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"Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of choosing a pursuit."
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"If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable."

"Flowers are the beautiful hairs of the Mother Spring! Don't pluck them!"

"Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies."

"Sometimes, humanity surprises me with all its lack of control over the primordial urges. These innate urges are the biological traits that make us similar to the rest of the animal kingdom. But the modern qualities that make us superior to all the animals are intellect and self-control."

"Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature."

"The Moon always finds an opportunity to turn our attention from the ground beneath our feet to the sky above our head!"

"Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff."

"I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself."
Explore more quotes by James Payn

"It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the poet."

"The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of bringing them up to the Stage."

"A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no means to get it developed for the good of humanity - or even patented for himself - must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely."

"For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future happiness, which ought by rights to be in preparation for me, will be at all interfered with by my not meeting again the man I have in my. mind."

"As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand."

"One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find this, however, far from being the case."

"In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature."

"The fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity will drive him but a very little way, while the having enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his self-respect."

"It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using blanks or asterisks."
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