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Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Only Of A Complete Action, But Of Events Inspiring Fear And Pity. Such An Effect Is Best Produced When The Events Come On Us By Surprise; And The Effect Is Heightened When, At The Same Time, They Follow As Cause And Effect. The Tragic Wonder Will Then Be Great Than If They Happened Of Themselves Or By Accident; For Even Coincidences Are Most Striking When They Have An Air Of Design.

-Aristotle

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Tragedy Is An Imitation

Aristotle

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Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Only Of A Complete Action, But Of Events Inspiring Fear And Pity. Such An Effect Is Best Produced When The Events Come On Us By Surprise; And The Effect Is Heightened When, At The Same Time, They Follow As Cause And Effect. The Tragic Wonder Will Then Be Great Than If They Happened Of Themselves Or By Accident; For Even Coincidences Are Most Striking When They Have An Air Of Design.

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If Something's Bound To Happen, It Will Happen.. Right Time, Right Person, And For The Best Reason.

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Here And Elsewhere We Shall Not Obtain The Best Insight Into Things Until We Actually See Them Growing From The Beginning.

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The Greatest Injustices Proceed From Those Who Pursue Excess, Not By Those Who Are Driven By Necessity.

There Are Three Things That Are The Motives Of Choice And Three That Are The Motives Of Avoidance; Namely, The Noble, The Expedient, And The Pleasant, And Their Opposites, The Base, The Harmful, And The Painful. Now In Respect Of All These The Good Man Is Likely To Go Right And The Bad To Go Wrong, But Especially In Respect Of Pleasure; For Pleasure Is Common To Man With The Lower Animals, And Also It Is A Concomitant Of All The Objects Of Choice, Since Both The Noble And The Expedient Appear To Us Pleasant.

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Every Formed Disposition Of The Soul Realizes Its Full Nature In Relation To And Dealing With That Class Of Objects By Which It Is Its Nature To Be Corrupted Or Improved.

Happiness Is The Meaning And The Purpose Of Life, The Whole Aim And End Of Human Existence.

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All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

A Vivid Image Compels The Whole Body To Follow.

Art Completes What Nature Cannot Bring To Finish. The Artist Gives Us Knowledge Of Nature's Unrealized Ends.

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Philosophy Can Make People Sick.

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It Is Impossible, Or Not Easy, To Alter By Argument What Has Long Been Absorbed By Habit

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The Educated Differ From The Uneducated As Much As The Living From The Dead.

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Thus Then A Single Harmony Orders The Composition Of The Whole...by The Mingling Of The Most Contrary Principles.

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To Die, And Thus Avoid Poverty Or Love, Or Anything Painful, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Rather Of A Coward; For It Is Cowardice To Avoid Trouble, And The Suicide Does Not Undergo Death Because It Is Honorable, But In Order To Avoid Evil.

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Nicomachean Ethics

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

If The Hammer And The Shuttle Could Move Themselves, Slavery Would Be Unnecessary.

You'll Understand What Life Is If You Think About The Act Of Dying. When I Die, How Will I Be Different From The Way I Am Right Now? In The First Moments After Death, My Body Will Be Scarcely Different In Physical Terms Than It Was In The Last Seconds Of Life, But I Will No Longer Move, No Longer Sense, Nor Speak, Nor Feel, Nor Care. It's These Things That Are Life. At That Moment, The Psyche Takes Flight In The Last Breath.

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

The Man Who Is Truly Good And Wise Will Bear With Dignity Whatever Fortune Sends, And Will Always Make The Best Of His Circumstances.

Men Come Together In Cities In Order To Live: They Remain Together In Order To Live The Good Life

For What Is The Best Choice For Each Individual Is The Highest It Is Possible For Him To Achieve.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

Friends Are Much Better Tried In Bad Fortune Than In Good.

Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

All Men Desire By Nature To Know.

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be, And Similarly Everything That Depends On Art Or Any Rational Cause, And Especially If It Depends On The Best Of All Causes.

The Wise Man Does Not Expose Himself Needlessly To Danger, Since There Are Few Things For Which He Cares Sufficiently; But He Is Willing, In Great Crises, To Give Even His Life - Knowing That Under Certain Conditions It Is Not Worthwhile To Live.

