense Is The Genius Of Humanity.

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

We Are Shaped And Fashioned By What We Love

The Greatest Happiness For The Thinking Person Is To Have Explored The Explorable And To Venerate In Equanimity That Which Cannotbe Explored.

Our Virtues And View Spring From One Root.

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?

To Appreciate The Noble Is A Gain Which Can Never Be Torn From Us.

The Mediator Of The Inexpressible Is The Work Of Art.

What Matters In Art Is Not Thinking But Making.

Mysterious In The Light Of Day, Nature Retains Her Veil, Despite Our Clamours: That Which She Does Not Willingly Display Cannot Be Wrenched From Her With Levers, Screws And Hammers.

Who Is The Happiest Man? He Who Is Alive To The Merit Of Others, And Can Rejoice In Their Enjoyment As If It Were His Own.

Let Us Seek To Fathom Those Things That Are Fathomable And Reserve Those Things Which Are Unfathomable For Reverence In Quietude.

The Soul Of Man Is Like To Water; From Heaven It Cometh, To Heaven It Riseth And Then Returning To Earth, Forever Alternating.

Noble Be Man, Helpful And Good!

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

The History Of A Man Is In His Character.

Thou Shalt Abstain, Renounce, Refrain.

If You Call A Thing Bad You Do Little, If You Call A Thing Good You Do Much

To Rule Is Easy, To Govern Difficult.

We Don't Get To Know People When They Come To Us; We Must Go To Them To Find Out What They Are Like.

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

Nothing Is True, But That Which Is Simple.

The Eternal Feminine Draws Us On High.

Error Is Acceptable As Long As We Are Young; But One Must Not Drag It Along Into Old Age.

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

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

Where There Are No Women There Are No Good Manners

The Highest Happiness Of Man ... Is To Have Probed What Is Knowable And Quietly To Revere What Is Unknowable.

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

In Praising Or Loving A Child, We Love And Praise Not That Which Is, But That Which We Hope For.

The Credit Of Advancing Science Has Always Been Due To Individuals And Never To The Age.

Plunge Boldly Into The Thick Of Life, And Seize It Where You Will, It Is Always Interesting.

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than Solitude.

The Universal Subjugator, The Commonplace.

One Can Stand Anything Except A Succession Of Ordinary Days

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

No One Would Talk Much In Society If They Knew How Often They Misunderstood Others.

If You Don't Feel It, You'll Never Achieve It.

Why Look For Conspiracy When Stupidity Can Explain So Much

No One Has Ever Learned Fully To Know Themselves.

A Lot Of People Do Not Care About Your Money Until Nearly Penniless. They Also Do So With Time

Impotent Hatred Is The Most Horrible Of All Emotions; One Should Hate Nobody Whom One Cannot Destroy.

Seize This Very Minute. What You Can Do Or Dream You Can Do, Begin It. Begin It And The Work Will Be Completed

Nothing Is More Terrible Than To See Ignorance In Action.

To Live In A Great Idea Means To Treat The Impossible As Though It Were Possible. It Is Just The Same With A Strong Character; And When An Idea And A Character Meet, Things Arise Which Fill The World With Wonder For Thousands Of Years.

Few Are Open To Conviction, But The Majority Of Men Are Open To Persuasion

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

The Connoisseur Of Art Must Be Able To Appreciate What Is Simply Beautiful, But The Common Run Of People Is Satisfied With Ornament.

The Safest Thing Is Always To Try To Convert Everything That Is In Us And Around Us Into Action; Let The Others Talk And Argue About It As They Please.

A Teacher Who Can Arouse A Feeling For One Single Good Action, For One Single Good Poem, Accomplishes More Than He Who Fills Our Memory With Rows And Rows Of Natural Objects, Classified With Name And Form.

If You Live Criticizing People, You Won't Have Time To Love Them.

Death Is Nature's Expert Advice To Get Plenty Of Life.

The Highest Problem Of Any Art Is To Cause By Appearance The Illusion Of A Higher Reality.

