What I Have Done Cannot

Do All The Work You Can; That Is The Whole Philosophy Of The Good Way Of Life.

If Painters Left Nothing Of Themselves After Their Deaths, So That We Were Obliged To Rank Them As We Do Actors According To The Judgment Of Their Contemporaries, How Different Their Reputations Would Be From What Posterity Has Made Them!

There Is No Merit In Being Truthful When One Is Truthful By Nature, Or Rather When One Can Be Nothing Else; It Is A Gift, Like Poetry Or Music. But It Needs Courage To Be Truthful After Carefully Considering The Matter, Unless A Kind Of Pride Is Involved; For Example, The Man Who Says To Himself, "i Am Ugly," And Then Says, "i Am Ugly" To His Friends, Lest They Should Think Themselves The First To Make The Discovery.

We Should Not Allow Ourselves To Believe That Writers Like Poe Have More Imagination Than Those Who Are Content With Describing Things As They Really Are. It Is Surely Easier To Invent Striking Situations In This Way Than To Tread The Beaten Track Which Intelligent Minds Have Followed Throughout The Centuries.

Delsarte Tells Me That Mozart Stole Outrageously From Galuppi, In The Same Way, I Suppose, That Molière Stole From Anybody Anywhere, If He Found Something Work Taking. I Said That What Was Mozart Had Not Been Stolen From Galuppi, Or From Anyone Else For That Matter.