On life:
“Life is not governed by will or intention. Lifeis a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancyyourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of color in a roomor a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories withit, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you hadceased to play — it is on things like these that our lives depend.”
(Cadence： the regular rise and fall of the voice)
On influence:
- “Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn withhis natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there aresuch things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes anecho of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not beenwritten for him. The aim of life is self-development.To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.”
On Morality:
“We are punished for our refusals. Every impulsethat we strive to strangle broods in the mind,and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. . . .Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it hasforbidden to itself, with desire for what itsmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been saidthat the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain,and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”
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