No, one couldn't make a revolution, one couldn't even start a riot, with sheep that asked only for better browsing.

He felt with the force of a revelation that to throw up the clods of earth manfully is as beneficent as to revolutionize the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted - and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone.

After all, you can't expect men not to judge by appearances.

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

1. Always wait between books for the springs to fill up and flow over. 2. Always preserve within a wild sanctuary, an inaccessible valley of reveries. 3. Always, and as far as it is possible, endeavor to touch life on every side; but keep the central vision of the mind, the inmost light, untouched and untouchable.

convictions ... are always getting in the way of opportunities.

for my own purpose, I defined the art of fiction as experience illuminated.