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Here are the best discounts on luggage this President's Day [everything 60% off or more]

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Rolls-Royce Bespoke design picnic set luggage

It's time to get yourself some quality luggage that won't break after a single trip.

Whether you're someone who travels frequently for work or just looking for a vacation bag — we've got the perfect piece of luggage picked out for you here.


American Tourister Luggage - 3 piece spinner set

president's day deal luggageWhy we love it: 

These suitcases have four, multi-directional spinner wheels, which makes it easier to roll them around.

Additionally, the interiors have multiple pockets, making it easier to organize your things.

Price: $400.00$128.48[68% off]


Rockland Melbourne 3 piece abs luggage set

president's day deal luggageWhy we love it: 

This luggage set is lightweight but extremely durable.

They come in various bright colors (including pink, lime green, and turquoise), which makes it easier to spot them.

Price: $479.99 $136.99 [71% off]


Samsonite Luggage Fiero HS spinner 28

president's day luggage dealsWhy we love it: 

This suitcase is made of extremely scratch resistant material.

Additionally, it expands for extra holding capacity.

Price: $360.00 $125.99 [65% off]


Rockland Luggage 2 piece expandable spinner set

president's day luggage dealsWhy we love it: 

These are a great option if you don't need all the fancy bells and whistles. These suitcases are light, strong, and sturdy.

Price: $330.00 $94.99 [71% off]


Travelpro Luggage Maxlite 3

president's day luggage dealsWhy we love it: 

If you need something more professional looking (aka not bright pink) this black suitcase is a great pick.

This suitcase is big enough to fit enough things for two weeks, according to reviewers.

Price: $320.00$122.36 [62% off]


US Traveler New Yorker 4 piece luggage set

president's day luggage dealsWhy we love it: 

If you need several pieces of luggage asap, this one's a good pick.

Some reviewers noted that the luggage is less bright than it appears online, which makes the set look "elegant."

Price: $199.99 $79.99 [60% off]


Samsonite Luggage Winfield 3 piece set

president's day luggage dealsWhy we love it: 

If you're someone who travels constantly for work, this is the set for you. The set is sturdy, well-made and will survive hours of traveling.

Price: $1,000.00$349.99 [65% off]

WANT MORE? Click Here To See Our Other Insider Picks

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Here's the secret to falling in love

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the mindy project renew

When it happened to me for the first time, I was hit hard with feelings — happiness, excitement, concern for another person that went deeper than anything I'd experienced before. Suddenly, my body felt light — weightless, even. I was floating. I'd lost control, but I knew everything was going to be okay.

Falling in love, I quickly realized, felt an awful lot like, well, falling.

But what if love wasn't as passive as we tend to picture it being? What if — instead of stumbling into it as a result of chance or fate — we actively choose it?

Some research suggests this is what actually happens when we find ourselves deeply bonded to another person: We don't fall in love — we jump.

In 1997, State University of New York psychologist Arthur Aron tested the idea that two people who were willing to feel more connected to one another could do so, even within a short time frame. (The experiment featured prominently in a recent Modern Love column in The New York Times.)

For his study, Aron separated two groups of people, then paired people up within their groups and had them chat with one another for 45 minutes. While the first group of pairs spent the 45 minutes engaging in small-talk, the second group got a list of questions that gradually grew more intimate, from things like, "Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?" to "Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?"

Not surprisingly, the pairs who asked the gradually more probing questions felt closer and more connected after the 45 minutes were up. Six months later, two of the participants (a tiny fraction of the original study group) even found themselves in love — an intriguing result, though not a significant one.

Still, Aron's findings — that getting to know someone is simple, but takes effort — are particularly meaningful for our most intimate partnerships. 

When we see love as a choice or an action rather than something that simply happens to us, we're more willing to take responsibility for building and maintaining the relationship.

For one of the questions in Aron's experiment, participants had to identify characteristics about their partner that were important to them. When practiced regularly, this simple exercise of telling your partner what about them is meaningful to you can help both of you feel closer and more connected. A recent study found, similarly, that couples who took time to feel grateful for their partner's kind acts felt happier and more connected. 

Aron's study hit on several other key components of any strong relationship, from talking through big decisions (#36: "Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it") to discussing personal experiences openly and honestly (#29: "Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life").

Married couples who make big decisions as a team, for example, are not only happier individually but feel closer to one another and stay together longer. Similarly, couples who speak openly about the physical and emotional parts of their relationships tend to trust one another more and feel more satisfied with the relationship.

So next time you think about falling in love, picture yourself leaping — not stumbling.

