“Take things more easily. Don’t ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don’t question your conscience so much—it will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don’t try so much to form your character—it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself.”
Henry James
more infosource: The Portrait of a Lady (New York: Bantam, 2007), [Bantam Classic reissue], 223.
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category: advice, character, conscience, school of life
medium: Fiction
via: The Bronze Medal“A book is a cubic piece of burning, smoking conscience—and nothing else.”
Boris Pasternak
more infosource: The Marsh of Gold: Pasternak’s Writings on Inspiration and Creation by Angela Livingstone (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2008), 16.
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category: beautiful description, book, conscience, writing
medium: nonfiction
notes: quoted by Mary Karr in her Twitter feed
conscience