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The Man Who Lies To Himself Can Be More Easily Offended Than Anyone Else. You Know It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant To Take Offense, Isn't It? A Man May Know That Nobody Has Insulted Him, But That He Has Invented The Insult For Himself, Has Lied And Exaggerated To Make It Picturesque, Has Caught At A Word And Made A Mountain Out Of A Molehill--he Knows That Himself, Yet He Will Be The First To Take Offense, And Will Revel In His Resentment Till He Feels Great Pleasure In It.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The Man Who Lies

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The Man Who Lies To Himself Can Be More Easily Offended Than Anyone Else. You Know It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant To Take Offense, Isn't It? A Man May Know That Nobody Has Insulted Him, But That He Has Invented The Insult For Himself, Has Lied And Exaggerated To Make It Picturesque, Has Caught At A Word And Made A Mountain Out Of A Molehill--he Knows That Himself, Yet He Will Be The First To Take Offense, And Will Revel In His Resentment Till He Feels Great Pleasure In It.

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People With New Ideas, People With The Faintest Capacity For Saying Something New, Are Extremely Few In Number, Extraordinarily So, In Fact.

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They Tease Me Now, Telling Me It Was Only A Dream. But Does It Matter Whether It Was A Dream Or Reality, If The Dream Made Known To Me The Truth?

Never Mind A Little Dirt, If The Goal Is Splendid!

Every Man Has Some Reminiscences Which He Would Not Tell To Everyone, But Only To His Friends. He Has Others Which He Would Not Reveal Even To His Friends, But Only To Himself, And That In Secret. But Finally There Are Still Others Which A Man Is Even Afraid To Tell Himself, And Every Decent Man Has A Considerable Number Of Such Things Stored Away. That Is, One Can Even Say That The More Decent He Is, The Greater The Number Of Such Things In His Mind.

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Nothing In This World Is Harder Than Speaking The Truth, Nothing Easier Than Flattery.

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

Because Everyone Is Guilty For Everyone Else. For All The 'wee Ones,' Because There Are Little Children And Big Children. All People Are 'wee Ones.' And I'll Go For All Of Them, Because There Must Be Someone Who Will Go For All Of Them.

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Father Monks, Why Do You Fast! Why Do You Expect Reward In Heaven For That?...no, Saintly Monk, You Try Being Virtuous In The World, Do Good To Society, Without Shutting Yourself Up In A Monastery At Other People's Expense, And Without Expecting A Reward Up Aloft For It--you'll Find That A Bit Harder.

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I Want To Suffer So That I May Love.

We Have All Lost Touch With Life, We All Limp, Each To A Greater Or Lesser Degree.

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If She Had Ordered Me To Throw Myself Down Then, I Would Have Done It! If She Had Said It Only As A Joke, Said It With Contempt, Spitting On Me--even Then I Would Have Jumped!

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

Power Is Given Only To Those Who Dare To Lower Themselves And Pick It Up. Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

For What Is Man Without Desires, Without Free Will, And Without The Power Of Choice But A Stop In An Organ Pipe?

I Bless The Rising Sun Each Day, And, As Before, My Heart Sings To Meet It, But Now I Love Even More Its Setting, Its Long Slanting Rays & The Soft Tender Gentle Memories That Come With Them...’ -father Zossima

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It's The Moon That Makes It So Still, Weaving Some Mystery.

I Am A Fool With A Heart But No Brains, And You Are A Fool With Brains But No Heart; And We’re Both Unhappy, And We Both Suffer.

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You Know, My Boy, He Said, It's Impossible To Love Men Such As They Are. And Yet We Must. So Try To Do Good To Men By Doing Violence To Your Feelings, Holding Your Nose, And Shutting Your Eyes, Especially Shutting Your Eyes. Endure Their Villainy Without Anger, As Much As Possible; Try To Remember That You're A Man Too. For, If You're Even A Little Above Average Intelligence, You'll Have The Propensity To Judge People Severely. Men Are Vile By Nature And They'd Rather Love Out Of Fear. Don't Give In To Such Love: Despise It Always.

