"That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best — make it all up — but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way."

Ernest Hemingway Literature See all quotes by Ernest Hemingway →

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More by Ernest Hemingway

“I've been in love (truly) with five women, the Spanish Republic and the 4th Infantry Division.”

“I know monks masturbate at night That pet cats screw That some girls bite And yet What can I do To set things right?”

“Grace under pressure.”

“I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably be an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.”

“The age demanded that we danceAnd jammed us into iron pants.And in the end the age was handedThe sort of shit that it demanded.”

“All you can be sure about in a political-minded writer is that if his work should last you will have to skip the politics when you read it. Many of the so-called politically enlisted writers change their politics frequently... Perhaps it can be respected as a form of the pursuit of happiness.”

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Mathematics1879–1950

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"In fact, it would be very easy to ‘prove’ Marx’s analysis to have been wrong, if experience had shown, for example, that the more capitalist industry develops, the smaller and smaller the average fact…"

— Ernest Mandel

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"I still don’t know if I am truly creative...At times I feel like I’m a way better student than I am teacher or maker."

— Questlove

Music1971

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"Long centuries before any foreigner had settled in India, the unity of the country was materialized in symbols. What more suggestive than that, for instance, of Sati, Siva's consort, whose body, divid…"

— Koenraad Elst

Indology1959

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