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919a5bd
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Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time--then you might not be as ambitious as you are.
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Mitch Albom |
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0f4dc0d
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Taking just makes me feel like I'm dying. Giving makes me feel like I'm living.
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Mitch Albom |
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e0e5120
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La vida es una serie de tirones hacia atras y hacia adelante. Quieres hacer una cosa pero estas obligado hacer otra diferente. Algo te hace dano, pero tu sabes que no deberia hacertelo. Das por supuestas ciertas cosas, aunque sabes que no deberias dar nada por supuesto. Es una tension de opuestos, como una goma elastica estirada. Y la mayoria de nosotros vive en un punto intermedio.
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Mitch Albom |
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6dfa1d4
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What happened to me? I asked myself. Morris's high, smoky voice took me back to my university years, when I thought rich people were evil, a shirt and tie were prison clothes, and life without freedom to get up and go - motorcycle beneath you, breeze in your face, down the streets of Paris, into the mountains of Tibet - was not a good life at all. What happened to me?
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travel
free
life
ideal
young
thought
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Mitch Albom |
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0a2ce00
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Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralysing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.
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Mitch Albom |
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f1f0324
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Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places.
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live
thoughts
idealism
work
life
ideas
young
university
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Mitch Albom |
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dbd4efd
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Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..What happened to me? I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places.
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money
live
thoughts
idealism
work
life
ideas
young
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Mitch Albom |
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b80c457
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I wrote articles about rich athletes who, for the most part, could not care less about people like me. .. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me?
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time
work
change
life
unsatisfied
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Mitch Albom |
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4d901c8
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I watched him now, his hands working gingerly, as if he were learning to use them for the first time. He could not press down hard with a knife. His fingers shook. Each bite was a struggle; he chewed the food finely before swallowing.. The skin from his wrist to his knuckles was dotted with age spots, and it was loose, like skin hanging from a chicken soup bone.
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describe
ill
old
eating
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Mitch Albom |
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a1021b0
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For a while, we just ate like that, a sick old man, a healthy, younger man, both absorbing the quiet of the room. I would say it was an embarrassed silence, but I seemed to be the only one embarrassed.
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ill
silence
healthy
old
quiet
young
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Mitch Albom |
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9824b82
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Dying," Morrie suddenly said, "is the only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy."
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live
people
unhappy
sad
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Mitch Albom |
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4c888e0
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I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?
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ill
live
death
life
love
dying
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Mitch Albom |
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66d6f11
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I was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Morrie, who could no longer dance, swim, bathe, or walk; Morrie, who could no longer answer his own door, dry himself after a shower, or even roll over in bed. How could he be so accepting? I watched him struggle with a fork, picking at a piece of tomato, missing it the first two times - a pathetic scene, and yet I could not deny that sitting in his presence was almost magically serene, t..
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ill
struggle
live
past
life
presence
pity
dying
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Mitch Albom |
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2086838
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Do you believe in reincarnation?" I ask. "Perhaps." "What would you come back as?" "If I had my chance, a gazelle." "A gazelle?" "Yes, so graceful. So fast." "A gazelle?" Morrie smiled at me. "You think that's strange?" I study his shrunken frame, the loose clothes, the socks wrapped feet that rest stiffly on rubber cushions, unable to move, like a prisoner in leg irons. I picture a gazelle racing across the desert. "No," I say. "I don't t..
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Mitch Albom |
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2e3fd39
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People scooped up these tabloids, devoured their gossip.. But now, for some reason, I found myself thinking about Morrie whenever I read anything silly or mindless. I kept picturing him there, in the house with the Japanese maple.. counting his breath, squeezing out every moment with his loved ones, while I spent so many hours on things that meant absolutely nothing to me personally.
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senseless
ill
live
life
love
quality
moment
gossip
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Mitch Albom |
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ba3a7e5
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Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mother and fathers, stones upon stones, benea..
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Mitch Albom |
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1c115d9
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What will you do?" Eva would ask him. "I don't know," he would say. He ruled out law, because he didn't like lawyers, and he ruled out medicine because he couldn't take the sight of blood. "What will you do?" It was only through default that the best professor I ever had became a teacher."
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teacher
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Mitch Albom |
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b1285f2
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It's not about having the answers in life. It's about the search for the answers, the choosing to believe in something bigger than yourself that makes the journey of faith so challenging, yet so worthwhile... That is the crazy, glorious, sometimes maddening but always satisfying in the end, journey that we call faith.
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Mitch Albom |
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51c31ad
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The teaching goes on
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teaching
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Mitch Albom |
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3a0d63a
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I had told him I was searching for my keys, that's what had taken me so long in the car, and I squeezed him tighter, as if I could crush my little lie.
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make-up
lie
guilt
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Mitch Albom |
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f59b8c2
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Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
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Mitch Albom |
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eed8ccf
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One, as in the singular God. One, as in the Lord's creation, Adam.
