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2746832
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Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another.
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Matthew Pearl |
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4f78c48
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He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death.
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tragic
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Matthew Pearl |
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8b7690a
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Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow," said Holmes, "you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion."
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Matthew Pearl |
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aada15a
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Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long.
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Matthew Pearl |
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7f013d8
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Imagine! It is the real power of a book--not what is on the page, but what happens when a reader takes the pages in, makes it part of himself. That is the definition of literature.
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Matthew Pearl |
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de43130
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A man's library opens up his character to the world.
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Matthew Pearl |
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d7833f8
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When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing.
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Matthew Pearl |
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bf018cb
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Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Second, they say it has been discovered before. Last, they say they always believed it.
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Matthew Pearl |
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24f1c0d
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Before long, I had lost my youth and my patience for indulging others. Books were everything in life; books were better than wine.
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Matthew Pearl |
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1b5f450
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Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true--without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
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fiction
literature
reading
truth
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Matthew Pearl |
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cf8d900
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I prefer the society of one faithful person to an association of rapid talkers, who more than anything else seek admiration from one another.
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Matthew Pearl |
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f873744
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Why did nature not ask my advice about my features?
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Matthew Pearl |
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d330a3a
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There was still the temptation to believe the world was a mere trap for human sin. But sin, the way he saw it, was only the failure of an imperfectly made being to keep a perfect law.
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Matthew Pearl |
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cf1d6ac
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'Yes, we rather condemn people for eternity without the courtesy of informing them.'
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inspirational
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Matthew Pearl |
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0f9f0f7
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They always blamed my reading, you know, for my having fewer friends than my brother and for my weak eyes, never thinking that because I had weak eyes and because I was shy, having a book at the ready rescued me.
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Matthew Pearl |
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fb188f6
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An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, 'one who cannot be yoked,' and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials.
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destiny
devil
take-control-of-your-fate
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Matthew Pearl |
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42d2dbd
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Money is good, but it is not all about a man. You will have successes and reversals, but remember it is your reaction to each of them that counts for your character.
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Matthew Pearl |
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044b5fa
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Dante's Hell is part of our world as much as part of the underworld, and shouldn't be avoided, Lowell said, but rather confronted. We sound the depths of Hell very often in this life.
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Matthew Pearl |
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1401c46
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'Do not ask what brings Dante to man but what brings man to Dante-to personally enter his sphere, though it is forever severe and unforgiving.'
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interesting
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Matthew Pearl |
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125cd63
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'Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as a mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will not have succeeded in that high sense which alone makes a nation out of a people. That which raises it from a dead name to a living power.'
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Matthew Pearl |
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d93e508
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Sepa que cuando soy amigo de un hombre lo soy para siempre, y es muy dificil hacerme volver atras. Y aunque un hombre pueda gozar siendo mi enemigo, no puede convertirme a mi en el suyo mientras yo no quiera. Buenas tardes.
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Matthew Pearl |
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007e7e7
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'Pity without rigor would be cowardly egotism, mere sentimentality.'
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Matthew Pearl |
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6b3fb7e
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exaggeration is the octopus of the English language
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octopus
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Matthew Pearl |
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18e07ec
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Obsession of a strong-hearted woman, Mr. Dolby, can be more dangerous than ten men.
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Matthew Pearl |
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0e5cdb1
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I was looking for something else in books. I could not really say what, but I think I can say why: a notion started in my own brain was probably wrong, but an answer read in a work of literature would be right. That was my conviction at nineteen, and only in later years would I come to trust myself over a book.
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Matthew Pearl |
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6c1f7d3
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I do not seek the mantle of genius. I am an appreciator, an observer, a preposition, and content in that, and that's me in a nutshell.
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Matthew Pearl |
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607bc05
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On the trees were no longer only leaves but brown fruits, on the bushes no longer blossoms but clusters of red berries. And the wind had a rough manliness in its voice - the tone not of a lover but of a husband.
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Matthew Pearl |
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beac17e
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The books do pretend, Mr. Branagan. Surely. But that is not all. Novels are filled with lies, but squeezed in between is even more that is true--without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
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Matthew Pearl |
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378e426
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How odd it must be to go through life believing that a book is a book.
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Matthew Pearl |
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082a7e7
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and luckily I have enough in my head to balance what is wanting in my back.
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Matthew Pearl |
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dc22f83
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In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry pe..
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Matthew Pearl |
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5fcd7da
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These people build as if they were immortal and eat as if they were to die instantly.
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Matthew Pearl |
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0b02563
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You are always better off to read a book, anyway, than to meet the person behind it.
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Matthew Pearl |
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ffae91a
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You have never fought for anything in your life. You write poems and articles about slavery and the murder of Indians and hope something will change. You fight what does not come near your door, professors. You've inherited everything in your lives and do not know what it is to cry for your bread! Well, with what other expectations did I come to this country? What should I complain of? The greatest bard had no home but exile. One day to com..
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Matthew Pearl |
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ce97158
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Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly american poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the first true reader. The spirit of the american is suspected to be timid, imitative, tame -- the scholar decent, indolent, complaisant. The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. Without action, the scholar is not y..
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Matthew Pearl |
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fe50ab8
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The force of Dante's poetry resonated most in those who did not confess the Catholic faith, for believers would inevitably have quibbles with Dante's theology. But for those most distant theologically, Dante's faith was so perfect, so unyielding, that a reader found himself compelled by the poetry to take it all to heart.
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Matthew Pearl |
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9158583
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Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasteries with quills raised in the air, decrying the work of the devil. When one of the pioneering tradesmen printed certain words in red ink to emphasize them, it was proof that he had used his own blood. That was why the printers' assistants began t..
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Matthew Pearl |
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9a3e672
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Survival here means simply an incomplete death, not a partial life -- to be trapped in a gap between the living and the dead. If I had a thousand tongues, I would not try to describe the agony!
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Matthew Pearl |
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c290651
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These tears were difficult: they didn't want to come out and they didn't want to stay in.
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Matthew Pearl |
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3e99c26
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The same thing as you, the same as she. The same as anyone who has ever been doubted or told to go away. To prove myself better.
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Matthew Pearl |
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896a8a0
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Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print
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printing
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Matthew Pearl |
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ffcc118
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When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing,
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Matthew Pearl |
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b33f427
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What's the use of having eyes if we can't see the world we pass through?
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Matthew Pearl |
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357c596
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believes the world is against him. Nothing
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Matthew Pearl |