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“Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Ne te quaesiveris extra."

"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."
          Epilogue to Beaumont ( Read more... )

“I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C. S. Lewis


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“Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.”
- Joseph Conrad

For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck


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“Усталый одинокий человек, как ребенок, разбрызгивавший ногой воду... И теперь он хотел убежать. К лесу, к длинным прогулкам по пустому шоссе...”

Давно, усталый раб, замыслил я побег
В обитель дальную трудов и чистых нег.

“I strive to be brief, and become obscure.”

-Horace

“Может, я очень худо сделал, что сел писать: внутри безмерно больше остается, чем то, что выходит в словах. Ваша мысль, хотя бы и дурная, пока при вас, - всегда глубже, а на словах - смешнее и бесчестнее. [...] Те [скверные люди] только лгут, им легко; а я стараюсь писать всю правду: это ужасно трудно!”

Подросток
Ф. М. Достоевский


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“If there were a conservatory in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write a programme symphony on “The Seven Plagues of Egypt,” and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninov’s, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and have brought delight to the citizens of Hell ( Read more... )