“What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
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“The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
― Nature
― Nature
2026 Reading Challenge
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Sonata’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sonata’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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