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History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.

Bernard DeVoto

The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
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Medicine Possibility Teaching
Art is man determined to die sane.
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Art Determined Men
The water of life was given to us to make us see for a while that we are more nearly men and women, more nearly kind and gentle and generous, pleasanter and stronger than without its vision there is any evidence we are.
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Evidence Generosity Life Men
It is the first American section to be finished to achieve stability in the conditions of its life. It is the first old civilization, the first permanent civilization in America.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Civilization Condition Country Finish Permanent
You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth and one of the shortest-lived.
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Earth Happiest Kissing Life Sudden
New England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence or Venice, not Milan while the American empire careens onward toward its unpredicted end. . . .
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Civilization Destiny Life
One may lack words to express the impact of beauty but no one who has felt it remains untouched. It is renewal, enlargement, intensification.
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Impact Inheritance May
The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. When you reach the line which marks that drop – for convenience, the one hundredth meridian – you have reached the West.
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Average Lines Twenties
The mind has its own logic but does not often let others in on it.
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Doe Math Mind
You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there.
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Kissing Martini Refrigerator
The trouble with Reason is that it becomes meaningless at the exact point where it refuses to act.
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Reason Refuse Trouble
The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it.
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May Paper Writing
The parks preserve it permanently in the inheritance of the American citizens.
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Citizen Country Park Permamnetly Preserve
This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affectations glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.
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Believe Shadow Watches
The skillful man is, within the function of his skill, a different psychological organization. . . . A tennis player or a watchmaker or an airplane pilot is an automatism but he is also criticism and wisdom.
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Airplane Automatism Game Organisation Pilot Player Tennis
Something can be done with people who put pickled onions in: strangulation seems best.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Done Onions People

History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.

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History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.

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