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Notes From The Underground

If They Drive God From The Earth, We Shall Shelter Him Underground.

Listen, In Dreams And Especially In Nightmares, From Indigestion Or Anything, A Man Sees Sometimes Such Artistic Visions, Such Complex And Real Actuality, Such Events, Even A Whole World Of Events, Woven Into Such A Plot, With Such Unexpected Details From The Most Exalted Matters To The Last Button On A Cuff, As I Swear Leo Tolstoy Has Never Invented.

Anyone Who Can Appease A Man's Conscience Can Take His Freedom Away From Him.

And Though I Suffer For You, Yet It Eases My Heart To Suffer For You.

Only Through Suffering Can We Find Ourselves.

I Am A Dreamer. I Know So Little Of Real Life That I Just Can’t Help Re-living Such Moments As These In My Dreams, For Such Moments Are Something I Have Very Rarely Experienced. I Am Going To Dream About You The Whole Night, The Whole Week, The Whole Year.

Man Is A Mystery. It Needs To Be Unravelled, And If You Spend Your Whole Life Unravelling It, Don't Say That You've Wasted Time. I Am Studying That Mystery Because I Want To Be A Human Being.

But Twice-two-makes-four Is For All That A Most Insupportable Thing. Twice-two-makes-four Is, In My Humble Opinion, Nothing But A Piece Of Impudence. Twice-two-makes-four Is A Farcical, Dressed-up Fellow Who Stands Across Your Path With Arms Akimbo And Spits At You.

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It's Curious And Ridiculous How Much The Gaze Of A Prudish And Painfully Chaste Man Touched By Love Can Sometimes Express And That Precisely At A Moment When The Man Would Of Course Sooner Be Glad To Fall Through The Earth Than To Express Anything With A Word Or A Look.

You See I Kept Asking Myself Then: Why Am I So Stupid That If Others Are Stupid—and I Know They Are—yet I Won't Be Wiser?

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The Man Who Has A Conscience Suffers Whilst Acknowledging His Sin. That Is His Punishment.

Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External.

For Men Are Made For Happiness, And Any One Who Is Completely Happy Has A Right To Say To Himself, 'i Am Doing God's Will On Earth.'

"i Love Mankind," He Said, "but I Find To My Amazement That The More I Love Mankind As A Whole, The Less I Love Man In Particular."

The Jealous Are The Readiest Of All To Forgive, And All Women Know It.

There Were Moments When I Hated Everybody I Came Across, Innocent Or Guilty, And Looked At Them As Thieves Who Were Robbing Me Of My Life With Impunity. The Most Unbearable Misfortune Is When You Yourself Become Unjust, Malignant, Vile; You Realize It, You Even Reproach Yourself - But You Just Can't Help It.

For If There's No Everlasting God, There's No Such Thing As Virtue, And There's No Need Of It.

I Tell Thee That Man Is Tormented By No Greater Anxiety Than To Find Someone Quickly To Whom He Can Hand Over That Gift Of Freedom With Which The Ill-fated Creatures Is Born. But Only One Who Can Appease Their Conscience Can Take Over Their Freedom […] Instead Of Taking Men's Freedom From Them, Thou Didst Make It Greater Than Ever! Didst Thou Forget That Man Prefers Peace, And Even Death, To Freedom Of Choice In The Knowledge Of Good And Evil?

A Man Would Still Do Something Out Of Sheer Perversity - He Would Create Destruction And Chaos - Just To Gain His Point...and If All This Could In Turn Be Analyzed And Prevented By Predicting That It Would Occur, Then Man Would Deliberately Go Mad To Prove His Point.

What Do You Think, Would Not One Tiny Crime Be Wiped Out By Thousands Of Good Deeds?

The Mystery Of Human Existence Lies Not In Just Staying Alive, But In Finding Something To Live For.