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Mitch Albom |
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5417b1b
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The rain rapped the roof like mallets. The thunder was a tympani drum. Downstairs the raiders set fire to the refectory and the flames crackled like a hundred castanets. Those few who had not fled the church were screaming, high, pleading shrieks, met by lower barking orders of those committing the atrocities. The low and high voices, the crackling fire, whipping wind, drumming rain and crashing thunder created an angry symphony, swirling t..
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music
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Mitch Albom |
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b79c30a
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Music is in the connection of human souls, speaking a language that needs no words.
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Mitch Albom |
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d38139e
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Did you know," the old woman said now, standing beside the grown-up Annie, "that a dog will go to a crying human before a smiling one? Dogs get sad when people around them get sad . They're created that way. It's called empathy. Humans have it, too. But it gets blocked by other things -- ego, self-pity, thinking your own pain must be tended to first. Dogs don't have those issues."
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Mitch Albom |
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6ec8d39
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Have you ever considered how many living things there are on earth?" Cleo asked. "People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Trees. It makes you wonder how anyone could feel lonely. Yet humans do. It's a shame." She looked at the sky, now a deep shade of purple. "We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. It is merely a shadow that falls over us. And just as shadows die when light changes, that sad feeling can depar..
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Mitch Albom |
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b9f2770
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There's no such thing as a nobody. And there are no mistakes.
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Mitch Albom |
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18d66e2
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Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?
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Mitch Albom |
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2cc53eb
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You've been waiting here all this time?" Eddie whispered. "Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning."
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Mitch Albom |
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cb6309e
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The Captain grinned. "The way I see it, that's what we're getting here, soldier. That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays."
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Mitch Albom |
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c03252f
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When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say, 'The whole world is mine.' "But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson." What lesson? I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us."
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Mitch Albom |
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bf31e83
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Marguerite said something about the bikini bathing suits the young girls were wearing and how she would never have the nerve to wear such a thing. Eddie said the girls were lucky, because if she did the men would not look at anyone else. And even though by this point Marguerite was in her mid-40s and her hips had thickened and a web of small lines had formed around her eyes, she thanked Eddie gratefully and looked at his crooked nose and wi..
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Mitch Albom |
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0b98780
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Things that happen before you are born still affect you," she said. "And people who come before your time affect you as well. We move through places every day that would never have been if not for those who came before us. Our workplaces, where we spend so much time -- we often think they began with our arrival. That's not true."
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Mitch Albom |
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1a58f78
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Ruby stepped toward him. "Edward," she said softly. It was the first time she had called him by name. "Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
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Mitch Albom |
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aff60b3
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I never wanted anyone else," he said quietly. "I know," she said. "I was still in love with you." "I know." She nodded. "I felt it." "Here?" he asked. "Even here," she said, smiling. "That's how strong lost love can be."
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Mitch Albom |
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c2a7d55
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Eddie turned away. "Because I saved you, as tough as those years were for you, as bad as it was with your hand, you got to grow up, too. And because you got to grow up..." When he turned back, Annie froze. Eddie was holding a baby boy, with a small blue cap on his head. "Laurence?" Annie whispered. Eddie stepped forward and placed her son in her trembling arms. Instantly, Annie was whole again, her body complete. She cradled the infant aga..
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infant-loss
motherhood
pregnancy
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Mitch Albom |
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a5cafbc
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Then Adam boldly said, 'Lord, what if I am willing to bestow on that soul some of the years of my life?' "And God answered Adam, saying, 'If that is your wish, that I will grant.' "Adam, we are told, died not at 1,000, but at 930 years. And eons later, there was a child born in the town of Bethlehem. He became a ruler over Israel and a sweet singer of songs. After leading his people and inspiring them, he died. And the Bible concludes: 'Beh..
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Mitch Albom |
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1e6ab92
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It's amazing how folks can't see you, 'cause they want to keep you in that past.
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Mitch Albom |
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5f36be7
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Some of our greatest problems in ministering to people is that they knew us back before we came to the Lord
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Mitch Albom |
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ce545b0
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How long have i been dead? A minute. An hour. A thousand years
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heaven
people
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Mitch Albom |
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66e348f
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They just looked at his past. And when we're still looking at ourselves through our past, we're not seeing what God has done. What He can do! We're not seeing the little things that happen in our lives--
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Mitch Albom |
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0323991
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No, I say. You knew me. You knew that person, but you don't know the person that I'm trying to become.
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Mitch Albom |
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a4d66ce
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Did you ever hear a sermon that felt as if it were being screamed into your ear alone? When that happens, it usually has more to do with you than the preacher.
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Mitch Albom |
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00ed608
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On the other hand, Napoleon once dismissed religion as "what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Meaning, without the fear of God--or literally the hell we might have to pay--the rest of us would just take what we wanted."
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Mitch Albom |