{
  "type": "quote",
  "site": {
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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/before-one-scoffs",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/before-one-scoffs.json",
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  "id": "660daa72-7fde-40ea-b91a-5cf2504c734b",
  "slug": "before-one-scoffs",
  "text": "Before one scoffs at national pride and the fatherland, at wealth and good manners, love of one's country, family, and traditions, one must have arrived at a proper evaluation of one's country, have had enough to eat, and have received a good education. Then one can look on from afar and make wisecracks. But I have no sense of humor and not enough courage to be cynical.",
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  "author": {
    "name": "Albert Memmi",
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  "book": {
    "title": "The Pillar of Salt",
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    {
      "name": "cynicism",
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      "name": "patriotism",
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  "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:38",
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      "slug": "if-my-nose",
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      "text": "If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective. My misfortunes were never chance encounters, and I could not easily avoid them. The more I get to know myself, the more aware I become of this. To put an end to this state of affairs would mean putting an end to myself, to die or to go mad. My principal's temporary appointment would end one day, but I would never find the solution to my problem because I am that problem.",
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      "slug": "since-that-day",
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      "text": "Since that day, I have slowly acquired the uneasiness about my clothes that characterizes the poor who are ashamed. I was no longer at my ease in any suit: I felt that I was badly dressed and that I attracted the attention of all. I feared, even when wearing a new suit, the mockery of others at my unsuccessful attempts. That is how I became what is known as careful of my clothes.",
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      "slug": "it-was-in-the",
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      "text": "It was in the Passage that I discovered tribal life and learned to hate it. How happy had been the intimacy of our blind alley, now lost for good! As long as I had lived alone, I had lived in peace.",
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