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Pythagoras
Pythagoras
7 months 1 day ago
Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be...

Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. Science is got by diligence; but Discretion and Wisdom cometh of GOD.

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Philosophical Maxims
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
3 months 2 weeks ago
What we do need to worry...

What we do need to worry about is the possibility that we will be reduced, in the face of the enormities of our time, to silence or to mere protest.

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A Poem of Difficult Hope
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
4 months 1 week ago
It must have been in his...

It must have been in his teens, perhaps rather early, that he and his elder brother John, with William Bell (afterwards of Wylie Hill, and a noted drover) and his brother, all met in the kiln at Eelief to play cards. The corn was dried then at home. There was a fire, therefore, aud perhaps it was both heat and light. The boys had played, perhaps, often enough for trifling stakes, and always parted in good humor. One night they came to some disagreement. My father spoke out what was in him about the folly, the sinfulness, of quarreling over a perhaps sinful amusement. The earnest mind persuaded other minds. They threw the cards into the fire, and (I think the younger Bell told my brother James) no one of the four ever touched a card again through life. My father certainly never hinted at such a game since I knew him. I cannot remember that I, at that age, had any such force of belief. Which of us can?

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Philosophical Maxims
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
5 months 4 weeks ago
It is hardly to be believed...

It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.

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A 11
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
6 months 2 days ago
One of the major problems of...

One of the major problems of our society is that so many people are too intelligent to accept religion, but not intelligent or strong-minded enough to look for acceptable alternatives; in the same way, many people are strong-minded enough not to want to be 'organization men', but incapable of seeing beyond an act of protest. These situations produce a sense of being 'between two stools', lacking real motive; a sense of mental strain is produced that may find its outlet in violence, or in organised anti-social behaviour.

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p. 224, Crimes of Freedom -- and their cure
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
6 months 1 day ago
Law is the continuous manifestation of...

Law is the continuous manifestation of God's presence - not reason for believing him absent. Great confusion arises from our using the same word law in two totally distinct senses ... as the cause and the effect. It is said that to "explain away" everything by law is to enable us to do without God. But law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. Law brings us continually back to God instead of carrying us away from him.

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Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
What a queer work the Bible...

What a queer work the Bible is. ...Some texts are very funny. Deut. XXIV, 5: "When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken." I should never have guessed "cheer up" was a Biblical expression. Here is another really inspiring text: "Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen." St Paul on marriage: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." This has remained the doctrine of the Church to this day. It is clear that the Divine purpose in the text "it is better to marry than to burn" is to make us all feel how very dreadful the torments of Hell must be.

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Letter to Colette, August 10, 1918
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
I do not believe that I...

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

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Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 172
Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months 2 weeks ago
Consider that everything is opinion, and...

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.

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XII, 22
Philosophical Maxims
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
6 months 2 weeks ago
As Being and Life are one...

As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.

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P. 4
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
7 months 1 week ago
He was breakfasting in the marketplace,...

He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."

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Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 61
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 2 weeks ago
A free people claim their rights,...

A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
5 months 2 weeks ago
When nature removes....
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Main Content / General
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
7 months 2 weeks ago
The New Testament is an invaluable...

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries out of one's head and taste its true flavor. - I think that Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been preached from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or heard of, have been but poor imitations of this. - It would be a poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians.

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Philosophical Maxims
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
6 months 3 weeks ago
The debates of that great assembly...

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

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Book One, Chapter XXI.
Philosophical Maxims
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon
5 months 4 weeks ago
Global rationality, the rationality of neoclassical...

Global rationality, the rationality of neoclassical theory, assumes that the decision maker has a comprehensive, consistent utility function, knows all the alternatives that are available for choice, can compute the expected value of utility associated with each alternative, and chooses the alternative that maximizes expected utility. Bounded rationality, a rationality that is consistent with our knowledge of actual human choice behavior, assumes that the decision maker must search for alternatives, has egregiously incomplete and inaccurate knowledge about the consequences of actions, and chooses actions that are expected to be satisfactory (attain targets while satisfying constraints).

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Simon (1997, p. 17); As cited in: Gustavo Barros (2010, p. 460).
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Popper
Karl Popper
7 months 2 weeks ago
Put in a nut-shell, my thesis...

