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cfd55d6
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I didn't ask what you'd said about it," the frog snapped. "I asked what you're going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things."
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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3bb456f
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The young man is currently standing in the hallway, dripping on the handmade silk rug that the Emperor of the Indies presented to His Majesty's grandmother. He is insisting on speaking with His Majesty." "It's a very ugly rug," Mendanbar said. "That's why we put it in the entry hall."
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humor
king
mendanbar
rug
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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87102dc
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French essayist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne wrote, "The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet live very little." The truth is that you can spend your life any way you want, but you can spend it only once."
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John C. Maxwell |
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aab9360
|
And in its sky was such a sun as no opium eater could ever have imagined in his wildest dreams. Too hot to be white, it was a searing ghost at the frontiers of the ultraviolet, burning its planets with radiations which would be instantly lethal to all earthly forms of life. For millions of kilometers around extended great veils of gas and dust, fluorescing in countless colors as the blasts of ultraviolet tore through them. It was a star aga..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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42b4674
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any man, in the right circumstances, could be dehumanized by panic.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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6948622
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A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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0f9cdda
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The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-first century there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice.
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meteors
population-density
space
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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9cc4be8
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For Jan was still suffering from the romantic illusion-the cause of so much misery and so much poetry-that every man has only one real love in his life.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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5261b29
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Almost any seat was comfortable at one-sixth of a gravity.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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5fb7516
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As Solomon himself had remarked, 'We can be sure of talent, we can only pray for genius.' But it was a reasonable hope that in such concentrated society some interesting reactions would take place. Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests. So far, the conflict had produced worthwhile results in sculpture, music, literary criticism and film making. It was still too earl..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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dab0c51
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And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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d448fee
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Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
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false-dichotomy
rain
universality
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Thomas C. Foster |
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1e73f72
|
Every reader's experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees, and those differences will cause certain features of the text to become more or less pronounced. We bring an individual history to our reading, a mix of previous readings, to be sure, but also a history that includes, but is not limited to, educational attainment, gender, race, class, faith, social involvement..
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Thomas C. Foster |
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e8bc213
|
When it's over, we may feel wooed, adored, appreciated, or abused, but it will have been an affair to remember.
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Thomas C. Foster |
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0debab7
|
The novels we read allow us to encounter possible persons, visions of ourselves that we would never see, never permit ourselves to become, in places we can never go and might not care to, while assuring that we get to return home again.
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Thomas C. Foster |
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420640c
|
Real people are made out of a whole lot of things--flesh, bone, blood, nerves, stuff like that. Literary people are made out of words.
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fictional-characters
literature
reality
words
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Thomas C. Foster |
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79e8921
|
You've got to commit to something. I'm not telling you it has to be your life's dream or that it'll get you a Nobel Prize. But it will earn you more ownership of yourself. Commit to something--that is the essence of soul-searching.
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Laura C. Schlessinger |
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e5a661b
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You need to be a "good-enough mom"--attentive, loving, and responsive. No one is the perfect mom. As long as you try to be perfect, you will continue to be insignificant in your own eyes."
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Laura C. Schlessinger |
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e954cef
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Good leaders motivate others by their listening skills. We are to: avoid prejudicial first impressions; become less self-centered; withhold initial criticism; stay calm; listen with empathy; be active listeners; clarify what we hear; and recognize the healing power of listening. Then we are to act on what we hear
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John C. Maxwell |
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ae98f6b
|
You don't really understand people until you hear their life story. If you know their stories, you grasp their history, their hurts, their hopes and aspirations. You put yourself in their shoes. And just by virtue of listening and remembering what's important to them, you communicate that you care and desire to add value.
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John C. Maxwell |
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2a11d05
|
When people respect you as a person, they admire you. When they respect you as a friend, they love you. When they respect you as a leader, they follow you.
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John C. Maxwell |
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0ed3b0e
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The goal of confrontation should be to help, not to humiliate.
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John C. Maxwell |
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c553309
|
You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.
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John C. Maxwell |
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d0631ca
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The reality is that you will never get much done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready.
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John C. Maxwell |
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d6dbc76
|
Phaethon asked: "Do you think there is something wrong with the Sophotechs? We are Manorials, father! We let Rhadamanthus control our finances and property, umpire our disputes, teach our children, design our thoughtscapes, and even play matchmaker to find us wives and husbands!" "Son, the Sophotechs may be sufficient to advise the Parliament on laws and rules. Laws are a matter of logic and common sense. Specially designed human-thinking v..
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John C. Wright |
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ded9312
|
I'm the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think -- just ask my critics.
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multiple-drafts-model
qualia
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Daniel C. Dennett |
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23eaa41
|
Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.
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Daniel C. Dennett |
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6952823
|
Is he a dread genetic determinist, or a dread environmental determinist? He is neither, of course, for both these species of bogeyman are as mythical as werewolves. By increasing the information we have about the various causes of the constraints that limit our current opportunities, he has increased our powers to avoid what we want to avoid, prevent what we want to prevent. Knowledge of the roles of our genes, and the genes of the other sp..
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Daniel C. Dennett |
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0d1a848
|
Thank God!" he said, and kissed her. Kissing Mairelon was much nicer than anything she had ever dared to imagine, despite the headache."
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magic
magicians
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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ff51712
|
Except you. The revelation was so blindingly sudden the words almost slipped out, and she had to bit her tongue and look away. pg 391, A Matter of Magic
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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c5c48e0
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Allowing anyone, even Mairelon, not only to come close to her, but to circle her waist with his arms brought back old fears, though she had to admit that the sensation was pleasurable on those rare occasions when she could relax enough to enjoy it.
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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da35e03
|
And on top of everything, Mairelon hadn't even said she looked nice.
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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e2b4af0
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He doesn't seem very impressed," Cimorene commented in some amusement. "Why should he be?" Kazul said.
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dragons
humor
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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ab3b2fb
|
William didn't look like he'd be difficult about anything - he was thin and sandy-haired and already wore eyeglasses like his father. Most of the time he didn't say much. But when he was curious about something, he was stubborner than a bear after a honeycomb.
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Patricia C. Wrede |
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bd792fc
|
Science asymptotically approaches reality.
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Philip C. Plait |
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5956cce
|
A language is the joint historical creation of millions of speakers. Although all speakers have some effect on the trajectory of a language, the process is not particularly egalitarian. Linguists, grammarians, and educators, some of them backed by the power of the state, weigh in heavily. But the process is not particularly amenable to a dictatorship, either. Despite the efforts toward "central planning," language (especially its everyday s..
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James C. Scott |
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f92b2e6
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Designed or planned social order is necessarily schematic; it always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order. This truth is best illustrated in a work-to-rule strike, which turns on the fact that any production process depends on a host of informal practices and improvisations that could never be codified. By merely following the rules meticiously, the workforce can virtually halt production. In the same fashion, th..
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James C. Scott |
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423dc65
|
Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f9f9930
|
Men had sought beauty in many forms--in sequences of sound, in lines upon paper, in surfaces of stone, in the movements of the human body, in colours ranged through space.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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b7411e7
|
But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f839ce1
|
In these latter days, knighthood was an honor few Englishmen escaped.
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englishmen
knighthood
|
Arthur C. Clarke |
|
6eccf8a
|
Personally, I refuse to drive a car - I won't have anything to do with any kind of transportation in which I can't read.
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|
reading
|
Arthur C. Clarke |
|
1f32adb
|
But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach.
|
|
bach
last-man-on-earth
piano
sad
|
Arthur C. Clarke |
|
15084e0
|
Imagine that every man's mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone
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conciousness
science-fiction
|
Arthur C. Clarke |