"... is there anything more unjust than to build gold and brass and iron on poor, well-meaning clay, -- and then blame the clay when the whole image falls into dust?"

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There are many ways of inducing sleep--the thinking of purling rills, or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much better than any of these succedaneums.

— Laurence Sterne