Put in a nut-shell, my thesis amounts to this. The repeated attempts made by Rudolf Carnap to show that the demarcation between science and metaphysics coincides with that between sense and nonsense have failed. The reason is that the positivistic concept of 'meaning' or 'sense' (or of verifiability, or of inductive confirmability, etc.) is inappropriate for achieving this demarcation - simply because metaphysics need not be meaningless even though it is not science. In all its variations demarcation by meaninglessness has tended to be at the same time too narrow and too wide: as against all intentions and all claims, it has tended to exclude scientific theories as meaningless, while failing to exclude even that part of metaphysics which is known as 'rational theology'.

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Ch 11. "The Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics." (Summary, p. 253)
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
6 months 2 days ago
They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether...

They certainly demonstrate that Seth, whether an aspect of Jane Robert's unconscious mind or a genuine "spirit," was of a high level of intelligence. Yet when Jane Roberts produced a book that purported to be the after-death journal of the philosopher William James, it was difficult to take it seriously. James's works are noted for their vigour and clarity of style; Jane Robert's "communicator" writes like an undergraduate . . . there is a clumsiness here that is quite unlike James's swift-moving, colloquial prose.

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p. 390
Philosophical Maxims
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
8 months 2 weeks ago
You have already grasped that Sisyphus...

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Voltaire
Voltaire
7 months 3 weeks ago
Where is the prince…

Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?

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Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 160 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767
Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
3 months 2 weeks ago
Your reason is now mature enough...

Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object religion. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. 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 the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

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Scan of the original page at The Library of Congress.
Philosophical Maxims
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
5 months 2 weeks ago
The Age of Writing has passed....

The Age of Writing has passed. We must invent a new metaphor, restructure our thoughts and feelings.

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(p. 14)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
7 months 3 weeks ago
Is Christ only to be adored?...

Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing.

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Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 51, 128-129
Philosophical Maxims
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
4 months ago
Justice is conscience, not a personal...

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

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Letter to three students (October 1967) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz, "The Struggle Intensifies"
Philosophical Maxims
David Pearce
David Pearce
4 months 4 weeks ago
Too many of our preferences reflect...

Too many of our preferences reflect nasty behaviours and states of mind that were genetically adaptive in the ancestral environment. Instead, wouldn't it be better if we rewrote our own corrupt code?

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The Abolitionist Project, Talks given at the FHI (Oxford University) and the Charity International Happiness Conference, 2007
Philosophical Maxims
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
3 months 2 weeks ago
Social Democratic centralism cannot be based...

Social Democratic centralism cannot be based on the mechanical subordination and blind obedience of the party membership to the leading party center. The Social Democratic movement cannot allow the erection of an air-tight partition between the class-conscious nucleus of the proletariat already in the party and its immediate popular environment, the nonparty sections of the proletariat.

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Philosophical Maxims
Julius Evola
Julius Evola
3 months 3 weeks ago
Danger reawakens the spirit.....

Danger reawakens the spirit.

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p. 66
Philosophical Maxims
Plutarch
Plutarch
7 months 1 week ago
When one told Plistarchus that a...

When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."

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Of Plistarchus
Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
4 months 5 days ago
The habit of the religious way...

The habit of the religious way of thinking has biased our mind so grievously that we are - terrified at ourselves in our nakedness and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved by nature, born devils.

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Dover 2005, p. 162
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
6 months 2 weeks ago
Philosophy: impersonal anxiety; refuge among anemic...

Philosophy: impersonal anxiety; refuge among anemic ideas.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
7 months 2 weeks ago
I am particularly grateful to Nozick...

I am particularly grateful to Nozick for his unfailing help and encouragement during the last stages.

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Preface, pg. xii
Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
7 months 2 weeks ago
Born for success he seemed, With...

Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.

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In Memoriam E. B. E.
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
We invite this Congress, and through...

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution: "In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them".

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Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
3 months 3 weeks ago
Being doesn't know...

Being doesn't know.

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Philosophical Maxims
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
7 months 3 weeks ago
Metaphysics has as the proper object...

Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality.

