"I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself. Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals. Individual superiority can alone feed the soul and give back through some materialisation of itself this individualised wealth of being."
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LGBT peopleNovelists from the United StatesMemoirists from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesPlaywrights from the United States
Original Language: English
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In "My Country 'tis of Thee", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Natalie_Clifford_Barney
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Natalie Clifford Barney
Natalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 – 2 February 1972) was an American poet, memoirist, and epigrammatist, most of whose life was spent in France. Almost all of her books were written in the language of her adopted country.
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