In Sinning, Each Man Sins Against All, And Each Man Is At Least Partly Guilt For Another's Sin. There Is No Isolated Sin.

An Artist Must Know The Reality He Is Depicting In Its Minutest Detail. In My Opinion We Have Only One Shining Example Of That - Count Leo Tolstoy.

What Is Hell?...the Suffering That Comes From The Consciousness That One Is No Longer Able To Love.

If You Want To Be Respected By Others, The Great Thing Is To Respect Yourself. Only By That, Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

Whoever Has Experienced The Power And The Unrestrained Ability To Humiliate Another Human Being Automatically Loses His Own Sensations. Tyranny Is A Habit, It Has Its Own Organic Life, It Develops Finally Into A Disease. The Habit Can Kill And Coarsen The Very Best Man Or Woman To The Level Of A Beast. Blood And Power Intoxicate ... The Return Of The Human Dignity, Repentance And Regeneration Becomes Almost Impossible.

With Old Liars Who Have Been Acting All Their Lives There Are Moments When They Enter So Completely Into Their Part That They Tremble Or Shed Tears In Earnest, Although At That Very Moment, Or A Second Later, They Are Able To Whisper To Themselves, "you Know You Are Lying, You Shameless Old Sinner! You're Acting Now, In Spite Of Your 'holy' Wrath.

What Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

I Walked Along Nevsky Avenue.actually It Was More Torture, Humiliation, And Bilious Irritation Than A Stroll.

He Was One Of The Numerous And Varied Legion Of Dullards, Of Half-animated Abortions, Conceited, Half-educated Coxcombs, Who Attach Themselves To The Idea Most In Fashion Only To Vulgarize It And Who Caricature Every Cause They Serve, However Sincerely.

Love Is A Teacher, But One Must Know How To Acquire It, For It Is Difficult To Acquire, It Is Dearly Bought, By Long Work Over A Long Time, For One Ought To Love Not For A Chance Moment But For All Time. Anyone, Even A Wicked Man, Can Love By Chance.

Above All, Don't Lie To Yourself. The Man Who Lies To Himself And Listens To His Own Lie Comes To A Point That He Cannot Distinguish The Truth Within Him, Or Around Him, And So Loses All Respect For Himself And For Others. And Having No Respect He Ceases To Love.

... What You Need More Than Anything In Life Is A Definite Position.

It's Not Miracles That Generate Faith, But Faith That Generates Miracles.

You Are Told A Lot About Your Education, But Some Beautiful, Sacred Memory, Preserved Since Childhood, Is Perhaps The Best Education Of All.

You Must Accept It As It Is, And Hence Accept All Consequences. A Wall Is Indeed A Wall.

Man Is Sometimes Extraordinarily, Passionately, In Love With Suffering.

Deprived Of Meaningful Work, Men And Women Lose Their Reason For Existence; They Go Stark, Raving Mad.

Learning To Love Is Hard And We Pay Dearly For It. It Takes Hard Work And A Long Apprenticeship, For It Is Not Just For A Moment That We Must Learn To Love, But Forever.

In Order To Love Simply, It Is Necessary To Know How To Show Love.

Coming At Twenty To His Father's House, Which Was A Very Sink Of Filthy Debauchery, He, Chaste And Pure As He Was, Simply Withdrew In Silence When To Look On Was Unbearable, But Without The Slightest Sign Of Contempt Or Condemnation. His Father, Who Had Once Been In A Dependent Position, And So Was Sensitive And Ready To Take Offense, Met Him At First With Distrust And Sullenness.

My Feelings, Gratitude, For Instance, Are Denied Me Simply Because Of My Social Position.

Love All God’s Creation, Both The Whole And Every Grain Of Sand. Love Every Leaf, Every Ray Of Light. Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Each Separate Thing. If Thou Love Each Thing Thou Wilt Perceive The Mystery Of God In All; And When Once Thou Perceive This, Thou Wilt Thenceforward Grow Every Day To A Fuller Understanding Of It: Until Thou Come At Last To Love The Whole World With A Love That Will Then Be All-embracing And Universal.

