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I would rather be damned by my honesty, than caged by my lies.
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Omega Maverick (Gothic Inferno)
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I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones.
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Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
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Then he glanced at Roar, who waited on the dock. Maverick had never heard him speak a word. He’d only seen Roar stare vacantly at the water, or at the sky. “You know, you could do a lot better than him, ladybug.” Aria shook her head. “No. I couldn’t.
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Veronica Rossi (Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky, #2))
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In our national parlance, what's usually meant by the word "maverick" is someone who skirts the edge of sanity--or is so insane as to appear sane--who then does something absolutely insane and yet, after the passage of time, and especially if the maverick's creation yields a profit of any kind, is deemed less and less insane until the maverick worms his or her way into the fibers of history. Then generations grow to envy the ingenuity and courage of the maverick while glossing over the maverick's genetic kookiness. On such shoulders, a country rises.
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Michael Paterniti (Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain)
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Words want to be sampled, relished, remembered; they need breathing space in the shape of commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Words are individual. They are content to string along together in sentences and paragraphs, but remain mavericks, outsiders beyond the crowd, the mob, the gang. A long novel begins with the first word.
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Chloe Thurlow (Katie in Love)
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New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. Well, the station was flooded with emails, and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad, because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which (a) proves my point, and (b) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.
Now, before I go about demonstration how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness that's dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life-and-death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, seventy percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, thirty-four percent still do. Or look at the health-care debate: At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.
This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas: We can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls.
Listen to some of these stats: A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.
Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators, and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try. People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes more twenty-four percent of our budget. It's actually less than one percent.
A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen ad a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence, because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge." Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll say eighteen percent of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks.
And I haven't even brought up religion. But here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which came first.
I rest my case.
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Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
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Words are powerful. They set expectations and limits and send messages to our brains and even our bodies about how much we are capable of. Language is a part of your mental software. Use it consciously and with precision, and you will achieve things you probably never thought you could.
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Dave Asprey (Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life)
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Nothing exists in life as it is. The idea is to believe and make it possible through your passion. If she did not exist, I would have dreamed of her, imagined of her – in the same way I described. She would be in my mind, my heart and my senses and it is you, who’s taught me that your heart never lies. I feel her. I see her image. I hear her encouraging words. How can I doubt my own feelings? She exists – because I believe in her, because I create an image of her through my imagination and push her to that limit. What matters is who can bring this passion out of me, who can trigger these feelings. She has the potential of a heavenly angel and my senses, my beliefs, and my feelings turn her into reality.
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Ravindra Shukla (A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life)
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Maverick texted her throughout the day making sure she was okay, and who knew that the word fuck could sound so sweet? I'm fucking worried about you. He'll fucking pay if he hurts you. IS IT 5OFUCKINGCLOCK YET? That one came complete with a winky face.And when a big tough biker dude sent you shouty caps and a winky face, it could make you smile.
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Laura Kaye (Ride Rough (Raven Riders, #2))
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Voyages from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Ocean had been written by a Scottish fur trader, from Stornoway in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, named Alexander Mackenzie. Or more accurately, Sir Alexander Mackenzie—since King George III had awarded him a knighthood for becoming the first white man ever to cross the entirety of North America. Mackenzie had completed his voyage almost nine years earlier. He suspected that his seven-month overland journey to the Pacific was probably of historic moment, and so he had left a memorial. He had created what he hoped would be a lasting inscription on a tiny sea-washed rock near the present-day British Columbia fishing village of Bella Coola: “Alex. MacKenzie, from Canada by land. 22nd July, 1793.” He had inscribed the message with his finger, using an old trappers’ trick for long-duration messages, dipping it into a poultice made of bear grease mixed with vermilion powder and smearing out words that he hoped would survive the cold and lashing rains for which the Pacific coast is notorious.
