In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. - Robert Louis Stevenson

It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity;

In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical existence.

There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. ... They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill.