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One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
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The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.
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All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
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A resolution that is communicated is no longer within thy power; thy attentions become now the plaything of chance; he who would have his commands certainly carried out must take man by surprise.
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Miracle is the pet child of faith.
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To like things like, whatever one may ail; There is certain help.
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We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!
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We must be young to do great things.
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Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.
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Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.
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A lot of people do not care about your money until nearly penniless. They also do so with time.
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Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.
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The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.
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If you want someone to develop a specific trait, treat them as though they already had it.
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Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.
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All understanding begins in wonder!
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If you want to understand poetry, You have to go to its origin, If you want to understand the poet, You have to go to the Poet's home.
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There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.
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Beware of a man of one book.
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The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
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Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.
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Some people spend the day in complaining of a headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.
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To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.