NOW READ: How you and your partner answer 2 questions can help predict if your relationship will last

UP NEXT: Scientists say one behavior is the 'kiss of death' for a relationship

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These bionic suits are changing the lives of people who never thought they'd walk again

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Retired Army sergeant Theresa Hannigan lost the use of her legs as a result of her time in the service. More than seven years ago, Matthew Tilford suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist below. 

Today, both Theresa and Matthew are walking again thanks to the game-changing technology developed by ReWalk Robotics and Ekso Bionics. Both companies have developed bionic suits that give people with lower limb disabilities the ability to stand up and walk again.

Produced by Will Wei and Graham Flanagan. Edited by Will Wei. Series editor: Sam Rega.

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How to use math to find the ideal spouse

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Some people believe that when you find the right person you just know. The rest of us could use a little help figuring out how to choose the right spouse.

You can actually optimize your chances of marrying the best person using the solution to the famous Secretary Problem. This problem has many applications (including how to choose the best secretary), but this one is the most fun.

Produced by Sara Silverstein and Sam Rega

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9 models to follow on Instagram during New York Fashion Week

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Karlie Kloss

New York Fashion Week has officially started. 

Even if you’re not into the clothes, it’s always fun to follow the models behind the scenes, and Instagram is the perfect place to get a glimpse into their lives. 

Whether you want style inspiration or just a better look at what really happens behind-the-scenes, here are the 9 best models to follow on Instagram during New York Fashion Week. 

The up-and-coming Sports Illustrated model Gigi Hadid made her Fashion Week debut only last year, but is expected to be the big star of this year's Fashion Week. In January, she was named the newest face of Maybelline.

A photo posted by Gigi Hadid (@gigihadid) on Jan 19, 2015 at 6:08pm PST

(@gigihadid, 1.8 million followers)



Victoria Secret angel Karlie Kloss has a great Instagram account filled with behind-the-scenes model photos and pictures with her closest friends.

A photo posted by @karliekloss on Dec 18, 2014 at 4:55pm PST

(@karliekloss, 1.9 million followers)



Cara Delevingne is great to follow anytime of the year. Delevingne, known for her envy-worthy eyebrows, posts the most outrageous pictures of herself and her many celebrity friends. Also, she genuinely seems like she is always having fun.

(@caradelevingne, 9.6 million followers)



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Here's one way to tell if your relationship will last

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couple relationship romantic love

Wondering whether your relationship will go the distance?

Ask a friend.

That may sound counterintuitive. After all, you presumably have more information about your own romantic relationship than your college roommate, say. But you are also terribly biased.

Research has shown that each of us has a rosy view of our own relationship. Your friends, on the other hand, may be better able to see it for what it is.

A friend's perceptions of your romantic union, at least one study has found, are actually better than yours at predicting the fate of your relationship.

A Beautiful Illusion

Most of us harbor positive illusions about the people closest to us, especially those central to our own identities — like a romantic partner. In many ways, this isn't a bad thing: In fact, people who idealize their partners tend to have longer-lasting relationships.

But such a rosy view might also "cloud their judgement and influence their perceptions," a team of psychologists from Purdue University and Southern Methodist University wrote in 2001. The result? People in love "predict that their relationship will last longer than it actually does."

For better or for worse, however, your friends are generally less invested in your relationship than you are, and therefore less likely to be biased in how they see it. Fortunately, you can use their expertise to your advantage.

Auspicious Beginnings?

In that 2001 study, Christopher Agnew, Timothy Loving, and Stephen Drigotas acknowledged that people are not so great at predicting how their own relationships turn out, and designed an experiment to find out whether people's "social networks" — at the time just an old-fashioned term for friends and acquaintances — could act as more reliable soothsayers.

The researchers focused on 74 couples who had been dating for a median of one year and asked them to list their individual friends and joint friends. (The small, non-diverse group of mostly college-aged participants means that the study's results are intriguing, but by no means the final say on all human relationships.)

They interviewed the couples about their relationships, and then they sent questionnaires to hundreds of their friends, asking them to share what they really thought about their friends' pairings.

Six months later, 15 of the 70 couples the researchers could still contact had broken up. 

couple happy relationship smiling

A Crystal Ball

In general, the study suggests, your friends are not as psyched about your relationship as you are — at least if you're a 20-year-old college student. At the beginning of the experiment, the people in relationships said they were more committed and happy than their friends seemed to think they were.

"Given the amount of effort individuals put into their romantic endeavors, [they] are likely motivated to view their relationships in a positive light," wrote Loving, in a later analysis. "Otherwise, why would they be in them?"

