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  fortune index  all fortunes 
  
 |  |  | #8673 |  | We read to say that we have read. 
 |  |  |  | #8674 |  | We really don't have any enemies.  It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us.
 
 |  |  |  | #8675 |  | We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. -- Thucydides
 
 |  |  |  | #8676 |  | We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much. -- Jean de la Bruyere
 
 |  |  |  | #8677 |  | We thrive on euphemism.  We call multi-megaton bombs "Peace-keepers", closet size apartments "efficient" and incomprehensible artworks "innovative".  In
 fact, "euphemism" has become a euphemism for "bald-faced lie".  And now, here
 are the euphemisms so colorfully employed in Personal Ads:
 
 EUPHEMISM			REALITY
 -------------------		-------------------------
 Excited about life's journey	No concept of reality
 Spiritually evolved		Oversensitive
 Moody				Manic-depressive
 Soulful				Quiet manic-depressive
 Poet				Boring manic-depressive
 Sultry/Sensual			Easy
 Uninhibited			Lacking basic social skills
 Unaffected and earthy		Slob and lacking basic social skills
 Irreverent			Nasty and lacking basic social skills
 Very human			Quasimodo's best friend
 Swarthy				Sweaty even when cold or standing still
 Spontaneous/Eclectic		Scatterbrained
 Flexible			Desperate
 Aging child			Self-centered adult
 Youthful			Over 40 and trying to deny it
 Good sense of humor		Watches a lot of television
 
 |  |  |  | #8678 |  | Well, I'm disenchanted too.  We're all disenchanted. -- James Thurber
 
 |  |  |  | #8679 |  | Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite
 shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide
 a grin.
 -- F.M. Colby, "Imaginary Obligations"
 
 |  |  |  | #8680 |  | What do I consider a reasonable person to be?  I'd say a reasonable person is one who accepts that we are all human and therefore fallible, and takes
 that into account when dealing with others.  Implicit in this definition is
 the belief that it is the right and the responsibility of each person to
 live his or her own life as he or she sees fit, to respect this right in
 others, and to demand the assumption of this responsibility by others.
 
 |  |  |  | #8681 |  | What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? -- Ashleigh Brilliant
 
 |  |  |  | #8682 |  | What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that
 conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and
 repulsion.  You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and
 they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor
 passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run.  Conversely,
 all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice
 and they remain permanent influences on your life.
 Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen
 as familiar wallpaper or instant friend.  The chemical action it entails is
 less worth analyzing than enjoying.  At any rate, these six pieces are about
 men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's
 more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".
 -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"
 
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