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Simon Winchester (The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible)
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How I Turned a Troubled Company into a Personal Fortune. How to ________ This is a simple, straightforward headline structure that works with any desirable benefit. “How to” are two of the most powerful words you can use in a headline. Examples: How to Collect from Social Security at Any Age. How to Win Friends and Influence People. How to Improve Telemarketers' Productivity — for Just $19.95. Secrets Of ________ The word secrets works well in headlines. Examples: Secrets of a Madison Ave. Maverick — “Contrarian Advertising.” Secrets of Four Champion Golfers. Thousands (Hundreds, Millions) Now ________ Even Though They ________ This is a “plural” version of the very first structure demonstrated in this collection of winning headlines. Examples: Thousands Now Play Even Though They Have “Clumsy Fingers.” Two Million People Owe Their Health to This Idea Even Though They Laughed at It. 138,000 Members of Your Profession Receive a Check from Us Every Month Even Though They Once Threw This Letter into the Wastebasket Warning: ________ Warning is a powerful, attention-getting word and can usually work for a headline tied to any sales letter using a problem-solution copy theme. Examples: Warning: Two-Thirds of the Middle Managers in Your Industry Will Lose Their Jobs in the Next 36 Months. Warning: Your “Corporate Shield” May Be Made of Tissue Paper — 9 Ways You Can Be Held Personally Liable for Your Business's Debts, Losses, or Lawsuits Give Me ________ and I'll ________ This structure simplifies the gist of any sales message: a promise. It truly telegraphs your offer, and if your offer is clear and good, this may be your best strategy. Examples: Give Me 5 Days and I'll Give You a Magnetic Personality. Give Me Just 1 Hour a Day and I'll Have You Speaking French Like “Pierre” in 1 Month. Give Me a Chance to Ask Seven Questions and I'll Prove You Are Wasting a Small Fortune on Your Advertising. ________ ways to ________ This is just the “how to” headline enhanced with an intriguing specific number. Examples: 101 Ways to Increase New Patient Flow. 17 Ways to Slash Your Equipment Maintenance Costs. Many of these example headlines are classics from very successful books, advertisements, sales letters, and brochures, obtained from a number of research sources. Some are from my own sales letters. Some were created for this book.
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Dan S. Kennedy (The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.)
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E. coli is a digestive workhorse in humans and can come in many different “flavors” or variants, one of which can’t naturally digest lactose, a sugar derived from milk. Nothing is a bigger threat—or evolutionary pressure—to bacteria than starvation. So Cairns deprived milk-shunning E. coli of any food except lactose. Much more rapidly than chance should have allowed, bacteria developed mutations that allowed them to lose their lactose intolerance. Just as McClintock maintained about her corn plants, Cairns also reported that bacteria appeared to target specific areas of their genome—areas where mutations were most likely to be advantageous. Cairns concluded that the bacteria were “choosing” which mutations to go after and then passing on their acquired ability to digest lactose to successive generations of bacteria. In a statement that amounted to evolutionary heresy, he wrote that E. coli “can choose which mutation they should produce” and may “have a mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics.” He straight-out raised the possibility of inherited acquired traits; he basically used those words. It was like shouting, “Go Sox” at Yankee Stadium during the ninth inning of the seventh game of the playoff s—with Boston leading by a run. Since then, researchers have plunged into their petri dishes in attempts to prove, disprove, or just explain Cairns’s work. A year after Cairns’s report came out, Barry Hall, a scientist at the University of Rochester, suggested that the bacteria’s ability to happen upon a lactose-processing adaptation rapidly was caused by a massive increase in the mutation rate. Hall called this “hypermutation”—sort of like mutation on steroids—and, according to him, it helped the bacteria to produce the mutations they needed to survive about 100 million times faster than the mutations otherwise would have been produced.
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Sharon Moalem (Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease)
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The 2 September 2010 issue of prestigious British magazine, The Economist, published on page 29 an article with a large photograph of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Below the picture was the caption ‘India’s Disappointing Government’. The word ‘disappointing’ is an understatement. The epithet ‘criminal’ would have been appropriate.
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Ram Jethmalani (RAM JETHMALANI MAVERICK UNCHANGED, UNREPENTANT)
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The emptiness is the wholeness. That’s where the beauty lies. What makes the pot, a pot? The emptiness! What makes the sentence, a sentence? The space between the words! Take anything in life and it will be the space that brings meaning to it, not the content that is being populated into it, or perceived from it.
