Arnold Bennett

It is always the man who has tasted life who demands more of it. And it is always the man who never gets out of bed who is most difficult to rouse.

It is as well not to chatter too much about what one is doing, and not betray a too-pained sadness at the spectacle of a whole world deliberately wasting so many hours out of every day, and therefore never really living. It will be found, ultimately, that in taking care of one’s self one has quite all one can do.

Now in the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk.

Yes, books are valuable. But not reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do—of a steady looking at oneself in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be).

The fact is that there is no easy way, no royal road. The path to Mecca is extremely hard and stony, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there after all.

You say I am dealing with minutiae. I am.