James Matsie

“There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Everything in any way beautiful has its beauty of itself, inherent and self-sufficient: praise is no part of it. At any rate, praise does not make anything better or worse. This applies even to the popular conception of beauty, as in material things or works of art. So does the truly beautiful need anything beyond itself? No more than law, no more than truth, no more than kindness or integrity. Which of these things derives its beauty from praise, or withers under criticism? Does an emerald lose its quality if it is not praised? And what of gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a dagger, a flower, a bush?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Fearlessness is what love seeks… Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future… Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.”
― Hannah Arendt, Love and Saint Augustine

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday