Enduring Beauty

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  “Beauty is the quality which makes to endure. In a house that I know, I have noticed a block of spermaceti lying about closets and mantel-pieces, for twenty years together, simply because the tallow-man gave it the form of a rabbit; and, I suppose, it may continue to be lugged about unchanged for a century. Let an artist scrawl a few lines or figures on the back of a letter, and that scrap of paper is rescued from danger, is put in portfolio, is framed and glazed, and, in proportion to the beauty of the lines drawn, will be kept for centuries. Burns writes a copy of verses, and sends them to a newspaper, and the human race take charge of them that they shall not perish.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803–1882).   Essays and English Traits.

The Keen Edge

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"I believe, also, that one of the best ways of convincing men of error is not so much to denounce the error as to proclaim the Truth more clearly. If a stick is very crooked and you wish to prove that it is so, get a straight one and quietly lay it down by its side. When men look, they will surely see the difference. The Word of God has a very keen edge about it and all the cutting words you need you had better borrow from there." --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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