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A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in
the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than
he was yesterday.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet
Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you
were a year ago.
Right actions for the future are the best apologies for
wrong ones in the past.
Learn from others' mistakes. We don't have time to make
them all ourselves.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and
proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone
gets busy on the proof.
I learnt the lesson on nonviolence from my wife, when I
tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand,
and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made
me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her.
He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger.
Japanese proverb
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the
other person to die.
Hating people is like burning your own house down to get
rid of a rat.
Always forgive your enemies-- nothing annoys them so much.
Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be
a bunch of bastards.
To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you
do have.
Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising
the voice.
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything
without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Why should I? When somebody insulted Caruso, did he sing an
aria for
them? - Explaining why he did not hit a motorist after the
latter
abused him following an accident.
By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming
idiotic oneself.
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause
and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by
reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by
watching the second hand of a clock.
Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will
vibrate in eternity.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must
first invent the universe."
I like business because it is competitive, because it
rewards deeds rather than words. I like
business because it compels earnestness and does not permit
me to neglect today's task while
thinking about tomorrow. I like business because it
undertakes to please, not reform; because it is
honestly selfish, thereby avoiding hypocrisy and
sentimentality. I like business because it promptly
penalizes mistakes, shiftlessness and inefficiency, while
rewarding well those who give it the best
they have in them. Lastly, I like business because each
day is a fresh adventure
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
The winds and the waves are always on the side of the
ablest navigators.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the
same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision
is a nightmare.
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Gandhi
There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live
A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he
begins to blame someone else.
John Burroughs
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but
whether you are content with your failure.
Failures are divided into two classes----those who thought
and never did, and those who did and
never thought.
He who wants to do a great deal of good at once will never
do anything.
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
It may be that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a
warning to others
There is a story told of Edison, who made, say, 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before arriving at the light bulb. "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" a reporter asked. "I didn't fail 1,000 times," Edison replied. "The light bulb was an invention with 1,001 steps."
The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance
for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose,
for
this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but
the staying down.
Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving
up is what makes it permanent.
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Hold your friends close and your enemies even closer
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from
his friends.
A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when
my memory fails.
It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the
confident
knowledge that they will help us.
Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow.
The only service a friend can really render is to keep up
your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can
see a noble image of yourself.
There is much satisfaction in work well done, but there can
be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that
understands.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - author
The first step to getting the things you want out of life
is this: Decide what you want.
If you reveal your aims, you will never keep them
The great thing in this world is not so much where we are,
but in what direction we are moving.
The greatest quest in life is to reach one's potential.
The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross
and which to burn.
It is more important to know where you are going than to
get there quickly.
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An
occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in
mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from
each new vantage point.
True happiness is not attained through self-gratification,
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer
Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us
feel fulfilled.
Will and I could hardly wait for the morning to come to get
at something that interested us. That's happiness.
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations
and his limitations.
Victor Borge
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
Of course I believe in luck. How else to explain the
success of those you dislike?
Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can
tell them almost anything.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I
could
hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to
be twenty-
one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven
years.
When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this
marvelous personality that started you drinking in the
first place.
Have you read about the evils of drinking?
I have, and it led me to give up reading.
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a
vegetarian because I hate plants.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want
to achieve it through not dying.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a
large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.
I think you'd be better off falling in love (than taking a
writing class). You'd be better off getting rejected by
someone; sidling up to a woman and saying, "How 'bout it
baby?", and she saying, "Fuck off". These are valuable
experiences.
The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not
laughed.
A waist is a terrible thing to mind.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who
divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who
don't.
Life is something to do when you can't sleep.
If you're interested in changing people's hearts and minds,
start with people's hearts because otherwise they're not
going to care what's on your mind.
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy. Howard W. Newton
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them to become what they are capable of being.
There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and
encourage a will to learning, as is praise.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher
inspires.
Many people believe that support is something that you give
to
someone you feel sorry for or that it means propping up
someone who
would fail unless you were there to give him a boost. But
that's not
the way I see it. Support is the boost you can give someone
who can
help himself but who needs a partner to open a window or
push aside a
roadblock.
Good manners are like traffic rules for society.
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory,
but
progress.
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but
taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering
but fighting well
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with
your lips.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you
will help
them become what they are capable of becoming.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do
and they
will surprise you with their ingenuity.
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
You can have power over people as long as you don't take
everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of
everything, he's no longer in your power.
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of
pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most
terrible poverty.
Mother Teresa
To find yourself in a situation where your life seems of
little value is the ultimate of loneliness.
