There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take them...selves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If the reviewing of books be ... "an ungentle craft," the making of them is, for the most part, a dishonest one--and that departme...nt of literature which ought to be entrusted to those only who are distinguished for their moral qualities is, not infrequently, in the hands of authors totally devoid of good taste, good feeling, and generous sentiment. The writers of Lives have, in our time, assumed a licence not enjoyed by their more scrupulous predecessors--for they interweave the adventures of the living with the memoirs of the dead; and, pretending to portray the peculiarities which sometimes mark the man of genius, they invade the privacy and disturb the peace of his surviving associates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classica...l dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done an...ything worth remembering.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole ...amount.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents,... each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »