“Of all the tasks which are set before man in life, the education and management of his character is the most important, and . . . it is necessary that he should make a calm and careful survey of his own tendencies, unblinded either by the self-deception which conceals errors and magnifies excellences, or by the indiscriminate pessimism which refuses to recognise his powers for good. He must avoid the fatalism which would persuade him that he has no power over his nature, and he must also clearly recognise that this power is not unlimited.”
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, The Map of Life
“Never say you know the last word about any human heart!”
Henry James, “Louisa Pallant,” in The Reverberator, Madame de Mauves, A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales
The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
Henrik Ibsen,
playwright
“I put my hand on Lucy’s back and felt her uneven breaths, the tremor of her shoulder blades. I was stunned by the rawness of her pain. I came to understand that night in the sports bar, safe from the blinding rain, that I could not worry about Lucy anymore. I knew then it was just too enormous for me to manage and that worrying about her would swamp me. If I was swamped by worry, I would be useless to her. It was even possible that I would desert her, and that was the thing that could never happen.”
Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty: a Friendship
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
Leo Tolstoy
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
Oliver Goldsmith,
writer
“Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in the power of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with many landmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions are not of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions, and labours follow each other in swift and distinct successions, seems the most long…”
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, The Map of Life
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri Bergson,
philosopher
Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.
Steve Jobs,
entrepreneur
