Clarence Day

“It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too.”

“Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.”

“Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.”

“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.”

“We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways.”

“The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.”

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.”

“As I stumble through this life, I help myself by writing. I write to clarify my own thinking. I write to be able to grasp things better.”