Fastidiousness is only another word for egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth save in the narrow well of self will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.
James Russell LowellIt is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
James Russell LowellThere are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.
James Russell Lowell