One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.

What on earth would a man do with himself, if something did not stand in his way?

Find the thing you want to do most intensely, make sure that’s it, and do it with all your might. If you live, well and good. If you die, well and good. Your purpose is done

The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity.

Human history is, in essence, a history of ideas.

So utterly at variance is Destiny with all the little plans of men.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.