The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

A Beautiful Human Being

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"What then makes a beautiful human being? Is it not the possession of human excellence? And do you, then, if you wish to be beautiful, young man, labour at this, the acquisition of human excellence. But what is this? Observe whom you yourself praise, when you praise many persons without partiality: do you praise the just or the unjust? 'The just.' Whether do you praise the even-tempered or the undisciplined? 'The even-tempered.' And the self-controlled or the uncontrolled? 'The self-controlled.' If, then, you make yourself such a person, you will know that you will make yourself beautiful: but so long as you neglect these things, you must be ugly, even though you contrive all you can to appear beautiful."

(Epictetus, Discourses 3.1.6ff)

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