To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A great writer creates a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer may entice them in for a moment, but soon he will watch them filing out.
Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish legends.
Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.
Regardless of whether one is a writer or a reader, one's task consists first of all in mastering a life that is one's own, not imposed or prescribed from without, no matter how noble its appearance may be. For each of us is issued but one life, and we know full well how it all ends.
There is a melancholy that stems from greatness.
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.
The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
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