Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversity of opinion, the values of a given society will uncannily match those of whichever organizations have the scale to pay for runs of thirty-second slots around the nightly news bulletin.

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We may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide.

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Judged against eternity, how little of what agitates us makes any difference.

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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.

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Being put in our place by something larger, older, greater than ourselves is not a humiliation; it should be accepted as a relief from our insanely hopeful ambitions for our lives.

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Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

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As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

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One cannot read a novel without ascribing to the heroine the traits of the one we love.

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The sole cause of a man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

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Sex gets us out of the house and out of ourselves.

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