My sense of identity broke down and was replaced by something that is very hard to put into words. Awareness, Consciousness.
What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.
Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material. . . Don't wait for experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material.
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
True, a little learning is a dangerous thing, but it still beats total ignorance.
When you're at your best, you're analyzing yourself and becoming increasingly isolated from a broader narrative.
The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action.
I'm not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there; it's like relaxing into - and an acceptance of - things.