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We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration.

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One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.

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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

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You will often be in despair. You will sometimes think it's the worst decision in your life. That's fine. That's not a sign your marriage has gone wro...more

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A good half of the art of living is resilience.

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A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.

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Work begins when the fear of doing nothing at all finally trumps the terror of doing it badly.

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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

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You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

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Fantasies can be great, but we shouldn't make the wedding a fantasy, because the wedding is the gateway to married life. It shouldn't be a moment of i...more

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Being put in our place by something larger, older, greater than ourselves is not a humiliation; it should be accepted as a relief from our insanely ho...more

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We seem to be unable to resist overstating every aspect of ourselves: how long we are on the planet for, how much it matters what we achieve, how rare...more

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It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our planet--that is primarily to blame for angering and emb...more

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We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We...more

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Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which see...more