“He who loveth flyeth, runneth, and is glad; he is free and not hindered.”
— Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (trans. William Benham)
“Whoso recognises and confesses his own defects Is hastening in the way that leads to Perfection!”
— Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, Masnavi i Ma'navi (trans. E. H. Whinfield), as printed in F. Hadland Davis, The Persian Mystics
“at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”
— John Keats, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends (ed. Sidney Colvin) (1817)
“Nay, I will live--live for music--the highest thing in life except true love! Both make me utterly miserable but at least I shall have lived!”
— Hector Berlioz, The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs (trans. Katharine F. Boult, 1903) (1829)
“Perhaps you smile at me. I could not stop for that. My business is circumference.”
— Emily Dickinson, Letters to T. W. Higginson (in 'Emily Dickinson's Letters', The Atlantic Monthly) (1862)
“There are only a few who control themselves and their affairs by a guiding purpose; the rest do not proceed; they are merely swept along, like objects afloat in a river.”
— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius
“No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Live — do something — and that’s more enjoyable, that’s more positive.”
— Vincent van Gogh, Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1883)
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series — Self-Reliance (1841)
“let any one similarly afflicted be consoled, by finding one like himself, who, in defiance of all the obstacles of Nature, has done all in his power to be included in the ranks of estimable artists and men.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 (trans. Lady Grace Wallace, 1866), Vol. 1 (1802)
“You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion
“Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion
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