The Best Friend Is He That, When He Wishes A Person's Good, Wishes It For That Person's Own Sake.

For Contemplation Is Both The Highest Form Of Activity (since The Intellect Is The Highest Thing In Us, And The Objects That It Apprehends Are The Highest Things That Can Be Known), And Also It Is The Most Continuous, Because We Are More Capable Of Continuous Contemplation Than We Are Of Any Practical Activity.

The Male Has More Teeth Than The Female In Mankind, And Sheep And Goats, And Swine. This Has Not Been Observed In Other Animals. Those Persons Which Have The Greatest Number Of Teeth Are The Longest Lived; Those Which Have Them Widely Separated, Smaller, And More Scattered, Are Generally More Short Lived.

Those Whose Days Are Consumed In The Low Pursuits Of Avarice, Or The Gaudy Frivolties Of Fashion, Unobservant Of Nature's Lovelinessof Demarcation, Nor On Which Side Thereof An Intermediate Form Should Lie.

Once More: There Are Three Offices According To Whose Directions The Highest Magistrates Are Chosen In Certain States - Guardians Of The Law, Probuli, Councilors - Of These, The Guardians Of The Law Are An Aristocratical, The Probuli An Oligarchical, The Council A Democratical Institution.

Life Is Only Meaningful When We Are Striving For A Goal .

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

In The Works Of Nature, Purpose, Not Accident, Is The Main Thing.

Selfishness Doesn't Consist In A Love To Yourself, But In A Big Degree Of Such Love.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

The Habits We Form From Childhood Make No Small Difference, But Rather They Make All The Difference.

Anything Whose Presence Or Absence Makes No Discernible Difference Is No Essential Part Of The Whole.

The Laws Are, And Ought To Be, Relative To The Constitution, And Not The Constitution To The Laws. A Constitution Is The Organization Of Offices In A State, And Determines What Is To Be The Governing Body, And What Is The End Of Each Community. But Laws Are Not To Be Confounded With The Principles Of The Constitution; They Are The Rules According To Which The Magistrates Should Administer The State, And Proceed Against Offenders.

The Vices Respectively Fall Short Of Or Exceed What Is Right In Both Passions And Actions, While Virtue Both Finds And Chooses That Which Is Intermediate.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

Some Persons Hold That, While It Is Proper For The Lawgiver To Encourage And Exhort Men To Virtue On Moral Grounds, In The Expectation That Those Who Have Had A Virtuous Moral Upbringing Will Respond, Yet He Is Bound To Impose Chastisement And Penalties On The Disobedient And Ill-conditioned, And To Banish The Incorrigible Out Of The State Altogether. For (they Argue) Although The Virtuous Man, Who Guides His Life By Moral Ideals, Will Be Obedient To Reason, The Base, Whose Desires Are Fixed On Pleasure, Must Be Chastised By Pain, Like A Beast Of Burden.

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

For We Are Inquiring Not In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Since Otherwise Our Inquiry Would Have Been Of No Use

Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.

Learning Is Not Child's Play; We Cannot Learn Without Pain.

It Is Absurd To Hold That A Man Ought To Be Ashamed Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With His Limbs, But Not Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With Speech And Reason, When The Use Of Rational Speech Is More Distinctive Of A Human Being Than The Use Of His Limbs.

At The Intersection Where Your Gifts, Talents, And Abilities Meet A Human Need; Therein You Will Discover Your Purpose

Every Community Is An Association Of Some Kind And Every Community Is Established With A View To Some Good; For Everyone Always Acts In Order To Obtain That Which They Think Good. But, If All Communities Aim At Some Good, The State Or Political Community, Which Is The Highest Of All, And Which Embraces All The Rest, Aims At Good In A Greater Degree Than Any Other, And At The Highest Good.

They - Young People Have Exalted Notions, Because They Have Not Been Humbled By Life Or Learned Its Necessary Limitations; Moreover, Their Hopeful Disposition Makes Them Think Themselves Equal To Great Things - And That Means Having Exalted Notions. They Would Always Rather Do Noble Deeds Than Useful Ones: Their Lives Are Regulated More By Moral Feeling Than By Reasoning - All Their Mistakes Are In The Direction Of Doing Things Excessively And Vehemently. They Overdo Everything - They Love Too Much, Hate Too Much, And The Same With Everything Else.

