“A hermit-crab am I by nature, and shall be, to the end of my days. And yet the human kind is a very good kind, and kindly human too.”

Holding solitude and affection for humanity together without contradiction · Gathered Leaves, letters and diaries, 1897–1907

• Friendship
• Solitude

“To catch the sun and keep him in a book—what a hopeless business! Yet never twice the same clouds gather round him touched with the same colours; it is human to grasp at them.”

On the human urge to preserve beauty that cannot be repeated · Gathered Leaves, letters and diaries, 1897

• Beauty
• Nature
• Time

“That's the charming thing about great writing, it's never the same twice over.”

On how great literature changes as the reader changes · Gathered Leaves, letters and diaries, 1897–1907

• Art
• Time