However much your friends want you to be happy, it's not personal for them the way it is for you — and that distance turns out to be crucial. 

While "friends' perceptions [were] somewhat aligned" with what the couples themselves reported, "joint friends, her friends, and his friends all [perceived] relationship state as significantly more negative than the couple members themselves did," the researchers explained in the paper.

As it turned out, these glass-half-empty perceptions of the couples were "powerfully predictive" of the fate of the relationships. And the more couples blabbed to their friends about their relationships, the more accurate their friends' perceptions were. Meanwhile, the friends of the women in the pairings — most of whom were women themselves — seemed to be more in tune with their friends' relationships than both the couples themselves and their friends as a whole.

These findings, the researchers write, "are especially remarkable" since outsiders' impressions of relationships are based on secondhand knowledge and "considerably less information" than the couples have themselves. Of course, the authors note, couples have a "tremendous personal stake in the romance that clouds [their] judgement regarding it."

elderly old couple relationship longevity healthy bikes happiness aging

No Such Thing As A Sure Thing

Notably, the 2001 researchers did not actually ask participants whether they thought their friends' relationships would last. They simply asked participants for their impressions of each relationship, and then measured whether those impressions were predictive of the way the relationships turned out. (They were.)

In an earlier, smaller study, though, Canadian researchers found slightly different results: Students' roommates and parents were asked directly whether the student-couple would still be together after one year, and those confidantes were also able to make more accurate predictions than the students themselves.

That result seems to confirm that "ask a friend" may indeed be one good way to see into your relationship's future. But the couples in the Canadian study provided more accurate assessments of their own relationship's quality than did their parents and roommates, suggesting over-optimism even when they were cognizant of their relationships' realities.

Had the Canadian researchers simply looked at the outsiders' impressions of their roommates' relationships instead of asking for direct predictions, their findings would be in direct conflict with what the 2001 researchers found later; instead, it's a bit more muddled.

In 2006, Timothy Loving tried to make sense of some of this muddle with a larger follow-up study that looked at similar questions. He found that while the friends of female daters made accurate predictions about the future of their friends' relationships, "male daters' friends appear to have few unique insights" into their friends' romances. Perhaps, he suggests, women just disclose more to their friends, giving the male friends too little information to go on.

One of his key points though, is that there are too many variables to expect consistency, even among small samples that are roughly the same age. "Roommates" are not the same as "social network members" or "close friends," and it's reasonable to think that friends' predictive powers will vary depending on closeness. But Loving does suggest a question future researchers can ask the people in a relationship, to try to find the outsiders who will be most accurate and perceptive in their predictions: "Who knows you and your relationship best?"

If you're wondering what the future has in store for you and your plus one, it would be wise to set aside your rosy view and ask yourself that very question. Then, if you dare, ask that person what she really thinks about your relationship — and whether it will last.

SEE ALSO: Scientists Have Found A Surprising Key To Happy Relationships

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What it's like to pitch Richard Branson on Necker Island

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branson necker startup competition

Three startup founders just got a bump from Richard Branson and angel investor Bill Tai.

The startups got to travel to Necker Island, Branson's 74-acre Caribbean retreat, as finalists in the Extreme Tech Challenge, a startup competition led by MaiTai Global. 

MaiTai Global is "a group of extraordinary entrepreneurs, innovators, and athletes" founded by Tai and kiteboarder Susi Mai. 

Thousands of startups applied for the chance to pitch Branson and a panel of judges that also included Google Maps cofounder Lars Rasmussen and Samsung Electronics president Young Sohn.

A select group presented their businesses at CES in January. Of that group, three were chosen to head to Necker during the first week of February: smartphone breathalyzer company Breathometer, medical app Doctor on Demand, and bus travel search site Wanderu

The startups spent two days on Necker, networking with the panel members and enjoying the sun. 

tech challenge necker

"It was the most incredible experience I've ever had," Wanderu cofounder Polina Raygorodskaya said to Business Insider.  

Wanderu aggregates booking sites for train and bus networks, making it easy to make travel arrangements in one place. The startup originally started its desktop site in August 2013, but it just launched its iOS app this week. 

"To me, Branson is someone I've always looked up to, especially as someone in the transportation space," Raygorodskaya said. "He's disrupted so many industries in transportation, and he was really excited about what we're doing." 

Branson hasn't invested in Wanderu yet, but Raygorodskaya said the weekend gave them plenty of opportunities to network.

"We're not in the process of raising a round, but there was a lot of interest after the presentation," she said. "We definitely built some important connections."

 wanderu necker island

The startups certainly had some fun, too. The Wanderu team rented a catamaran for the week, and they got lots of time to enjoy the accommodations on Necker. 

