“I have no means of knowing whether you are patient in the pursuit of this art; but I am inclined to think that you are not, and that you do not discipline yourself enough.”

Treating patience and self-discipline as necessary parts of literary craft · Letter to Emily Jolly, 30 May 1857

• Art
• Truth

“Attention, after due term of submissive service, always will.”

Contrasting trainable attention with gifts that cannot simply be commanded · Speech, Birmingham and Midland Institute, 27 September 1869

• Art
• Truth

“It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you should.”

Placing personal moral conduct above disappointment in other people · Letter to Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, 1868

• Faith
• Truth