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

The Beginning Of Faith Is The Beginning Of Fruitfulness; But The Beginning Of Unbelief, However Glittering, Is Empty.

I Am The Spirit That Negates. And Rightly So, For All That Comes To Be Deserves To Perish Wretchedly; 'twere Better Nothing Would Begin. Thus Everything That That Your Terms, Sin, Destruction, Evil Represent— That Is My Proper Element.

At All Times It Has Not Been The Age, But Individuals Alone, Who Have Worked For Knowledge. It Was The Age Which Put Socrates To Death By Poison, The Age Which Burnt Huss. The Ages Have Always Remained Alike.

We Accept Every Person In The World As That For Which He Gives Himself Out, Only He Must Give Himself Out For Something. We Can Put Up With The Unpleasant More Easily Than We Can Endure The Insignificant.

Who Strives Always To The Utmost, Him Can We Save.

If You Have Science And Art, You Also Have Religion; But If You Don't Have Them, You Better Have Religion.

Two Souls Dwell, Alas! In My Breast.

The Threshold Is The Place Of Expectation.

There Is Nothing By Which Men Display Their Character So Much As In What They Consider Ridiculous... Fools And Sensible Men Are Equally Innocuous. It Is In The Half Fools And The Half Wise That The Great Danger Lies.

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

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

The World Only Goes Forward Because Of Those Who Oppose It.

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

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

You Are, When All Is Done-just What You Are.

There Is But One Poetry,--true Poetry.

Colors Are The Deeds/ And Sufferings Of Light.

Miracle Is The Pet Child Of Faith.

Light Has Called Forth One Organ To Become Its Like, And Thus The Eye Is Formed By The Light And For The Light So That The Inner Light May Emerge To Meet The Outer Light.

Superstition Is The Poetry Of Life.

Superstition Is Part Of The Poetry Of Life.

Our Destiny Often Looks Like A Fruit-tree In Winter. Who Would Think From Its Pitiable Aspect That Those Rigid Boughs, Those Rough Twigs Could Next Spring Again Be Green, Bloom, And Even Bear Fruit? Yet We Hope It, We Know It.

Plunge Boldly Into The Thick Of Life!

Art Is Based On A Strong Sentiment Of Religion,--on A Profound And Mighty Earnestness; Hence It Is So Prone To Co-operate With Religion.

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

The Day Is Of Infinite Length For Him Who Knows How To Appreciate And Use It.

Nothing Puts Me So Completely Out Of Patience As The Utterance Of A Wretched Commonplace When I Am Talking From My Inmost Heart.

He Who Is Plenteously Provided For From Within Needs But Little From Without.

Inspirational Life

The World Is So Full Of Simpletons And Madmen, That One Need Not Seek Them In A Madhouse.

The Most Original Of Authors Are Not So Because They Advance What Is New, But More Because They Know How To Say Something, As If It Had Never Been Said Before.

Three Things Are To Be Looked To In A Building: That It Stand On The Right Spot; That It Is Securely Founded; That It Be Successfully Executed.

As To The Value Of Conversions, God Alone Can Judge. God Alone Can Know How Wide Are The Steps Which The Soul Has To Take Before It Can Approach To A Community With Him, To The Dwelling Of The Perfect, Or To The Intercourse And Friendship Of Higher Natures.

Publishers Are All Cohorts Of The Devil; There Must Be A Special Hell For Them Somewhere.

Who Is The Wisest Man? He Who Neither Knows Or Wishes For Anything Else Than What Happens.

Music, In The Best Sense, Does Not Require Novelty; Nay, The Older It Is, And The More We Are Accustomed To It, The Greater Its Effect.

Man Would Not Be The Finest Creature In The World If He Were Not Too Fine For It.

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

Do Not Hurry; Do Not Rest.

Is This The Destiny Of Man? Is He Only Happy Before He Has Acquired His Reason Or After He Has Lost It?

Stones Are Mute Teachers; They Silence The Observer, And The Most Valuable Lesson We Learn From Them We Cannot Communicate.

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

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

Gray Are All The Theories, But Green Is The Tree Of Life.

