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The achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire.

Bernard DeVoto

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.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Evidence Generosity Life Men
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. . . .
BERNARD DEVOTO

Civilization Destiny Life
Something can be done with people who put pickled onions in: strangulation seems best.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Done Onions People
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.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Airplane Automatism Game Organisation Pilot Player Tennis
You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Kissing Martini Refrigerator
The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Individuality Sacred Trouble
One may lack words to express the impact of beauty but no one who has felt it remains untouched. It is renewal, enlargement, intensification.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Impact Inheritance May
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.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Believe Shadow Watches
The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it.
BERNARD DEVOTO

May Paper Writing
The heart wakens from coma and its dyspnea ends. Its strengthening pulse is to cross over into campground, to believe that the world has not been altogether lost or, if lost, then not altogether in vain.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Altogether Campground Coma Pulse Strengthening Weaken
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
When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Believe Food Heart Lifeward
Between the amateur and the professional . . . there is a difference not only in degree but in kind.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Airplane Player Wisdom
History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Art History Philosophy
Art is man determined to die sane.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Art Determined Men
When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour.
BERNARD DEVOTO

Cocktail Evening Occupation

The achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire.

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The achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire.

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Popular Authors

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