You grow up the thay you have your first real laugh at
yourself.
Ethel Barrymore
Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate
pleasures for long-term values.
The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in
others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does
the reverse.
A childlike man is not a man whose development has been
arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given
himself a chance
of continuing to develop long after most adults have
muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle aged habit and
convention.
A prudent man will think more important what fate has
conceded to him, than what it has denied.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to
be worshipped.
Calvin Coolidge
Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know
where to go shopping.
The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves
is far better than mere giving.
There are many things in life that are more important than
money. And they all cost money.
I don't think suicide is so terrible. Some rainy winter
Sunday when there's a little boredom, you should carry a
gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know exactly that you're
always making a choice.
Lina Wertmuller
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss
is what dies inside us while we live.
Time is at once the most valuable, and the most perishable
of all our possessions.
Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as
profit every day that fate allows you.
Play it like you feel it, baby, and live it up, kid. You'll
be all right. I've never given up, and never given in. I've
lost many times and said on the way down, "You're going to
have to kill me." Try to enjoy your life 'cuz this it, baby.
You will never find time for anything. If you want time
you must make it.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to
read them at all.
The influence of each human being on others in this life is
a kind of immortality.
We come into this world crying while all around us are
smiling. May we so live that we go out of this world
smiling while everybody around us is weeping.
When we are mindful of every nuance of our natural world,
we finally get the picture:
that we are only given one dazzling moment of life here on
Earth, and we must stand before that reality both humbled
and elevated, subject to every law of our universe and
grateful for our brief but intrinsic participation with it.
The really frightening thing about middle age is the
knowledge that you'll grow out of it.
The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to
sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Du Bos
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather
than intellect.
All big things in this world are done by people who are
naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do
not act
rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we
have
those because we have acted rightly. We are what we
repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice,
though not in principle.
Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only
had
wonderful things happen to you.
Mary Tyler Moore
The most important thing I have learned over the years is
the difference between taking one's work seriously and
taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and
the second disasterous.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than
the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that
comes after it.
To become the spectator of one's own life is to escape the
suffering of life.
In order to get discouraged, you have to have some sense of
an objective.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.
A thief believes everybody steals.
The further back you can look, the father forward you are
likely to see.
I am no Einstein.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius
has its limits.
The amateur salesperson sells products; the professional
sells solutions to needs and problems.
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that
your high school class is running the country
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no
feet
Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the
restatement of the obvious.
Comedy is when you slip on a banana peel; tragedy is when I
slip on a banana peel.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of
time.
If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you
were worrying about one year ago today
I have found that sitting in a place where you have never
sat before can be inspiring
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right,
he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it! For
boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!
Johann Goethe
Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are seting out into an unknown country to face many a danger, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.
It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
Work like you don't need the money
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All
life is an experiment.
Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may
not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty,
believe in them and try to follow where they lead.
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I
still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand
thing.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. These three
alone lead to sovereign power.
Lord Alfred Tennyson
An idea comes as close to something for nothing as you can
get.
You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate
You can easily judge the character of others by how they
treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and
are not clothed.
Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
Lack of money is the root of all evil.
Money is a "way of keeping score in life", says T. Boone
Pickens.
But
that is just for those who like playing the game. The real
goal is to
live with grace and dignity. You can do that with a small
amount of
money...or not do it with a fortune.
In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate
power but carries the ultimate responsibility.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
John F. Kennedy
Guard well your spare moments. They are like diamonds.
Discard tham and their value will never be known. Improve
them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful
life.
All high achievers plan their work and work their plan, for
they are keenly aware that "luck" is most often being
prepared to take advantage of a situation.
There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how
to make a living and the other how to live.
A thought which does not result in an action is nothing
much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought
is nothing at all.
A man too busy to take care of his health is like a
mechanic too busy
to care for his tools.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small
jobs.
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off
all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness,
and fears.
The future belongs to those who prepare for it.
You need to make a plan, set a goal and stick to it, but I
would advise, Don't keep your eyes so fixed on your goal
that you miss what sneaks up to surprise you, because magic
will come from unexpected places.
Nothing is more endangered in the modern world than the
powerful combination of hard work toward meaningful goals
joined with an exuberant embrace of the present moment.
Tom Morris
"But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice; The aim, if
reached or not, makes great the life: Try to be
Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!"
When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly
balanced courses of action you should take - choose the
bolder.
Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should
never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed
day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness,
not the glory.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a
heaven for?
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose
sight of the shore for a very long time.
If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do
is keep on walking.
