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Grace is a gift from God; an unearned blessing

• Grace: A divinely given talent or blessing. Oxford Dictionary
• Grace: Unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification.  Merriam Webster
• Grace: A virtue coming from God.  Merriam Webster
• One of the noblest words in our language is “grace,” defined as “unearned blessing.” We live by grace far more than by anything else.  Accordingly, I find that the one thing which I want to put into practice in my own life is the conscious and deliberate habit of finding someone to thank. Elton Trueblood
• Grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve, and mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we do deserve. Dan Roberts
• Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.   A good night sleep is grace and so are good dreams.  Most tears are grace.  The smell of rain is grace.  Somebody loving you is grace.   Frederick Buechner
• You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it. Charles Portis
• Favor is not achieved; favor is received. C. JoyBell C.
• For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. Bible
• Grace, the unmerited favor and love from God, enters our lives when we don’t know how we’ll get by. Susan Santucci
• God,  Religion,  Gratitude,  Divine love

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Grace is the unconditional love of God

• I began to comprehend that grace means God accepts me just as I am. He does not require or insist that I measure up to someone else’s standard of performance.  He loves me completely, thoroughly, and perfectly.  There’s nothing I can do to add or detract from that love.  Mary Graham
• Grace is a sense of divine love and protection bestowed on us when we need strength and renewal. Sue Patton Thoele
• The material world demands that you do something to earn favor. God doesn’t work this way.  His grace is a gift.  There’s nothing we can do to make God love us more.  There’s nothing we can do—or can have done—to make God love us less.  And when we accept this—not just nonchalantly agree, intellectually, that it’s true, but hide it in our very hearts—it fills our life sails with a cleansing breeze.  Bob Welch
• Unconditional love

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Grace is oneness with ourselves and God

• Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God. Thomas Merton
• Oneness

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Grace is an ability to give and receive

• Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Elegance is a glowing inner peace. Grace is an ability to give as well as to receive and be thankful. Mystery is a hidden laugh always ready to surface! Glamour only radiates if there is a sublime courage & bravery within: glamour is like the moon; it only shines because the sun is there. C. JoyBell C.
• We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. Seneca
• Grace is an ability to give as well as to receive and be thankful. Mystery is a hidden laugh always ready to surface! Glamour only radiates if there is a sublime courage & bravery within: glamour is like the moon; it only shines because the sun is there. C. JoyBell C.

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Grace is not a prayer before meals but a way to live

• Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It’s a way to live. Jacqueline Winspear
• You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, and swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in ink. G. K. Chesterton
• Prayer,  Attitude

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Grace is an outward expression of a soul in harmony

• Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. William Hazlitt
• The soul,  Harmony

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Grace is the loveliness of life

• It is the tenderness that breaks our hearts. The loveliness that leaves us stranded on the shore, watching the boats sail away. It is the sweetness that makes us want to reach out and touch the soft skin of another person. And it is the grace that comes to us, undeserving though we may be. Robert Goolrick
• There is a loveliness to life that does not fade. Even in the terrors of the night, there is a tendency toward grace that does not fail us. Robert Goolrick

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Have faith in the grace of God

• Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times. Martin Luther
• Faith

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Be open to receiving divine grace

• All obstacles now vanish from my pathway. Doors fly open, gates are lifted and I enter the kingdom of fulfillment, under grace. Florence Scovel Shinn
• All that is mine by Divine Right is now released and reaches me in great avalanches of abundance, under grace in miraculous ways. Florence Scovel Shinn
• God, why do I storm heaven for answers that are already in my heart? Every grace I need has already been given me. Oh, lead me to the Beyond within. Macrina Wiederkehr

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Ask for grace with a grateful heart

• Grace is available for each of us every day – our spiritual daily bread – but we’ve got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Gratitude

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The gift of grace is only yours if you reach out and take it

