Quote

1864Saint Petersburg, Russia

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

Similar Thoughts

Ralph Waldo Emerson·1841

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Heraclitus·~500 BC

For those who are awake, there is one common world; but of those who sleep, each turns aside into a private world of his own.

Michel de Montaigne·1580

Every man carries the entire form of the human condition within him.

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Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

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