“Passion is waste — takes away from a man's stability, his self-centralization: its action on general culture, aestheticism, philosophy, manysidedness, all that makes life endurable, is ruinous.”

A strikingly severe youthful judgement on passion and its power to disturb intellectual self-possession · Marginalia on Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, c. 1889

• Desire
• Emotion
• Thought

“I tremble at the prospect of being reviewed—I am painfully conscious of the innumerable blemishes.”

Revealing the anxiety and self-criticism accompanying publication · Letter to Victor Plarr, September 1893

• Art
• Fame

“Let us seek Knowledge. At least let us shun emotion as we would hell, for which it is a synonym. Let us live in ourselves and for ourselves.”

A youthful attempt to elevate intellect and self-command above emotional dependence · Marginal note in his copy of The Story of an African Farm, c. 1889

• Solitude
• Truth