Now I'm Living Out My Life In A Corner, Trying To Console Myself With The Stupid, Useless Excuse That An Intelligent Man Cannot Turn Himself Into Anything, That Only A Fool Can Make Anything He Wants Out Of Himself.

Here Is A Commandment For You: Seek Happiness In Sorrow. Work, Work Tirelessly.

If He Has A Conscience He Will Suffer For His Mistake. That Will Be His Punishment-as Well As The Prison.

A Society Should Be Judged Not By How It Treats Its Outstanding Citizens But By How It Treats Its Criminals.

It Wasn't The New World That Mattered... Columbus Died Almost Without Seeing It; And Not Really Knowing What He Had Discovered. It's Life That Matters, Nothing But Life - The Process Of Discovering, The Everlasting And Perpetual Process, Not The Discovery Itself, At All.

And So I Ask Myself: 'where Are Your Dreams?' And I Shake My Head And Mutter: 'how The Years Go By!' And I Ask Myself Again: 'what Have You Done With Those Years? Where Have You Buried Your Best Moments? Have You Really Lived? Look,' I Say To Myself, 'how Cold It Is Becoming All Over The World!' And More Years Will Pass And Behind Them Will Creep Grim Isolation. Tottering Senility Will Come Hobbling, Leaning On A Crutch, And Behind These Will Come Unrelieved Boredom And Despair. The World Of Fancies Will Fade, Dreams Will Wilt And Die And Fall Like Autumn Leaves From The Trees. . . .

Lamentations Comfort Only By Lacerating The Heart Still More. Such Grief Does Not Desire Consolation. It Feeds On The Sense Of Its Hopelessness. Lamentations Spring Only From The Constant Craving To Re-open The Wound.

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Every One Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me. Of Course, Any One Is Entitled To Ask Who "every One" Was. For Though I Had Been Living Almost Eight Years In Petersburg I Had Hardly An Acquaintance. But What Did I Want With Acquaintances? I Was Acquainted With All Petersburg As It Was.

And In Fact You're Not Like Everyone Else: You Weren't Ashamed Just Now To Confess Bad And Even Ridiculous Things About Yourself. Who Would Confess Such Things Nowadays? No One, And People Have Even Stopped Feeling Any Need For Self-judgment.

Can A Man Possessing Conciousness Ever Really Respect Himself?

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps!

Yes, That's Right... Love Should Come Before Logic ... Only Then Will Man Come To Understand The Meaning Of Life.

Meaning Of Life

Twice Two Makes Four Seems To Me Simply A Piece Of Insolence. Twice Two Makes Four Is A Pert Coxcomb Who Stands With Arms Akimbo Barring Your Path And Spitting. I Admit That Twice Two Makes Four Is An Excellent Thing, But If We Are To Give Everything Its Due, Twice Two Makes Five Is Sometimes A Very Charming Thing Too.

Man Is Unhappy Because He Doesn't Know He's Happy. If Anyone Finds Out He'll Become Happy At Once.

One Can Know A Man From His Laugh, And If You Like A Man's Laugh Before You Know Anything Of Him, You May Confidently Say That He Is A Good Man.

Though I Do Not Believe In The Order Of Things, Still The Sticky Little Leaves That Come Out In The Spring Are Dear To Me, The Blue Sky Is Dear To Me, Some People Are Dear To Me, Whom One Loves Sometimes, Would You Believe It, Without Even Knowing Why; Some Human Deeds Are Dear To Me, Which One Has Perhaps Long Ceased Believing In, But Still Honors With One's Heart, Out Of Old Habit..." --ivan Karamazov

Man Grows Used To Everything, The Scoundrel!

The Secret Of Man's Being Is Not Only To Live But To Have Something To Live For.

At First, Art Imitates Life. Then Life Will Imitate Art.then Life Will Find Its Very Existence From The Arts.

He Who Masters The Grey Everyday Is A Hero.

