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Acting a part is not always synonymous with lying; it is far often the best way of serving the truth. It is more truthful to act what we should feel if the community is to be well served rather than behave as we actually do feel in our selfish private feelings.
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I don't think there's anything more tiring ... than expecting people who don't turn up.
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So this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings.
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If it were possible to escape from lonely experiences for a moment and stand back from the tree one would see the myriad bright worlds sparkling upon it. But only the greatest could do that. For all but the greatest their own experience was a prison house until the ending of the days. But one could know how bright was the light that carried all souls back to the light when for a moment one entered the world of a child.
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The value of little things was heightened by her enjoyment of them; the value of life itself was heightened because she had bought her knowledge of it with bitter sorrow and yet in her old age could wear it with such grace.
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Just as it takes death to awaken us to the full stature of someone loved.
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There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule.
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Humanity can be roughly divided into three sorts of people - those who find comfort in literature, those who find comfort in personal adornment, and those who find comfort in food.