I never thought that heav'n would lose its blue And sullen storm-clouds mask the gentle sky; I never thought the rose's velvet hue Would pale and sicken, though we said good-by. I never dreamed the lark would hush its note As day succeeded ever-drearier day, Nor knew the song that swelled the robin's throat Would fade to silence, when you went away. I never knew the sun's irradiant beams Upon the brooding earth no more would shine, Nor thought that only in my mocking dreams Would happiness that once I knew be mine. I never thought the slim moon, mournfully, Would shroud her pallid self in murky night. Dear heart, I never thought these things would be- I never thought they would, and I was right.

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Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

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The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

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Evil comes to all us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.

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'Fox Urine: This horrifically produced product is marketed as a way to keep deer out of gardens, but experts say it doesn't work. On urine-collection 'farms,' foxes, coyotes, raccoons and other animals are crammed into tiny cages. They live on feces-encrusted wire cage floors so their urine can be collected in trays below. On one such 'farm,' PETA investigators found animals with open infected wounds and exposed bones. Most huddled together in fear, but others had gone 'cage-crazy' and circled endlessly, seeking a way to comfort themselves. Some chewed and mutilated their own flesh. Owners then killed them for their fur by using agonizing anal electrocution. Some sporting goods stores sell urine collected from deer crammed into tiny pens for use by hunters to mask their human odor and to lure bucks to the hunters' tree stands. Be a 'deer' - and ask managers of local gardening, department and sporting goods stores NOT to sell bottled urine.'

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Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
Friendship

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'Tis not need we know our every thought or see the work shop where each mask is wrought wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit and serve our jape's turn for a night or two.

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When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbling of reality and you accept it.

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Who knows what true loneliness is -- not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad.

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Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.

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It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath --as terrible as you like --but a mask.

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A rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and mask on his face. They are both more or less what the law declares them lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties and ultimately destroyers of a free America.

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Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

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'Two Days We Should Not Worry'
There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, Two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is Yesterday, with all its mistakes and cares, Its faults and blunders, its aches and pains.
Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday.
We cannot undo a single act we performed; We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone forever.
The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow With all its possible adversities, its burdens, Its large promise and its poor performance; Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
Tomorrow's sun will rise, Either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow, For it is yet to be born.
This leaves only one day, Today. Any person can fight the battle of just one day It is when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.
It is not the experience of Today that drives a person mad, It is the remorse and bitterness of something which happened Yesterday And the dread of what Tomorrow may bring.
Let us, therefore, live but one day at a time.

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Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.

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Humor is the mask of wisdom.

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Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.

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A cultivated style would be like a mask. Everybody knows it's a mask, and sooner or later you must show yourself -- or at least, you show yourself as someone who could not afford to show himself, and so created something to hide behind. You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.

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Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.

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A mask of gold hides all deformities.

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After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

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He waited for the mask to drop off, but at the same time he did not question her right to wear it.

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There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.

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With spiritual work, the terms 'is' or 'are' become progressively replaced by the term 'seems to', which is due to the increasing realization of the degree to which perception is the mask that hinders truth.

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Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.

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The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much bigger business of plunder.

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Imagination helps me to become part of that journey that I'm going through in font of the camera, or in front of an audience. I used to think you had to disappear within a character, but I find that puts a mask on what I do.

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The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building.

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Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.

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One cannot remain the same. Art is a mirror which should show many reflections, and the artist should not always show the same face, or the face becomes a mask.

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