“One makes oneself so very largely, and to make oneself greater or better, one must believe. Apply your religion: Thy faith has made thee whole! That's the most wonderful thing Christ ever said, and it applies everywhere in life. Believe in yourself!”

Urging self-belief as the essential force for personal growth and transformation · Letter from Rome, April 1899

• Belief
• Growth
• Self Knowledge

“This winter I have been realizing a copy-book commonplace, which is at the same time a metaphysical profundity, viz.: that the present is all that is and it is not. One of the crowning metaphysical paradoxes. Of course the present is not. While you are uttering now, it is fled — it never existed.”

Reflecting on the elusive nature of the present moment · Letter, winter 1896–97

• Philosophy
• Reality
• Time

“Oh, I am devoured by ambition. I do so want to do something that will last, — some man's work in the world, — that I am constantly depressed by an awful dread that perhaps I shan't be able to.”

Expressing the intense drive to achieve lasting work alongside the fear of falling short · Letter to his mother, near the end of college, 1895

• Ambition
• Anxiety
• Purpose