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I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Love
Cruel
Life
Expected
Hatred
Weak
Relationship
Learned
Inspiration
Strong
Gentleness

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Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
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You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature they simply grow taller.
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The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
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The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.
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You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two don't make two moves at one time move up, not down and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.
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Thinking is harder work than hard work.
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
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The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
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Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
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A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.
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Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
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O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
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Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
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Satire is focused bitterness.
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In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, please paint me the Gettysburg Address.
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