The True Nature Of A Thing Is The Highest It Can Become.

Again, It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways (for Evil Belongs To The Class Of The Unlimited And Good To That Of The Limited), While To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way (for Which Reason Also One Is Easy And The Other Difficult—to Miss The Mark Easy, To Hit It Difficult); For These Reasons Also, Then, Excess And Defect Are Characteristic Of Vice, And The Mean Of Virtue; For Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

95% Of Everything You Do Is The Result Of Habit.

The Life Of Theoretical Philosophy Is The Best And Happiest A Man Can Lead. Few Men Are Capable Of It And Then Only Intermittently. For The Rest There Is A Second-best Way Of Life, That Of Moral Virtue And Practical Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

Our Actions Determine Our Dispositions.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

Our Youth Should Also Be Educated With Music And Physical Education.

God And Nature Create Nothing That Does Not Fulfill A Purpose

Happiness, Then, Is Found To Be Something Perfect And Self-sufficient, Being The End To Which Our Actions Are Directed.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

We Must Not Feel A Childish Disgust At The Investigations Of The Meaner Animals. For There Is Something Marvelous In All Natural Things.

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

A True Disciple Shows His Appreciation By Reaching Further Than His Teacher.

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

The Honors And Rewards Fall To Those Who Show Their Good Qualities In Action.

Happiness Is A Thing Honored And Perfect. This Seems To Be Borne Out By The Fact That It Is A First Principle Or Starting-point, Since All Other Things That All Men Do Are Done For Its Sake; And That Which Is The First Principle And Cause Of Things Good We Agree To Be Something Honorable And Divine.

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

When You Are Lonely, When You Feel Yourself An Alien In The World, Play Chess. This Will Raise Your Spirits And Be Your Counselor In War

Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

Nicomachean Ethics

Prudence As Well As Moral Virtue Determines The Complete Performance Of A Man's Proper Function: Virtue Ensures The Rightness Of The End We Aim At, Prudence Ensures The Rightness Of The Means We Adopt To Gain That End.

Goodness Is To Do Good To The Deserving And Love The Good And Hate The Wicked, And Not To Be Eager To Inflict Punishment Or Take Vengeance, But To Be Gracious And Kindly And Forgiving.

Truth Is A Remarkable Thing. We Cannot Miss Knowing Some Of It. But We Cannot Know It Entirely.

Men Are Marked From The Moment Of Birth To Rule Or Be Ruled.

Why Is It That All Men Who Are Outstanding In Philosophy, Poetry Or The Arts Are Melancholic?

What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.

No One Finds Fault With Defects Which Are The Result Of Nature.

Bashfulness Is An Ornament To Youth, But A Reproach To Old Age.

He Who Cannot Be A Good Follower Cannot Be A Good Leader.

Quid Quid Movetur Ab Alio Movetur"(nothing Moves Without Having Been Moved).

In Part, Art Completes What Nature Cannot Elaborate; And In Part It Imitates Nature.

It Belongs To Small-mindedness To Be Unable To Bear Either Honor Or Dishonor, Either Good Fortune Or Bad, But To Be Filled With Conceit When Honored And Puffed Up By Trifling Good Fortune, And To Be Unable To Bear Even The Smallest Dishonor And To Deem Any Chance Failure A Great Misfortune, And To Be Distressed And Annonyed At Everything. Moreover The Small-minded Man Is The Sort Of Person To Call All Slights An Insult And Dishonor, Even Those That Are Due To Ignorance Or Forgetfulness. Small-mindedness Is Accompanied By Pettiness, Querulousness, Pessimism And Self-abasement.

Great And Frequent Reverses Can Crush And Mar Our Bliss Both By The Pain They Cause And By The Hindrance They Offer To Many Activities. Yet Nevertheless Even In Adversity Nobility Shines Through, When A Man Endures Repeated And Severe Misfortune With Patience, Not Owing To Insensibility But From Generosity And Greatness Of Soul.

