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I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps

Thornton Wilder

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Thornton Wilder
Age: 78 †
Born: 1897
Born: April 17
Died: 1975
Died: December 7
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Madison
Wisconsin
Thornton Niven Wilder
Birds
Nonsense
Acknowledge
Innumerable
Burden
Inherited
Bird
Superstition
Must
Governed
Men
Govern
Superstitions

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Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.
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A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider reference. It pardons shortcomings, it consoles failure.
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Favors cease to be favors when there are conditions attached to them.
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There's nothing like mixing with women to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense.
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I not only bow to the inevitable I am fortified by it.
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When God loves a creature he wants the creature to know the highest happiness and the deepest misery ... He wants him to know all that being alive can bring. That is his best gift.... There is no happiness save in understanding the whole.
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It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.
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That's the advantage of having lived sixty-five years. You don't feel the need to be impatient any longer.
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Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.
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We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theater strengthens our faculty to face it.
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Throughout the hours of the night, though there had been few to hear it, the whole sky had been loud with the singing of these constellations.
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Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.
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The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous-and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight-and that, also, can shatter the world.
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Doctors are mostly impostors. The older a doctor is and the more venerated he is, the more he must pretend to know everything. Of course, they grow worse with time. Always look for a doctor who is hated by the best doctors. Always seek out a bright young doctor before he comes down with nonsense.
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I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts.
Thornton Wilder
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I hold we cannot be said to be aware of our minds save under responsibility.
Thornton Wilder
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Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.
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The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.
Thornton Wilder
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Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.
Thornton Wilder
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the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.
Thornton Wilder