The Genuine Realist, If He Is An Unbeliever, Will Always Find Strength And Ability To Disbelieve In The Miraculous, And If He Is Confronted With A Miracle As An Irrefutable Fact He Would Rather Disbelieve His Own Senses Than Admit The Miraculous Also.

...one May Say Anything About The History Of The World - Anything That Might Enter The Most Disordered Imagination. The Only Thing One Can't Say Is That It's Rational.

Break What Must Be Broken, Once For All, That's All, And Take The Suffering On Oneself.

...chance May Do Anything.

Love The Animals: God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled.

Speak Of A Wolf And You See His Tail!

I Am A Wicked Man... But Do You Know, Gentlemen, What Was The Main Point About My Wickedness? The Whole Thing, Precisely Was, The Greatest Nastiness Precisely Lay In My Being Shamefully Conscious Every Moment, Even In Moments Of The Greatest Bile, That I Was Not Only Not A Wicked Man But Was Not Even An Embittered Man, That I Was Simply Frightening Sparrows In Vain, And Pleasing Myself With It.

We Are Born Dead, And We Are Becoming More And More Contented With Our Condition. We Are Acquiring The Taste For It.

Much Unhappiness Has Come Into The World Because Of Bewilderment And Things Left Unsaid.

I Have No Self-respect. But Can A Man Of Acute Sensibility Respect Himself At All?

The More You Succeed In Loving, The More You'll Be Convinced At The Existence Of God And The Immortality Of Your Soul.

And If There's Love, You Can Do Without Happiness Too. Even With Sorrow, Life Is Sweet.

In Summer, Intolerable Closeness; In Winter, Unendurable Cold. All The Floors Were Rotten. Filth On The Floors An Inch Thick; One Could Slip And Fall.

I Go To Spread The Tidings, I Want To Spread The Tidings Of What? Of The Truth , For I Have Seen It, Have Seen It With My Own Eyes , Have Seen It In All Its Glory .

Hang Your Merit. I Don't Seek Anyone's Approbation.

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

It Is Amazing What One Ray Of Sunshine Can Do For A Man!

That's Just The Point: An Honest And Sensitive Man Opens His Heart, And The Man Of Business Goes On Eating - And Then He Eats You Up.

If He's Alive, Everything Is In His Power! Whose Fault Is It That He Doesn't Understand That?

I Did Not Understand That She Was Hiding Her Feelings Under Irony, That This Is Usually The Last Refuge Of Modest And Chaste-souled People When The Privacy Of Their Soul Is Coarsely And Intrusively Invaded, And That Their Pride Makes Them Refuse To Surrender Till The Last Moment And Shrink From Giving Expression To Their Feelings Before You. To Have Guessed The Truth From The Timidity With Which She Had Repeatedly Approached Her Sarcasm, Only Bringing Herself To Utter It At Last With An Effort.

I Don’t Understand Anything...and I No Longer Want To Understand Anything. I Want To Stick To The Fact...if I Wanted To Understand Something, I Would Immediately Have To Betray The Fact, But I’ve Made Up My Mind To Stick To The Fact.

May You Be For Ever Blessed For That Moment Of Bliss And Happiness Which You Gave To Another Lonely And Grateful Heart. Isn't Such A Moment Sufficient For The Whole Of One's Life?

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Spiteful Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think That My Liver Hurts.

Man, Do Not Pride Yourself On Your Superiority To The Animals, For They Are Without Sin, While You, With All Your Greatness, You Defile The Earth Wherever You Appear And Leave An Ignoble Trail Behind You -- And That Is True, Alas, For Almost Every One Of Us!

Be Not Forgetful Of Prayer. Every Time You Pray, If Your Prayer Is Sincere, There Will Be New Feeling And New Meaning In It, Which Will Give You Fresh Courage, And You Will Understand That Prayer Is An Education.

Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Buy The Whole World With It, And Redeem Not Only Your Own But Other People's Sins. Go, And Do Not Be Afraid.

