Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
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If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty.
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Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.
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No one grows old by living--only by losing interest in living.
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Perhaps we are wiser, less selfish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfectly all these good things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.
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There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of people achieve the second.
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You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they're forty.
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Where are the sons of gods that loved the daughters of men? Where are the nymphs, the goddesses of the winds and waters? Where are the gnomes that lived inside the earth? Where are the goblins that used to play tricks on mortals? Where are the fairies that could blight or bless the human heart? Where are the ghosts that haunted this globe? Where are the witches that flew in and out of the homes of men? Where is the devil that once roamed over the earth? Where are they? Gone with the ignorance that believed in them.
category: essays/nonfiction | comment | added 35 months ago