Courage Is The First Virtue That Makes All Other Virtues Possible.

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

Thus It Is Thought That Justice Is Equality; And So It Is, But Not For All Persons, Only For Those That Are Equal. Inequality Also Is Thought To Be Just; And So It Is, But Not For All, Only For The Unequal. We Make Bad Mistakes If We Neglect This For Whom When We Are Deciding What Is Just. The Reason Is That We Are Making Judgements About Ourselves, And People Are Generally Bad Judges Where Their Own Interests Are Involved.

If, Therefore, There Is Any One Superior In Virtue And In The Power Of Performing The Best Actions, Him We Ought To Follow And Obey, But He Must Have The Capacity For Action As Well As Virtue.

I Will Not Allow The Athenians To Sin Twice Against Philosophy.

Excellence Is Not An Art. It Is The Habit Of Practice.

Therefore, The Good Of Man Must Be The End Of The Science Of Politics.

Happiness Is A Quality Of The Soul...not A Function Of One's Material Circumstances.

I Call That Law Universal, Which Is Conformable Merely To Dictates Of Nature; For There Does Exist Naturally An Universal Sense Of Right And Wrong, Which, In A Certain Degree, All Intuitively Divine, Even Should No Intercourse With Each Other, Nor Any Compact Have Existed.

In All Well-attempered Governments There Is Nothing Which Should Be More Jealously Maintained Than The Spirit Of Obedience To Law, More Especially In Small Matters; For Transgression Creeps In Unperceived And At Last Ruins The State, Just As The Constant Recurrence Of Small Expenses In Time Eats Up A Fortune.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

Humility Is A Flower Which Does Not Grow In Everyone's Garden.

...we Are All Inclined To ... Direct Our Inquiry Not By The Matter Itself, But By The Views Of Our Opponents; And, Even When Interrogating Oneself, One Pushes The Inquiry Only To The Point At Which One Can No Longer Offer Any Opposition. Hence A Good Inquirer Will Be One Who Is Ready In Bringing Forward The Objections Proper To The Genus, And That He Will Be When He Has Gained An Understanding Of The Differences.

And, Speaking Generally, Passion Seems Not To Be Amenable To Reason, But Only To Force.

Also, That Which Is Desirable In Itself Is More Desirable Than What Is Desirable Per Accidens.

Now It Is Evident That The Form Of Government Is Best In Which Every Man, Whoever He Is, Can Act Best And Live Happily.

Happiness Is Essentially Perfect; So That The Happy Man Requires In Addition The Goods Of The Body, External Goods And The Gifts Of Fortune, In Order That His Activity May Not Be Impeded Through Lack Of Them.

For Nature By The Same Cause, Provided It Remain In The Same Condition, Always Produces The Same Effect, So That Either Coming-to-be Or Passing-away Will Always Result.

In All Things Which Have A Plurality Of Parts, And Which Are Not A Total Aggregate But A Whole Of Some Sort Distinct From The Parts, There Is Some Cause.

It Is Evident That The State Is A Creation Of Nature, And That Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

The Things Best To Know Are First Principles And Causes, But These Things Are Perhaps The Most Difficult For Men To Grasp, For They Are Farthest Removed From The Senses.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

The High-minded Man Must Care More For The Truth Than For What People Think.

The Difference Between A Learned Man And An Ignorant One Is The Same As That Between A Living Man And A Corpse.

In Painting, The Most Brilliant Colors, Spread At Random And Without Design, Will Give Far Less Pleasure Than The Simplest Outline Of A Figure.

Youth Should Be Kept Strangers To All That Is Bad, And Especially To Things Which Suggest Vice Or Hate. When The Five Years Have Passed Away, During The Two Following Years They Must Look On At The Pursuits Which They Are Hereafter To Learn. There Are Two Periods Of Life With Reference To Which Education Has To Be Divided, From Seven To The Age Of Puberty, And Onwards To The Age Of One And Twenty.

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Any One Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed, There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man.