• The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.  Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe.  I love you.    There’s only one catch.  Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.  Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift, too. Frederick Buechner
• The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail. Ramakrishna

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Create space for grace to enter

• As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter. Eckhart Tolle
• It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself, which makes this void. Simone Weil

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Be grateful for the grace in your life

• One of the best ways to cultivate gratitude is to establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. One of the best ways to do this is keeping a daily journal in which you record the blessings you are grateful for. Robert Emmons
• There but for the grace of God go I. Proverb

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Receive grace with an open heart

• Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Openness

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Let the grace you receive find expression in your life

• Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace. Karl Barth

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Fill your heart with grace and serve others

• Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Receive grace through compassion and service

• As you give your life to others, compassion grows; and as compassion grows, you become worthier to receive grace. Grace is what enables you to grow in your divinity and what helps you gain your true life.  Michael Goddart
• Compassion,  Service

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Receive grace through not resisting life

• To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. Eckhart Tolle
• Non-resistance

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Receive grace through purification

• The state of grace is nothing other than purity, and it gives heaven to those who clothe themselves in it. Holiness, therefore, is simply the state of grace purified, illuminated, beautified by the most perfect purity, exempt not only from mortal sin but also from the smallest faults; purity will make saints of you! Everything lies in this! Peter Eymard

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Receive grace through surrendering the ego

• The minimum qualifications for Grace are surrender of ego. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• Transcending the ego,  Surrender

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Receive grace through inner work

• One path leads outward and the other inward. You can walk the way outward that leads to pleasure or the way inward that leads to grace. Katha Upanishad

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Receive grace through stillness

• Stillness within finds stillness without as the framework through which all activity occurs. Breathe deep and full. Relax always. Grace unfolds from within to dance about in joyous recognition. Rob Campbell
• Trust your intuitive heart. Open your eyes and heart to your greatest source of wisdom and grace. Set aside a little quiet time to clear your mind and listen. Pay attention only to the calm thoughts and feelings that surface. Richard Carlson
• The silence I am describing is a silence that you use to contain the grace you receive when you enter the castle of your soul. You carry this silence within you, even when you are with others. It allows you to hold your center amid the chaos of your life. Caroline Myss
• Stillness

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Receive grace through pain and sorrow

• Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. . . . Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted.” Paul Johannes Tillich
• This is what I have learned: Within the sorrow, there is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. Wayne Muller
• Thank you for showing your face. By challenging my peace, you help me to release this notion that I’m separate from Grace. Kirtana
• Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors. Wm. Paul Young
• All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. Cormac McCarthy
• Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Matthew Henry
• Pain,  Suffering,  Sadness

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Don’t bury grace through incessant activity

• The humanity, the ease, the grace and compassion that we each are equipped of carrying with us in our daily lives become buried. Perpetuated by a movement of goal seeking, we operate on an autopilot of checking, listing, scheduling, planning, doing. We’re so busy with our measuring sticks, we forget to open our hearts, to truly connect with others and with ourselves. Cat Li Stevenson
• Busyness

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Happiness is a life lived with grace

• Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. Denis Waitley
• Happiness is the reward for a life lived in harmony, with a courage and grace. Suze Orman

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Through grace, we become free

• It is not in virtue of its liberty that the human will attains to grace, it is much rather by grace that it attains to liberty. Saint Augustine
• Freedom

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The path of grace is one of healing, respect, peace and love

• The Path of Grace is neither to the right nor to the left. It is neither liberal nor conservative. It favors neither the warmongers or the appeasers. Rather, it is a middle path. It is the path of healing, for grace is the balm that heals the wounded heart. The path of grace is the path of bringing-together. The path of win-win. The path of mutual respect. The path of understanding, tolerance, and love. It is the way of peace, and it is, therefore, a path we should embrace. Chuck Gallozzi
• Healing,  Respect,  Inner peace,  Love

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More thoughts on the rewards of grace