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Maverick Prem (When Souls Make Love)
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Gene Carson owns Maverick Feeders, LLC, outside of Dodge City, the feedlot where the cowboys Antonio, Christian, and Cachu were riding their circular cattle drive. There is something odious about the very word “contract” to a cattleman like Carson. He got into the business decades ago, straight out of college, and the first lesson he learned was that a cattle buyer’s word is his bond. A cattle trade is built on ethics, not contracts. Contracts were for lawyers, and lawyers were for city slickers.
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Christopher Leonard (The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business)
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By our seventh anniversary, we had five kids and weren’t done yet. Raven was blessed with easy pregnancies and could run around until the moment of delivery. Oh, and did those deliveries become legend.
When River was born, the whole crew was laughing their asses off in the waiting room because of Raven’s profanity-laced rants. Our twins came two years later. During their deliveries, a drinking game started with the crew and club guys. Every time Raven screamed a cuss word, Tucker told the guys at the bar and they’d take a shot of whiskey. Half of the guys were wasted by the time Savannah was born. As Avery joined her sister, the other half of the bar was just as drunk off their asses.
The obstetrician nearly begged Raven to use pain meds. She refused of course. No one was telling her what to do.
For Maverick’s birth, the hospital moved Raven to a room at the end of the hall and kept the other laboring mothers as far away as possible. Another change the third time around was how Raven refused to allow the club guys free fun based on her laboring pains. To play the drinking game, they had to donate a hundred dollars into the kids’ college fund. We figured at least one of our kids would want to do the education thing.
The guys donated the money and got ready for Raven to let loose. In her laboring room, she even allowed a mic connected to overhead speakers at the bar. Despite knowing they were all listening, my woman didn’t disappoint. One particular favorite was motherfucking crustacean cunt. When Maverick’s head crowded, she also sounded a little bit like a graboid from Tremors. Hell, I think she did that on purpose because we’d watched the movie the night before. Raven was a born entertainer.
That night, we added a few thousand dollars to the kids’ college fund, the guys had a blast getting wasted to Raven’s profanity, and I welcomed my second son. Unlike his angelic brother, Maverick peed on me an hour after birth. I knew that boy was going to be a handful.
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Bijou Hunter (Damaged and the Outlaw (Damaged, #4))
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THESE ARE THE 3 SIMPLE words that Jack has been told throughout his early life. “You’re no Good!
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Think Maverick (Entrepreneur: Jack Ma, Alibaba and the 40 Thieves of Success)
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Always judge a man by his questions rather than his answers. It’s easy to take his words today at face value but it is often difficult when you try to uncover how he originally arrived at that answer.
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Think Maverick (Entrepreneur: Jack Ma, Alibaba and the 40 Thieves of Success)
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A quick search on Google yields over 11.5 billion hits for the word “time.” In comparison, more obvious topics of interest like sex and money rank a paltry 2.75 billion and 2 billion, respectively. Time and how to make the most of it, appears to be about five times more important to us than making love or money.
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Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
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Choose words wisely, wisely you will learn
The manner in which we choose to express
Determines the outcome of this game of chess
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Aida Mandic (Magical Maverick)
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Truth to be told, our souls are writing letters to each other all the time. That’s why we feel familiar, positive, reassured, and real, even before we speak out to each other at times.
All those unspoken words, thoughts and feelings get translated into vibes, and are exchanged as letters. These letters are more powerful than spoken words. They come to the fore profoundly when earthly bodies can’t come to terms with a situation.
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Maverick Prem (When Souls Make Love)
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With its restricted access and limitless possibilities, I believe the brain is the window to the universe. It is in our hands to keep it open for love to reach. When it reaches, you wouldn’t know it, but feel it. And when it touches, you wouldn’t feel it, but know you belong to it.
Mark my words with your eyelids. This is the only time when the sensible and smart brain will falter. It feels a lot like gravity when we fall in love. Natural. Out of the body and brain. It feels out of the universe that we know, like the infinite unknown. It is not manmade.
