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The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

E.M. Forster (Edward Morgan Forster)

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Forster, E.M. "A Book that Influenced Me," Two Cheers for Democracy. Hogarth Press, 1951. Originally published in 1944, publisher unknown.

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The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men.

Havelock Ellis

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Ellis, Havelock. Little Essays of Love and Virtue. George H. Doran Company/A & C Black, 1922, ch. 7.

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The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.

George F. Kennan

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Kennan, George Frost [published as "X"]. "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." Foreign Affairs, July 1947.

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It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Maugham, William Somerset. The Moon and Sixpence. William Heinemann, 1919, ch. 17.

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Maugham, William Somerset. The Moon and Sixpence. Vintage Classics, 2009, ch. 17.

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It's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how... And still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.

Henry Miller

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Miller, Henry. The Colossus of Maroussi. Colt Press, 1941, pt. 1.

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Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury.

Learned Hand

Helvering v. Gregory

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Hand, Learned. US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809 (2d Cir. 1934).

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From a very early age, I had imbibed the opinion, that it was every man's duty to do all that lay in his power to leave his country as good as he had found it.

William Cobbett

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Cobbett, William. Political Register. 22 Dec. 1832.

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Out on the street I couldn't tell the Vietnam veterans from the rock and roll veterans. The Sixties had made so many casualties, its war and its music had run power off the same circuit for so long they didn't even have to fuse.

Michael Herr

Dispatches

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Herr, Michael. "Breathing Out." Dispatches. Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.

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Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at it while it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

Yann Martel

Life of Pi (novel)

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Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Knopf Canada, 2001, ch. 1.

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His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done whech may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Arthur James Balfour

Balfour Declaration

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Read the Balfour Declaration at the Yale Law School library website

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Balfour, Arthur James. Letter to Lord Rothschild. 2 Nov. 1917.

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My definition of Man is, "a Cooking Animal." The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook... Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.

James Boswell

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Original Citation

Boswell, James. Journal entry. 15 Aug. 1773.

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Current Citation

Boswell, James. "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides." A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, edited by Jack Lynch and Celia Barnes. Oxford University Press, 2021.

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The nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.

Arnold J. Toynbee

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Toynbee, Arnold J. Quoted in A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI, written by D.C. Somervell. Oxford University Press, 1948, vol. 4.

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People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.

Stevie Smith

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Smith, Stevie. "The Past." Not Waving but Drowning. Andre Deutsch, 1957, I. 1.

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Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.

James Jeans

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Jeans, James. The Mysterious Universe. Cambridge University Press/Macmillan, 1930, ch. 1.

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I will write until my knuckles are worn and my brain bewildered, but I will write on and on.

William Styron

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Styron, William. Letter to William C. Styron Sr. 1 June 1951.

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My feelings are too intense. I hate bitterly, I love too exaltingly, I pity to extravagantly, I hurt too painfully. We American blacks call that "soul."

Chester Himes

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Himes, Chester. The Quality of Hurt: The Autobiography of Chester Himes. Vol. 1, Doubleday, 1972.

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It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.

G.K. Chesterton

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Chesterton, G.K. Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. Dodd Mead & Company, 1906, ch. 1.

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Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows.

Leonard Cohen

Everybody Knows

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Read the lyrics to Everybody Knows at genius.com

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Cohen, Leonard and Sharon Robinson. "Everybody Knows." Performed by Leonard Cohen. I'm Your Man. Columbia Records, 1988.

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I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age-unless you're an American, of course.

John Osborne

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Original Citation

Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. 1956, Royal Court Theatre, London, England, UK, act 1.

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Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. Faber & Faber, 2015, act 1.

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No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.