'I can go as far as that.' 'Well,' resumed Elfride, 'I think it better for a man's nature if he does nothing in particular.' 'There is such a case as being obliged to.' 'Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any other reason than delight in the prospect of fame.

I have thought many times lately that a thin widespread happiness, commencing now, and of a piece with the days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated heap far away in the future, and none now.' 'Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle of all ephemeral doers like myself.' 'Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,' she said with some confusion.
'Yes, of course.

That is what you meant about not trying to be famous.' And she added, with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her mind: 'There is much littleness in trying to be great.

A man must think a good deal of himself, and be conceited enough to believe in himself, before he tries at all.' 'But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man's thinking a good deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong, and too soon then sometimes.

Besides, we should not conclude that a man who strives earnestly for success does so with a strong sense of his own merit.