Irving Stone

When he reached home he picked up the volume of Renan lying on his table and turned to a page he had marked. “To act well in this world,” he read, “one must die within oneself. Man is not on this earth only to be happy, he is not there to be simply honest, he is there to realize great things for humanity, to attain nobility and to surpass the vulgarity in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on.”