High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.
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It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.
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I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.
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[Abbas laid the cornerstone for a new Arafat memorial, even as he acknowledged that his predecessor had no wish for a grandiose building.] He had no dreams of having a palace in Palestine but only to have a grave in Jerusalem, ... God willing, he will be buried in Jerusalem.
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To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.
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