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

-Andre Gide

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To Read A Writer

Andre Gide

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

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

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

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

I Have No Use For Knowledge That Has Not Been Preceded By A Sensation

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

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

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

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

Greatest Victory

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

How Much More Sensuality Invites To Art Than Does Sentimentality.

It Seems To Me That Had I Not Known Dostoevsky Or Nietzsche Or Freud Or X Or Z, I Should Have Thought Just As I Did, And That I Found In Them Rather An Authorization Than An Awakening. Above All, They Taught Me To Cease Doubting, To Cease Fearing My Thoughts, And To Let Those Thoughts Lead Me To Those Lands That Were Not Uninhabitable Because After All I Found Them Already There .

When Everything Belongs To Everyone, Nobody Will Take Care Of Anything.

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

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

Understanding Is The Beginning Of Approving.

Understand That The Only Possession Of Any Value Is Life.

Generally Among Intelligent People Are Found Nothing But Paralytics And Among Men Of Action Nothing But Fools.

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

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

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

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

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

What Eludes Logic Is The Most Precious Element In Us, And One Can Draw Nothing From A Syllogism That The Mind Has Not Put There In Advance.

Whither Should We Aim If Not Towards God?

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

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

The Thing I Am Most Aware Of Is My Limits. And This Is Natural; For I Never, Or Almost Never, Occupy The Middle Of My Cage; My Whole Being Surges Toward The Bars.

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

True Eloquence Forgoes Eloquence.

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

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

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

Creative Collaboration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long Only For What You Have.

Prejudices Are The Props Of Civilization.

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

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

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

By The Time A Philospher Answers A Question Weve Usually Forgotten What Was Asked.

The Capacity To Get Free Is Nothing; The Capacity To Be Free Is The Task.

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

Obsessions Of The Orient, Of The Desert, Of Its Ardor And Its Emptiness, Of The Shadows Of Palm Gardens, Of The Garments White And Wide - Obsessions Where The Senses Go Berserk, Where Nerves Are Exasperated, And Which Made Me, At The Onset Of Each Night, Believe Sleep Impossible.

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

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

Too Chaste An Adolescence Makes For A Dissolute Old Age. It Is Doubtless Easier To Give Up Something One Has Known Than Something One Imagines.

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

The Wise Man Is He Who Constantly Wonders Afresh.

To Win Ones Joy Through Struggle Is Better Than To Yield To Melancholy.

The Nationalist Has A Broad Hatred And A Narrow Love.

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

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

Drunkenness Is Never Anything But A Substitute For Happiness.

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

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

There's A Law In Life: Whenever A Door Closes, A New One Will Open.

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

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

Know That Joy Is Rarer, More Difficult, And More Beautiful Than Sadness. Once You Make This All-important Discovery, You Must Embrace Joy As A Moral Obligation.

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

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

Old Hands Soil, It Seems, Whatever They Caress, But They Too Have Their Beauty When They Are Joined In Prayer. Young Hands Were Made For Caresses And The Sheathing Of Love. It Is A Pity To Make Them Join Too Soon.

Chastity More Rarely Follows Fear, Or A Resolution, Or A Vow, Than It Is The Mere Effect Of Lack Of Appetite And, Sometimes Even, Of Distaste.

Be Faithful To That Which Exists Within Yourself.

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

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

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

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

The Loveliest Creations Of Men Are Persistently Painful. What Would Be The Description Of Happiness? Nothing, Except What Prepares And Then What Destroys It.

Creation Of Man

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Valentines Day

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

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

In Hell There Is No Other Punishment Than To Begin Over And Over Again The Tasks Left Unfinished In Your Lifetime.

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

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

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

One Completely Overcomes Only What One Assimilates.

Please Do Not Understand Me Too Quickly.

I Intend To Bring You Strength, Joy, Courage, Perspicacity, Defiance.

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

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

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

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

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

He Who Wants A Rose Must Respect Her Thorn.

I Advise The Young To Tell Themselves Constantly That Most Often It Is Up To Them Alone.

A Straight Path Never Leads Anywhere Except To The Objective.

It Is Often So: The Harder It Is To Hear, The More A Truth Is Worth Saying.

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

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

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

A Work Of Art Is An Exaggeration.

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

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

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

Do Not Scorn Little Victories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sin Is Whatever Obscures The Soul.

The Young People Who Come To Me In The Hope Of Hearing Me Utter A Few Memorable Maxims Are Quite Disappointed. Aphorisms Are Not My Forte, I Say Nothing But Banalities.... I Listen To Them And They Go Away Delighted.

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

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

From The Satisfaction Of Desire There May Arise, Accompanying Joy And As It Were Sheltering Behind It, Something Not Unlike Despair.

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

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

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

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

Society Knows Perfectly Well How To Kill A Man And Has Methods More Subtle Than Death

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

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

The Work Of Art Is The Exaggeration Of An Idea.

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

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

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

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

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

Man: The Most Complex Of Beings, And Thus The Most Dependent Of Beings. On All That Made You Up, You Depend.

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

Not Everyone Can Be An Orphan.

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

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

Believe Those Who Seek The Truth, Doubt Those Who Find It; Doubt All, But Do Not Doubt Yourself.

Only Fools Don't Contradict Themselves

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

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

Profound Optimism Is Always On The Side Of The Tortured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Most Gifted Natures Are Perhaps Also The Most Trembling.

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

It Is One Of Life's Laws That As Soon As One Door Closes Another Opens. But The Tragedy Is We Look At The Closed Door And Disregard The Open One.

Sadness Is A State Of Sin.

Nothing Excellent Can Be Done Without Leisure.

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

Most Quarrels Amplify A Misunderstanding.

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

Wisdom Comes Not From Reason But From Love.

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

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

The Color Of Truth Is Gray.

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

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

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

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

The Wise Man Is Astonished By Anything.

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

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

Nothing Is So Silly As The Expression Of A Man Who Is Being Complimented.

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

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

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

Nothing Blocks Happiness Like Happiness Remembered.

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

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

Sadness Is Almost Never Anything But A Form Of Fatigue.

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

Without Mysticism Man Can Achieve Nothing Great.

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

The World Will Be Saved By One Or Two People.

Nothing Is More Fatal To Happiness Than The Remembrance Of Happiness.

Faith Can Move Mountains; True: Mountains Of Stupidity.

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

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

The Abominable Effort To Take One’s Sins With One To Paradise.

Too Chaste A Youth Leads To A Dissolute Old Age.

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

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

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

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

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

Envying Another Man's Happiness Is Madness; You Wouldn't Know What To Do With It If You Had It.

Nothing Prevents Happiness Like The Memory Of Happiness.

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

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

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

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