“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”

Expressing determined engagement with experience despite human limits · Novel prose

• Art
• Hope

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibres connect us with our fellow men; and along those fibres, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and return to us as effects.”

Emphasising human interdependence and the consequences of our actions · Novel prose

• Friendship
• Truth

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.”

Linking literary power to the scale and significance of its subject · Essay

• Art
• Poetry

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its jagged edges.”

Recognising that honest truth may be difficult rather than polished · Essay

• Art
• Truth

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

Valuing creative independence above conventional success · Essay

• Art
• Truth