nothing before he can at all know what is
to be done and how to do it!

402

Duty: where a man loves what he commands himself to do.

LITERATURE AND ART

403

When Madame Roland was on the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper, to
note the peculiar thoughts that hovered about her on the last journey.
It is a pity they were refused, for in a tranquil mind thoughts rise up
at the close of life hitherto unthinkable; like blessed inward voices,
alighting in glory on the summits of the past.

404

Literature is a fragment of fragments: the least of what happened and
was spoken, has been written; and of the things that have been written,
very few have been preserved.

405

And yet, with all the fragmentary nature of literature, we find thousand
fold repetition; which shows how limited is man's mind and destiny.

406

Excellent work is unfathomable, approach it as you will.

407

It is not language in itself which is correct or forcible or elegant,
but the mind that is embodied in it; and so it is not for a man to
determine whether he will give his calculations or speeches or poems the
desired qualities: the question is whether Nature has given him the
intellectual and moral qualities which fit him for the work,--the
intellectual power of observation and insight, the moral power of
repelling the evil spirits that might hinder him from paying respect to
truth.

408

The appeal to posterity springs from the pure, strong feeling of the
existence of something imperishable; something that, even though it be
not at once recognised, will in the end be gratified by finding the
minority turn into a majority.

409

When a new literature succeeds, it obscures the effect of an earlier
one, and its own effect predominates; so that it is well, from time to
time, to look back. What is original in us is best preserved and
quickened if we do not lose sight of those who have gone before us.

410

The most original authors of modern times are so, not because they
produce what is new, but only because they are able to say things the
like of which seem never to have been said before.

411

Thus the best sign of originality lies in taking up a subject and then
developing it so fully as to make every one confess that he would hardly
have found so much in it.

412

There are many thoughts that come only from general culture, like buds
from green branches. When roses bloom, you see them blooming everywhere.