“The best of the diviner breed are never wrong because they never set anything in stone.”

The Emperor Julian, as portrayed in Emperor and Galilean (1873).
Context: That power which circumstances placed in my hands, and which is an emanation of divinity, I am conscious of having used to the best of my skill. I have never wittingly wronged any one. For this campaign there were good and sufficient reasons; and if some should think that I have not fulfilled all expectations, they ought in justice to reflect that there is a mysterious power without us, which in a great measure governs the issue of human undertakings.

Of Beauty
Essays (1625)

As quoted in Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography (1986) by Robert A. Caro and William Knowlton Zinsser. Also quoted in Truman by David McCullough (1992), p. 44, New York: Simon & Schuster.-
Context: You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right … Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what you are not.

Source: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Ralph Vaughan Williams National Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) p. 7
Criticism

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 3, “Bottle of Memories” (p. 42)