Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Modern Science and Pantheism, p.74
“One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff. There is a period, well on toward middle life, when a man can say such things to himself and feel comforted.”
Harbours of Memory (1921), p. 114
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William McFee 19
American writer 1881–1966Related quotes
“One can choose life, or choose death. Having chosen life, I must live it as it is.”
Source: Even a stone can be a teacher (1985), p. 11
As quoted in The New-York Herald (12 August 1883) http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/fame-and-obscurity.html
“As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”
                                        
                                        volume I, chapter VIII: "Religion",  page 307 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=325&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to an unidentified German student (1879) 
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)
                                    
                                        
                                        Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 208. 
Context: I received an impassioned letter from Sonoko. There was no doubt that she was truly in love. I felt jealous. Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?
                                    
“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.”
Source: The Story of the Lost Child
                                        
                                        The Spirit of Revolt (1880) 
Context: There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions.