Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.
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Know thyself? A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.
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Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.
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The abominable effort to take one's sins with one to paradise.
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The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.
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I would like the events never to be told directly by the author, but rather to be introduced (and several times, from various angles) by those among the characters on whom they will have had any effect. I would like those events, in the account they will make of them, to appear slightly distorted; a kind of interest stems, for the reader, from the simple fact that he should need to restore. The story requires his collaboration in order to properly take shape.
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It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.
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It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.
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Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.
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There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me.'
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Before I explain my book to others, I expect them to explain it to me. To claim to explain it first is to immediately narrow down its reach; for if we know what we intended to say, we do not know whether we said only that. - One always says more than THAT. - And what interests me most is what I put in without knowing, - that unconscious share, which I would like to call God's share.
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Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
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Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.
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One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
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Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.
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What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.
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Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
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Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
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The most decisive actions of our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future -- are, more often than not, unconsidered.
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Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.
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Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.
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A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.
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Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.
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There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.
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Sin is whatever obscures the soul.
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Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself. Croyez ceux qui cherchent la v
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Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.
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It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.
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Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable.
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Dare to be yourself.
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