• When grace moves in… guilt moves out  Max Lucado
• I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. Anne Lamott
• Our weaknesses may never go away but when we give them to God, His grace will turn them into something beautiful. Heather Bixler
• The grace of God is in my mind shaped like a key, that comes from time to time and unlocks the heavy doors. Donald Swan
• Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace. Jerry Bridges
• You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore. You need more help than you know. Rumi
• Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope. Aberjhani
• Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes. Martin Luther

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Here are the changes you can expect when you get a firm grip on grace

• Let me describe four practical expectations you can anticipate as you get a firm grip on grace. First, you can expect to gain a greater appreciation for God’s gifts to you and others. What gifts? Several come to mind.  The free gift of salvation.  The gift of life.  The gift of laughter, of music, of beauty, of friendship, of forgiveness.  Those who claim the freedom God offers gain an appreciation for the gifts that come with life.  Second, you can expect to spend less time and energy critical of and concerned about others’ choices.  Wouldn’t that be a refreshing relief?  When you get a grasp on grace–when you begin to operate in a context of freedom–you become increasingly less petty. You will allow others room to make their own decisions in life, even though you may choose otherwise. Third, you can expect to become more tolerant and less judgmental.  Externals will not mean as much to you.  You’ll begin to cultivate a desire for authentic faith rather than endure a religion based on superficial performance.  You will find yourself so involved in your own pursuit of grace, you’ll no longer lay guilt trips on those with whom you disagree. Fourth, you can expect to take a giant step toward maturity.  As your world expands, thanks to an awakening of your understanding of grace, your maturity will enlarge.  Before your very eyes, new vistas will open. It will be so transforming, you will never be the same.  Charles R. Swindoll

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Spirituality is about attaining an inner state of grace

• I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to give in the eye of God. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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You are a gift of grace to be shared

• The secret of life is that all we have and are is a gift of grace to be shared.   Lloyd John Ogilvie

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Love is grace

• Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues. John Stoot
• I’ve learned recently to love imperfection a lot because it shines such a big light on God’s grace. And if someone has grace for you that’s when you feel their love the most and they see you for who you are and they love you anyway. Lacey Mosley
• Love is holy because it is like grace–the worthiness of its object is never really what matters. Marilynne Robinson
• Love

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Hope is grace

• Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them. Vincent McNabb
• Hope

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Simplicity is grace

• Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity. Plato
• I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply. Bell Hooks
• Simplicity

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Action is grace

• Action has magic, grace and power in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Action

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Forgiveness is grace

• Grace isn’t just forgiveness, it is forgiveness fueled by surrender. Amy E. Spiegel
• Forgiveness

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Courage is grace

• Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway
• Courage and grace are a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring. Marlene Dietrich
• “By “guts” I mean, grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway
• Courage

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Humour and laughter is grace

• Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life’s sorrow with grace. Matthew Fox
• Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world, like grace and shines on everyone. Garrison Keillor
• Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. Karl Barth
• Humour,  Laughter

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Relationships are grace

• A soulmate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected, as though the communicating and communing that take place between us were not the product of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace. Thomas Moore
• I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside. Paul Young
• Principles for healthy relationships

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Contentment is a state of grace

• Contentment is a state of grace, a state of peace and happiness, appreciation and enjoyment for what is, right now. Desires, in contrast, can never be satisfied. Once we get what we crave, we soon find it less satisfying than we expected, so we strive for something else. The only escape from this perpetual wheel of want is to discover the contentment and perfection we already have. Gillian Stokes
• Contentment

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Beauty is grace

• No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face. John Donne
• Beauty and grace command the world. Park Benjamin
• As the grace of man is in the mind, so the beauty of the mind is eloquence. Proverb
• Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• As the grace of man is in the mind, so the beauty of the mind is eloquence. Proverb
• Beauty

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More thoughts on what grace is