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B 395
Philosophical Maxims
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
7 months 1 week ago
Nowadays, to say that we are...

Nowadays, to say that we are clever animals is not to say something philosophical and pessimistic but something political and hopeful - namely, if we can work together, we can make ourselves into whatever we are clever and courageous enough to imagine ourselves becoming. This is to set aside Kant's question "What is man?" and to substitute the question "What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?"

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"Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
Philosophical Maxims
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
6 months 3 weeks ago
To say that man is a...

To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

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As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Philosophical Maxims
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
7 months 2 weeks ago
Stupidity or reason? Oh, there was...

Stupidity or reason? Oh, there was no choice now. It was imbecility every time.

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The Gioconda smile, in Mortal Coils, 1921
Philosophical Maxims
Epictetus
Epictetus
8 months 4 days ago
Look now, this is the starting...

Look now, this is the starting point of philosophy: the recognition that different people have conflicting opinions, the rejection of mere opinion so that it comes to be viewed with mistrust, an investigation of opinion to determine whether it is rightly held, and the discovery of a standard of judgement, comparable to the balance that we have devised for the determining of weights, or the carpenter's rule for determining whether things are straight or crooked.

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Book II, ch. 11, 13.
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
8 months 2 weeks ago
Let us suppose that a man...

Let us suppose that a man believes in eternal life on Christ's word. In that case he believes without any fuss about being profound and searching and philosophical and racking his brains.

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Philosophical Maxims
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
3 months 2 weeks ago
Let opinion be taken away, and...

Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man shall think himself wronged, then is there no more any such thing as wrong.

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IV. 7, trans. Méric Casaubon
Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
7 months 3 weeks ago
We are, I know not how,...

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we condemn.

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Ch. 16. Of Glory, tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877
Philosophical Maxims
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
8 months 2 days ago
Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove...

Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove all propositions, and to employ nothing for their proof but axioms fully evident of themselves, or propositions already demonstrated or admitted; Never to take advantage of the ambiguity of terms by failing mentally to substitute definitions that restrict or explain them.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
The merits of democracy are negative:...

The merits of democracy are negative: it does not insure good government, but it prevents certain evils.

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Ch. 18: The Taming of Power PT311 books.google
Philosophical Maxims
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
7 months 2 weeks ago
Forgiveness is the key to action...

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

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As quoted in The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1989) edited by Robert Andrews, p. 114
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
7 months 2 weeks ago
In obedience to the feeling of...

In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described.

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Ch. 16: Descriptions
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
5 months 3 days ago
It is the indignity of being...

It is the indignity of being treated as disposable that pushes people towards religious fundamentalism in order to retrieve a sense of self, of meaning, of significance. This is why globalization breeds religious fundamentalism and free markets create terrorism and extremism, not democracy.

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(p80)
Philosophical Maxims
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
7 months 3 weeks ago
The hair is the finest ornament...

The hair is the finest ornament women have. . . . I like women to let their hair fall down their back, it is a most agreeable sight.

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-- Table Talk, quoted in Luther On "Woman"
Philosophical Maxims
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
6 months 1 day ago
We set the treatment of bodies...

We set the treatment of bodies so high above the treatment of souls, that the physician occupies a higher place in society than the school-master. The governess is to have every one of God's gifts; she is to do that which the mother herself is incapable of doing; but our son must not degrade himself by marrying the governess, nor our daughter the tutor, though she might marry the medical man.

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Philosophical Maxims
Mozi
Mozi
3 months 3 weeks ago
When feudal lords love one another...

When feudal lords love one another there will be no more war; when heads of houses love one another there will be no more mutual usurpation; when individuals love one another there will be no more mutual injury. When ruler and ruled love each other they will be gracious and loyal; when father and son love each other they will be affectionate and filial; when older and younger brothers love each other they will be harmonious. When all the people in the world love one another, then the strong will not overpower the weak, the many will not oppress the few, the wealthy will not mock the poor, the honoured will not disdain the humble, and the cunning will not deceive the simple. And it is all due to mutual love that calamities, strife, complaints, and hatred are prevented from arising. Therefore the benevolent exalt it.

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Book 4; Universal Love II
Philosophical Maxims
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