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A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

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Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

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It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

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Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

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Every artist was first an amateur.

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Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

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Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

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Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

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In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

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How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

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