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This is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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Original Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen [Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None]. Chemnitz: Ernst Schmeitzner, 1884, pt. 2.

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Current Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, edited by Robert Pippin, translated by Adrian Del Caro. Cambridge University Press, 2006, pt. 2.

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When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

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Whitman, Walt. "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer." Leaves of Grass. New York: Self-published, 1867, I. 1. Originally published in Drum-Taps. New York: Peter Eckler, 1865, I. 1.

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If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Voltaire

Candide

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Original Citation

Voltaire. Candide, ou l'Optimisme [Candide: or, All for the Best]. Geneva: Gabriel Cramer, 1759, ch. 6.

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Current Citation

Voltaire. Candide, edited by Nicholas Cronk. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, ch. 6.

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I celebrate myself and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

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Original Citation

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York: Self-published, 1855, poem 1.

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Current Citation

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, sect. 1, I. 1.

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Between us and excellence, the gods have placed the sweat of our brows.

Hesiod

Works and Days

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Original Citation

Hesiod. Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι [Works and Days]. c. 700 BC, l. 289.

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Current Citation

Hesiod. "Works and Days." Theogony and Works and Days, translated by M. L. West. Oxford University Press, 2009, l. 289.

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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals-And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

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Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. London: Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard, 1623, act 2, sc. 2.

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Current Citation

Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, act 2, sc. 2.

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Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Pericles

Quoted in Funeral Oration, by Thucydides

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Pericles. Quoted in The History of the Peloponnesian War. c. 431 BC, bk. 2.

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Pericles. Quoted in The Peloponnesian War, translated by Martin Hammond. Oxford University Press, 2009, bk. 2.

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Only two things does he anxiously wish for-bread and circuses.

Juvenal

Satires

On the modern (at that time) Roman citizen.

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Juvenal. Satirae [Satires]. c. 127, satire 10.

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Juvenal. The Satires, translated by Niall Rudd. Oxford University Press, 2008, satire 10.

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Every man dies, not every man really lives.

William Wallace

Braveheart

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Braveheart. Directed by Mel Gibson, Icon Productions/The Ladd Company, 1995.

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The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls

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Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940, ch. 43.

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For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Apostle Paul

Romans 10:13

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The Holy Bible: The King James Version. 1611. (Romans 10:13).

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My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

Bluto

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Animal House

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Animal House. Directed by John Landis, Universal Pictures, 1978.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

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Original Citation

Dickens, Charles. "A Tale of Two Cities." London: Chapman & Hall. April-Nov. 1859. Weekly serial.

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Current Citation

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities, edited by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, bk. 1, ch. 1.

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To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

Homer Simpson

The Simpsons

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"Homer vs. the 18th Amendment." The Simpsons, written by Matt Groening and James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, directed by Bob Anderson, season 8, episode 18, Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television, 1997.

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You can't believe this woman. She's one of these low-talkers. You can't hear a word she's saying! You're always going "excuse me?", "what was that?"

Jerry Seinfeld

Seinfeld

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"The Puffy Shirt." Seinfeld, written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, directed by Tom Cherones, season 5, episode 2, Shapiro/West Productions and Castle Rock Entertainment, 1993.

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He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

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Original Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft [Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future]. Leipzig: C. G. Naumann, 1886, ch. 4, no. 146.

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