Beauty Depends On Size As Well As Symmetry. No Very Small Animal Can Be Beautiful, For Looking At It Takes So Small A Portion Of Time That The Impression Of It Will Be Confused. Nor Can Any Very Large One, For A Whole View Of It Cannot Be Had At Once, And So There Will Be No Unity And Completeness.

But Nature Flies From The Infinite; For The Infinite Is Imperfect, And Nature Always Seeks An End.

But What Is Happiness? If We Consider What The Function Of Man Is, We Find That Happiness Is A Virtuous Activity Of The Soul.

What Is Happiness

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

A Democracy Is A Government In The Hands Of Men Of Low Birth, No Property, And Vulgar Employments.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

The Self-indulgent Man Craves For All Pleasant Things... And Is Led By His Appetite To Choose These At The Cost Of Everything Else.

If The State Cannot Be Entirely Composed Of Good Men, And Yet Each Citizen Is Expected To Do His Own Business Well, And Must Therefore Have Virtue, Still Inasmuch As All The Citizens Cannot Be Alike, The Virtue Of The Citizen And Of The Good Man Cannot Coincide. All Must Have The Virtue Of The Good Citizen - Thus, And Thus Only, Can The State Be Perfect; But They Will Not Have The Virtue Of A Good Man, Unless We Assume That In The Good State All The Citizens Must Be Good.

The Knowledge Of The Soul Admittedly Contributes Greatly To The Advance Of Truth In General, And, Above All, To Our Understanding Of Nature, For The Soul Is In Some Sense The Principle Of Animal Life.

Sophocles Said He Drew Men As They Ought To Be, And Euripides As They Were.

When Several Villages Are United In A Single Complete Community, Large Enough To Be Nearly Or Quite Self-sufficing, The State Comes Into Existence, Originating In The Bare Needs Of Life, And Continuing In Existence For The Sake Of A Good Life.

Definition Of Tragedy: A Hero Destroyed By The Excess Of His Virtues

To Die In Order To Avoid The Pains Of Poverty, Love, Or Anything That Is Disagreeable, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Of A Coward.

If Every Tool, When Ordered, Or Even Of Its Own Accord, Could Do The Work That Befits It... Then There Would Be No Need Either Of Apprentices For The Master Workers Or Of Slaves For The Lords.

Two Characteristic Marks Have Above All Others Been Recognized As Distinguishing That Which Has Soul In It From That Which Has Not - Movement And Sensation.

This World Is Inescapably Linked To The Motions Of The Worlds Above. All Power In This World Is Ruled By These Options.

It Is Not Always The Same Thing To Be A Good Man And A Good Citizen.

It Is The Activity Of The Intellect That Constitutes Complete Human Happiness - Provided It Be Granted A Complete Span Of Life, For Nothing That Belongs To Happiness Can Be Incomplete.

The Ultimate Value Of Life Depends Upon Awareness And The Power Of Contemplation Rather Than Upon Mere Survival.

Between Friends There Is No Need Of Justice.

Nature, As We Say, Does Nothing Without Some Purpose; And For Thepurpose Of Making Mana Political Animal She Has Endowed Him Alone Among The Animals With The Power Of Reasoned Speech.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

... The Friendship Of Worthless People Has A Bad Effect (because They Take Part, Unstable As They Are, In Worthless Pursuits, And Actually Become Bad Through Each Other's Influence). But The Friendship Of The Good Is Good, And Increases In Goodness Because Of Their Association. They Seem Even To Become Better Men By Exercising Their Friendship And Improving Each Other; For The Traits That They Admire In Each Other Get Transferred To Themselves.

Everything Is Done With A Goal, And That Goal Is "good."

Meaning Of Life

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

Our Characters Are The Result Of Our Conduct.

If Happiness, Then, Is Activity Expressing Virtue, It Is Reasonable For It To Express The Supreme Virtue, Which Will Be The Virtueof The Best Thing.

But The Whole Vital Process Of The Earth Takes Place So Gradually And In Periods Of Time Which Are So Immense Compared With The Length Of Our Life, That These Changes Are Not Observed, And Before Their Course Can Be Recorded From Beginning To End Whole Nations Perish And Are Destroyed.

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Frank B. Kellogg

Spencer Johnson

H. P. Lovecraft

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