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we do know now, all of us, that the most appalling cruelties are committed by apparently virtuous governments in expectation of a great good to come, never learning that the evil done now is the sure destroyer of the expected good.

Katherine Anne Porter

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Katherine Anne Porter
Age: 90 †
Born: 1890
Born: May 15
Died: 1980
Died: September 18
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Indian Creek
Texas
Come
Cruelty
Cruelties
Done
Expected
Destroyer
Great
Committed
Appalling
Good
Expectations
Destroyers
Never
Learning
Expectation
Sure
Apparently
Evil
Virtuous
Government
Governments

More quotes by Katherine Anne Porter

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Love must be learned again and again... Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.
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Perhaps the habit which distinguishes civilized people from others is that of discussion, exchange of opinion and ideas, the ability to differ without quarrelling, to say what you have to say civilly and then to listen civilly to another speaker.
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I can pray better when I'm comfortable.
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It is such a relief to be told the truth.
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Death is loneliness in its purest form.
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we know that the Furies do not come uninvited.
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We do not run from the troubles and dangers that are truly ours, and it is better to learn what they are earlier than later, and if we don't run from the others, we are fools.
Katherine Anne Porter
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There seems to be a kind of order in the universe…in the movement of the stars and the turning of the Earth and the changing of the seasons. But human life is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own right and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.
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Adventure is something you seek for pleasure, or even for profit, like a gold rush or invading a country...but experience is what really happens to you in the long run the truth that finally overtakes you.
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I work whenever I'm let.
Katherine Anne Porter
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Untrained minds have always been a nuisance to the military police of orthodoxy. God-intoxicated mystics and untidy saints with only a white blaze of divine love where their minds should have been, are perpetually creating almost as much disorder within the law as outside it.
Katherine Anne Porter
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There are only a few bits of absolute knowledge in the world, people can learn only one or two fundamental facts about each other, the rest is decoration and prejudice.
Katherine Anne Porter
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They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.
Katherine Anne Porter
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Death cancels our engagements, but it does not affect the consequences of our acts in life.
Katherine Anne Porter
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I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.
Katherine Anne Porter
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There has been a marvelous joyous carnival of mourning for Edith Piaf and Jean Coctaeau, and it was real! They died as they had lived, with style and grace and their proper eccentricity and Paris loves anybody who can live anarchically and be delightful entertainment at the same time. So do I.
Katherine Anne Porter
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I always write a story in one sitting.
Katherine Anne Porter
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Life is a game of piquet played in a bramble bush in very bad weather.
Katherine Anne Porter
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Education must be taken out of the hands of rich illiterates, third rate politicians, and put where it belongs: in the care of scholars. At present the whole University system is rotten to the core, and an appalling waste of time, energy and money.
Katherine Anne Porter
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Religion put claws on Aunt Sally and gave her a post to whet them on.
Katherine Anne Porter