... The More I Learned, The More Conscious Did I Become Of The Fact That I Was Ridiculous. So That For Me My Years Of Hard Work At The University Seem In The End To Have Existed For The Sole Purpose Of Demonstrating And Proving To Me, The More Deeply Engrossed I Became In My Studies, That I Was An Utterly Absurd Person

'ever Seen A Leaf - A Leaf From A Tree?' 'yes.' I Saw One Recently - A Yellow One, A Little Green, Wilted At The Edges. Blown By The Wind. When I Was A Little Boy, I Used To Shut My Eyes In Winter And Imagine A Green Leaf, With Veins On It, And The Sun Shining ...' 'what's This - An Allegory?' "no; Why? Not An Allegory - A Leaf, Just A Leaf. A Leaf Is Good. Everything's Good.'

Viper Will Eat Viper, And It Would Serve Them Both Right!

Brothers Karamazov

Of Course Boredom May Lead You To Anything. It Is Boredom Sets One Sticking Golden Pins Into People, But All That Would Not Matter. What Is Bad (this Is My Comment Again) Is That I Dare Say People Will Be Thankful For The Gold Pins Then.

To Strive Consciously For An Object And To Engage In Engineering -- That Is, Incessantly And Eternally To Make New Roads, Wherever They May Lead.

People Talk Sometimes Of A Bestial Cruelty, But That's A Great Injustice And Insult To The Beasts; A Beast Can Never Be So Cruel As A Man, So Artistically Cruel. The Tiger Only Tears And Gnaws, That's All He Can Do. He Would Never Think Of Nailing People By The Ears, Even If He Were Able To Do It.

--you Wouldn't Have Hurt Me Like This For Nothing. So What Have I Done? How Have I Wronged You? Tell Me.

And Do You Know, Do You Know That Mankind Can Live Without The Englishman, It Can Live Without Germany, It Can Live Only Too Well Without The Russian Man, It Can Live Without Science, Without Bread, And It Only Cannot Live Without Beauty, For Then There Would Be Nothing At All To Do In The World! The Whole Secret Is Here, The Whole Of History Is Here. Science Itself Would Not Stand For A Minute Without Beauty

Men Do Not Accept Their Prophets And Slay Them, But They Love Their Martyrs And Worship Those Whom They Have Tortured To Death.

‎honoured Sir, Poverty Is Not A Vice, That's A True Saying. Yet I Know Too That Drunkeness Is Not A Virtue, And That's Even Truer. But Beggary, Honoured Sir, Beggary Is A Vice. In Poverty You May Still Retain Your Innate Nobility Of Soul, But In Beggary--never--no One. For Beggary A Man Is Not Chased Out Of Human Society With A Stick, He Is Swept Out With A Broom, So As To Make It As Humiliating As Possible; And Quite Right, Too, Forasmuch As In Beggary As I Am Ready To Be The First To Humiliate Myself.

One's Own Free And Unfettered Volition, One's Own Caprice, However Wild, One's Own Fancy, Inflamed Sometimes To The Point Of Madness - That Is The One Best And Greatest Good, Which Is Never Taken Into Consideration Because It Cannot Fit Into Any Classification And The Omission Of Which Sends All Systems And Theories To The Devil.

There Is Only One Thing That I Dread: Not To Be Worthy Of My Sufferings.

Ah, Father! That’s Words And Only Words! Forgive! If He’d Not Been Run Over, He’d Have Come Home Today Drunk And His Only Shirt Dirty And In Rags And He’d Have Fallen Asleep Like A Log, And I Should Have Been Sousing And Rinsing Till Daybreak, Washing His Rags And The Children’s And Then Drying Them By The Window And As Soon As It Was Daylight I Should Have Been Darning Them. What’s The Use Of Talking Forgiveness! I Have Forgiven As It Is!

I'm Drunk But Truthful.

A Beast Can Never Be As Cruel As A Human Being, So Artistically, So Picturesquely Cruel.

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Edwin Louis Cole

Katharine Fullerton Gerould

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