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LXX



That thou art blam\'d shall not be thy defect,

For slander\'s mark was ever yet the fair;

The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven\'s sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater being woo\'d of time;

For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present\'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days

Either not assail\'d, or victor being charg\'d;

Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,

To tie up envy, evermore enlarg\'d,

  If some suspect of ill mask\'d not thy show,

  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXV



Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning Time, whose million\'d accidents

Creep in \'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp\'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;

Alas! why fearing of Time\'s tyranny,

Might I not then say, \'Now I love you best,\'

When I was certain o\'er incertainty,

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

  Love is a babe, then might I not say so,

  To give full growth to that which still doth grow?



CXVI



Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth\'s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love\'s not Time\'s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle\'s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me prov\'d,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lov\'d.

 	--William Shakespeare

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government
programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is
the nearest thing to eternal life we\'ll ever see on this earth!
Ronald Reagan

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.
Ronald Reagan