Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
After killing off a number of plants inadvertently, it may be hard to face horticultural euthanasia. . . . But the misfortune of these mistakes goes beyond a small blot on your garden. The sad relics are the lessons you are refusing to learn. . . . After four or five years you have to make an assessment of your selections and stop nursing along specimens that long for [permanent quiet peace]. You will be amazed what a lift it will give to your whole garden to be rid of these ghosts.
It is my misfortune - and probably my delight - to use things as my passions tell me. What a miserable fate for a painter who adores blondes to have to stop himself putting them into a picture because they don't go with the basket of fruit! . . . I put all the things I like into my pictures. The things - so much the worse for them. They just have to put up with it.
If we put the emphasis upon the right things. If we live the life that is worth while, and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could throw us off our center, so that no matter what misfortune should overtake us, there would still be a whole magnificent man or woman left after being stripped of everything else.
A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.
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