Tre ringar för älvkonungarnas makt högt i det blå, sju för dvärgarnas furstar i salar av sten, nio för de dödliga, som köttets väg skall gå, en för mörkrets herre i ondskans dunkla sken i Mordorslandets hisnande gruva. En ring att sämja dem, en ring att främja dem, en ring att djupt i mörkrets vida riken tämja dem - i Mordors land, där skuggorna ruva.
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What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?
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From the moment of birth, when the stone-age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful.
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His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.
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Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
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Not all who wander are lost.
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As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past. (On Americans who avoided conscription during the Vietnam War, to Veterans of Foreign Wars)
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Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world
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Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
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Courage is found in unlikely places.
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My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. (On succeeding Richard M Nixon as president)
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...for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
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He should not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.
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Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. But what would you? You have not told me all concerning yourself; and how then shall I choose better than you?
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I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.
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Racism, pollution and the rest of it are themselves very close to extinction.
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We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
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Goodbye, goodbye, I hate the word. Solitude has long since turned brown and withered, sitting bitter in my mouth and heavy in my veins.
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We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.
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It's the job that's never started takes longest to finish.
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An American tragedy in which we all have played a part. (On Watergate, announcing pardon of former President Richard M Nixon)
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It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish.
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Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.
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Little by little, one travels far.
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My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
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Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and reexperience again. They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences - 'which is the mostest? which is the leastest?' They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness: the heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.
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Nothing is lost yet, nothing broken, and yet the cold blue word is spoken: say goodbye now to the Sun, the days of love and leaves are done.
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Places are produced in that wonderful interaction of people, place, narrative, and time. When the people desert these places, narratives are forgotten, ties break, and the place is unmade. What is un-remembered in abandonment cannot be re-remembered in transient automobile suburbs with too few places for shared experience and story making. The extreme is amnesia, and it means that those afflicted do not know who they are anymore. They are disoriented, isolated, and robbed of the ability to recognize emotional attachments to others. The sufferers do not have a coherent story anymore. Un-remembering is the enemy of good places and of public history.
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Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, one for the Dark Lord on his dark throne in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, one Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
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