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"Cecelia, as with every look and gesture she let us know, was entirely at ease only in the company of her equals " a company that included, besides herself, only her sister. And of course Cecelia held some secret doubts about herself; you can't dislike nearly everybody and be quite certain that you have exempted yourself."
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"She has a serene, glowing disposition. She looks at you and the rest of the world through the eyes of a lynx and is always mysterious, possibly because she always harbours those hidden laughs just beneath her lips. She's always ready to laugh."
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Personal Development
"I can eat you at breakfast, not because I am a monster; it is only because you are too cute and yummy."
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Personal Development
"Being bigheaded can be as irritating and as dangerous as being small-minded."
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Personal Development
"A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles."
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Personal Development
"I cannot do anything fake; that is why even when I sleep with a prostitute, she falls in love with me."
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Personal Development
"Character of any person is the aggregate of his or her conscientious tendencies - the sum total of the knacks of the civilized part of the mind."
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Personal Development
"Confidence, is like a belt worn around the waist. Wear it too tight, you come off cocky and arrogant, wear it too loose, you come off timid and a walk over, but wear it fit and snug, it will uphold you in every step of the way."
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Personal Development
"She walked rather quickly; she liked to be active, though at times she gave an impression of repose that was at once static and evocative. This was because she knew few words and believed in none, and in the world she was rather silent, contributing just her share of urbane humor with a precision that approached meagreness. But at the moment when strangers tended to grow uncomfortable in the presence of this economy she would seize the topic and rush off with it, feverishly surprised with herself-- then bring it back and relinquish it abruptly, almost timidly, like an obedient retriever, having been adequate and something more."
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Personal Development
"People with the gift of charm exude a delightful demeanor-an attractive likability that enwraps you in their warmth."
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Personal Development
"This susceptibility to impressions had been his undoing, no doubt. Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from a pretty face, downright misery at the sight of a frump."
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"We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?"
Gardening
"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
Peace
"I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my very own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just as it did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown."
Love
"We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true. And if we offend gravely enough against what we know to be true, as by failing badly enough to deal affectionately and responsibly with our land and our neighbors, truth will retaliate with ugliness, poverty, and disease."
Truth
"In time, against conscience and even will, my grief for him began to include grief for myself. Sometimes I would get the feeling that I was going to waste. It was my life calling me to itself. It was the light that shines in darkness calling me back into time."
Emotion
"The river and the garden have been the foundations of my economy here. Of the two I have liked the river best. It is wonderful to have the duty of being on the river the first and last thing every day. I have loved it even in the rain. Sometimes I have loved it most in the rain."
Nature
"It is possible, I think, to say that... a Christian agriculture [is] formed upon the understanding that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make. The Creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill."
Environment
"We walked always in beauty, it seemed to me. We walked and looked about, or stood and looked. Sometimes, less often, we would sit down. We did not often speak. The place spoke for us and was a kind of speech. We spoke to each other in the things we saw."
Beauty
"We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it."
Ethics
"I thought that some of the hymns bespoke the true religion of the place. The people didn't really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still they liked it. What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another's help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude."
Spiritual
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