The Senses Do Not Deceive Us, But The Judgment Does.

Look At A Man The Way He Is And He Only Becomes Worse, But Look At Him As If He Were What He Could Be, Then He Becomes What He Should Be.

A Correct Answer Is Like An Affectionate Kiss.

Slap In The Face

Nature Is, After All, The Only Book That Offers Important Content On Every Page.

The Man With Insight Enough To Admit His Limitations Comes Nearest To Perfection.

Nature! We Live In Her Midst And Know Her Not. She Is Incessantly Speaking To Us, But Betrays Not Her Secret. We Constantly Act Upon Her, And Yet Have No Power Over Her. Variant: Nature! We Are Surrounded And Embraced By Her: Powerless To Separate Ourselves From Her, And Powerless To Penetrate Beyond Her.

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

Be Generous With Kindly Words, Especially About Those Who Are Absent.

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

It Used To Happen, And Still Happens, To Me To Take No Pleasure In A Work Of Art At The First Sight Of It, Because It Is Too Much For Me; But If I Suspect Any Merit In It, I Try To Get At It; And Then I Never Fail To Make The Most Gratifying Discoveries--to Find New Qualities In The Work Itself And New Faculties In Myself.

It Is In Self-limitation That A Master First Shows Himself.

Divide And Command, A Wise Maxim; Unite And Guide, A Better.

Literature Is A Fragment Of A Fragment. Of All That Ever Happened, Or Has Been Said, But A Fraction Has Been Written; And Of This But Little Is Extant.

When Married One Has To Get Into An Argument Once In A While Since In This Way One Learns About The Other.

Does Not Man Lack The Force At The Very Point Where He Needs It Most? And When He Soars Upward In Joy, Or Sinks Down In Suffering, Is Not Checked In Both, Is He Not Returned Again To The Dull, Cold Sphere Of Awareness, Just When He Was Longing To Lose Himself In The Fullness Of The Infinite.

How Happy He Who Can Still Hope To Lift Himself From This Sea Of Error! What We Know Not, That We Are Anxious To Possess, And Cannot Use What We Know.

What You Desire When Young, You Have In Abundance When Old.

A Good Person, Striving Dimly, Is Well Aware Of The Right Path.

The Assault Of Our Enemies Is Not Part Of Our Life; It Is Only Part Of Our Experience; We Throw It Off And Guard Ourselves Against It As Against Frost, Storm, Rain, Hail, Or Any Other Of The External Evils Which May Be Expected To Happen.

What Is The Universal? The Single Case. What Is The Particular? Millions Of Cases.

It Is Commonly The Personal Character Of A Writer Which Gives Him His Public Significance. It Is Not Imparted By His Genius. Napoleon Said Of Corneille, "were He Living I Would Make Him A King;" But He Did Not Read Him. He Read Racine, Yet He Said Nothing Of The Kind Of Racine.

There Are Two Things Parents Should Give Their Children Roots And Wings. Roots To Give Them Bearing And A Sense Of Belonging, But Also Wings To Help Free Them From Constraints And Prejudices And Give Them Other Ways To Travel (or Rather, To Fly).

What Chance Gathers, She Easily Scatters. A Great Person Attracts Great People And Knows How To Hold Them Together.

When You Praise Someone You Call Yourself His Equal.

If The Mass Of People Hesitate To Act, Strike With Swiftly And With Boldness, The Brave Heart That Understands And Seizes Opportunity Can Everything.

Procrastination

What You Have Inherited From Your Fathers, Earn Over Again For Yourselves, Or It Will Not Be Yours.

Wood Burns Because It Has The Proper Stuff In It; And A Man Becomes Famous Because He Has The Proper Stuff In Him.

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.

What We Do Not Understand We Do Not Possess.

New Inventions Can And Will Be Made; However, Nothing New Can Be Thought Of That Concerns Moral Man. Everything Has Already Been Thought And Said Which At Best We Can Express In Different Forms And Give New Expressions To.

One Of The Most Striking Signs Of The Decay Of Art Is The Intermixing Of Different Genres.

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

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

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