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Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy.
Topic: Christianity
Source: None
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You can never have a revolution in order to establish a
democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a
revolution.
Topic: Democracy
Source: Tremendous Trifles--Wind and the trees
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At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little
man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making
a little cross on a little bit of paper. . . .
Topic: Democracy
Source: Tremendous Trifles--Wind and the trees
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To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.
Topic: Education
Source: Heretics
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No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.
Topic: Education
Source: None
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Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
Topic: Education
Source: None
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When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
Topic: Fish
Source: The Donkey
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Journalism consists largely in saying 'Lord Jones died' to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.
Topic: Journalism
Source: None
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Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
Topic: Music
Source: None
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The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment. They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.
Topic: Mystery
Source: None
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"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would
think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying,
"My mother, drunk or sober."
Topic: Patriotism
Source: The Defendant
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Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
Topic: Psychological Subjects
Source: None
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It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.
Topic: Psychological Subjects
Source: None
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I realized that ritual will always mean throwing away something;
Destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.
Topic: Religion
Source: Tremendous Trifles--Secret of a Train
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The object of opening the mind as of opening the mouth is to close it again on something solid.
Topic: Religion / Beliefs
Source: None
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Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, ''Keep tomorrow dark,'' and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) ''Cheat the Prophet.'' The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for
want of wonder.
Topic: Wonders
Source: Tremendous Trifles
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