• The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Frederick Buechner
• Grace is goodness and respect given freely and unconditionally. A sense of divine love and protection bestowed on us when we need strength and renewal.  Grace helps us know we are not alone and believe we are cared for and cherished.  Grace is a drink of clear, clean water in the desert.  Sue Patton Thoele
• Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected. Jonathan Edwards

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• My moments of awakening can come at any time, and through any person. These are my moments of grace, when clarity and wisdom, love and understanding, guidance and insight are brought to me and through me. My life has been created to bring me just such moments. That is why I do whatever it takes – meditate, exercise, pray, read, write, listen to music, whatever I find works – to ignite my awareness daily. Neale Donald Walsch
• I remember I am simply using illusions to create a localised contextual field within which I can experience, and not merely conceptualise, any one of the myriad aspects of Who I Am. I use this contextual field like an artist using a paint brush, producing wonderful pictures and creating powerful and extraordinary moments – moments of grace – in which I may know myself experientially. Neale Donald Walsch
• The moment of grace comes to us in the dynamics of any situation we walk into. It is an opportunity that God sews into the fabric of a routine situation.  It is a chance to do something creative, something helpful, something healing, something that makes one unmarked spot in the world better off for our having been there.  We catch it if we are people of discernment. Lewis B. Smedes
• Purpose

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Be graceful in everything

• Grace is what picks me up and lifts my wings high above and I fly! Grace always conquers! Be graceful in everything; in anger, in sadness, in joy, in kindness, in unkindness, retain grace with you! C. JoyBell C.

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Be graceful in your low moods

• A low mood is not the time to analyse your life. In low moods we lose our perspective, and everything seems urgent. Life is almost never as bad as it seems when you’re in a low mood. The trick is to be grateful for our good moods and graceful in our low moods – not taking them to seriously. Richard Carlson
• Mood

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Be graceful in responding to life’s difficulties and disappointments

• The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of the circumstances. Aristotle
• Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life’s sorrow with grace. Matthew Fox
• Your life can be a quest to discover your path and live from it. You accept that obstacles or tests contain powerful lessons and opportunities. You see that when you give yourself fully to life and the highest goal, as you do naturally when you are tested, a grace infuses you. Michael Ray
• When life doesn’t meet your expectations, it was important to take it with grace. Patricia Briggs
• Life makes fools of all of us sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you’ll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, it’s our own expectations that crush us. Paul Murray
• Adversity,  Disappointment

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Be graceful in growing old

• When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.  Victor Hugo
• It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily. Lydia Maria Francis Child
• Growing older

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Be graceful in telling the truth

• I tell the truth with grace and love, and my relationships are transformed. Cheryl Richardson
• Honesty,  Truth

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Be graceful in going with the flow more

• I relax my consciousness. I unset my heart. I wear the world as a loose garment. I learn to dance with grace on the constantly shifting carpet. I go with the flow. Susan Jeffers
• Go with the flow

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Don’t lose the grace of a child

• An adult is one who has lost the grace, the freshness, the innocence of the child, who is no longer capable of feeling pure joy, who makes everything complicated, who is afraid of being happy, and who, because it is easier to bear, has gone back to sleep. The wise man is a happy child. Arnaud Desjardins

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• God is spreading grace around in the world like a five-year-old spreads peanut butter: thickly, sloppily, eagerly, and if we are in the back shed trying to stay clean, we won’t even get a taste. Donna Schafer
• A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults.  Louis Nizer
• A missionary is a person who teaches cannibals to say grace before they eat him.
• Aging gracefully is like the nice way of saying you’re slowly looking worse.
• Golf: an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a graceful result.   Tommy Armour
• I don’t plan to grow old gracefully; I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.  Rita Rudner
• If you are riding a high horse there ain’t no way to get down off it gracefully.
• Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.  Charles Caleb Colton
• That is the saving grace of humor: if you fail no one is laughing at you.   Whitney Brown
• There but for the grace of God goes God.  Winston Churchill

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