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As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
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Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.
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Talent hits a target no one else can hit Genius hits a target no one else can see.
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Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.
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The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
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Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
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Money is human happiness in the abstract he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.
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The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
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The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.
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There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
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Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.
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Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
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With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
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In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
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To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
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Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
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Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
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Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
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Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.
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Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.