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THE PAST IN THE PRESENT

Virginia Woolf:
The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.

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SMELLS OF THE PAST

While bicycling along the Charles this past week, I smelled cigar smoke. The smell brought a smile to my face – or at least to my mind.

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THE COMPANIONSHIP IN READING

May Sarton:
I am drawn to people, for I am one myself, for whom literature is a passion, deep rather than wide readers, who discover the great works as Marc had discovered #Proust, feel themselves companioned by certain writers throughout a lifetime, follow every clue about the invention of characters in their books, one might almost say lead double lives.

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THE BENEFITS OF LUCK

George Sarton:
Every creature needs luck, and he is very ungrateful who ascribes his success to his merit and naught else.

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LIVING IN THE CURRENT CRISIS

I have no doubt that we’re living in a crisis, on the cusp of watching the (physical, economic, political, cultural) world as we know it fall apart.

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CRISES, PAST AND PRESENT

Annie Dillard:
We have no chance of being here when the sun burns out. There must be something heroic about our time, something that lifts it above all those other times.

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