“No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.”

“The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.”

“To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.”

“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”

“Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate voice; that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means!”

“No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly.”

“No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he cannot get out of the awful presence of this Reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that, first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life, real as Death, is this Universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flame-image glares in upon him; undeniable, there, there!—I wish you to take this as my primary definition of a Great Man. A little man may have this, it is competent to all men that God has made: but a Great Man cannot be without it.”

“A man defines himself by his make-believe as well as by his sincere impulses.”

“I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.”

“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.”