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"My reputation is largely the creature of the kindly imaginings of my flock, whom I chose not to disillusion, in part because the truth had the kind of pathos in it that would bring on sympathy in its least bearable forms."
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"All I have learned in life really just boils down to this: there is only one difference between the so-called wise and the so-called foolish...and between those who are truly happy and those who are not. Those who are wise - and those who are happy - embrace and appreciate life. Those who are unhappy and unwise do not. That is all, that is the only difference."
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Personal Development
"Be interested yourself, and you will interest others."
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Personal Development
"The tragedy of this age is that many are hungry for the wrong reasons."
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Personal Development
"Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most."
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Personal Development
"Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't."
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Personal Development
"Society can only pursue its normal course by means of a certain progression of changes."
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Personal Development
"Did you see that dress? "I saw the dress. "Did you like it? He didn't answer. I took that as a yes. "Am I going to endanger my reputation if I wear it to the dance? When he spoke, I could barely hear him. "You'll endanger the school. I smiled and fell asleep."
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Personal Development
"When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't."
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Personal Development
"You have every right in the world to choose the kind of people that you place in your inner circle. By all means stay clear from negative minded individuals who are constantly very bitter with their lives and the lives of others. They wouldn't be too happy to watch you live a blissful life."
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Personal Development
"I left journalism because I met too many interesting people at an uninteresting salary."
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Personal Development
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"If these laws [in the Bible] belonged to any other ancient culture we would approach them very differently. We need not bother to reject the code of Hammurabi. Presumably it is because Moses is still felt to make some claim on us that this project of discrediting his law is persisted in with such energy. The unscholarly character of the project may derive from the supposed familiarity of the subject."
History
"I have mentioned the qualitative difference between Christianity as an ethic and Christianity as an identity. Christian ethics goes steadfastly against the grain of what we consider human nature: the first will be last, to him who asks give, turn the other cheek, judge not. Identity on the other hand appeals to a constellation of the worst human impulses. It is worse than ordinary tribalism because it assumes a more than virtuous "us on one side and on the other a "them who are very doubtful indeed, who are in fact a threat to all we hold dear."
Philosophy
"That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either."
Life
"Even as children they had been good in fact, but also in order to be seen as good. There was something disturbingly like hypocrisy about it all..."
Psychology
"She kept saying, "My husband will be back soon. He went for help. He'll be back." But that's the kind of lie people tell sometimes when they got only strangers to rely on. There's shame in that, so people lie."
Behavior
"Eliminate the overwhelming cost of phantom wars and fools' errands, and humankind might begin to balance its books. After all, its only debts are to itself."
Society
"Our dream of life will end as dreams do end, abruptly and completely, when the sun rises, when the light comes. And we will think, all that fear and all that grief were about nothing. But that cannon be true. I can't believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life."
Life
"What if good institutions were in fact the product of good intentions? What if the cynicism that is supposed to be rigor and the acquisitiveness that is supposed to be realism are making us forget the origins of the greatness we lay claim to - power and wealth as secondary consequences of the progress of freedom, or, as Whitman would prefer, Democracy?"
Society
"I have decided the two choices open to me are (1) to torment myself or (2) to trust the Lord. There is no earthly solution to the problems that confront me. But I can add to my problems, as I believe I have done, by dwelling on them. So, no more of that."
Faith
"Avoid transgression. How's that for advice."
Wisdom
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