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Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.

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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

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The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

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Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

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There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.

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The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

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