Love doesn’t make sense. It is the universe’s calling to express that we are all one endless song sung in different notes of a dream. Can you hear the symphony of the souls connected? It moves to make us stand still.
Love stirs. Love moves. Love is.
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Maverick Prem (When Souls Make Love)
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Beauregard thought the night sky looked like a painting. Laughter filled the air only to be drowned out by a cacophony of revving engines as the moon slid from behind the clouds. The bass from the sound system in a nearby Chevelle was hitting him in his chest so hard, it felt like someone was performing CPR on him. There were about a dozen other late-model cars parked haphazardly in front of the old convenience store. In addition to the Chevelle, there was a Maverick, two Impalas, a few Camaros and five or six more examples of the heyday of American muscle. The air was cool and filled with the scent of gas and oil. The rich, acrid smell of exhaust fumes and burnt rubber. A choir of crickets and whippoorwills tried in vain to be heard. Beauregard closed his eyes and strained his ears. He could hear them but just barely. They were screaming for love. He thought a lot of people spent a large part of their life doing the same thing. The wind caught the sign hanging above his head from the arm of a pole that extended twenty feet into the air. It creaked as the breeze moved it back and forth. CARTER SPEEDE MART the sign proclaimed in big black letters set against a white background. The sign was beginning to yellow with age. The letters were worn and chipped. The cheap paint flaking away like dried skin. The second “E” had disappeared from the word “SPEEDEE.” Beauregard wondered what had happened to Carter. He wondered if he had disappeared too.
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S.A. Cosby (Blacktop Wasteland)
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That’s the paradox of selflessness—by periodically losing our minds we stand a better chance of finding ourselves. Timelessness A quick search on Google yields over 11.5 billion hits for the word “time.” In comparison, more obvious topics of interest like sex and money rank a paltry 2.75 billion and 2 billion, respectively. Time and how to make the most of it, appears to be about five times more important to us than making love or money. And there’s good reason for this obsession.
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Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
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Clear speech means clear thinking and clear execution. By listening to and analyzing the words you use on a regular basis, you can learn to stop unconsciously programming yourself to have limited performance.
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Dave Asprey (Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life)
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Sixty-five years have gone by and the eloquent and inspiring words now jar the ears while the pledges that remain unredeemed and forgotten only bring tears to swollen eyes, and, to some, thoughts of suicide as the only escape from the hell into which almost all of us have landed. Life and freedom have been cornered by the privileged few: men without morals engaged in the sordid pursuit of polluted power and stolen wealth.
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Ram Jethmalani (RAM JETHMALANI MAVERICK UNCHANGED, UNREPENTANT)
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A word of advice to Rahul: ‘Find your life where your heart is, young man. It is not too late. You cannot claim India as your birthright. Forget about ruling this country and the Cosa Nostra.’ And tola famiglia , I can only think of quoting from Cromwell, ‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
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Ram Jethmalani (RAM JETHMALANI MAVERICK UNCHANGED, UNREPENTANT)
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Coincidence? Probably not. Pregnancy isn’t the only time folate is important, of course. A lack of folate is also directly linked to anemia, because folate helps to produce red blood cells. THE SKIN, AS you’ve probably heard, is the largest organ of the human body. It’s an organ in every sense of the word, responsible for important functions related to the immune system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, and metabolism. The skin protects the body’s stores of folate, and it’s in the skin that a crucial step in the manufacturing of vitamin D takes place.
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Sharon Moalem (Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease)
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His ways of doing things are impressive. He resonates with the frequencies of the Holy Spirit. He moves in harmony with the whispers of the Trinity. Through words or actions, he crafts beauty. What a sensible man he is. A righteous maverick.
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Gift Gugu Mona (A Man of Valour: Idioms and Epigrams)
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His ways of doing things are impressive. He resonates with the frequencies of the Holy Spirit. He moves in harmony with the whispers of the Trinity. Through words or actions, he crafts beauty. What a sensible man he is—a righteous maverick.
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Gift Gugu Mona (A Man of Valour: Idioms and Epigrams)