“The imagination refuses to share its sovereignty with the heart.”

Suggesting a conflict between artistic imagination and emotional sympathy · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 50

• Art
• Love
• Poetry

“To the man of genius, the day of his death proves better than the day of his birth.”

Reflecting on the recognition that creative genius may receive only after death · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 47

• Art
• Death
• Fame

“The grave is vital to the renown of those great men who had none during life.”

Observing that posthumous fame often begins where earthly recognition ends · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 47

• Death
• Fame
• Mortality

“Experience is a jewel picked up by a wrecked mariner on a desert coast.”

Portraying wisdom as precious knowledge acquired through disaster · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 46

• Despair
• Memory
• Truth

“Life is a game which perversely varies its character according to the age at which we play it: in youth, when much may be lost, it is a game of chance; in manhood, when little remains to be won, it is a game of skill.”

Contrasting youthful risk with the calculated choices of maturity · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 36

• Mortality
• Time

“Love at first sight, the birth of an instant, strikes nevertheless its roots far deeper in the heart than the affection which takes months in maturing.”

Claiming that sudden love may prove deeper than slowly formed attachment · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 33

• Love
• Time

“It is thus that the cleverest men perpetually make asses of themselves in the long run, marring in a quarter of an hour all the advantages secured to them by previous years of prudence and industry.”

Warning how a brief lapse can undo years of careful effort · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 32

• Time
• Truth

“One only hour remains to us in which we are privileged to throw off the mask and be ourselves—and that is our death hour.”

Presenting death as the final moment of unguarded authenticity · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 30

• Death
• Mortality
• Truth

“How mighty are even momentary influences in early youth.”

Emphasising the lasting power of brief experiences in youth · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 30

• Childhood
• Memory
• Time

“While as yet we are young—while we are unhackneyed in the sodden ways of this world—our souls dwell in our eyes, and beauty is our only loadstar.”

Evoking youthful openness to beauty before experience hardens perception · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 30

• Beauty
• Childhood
• Hope

“A great man must not only be able to foresee what ought to succeed, but what will succeed.”

Distinguishing practical foresight from ideal expectation · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 29

• Fame
• Truth

“In my opinion wisdom and circumspection are indispensable essentials of greatness.”

Defining greatness through judgement rather than brilliance alone · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 29

• Fame
• Truth

“So much more difficult is it for mediocrity to appreciate nobleness than for nobleness to tolerate mediocrity.”

Contrasting the generosity of greatness with the limits of narrow judgement · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 27

• Truth

“None but exalted spirits, who can calmly look down upon human events and human frailties as from an eminence, are capable of unalterable friendship.”

Linking enduring friendship with patience and breadth of spirit · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 27

• Friendship
• Truth

“I have always a much better recollection of the emotions that were excited in my mind by hearing a certain air or perusing a particular story than I have of the music or the volume itself.”

Recognising that emotional impressions often outlast their artistic causes · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 26

• Art
• Memory
• Music

“Reflection on this truth might make us melancholy, if we did not remember that our final agonies must be succeeded by repose.”

Finding consolation in the belief that suffering ends in rest · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 23

• Death
• Hope
• Mortality

“The most exquisite pleasure of which we are susceptible is the state of feeling that follows a sudden cessation of intense pain.”

Defining relief as one of the purest forms of pleasure · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 23

• Despair
• Joy

“Quarrelling with the truth and quarrelling with the motive that dictates the utterance of the truth are two distinct things.”

Separating an unwelcome fact from the intention behind stating it · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 22

• Truth

“False politeness may in no case be a virtue, but unnecessary cruelty is at all times a vice.”

Placing kindness above a needlessly brutal display of candour · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 22

• Friendship
• Truth

“It is the way of the world. Most of us prefer the dissimulation that flatters us to the sincerity that wounds.”

Observing that comforting pretence often defeats painful honesty · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 21

• Truth

“People never pardon an avowed want of sympathy with themselves, because it is want of respect.”

Explaining why withheld sympathy is often felt as a personal slight · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 21

• Friendship
• Truth

“What the will helps to fabricate the will can help to destroy.”

Asserting that consciously made mental forms remain subject to choice · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 20

• Hope
• Truth

“Imagination is always conscious of exercising its own power.”

Distinguishing deliberate imagination from involuntary dreaming · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 20

• Art
• Poetry

“I allude to the marvellous power which the mind possesses during sleep of re-creating the same images over and over with no exercise of memory on the part of the dreamer.”

Reflecting on the mysterious recurrence of imagery in dreams · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 20

• Art
• Memory