The Great House, which people can rent for a whopping $60,000 a night, has eight bedrooms and a zip line that can bring you down to the beach below.

The house looks amazing.

necker island

necker islandnecker islandnecker islandnecker island

 The crew also took some time to kiteboard, one of Tai and Branson's favorite hobbies

necker islandnecker island

SEE ALSO: How a 23-year-old makes $500,000 a year tweeting random facts

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Only 3% of American singles are worth dating

28 Romantic photos of Michelle and Barack Obama

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obama wedding photoWho can resist romance between the commander-in-chief and the first lady on Valentine's Day?

Married on October 18, 1992, Barack and Michelle Obama have captured our hearts with their love for one another.

Obama mentions his wife in almost every speech he gives, and often seems unable to resist showering his wife with PDA, even when the cameras are rolling.

While President Obama spent the weekend golfing in California, the First Lady sent him a  Valentine's Day message via Twitter.

At the end of his weekly address, President Obama wished his wife a Happy Valentine's Day.

Even though they are across the nation from each other today, we have collected a few of our favorite photos of America's first couple's most romantic moments.

Brett LoGiurato contributed to this report.

Secret Service agents avert their eyes as the Obamas share a private moment on Inauguration Day 2009.



Dancing at the White House during the Governors Ball in February 2009.



Holding hands while heading to Camp David for the first time in March 2009.



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Here's what the world would look like if countries were as big as their population sizes

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Chase Mohrman world population map

Maps are famous for distorting the earth. 

Because they portray our world in only two dimensions, continents and countries become skewed, as does our perception of how big they truly are.

And that doesn't even factor in how many people actually live in these places.

Inspired by a similar 10-year-old map by cartographer Paul Breding that resized countries based on their population size, college student Chase Mohrman decided to create his own updated version.

It quickly went viral on Reddit’s /r/mapporn and began to make the rounds on Vox and NPR

“It took me about three months of casual work,” Mohrman told Business Insider in an email. “It was super fun to make and share. I'm honored that the map is so popular!”

Using Wikipedia as a source and Microsoft Paint as his tool, Mohrman was able to keep the basic shapes of the countries recognizable, and even had a shout out to a few US cities and states including California, Texas, greater New York City, and his native Wisconsin.

“I'm actually a freshman at UW Eau Claire studying Computer Science,” Mohrman told us. “I just have a passion for maps and thought I could help educate people with this one. I think viewing the world in this way is helpful in geo-politics because it's a true representation of the part of the world that's most interesting to us: the people on it!”

Keep reading to see close ups of his incredible map.

Canada becomes a tiny strip on top of the US and greater NYC takes up a large chunk of the East Coast.

Chase Mohrman world population map

The UK and France become almost equal sizes in Mohrman's map and Russia shrinks down by a lot.

Chase Mohrman world population map

Here's the Middle East — Pakistan is double the size of Iran.

Chase Mohrman world population map

Nigeria far outpaces any other African country as a population hub.

Chase Mohrman world population map

China is the biggest country by far on the map. Japan has expanded by a lot too and Greater Seoul takes up half of South Korea.

Chase Mohrman world population map

Australia looks teensy tiny compared to India, which has caught up with China as being one of the world's most populated countries.

Chase Mohrman world population mapYou can see the full high-res map here.

SEE ALSO: 15 Overlay Maps That Will Change The Way You See The World

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This video of teenagers dangling at the top of a Hong Kong skyscraper to take a selfie is beyond intense

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This dramatic video captures a group of daredevil photographers taking selfies on top of a Hong Kong skyscraper.

Captured using a specially adapted selfie stick, the sweat-inducing images show the lengths some people will go to for the most extreme self portrait.

Pictured at heights over 360 metres in the air, the nerve-shredding photographs show the group of photographers dangling by one hand and even tip-toeing across tiny ledges.

Seemingly unfazed by the dazzling heights, the barmy bunch ventured around the city of Hong Kong in search of any building that caught their eye.

Despite the fact that one slip would result in the certain death, the fearless friends were determined to capture the sprawling urban landscape as never seen before. Although strict security measures are in place in most of the buildings, the crazy climbers managed to evade capture by simply giving the guards a taster of their stunning images.

Taken by Russian photographer, Alexander Remnov, 19, the intrepid teenager has now added the towering harbour to a list of international cities that he has already had the pleasure of climbing.

Alexander said: "There was one dangerous moment when we tried to get the top of The Centre tower, it became to crowded at the top and there wasn't enough room for three of us so we decided to go back down. We were lucky not to meet any police, but we did have some discussions with guards.

