"Self-torment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... endowed with "the artistic conscience" as "the martyr of literary style." In morals something of a libertine, in matters of art he exhibited the intolerance of weakness in others and the remorseless self-examination and self-torment commonly attributed to the Puritan. His friend Maxime Du Camp, who tried to bring him out and teach him the arts of popularity, he rebuffed with deliberate insult. He developed an aversion to any interruption of his work, and such tension ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... and Voltaire, which appeared to be intended for use; and we could imagine a solitary student, dark-eyed and pale, exploring their depths at midnight with a stolen candle, and endeavoring, with self-torment, to reconcile the intolerance of his doctrine with the charities of his heart. We imagine such a one lost in the philosophy and sentiment of the "Nouvelle Heloise," and suddenly summoned by the convent-bell to the droning of the Mass, the mockery of Holy Water, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various |
