Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselve… - William Hazlitt

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.