"Once we explained our mission to them and then showed them our cameras, they simply smiled and let us free. Hong Kong is one of the best places I have visited but I think I would need more than a month to visit all the best view points.

"We don't know what city we will visit next but we're certain it's going to be a city with skyscrapers!"

Produced by Devan Joseph. Video courtesy of Carter News and Associated Press.

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This NYC bank-turned-mansion bought by a photographer for $102,000 just sold for $55 million

The McDonald's Shamrock Shake is the best $3.19 I could possibly spend

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shamrock shake

Earlier on Thursday, I heard one of our editors call out to the newsroom, Shamrock shakes are back!

I was immediately awash in slurpy, sugary memories. 

There I am, 7 years old, sitting shotgun in my mom's Pontiac sedan. Nearly two decades ago, it was Shamrock Shake season then, too, and we made our dutiful pilgrimage to the McDonald's drivethru when she got off work. 

For someone who wasn't raised in a religious household, the seasonal beverage — first introduced in 1970— was one of my first introductions into seasonal ritual. While snow was still on the ground in the Rockford, Illinois, of my childhood, the minty green drink was a harbinger of spring, a promise that the winter would one day depart. 

Now I live in New York and make a living by reporting and writing. At my editor's call, I realized that I hadn't had a shamrock shake in years. 

This had to be corrected. 

At lunch, I checked in the nearest McDonald's to see if they had the shake. 

They did.

So this afternoon, I ventured out to a Manhattan McDonald's with my colleague Jacqui Kenyon — who had never had a Shamrock Shake before! — in pursuit of the shake. 

receipt

We sauntered up to the counter and asked for two shakes. The woman at the register asked her colleagues if they had the Shamrock Shake yet. They did. And I knew because I checked. Jacqui, sensing the sacredness of the moment, offered to pay the $3.19 for my medium. 

I accepted. 

We waited with bated breath, relating tales of St. Patrick's Days of yore.

After a few minutes, like two Irish-American angels, the shakes arrived, complete with whipped cream and cherry on top. 

We walked out, jabbed straws into cups.

Then: dairy deliverance. 

My inner 7-year-old was satisfied.

"It's so good!" Jacqui exclaimed, "like a minty Dairy Queen." 

Yes. 

For every spring, the Shamrock Shake is king. 

Correction: The sedan was a Pontiac, not a Buick. 

SEE ALSO: A color-coded budget helped me pay off half my credit card debt

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What the Chinese saying 'The ugly wife is a treasure at home' actually means

This infographic shows your life — in weeks

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Tim Urban has created a wonderful series of infographics over at "Wait But Why."

The graphics illustrate "your life in weeks."

If you're an American male and you make it to the average life expectancy of just over 76 years, you'll live about 3,962 weeks.

If you're a American female, you'll probably live longer — about 81 and a quarter years, or 4,225 weeks.

Either way, it's startling to see all those weeks laid out in a single chart. And it's sobering to see how relatively few of them you probably have left.

Here, for example, is Urban's chart of the "life of the typical American."

Each row is a year. Each dot in each row is a week.

The colors show the basic periods in the typical life.

Holy crap! If I live an average life span for my gender, I only have another 1,404 weeks!

(Click through for bigger and better)

Screenshot 2015 02 15 16.48.17

Check out the rest of Tim Urban's graphics here >

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A newly built 27,000-square-foot chateau is on sale in Houston, Texas for $43 million

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Close-in memorial estate houston texas $43 millionOn 2.5 acres in Houston, Texas, an anonymous owner has erected an enormous 27,000-square-foot chateau that’s being sold for $43 million.

The newly built monumental mansion is reminiscent of Versailles with hand-painted decorations, period-inspired molding, and its lavishly gilted details.

It has eight bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and four half baths, a library, three different kitchens, and a fitness center. There's also has a pool, gardens, outdoor BBQ and fireplace, and pool house on the property. 

Kelli Geitner with Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.

The newly constructed home sits on 2.5 acres in Houston, Texas.



It's massive with ample grounds and gardens.



The 27,000-square-foot mansion was modeled loosely after Versailles in Paris.



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Inspiring quotes on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from every US president

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john f kennedy

Monday is President's day, when we honor those who have held America's top civilian office.

These leaders probably had the toughest job in the world. Here are a few of the things they learned from it.

 

George Washington

1789-1797

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company."



John Adams

1797-1801

"You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen."



Thomas Jefferson

1801-1809

"When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred." 



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7 minimalist watches to step up your style game

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