... as usual I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books.

For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

All writing seems to me worse in the state of proof than in any other form. In manuscript one's own wisdom is rather remarkable to one, but in proof it has the effect of one's private furniture repeated in the shop windows. And then there is the sense that the worst errors will go to press unnoticed!

We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves

Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.