Whatever you can do or dream you can - begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Time is a created thing. To say "I don't have time" is like saying "I don't want to . . ."
To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a
sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of
your opportunities.
Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow
will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a
level with yourself
Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking
risks,
breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its
best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to
fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to
exchange for it.
Establish your priorities and go to work.
Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever.
Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination.
To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its
best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to
fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change
it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every
experience in which you really stop to look fear in the
face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through
this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed
in overalls and looks like work.
Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the
great
temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your
life. But the
real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is
being
decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or
temptation, you
shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character
cannot be made
except by a steady, long continued process.
The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good
intention.
True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
Louis Nizer (1902-1994) American Lawyer
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal
every fact,
every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of
a
God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear".
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by rulers as useful."
"I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided
people. I don't think there's any
difference between the pope wearing a large hat and
parading around with a
smoking purse and an African painting his face white and
praying to a rock."
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the
orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns
himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but
rather that the Gods are the dreams of men."
"When people stop believing in God, the problem is not that
thereafter they believe in nothing, it is that thereafter
they will believe in anything."
"Religion is like chemotherapy, it may solve one problem,
but it can cause a
million more."
"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All
other "sins" are invented
nonsense."
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they
do it from religious conviction.
I'd rather be governed by a wise Turk than a stupid
Christian
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved
for what you are not.
André Gide
Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue
what they are.
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it;
who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be
done, and does it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man.
The true nobility is in being superior to your previous
self.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most
important thing in life is to know when to forgo an
advantage.
Benjamin Disraeli
What is important is not that there are uncontrollable
events in our
lives, but how we respond to them.
What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was
practicing for this, I was training for this.
The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control
emotions by the application of reason.
Things turn out best for the people who make the best out
of the way things turn out.
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let
them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness,
insight.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in
moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at
times of challenge and controversy.
Right actions for the future are the best apologies for
wrong ones in the past.
The art of life is not controlling what happens to us, but
using what happens to us.
Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor
hand well.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human
spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two
characters. One represents danger and the other represents
opportunity.
The life of man is like a game with dice; if you don't get
the throw you want, you must show your skill in making the
best of the throw you get.
It is not the strongest that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in
the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than
he was yesterday.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get
up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they
can't find them, make them.
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with
composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he
does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and
heroic temper.
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it;
who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be
done, and does it.
When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and
wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get
up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they
can't find them, make them.
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive
and forget; the wise forgive, but do not forget.
Activism is my rent for living on the planet.
Alice Walker
The most important words that have helped me in life - when
things have gone right, or when things have gone wrong -
are "Accept responsibility" . . . It's everyone's
responsibility to lead, to honor, and to fight for
everyone's basic rights, for equality.
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of
none.
It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should
take seriously.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but
it's not going to go away.
Elvis Presley
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only
argument available with an east wind is to put on your
overcoat.
They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it,
and those
who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them
and cover them up, at least a little bit.
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of
the truth
"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?" "Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works." "The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."
"There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong.
That's perfectly all right;
they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science
is a self-correcting process.
To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous
standards of evidence
and scrutiny."
"One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our
science, measured against reality, is primitive and
childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have."
"Of all the communities available to us there is not one I
would want to devote myself to, except for the society of
the true searchers, which has very few living members at
any time."
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a
computer. Art is everything else.
The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that
it is comprehensible.
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the
delight in the recognition.
Alexander Smith
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
A guy has to work really hard to get laid. All you have to do is to just stand braless in the wind.
You can do what you want, but saving love doesn't bring
any interest.
How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you
have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?
You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements
Norman Douglas
My definition of a free society is a society where it is
safe to be unpopular.
What the public wants is not passion but the appearance of
passion.
You can always count on the U.S. to do the right thing -
once it has exhausted the alternatives
CNN: What do you think of the state of the world today?
The Great Society was the woman that I loved, and that
bitch of a war took her away from me.
All of us who were connected with computers lusted after
them. To have a computer was better than sex.
No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his
accomplices.
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot
grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union,
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
angels of our nature.
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United
States. Ask any Indian.
People try nonviolence for a week, and when it does not
work, they go back to violence, which hasn't worked for
centuries.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life
in your own way.
Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)
If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a
rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least
once a week.
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough
problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you
had last year.
We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we
give.
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to
succeed.
If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been
owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
Gloria Steinem
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it's not going to go away.
Man has no nobler function than to defend the truth.
Man is happy only as he finds work worth doing -- and does
it well.
E. Merrill Root (1895-1973) American Writer
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever.
Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination.
As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
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