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Why, I wonder, do people who at one time or another have all been young themselves, and who ought therefore to know better, generalize so suavely and so mendaciously about the golden hours of youth-that period of life when every sorrow seems permanent, and every setback insuperable?

Vera Brittain

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Vera Brittain
Age: 76 †
Born: 1893
Born: December 29
Died: 1970
Died: March 29
Feminist
Journalist
Novelist
Nurse
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Poet
Suffragist
Writer
Vera Mary Brittain
Another
Honesty
Seems
Periods
Insuperable
Young
Sorrow
Generalize
Better
Therefore
Setback
Every
Youth
Accuracy
Time
Ought
Permanent
Life
Wonder
Golden
People
Hours
Period

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College is a secluded life of scholastic vegetation
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few things are more rewarding than a child's open uncalculating devotion.
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The tragedy of journalism lies in its impermanence the very topicality which gives it brilliance condemns it to an early death. Too often it is a process of flinging bright balloons in the path of the hurricane, a casting of priceless petals upon the rushing surface of a stream.
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All that a pacifist can undertake -- but it is a very great deal -- is to refuse to kill, injure or otherwise cause suffering to another human creature, and untiringly to order his life by the rule of love though others may be captured by hate.
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belated maternity has had its compensations small children have a habit of conferring persistent youth upon their parents, and by their eager vitality postpone the unenterprising cautions and timidities of middle age.
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If the would-be writer studies people in their everyday lives and discovers how to make his characters in their quieter moods interesting to his readers, he will have learned far more than he can ever learn from the constant presentation of crises.
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The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship.
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I thought that spring must last forevermore, For I was young and loved, and it was May.
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Few of humanity's characteristics are more disconcerting than its ability to reduce world-events to its own level, wherever this may happen to be.
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The best prose is written by authors who see their universe with a poet’s eyes.
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most of us have to be self-righteous before we can be righteous.
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Definite gifts render their possessors capable of overcoming any obstacle this side of death they create an impetus of far more genuine value than external advantages in some other career where the impulse to make use of them remains weak or non-existent. The work that one enjoys is the greatest source of happiness and vitality in life.
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The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.
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Most men, whether men or women, wish above all else to be comfortable, and thought is a pre-eminently uncomfortable process it brings to the individual far more suffering than happiness in a semi-civilised world which still goes to war.
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Meek wifehood is no part of my profession / I am your friend, but never your possession.
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There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see.
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Venice is all sea and sculpture.
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I know of no place where the wind can be as icy and the damp so penetrating as in Oxford round about Easter time.
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The joys of motherhood are not excessively apparent during the first few weeks of a baby's life.
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So many people seem to imagine that because the actual tools of writing are easily accessible, it is less difficult than the other arts. This is entirely an illusion.
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