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I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

H. P. Lovecraft

All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decrease Happiness Human Important Minimal Value
Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Creation Deep Fear Illusion Nature Ourselves Strong
All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beginning Goodness Guide Learning Literature
I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Furniture Library Live Possession Sleep
My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Boredom Interest List Nervous Save System
Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Discover Practice Science Truth Value
That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Aristotle Establishment Poetry Principle Pronounce
Children, old crones, peasants, and dogs ramble; cats and philosophers stick to their point.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Children Philosophy Point Stick
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Course Fiction Formal Story Writing
I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Business Dreams Interest Man Thinking
It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Horror Mistake Silence Solitude
What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beautiful Instrument Man Pay Responsive World
One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Effect Important Vocabulary
Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Amusement Boredom Himself Polite Throw
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Mindset Normal Religious Strict
Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Ancient Dreams Memories Mountain Ocean Ourselves Time

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

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I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

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