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To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
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“To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”

Walter Pater

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Source
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
Date
1873
Meaning

Meaning of “To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame,…”

The famous image defines success through intensity and alertness of experience rather than conventional achievement, fitting Pater’s larger argument against living automatically through habit.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The metaphor belongs to Pater’s aesthetic philosophy and should not be reduced to generic productivity advice.

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GrowthInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeMeaning of Life Quotes About What Makes Life MatterMindsetMotivation For LifePersonal GrowthPurpose Quotes About Direction, Duty & Meaningful WorkShortPassion
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The purpose of life is unquestionably unfoldment, growth, advancement
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“The purpose of life is unquestionably unfoldment, growth, advancement”

Ralph Waldo Trine · The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit · 1918
Meaning & context

Trine states his view of purpose directly: life should continue to develop rather than settle into mental or moral stagnation.

Source details

The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit; Project Gutenberg #28163. The surrounding text describes evolution from “lower” to “higher” in spiritual terms; this is Trine’s philosophical-religious position, not a scientific law of human development.

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less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met
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“less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

The maxim shifts attention from events alone to the way a person receives and interprets them, making response and temperament part of Schopenhauer’s account of well-being.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. This is a philosophical claim about temperament, not a denial that external circumstances can matter greatly.

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If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
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“If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.”

William Morris · Signs of Change · 1888
Meaning & context

After describing work that engages mind, memory, imagination and the will to create, Morris presents such activity as a way of making daily life active and meaningful.

Source details

Signs of Change, lecture “Useful Work versus Useless Toil”; Project Gutenberg #3053. “Thus” refers to creative work engaging mind, memory, imagination and bodily effort.

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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
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“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

Robert Louis Stevenson · Familiar Studies of Men and Books · 1882
Meaning & context

Stevenson’s formulation links self-acceptance with development: a worthwhile life is not imitation of someone else’s pattern but fuller realization of capacities that belong to one’s own character.

Source details

Familiar Studies of Men and Books, essay ‘Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions,’ section V, Project Gutenberg #425, transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition. The surrounding paragraph quotes several Thoreau statements, but ‘To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming...’ is Stevenson's own connective judgment before he returns to quoted Thoreau language. It therefore remains Stevenson literary-biographical criticism rather than a Thoreau quotation or a clinical rule about self-development.

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the main pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development of our special capacities.
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“the main pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development of our special capacities.”

William Morris · Signs of Change · 1888
Meaning & context

The line makes development itself a source of satisfaction: people flourish, in Morris’s account, when their abilities are actively exercised instead of left unused.

Source details

Signs of Change, lecture “Dawn of a New Epoch”; Project Gutenberg #3053. The sentence occurs inside Morris’s proposed organization of socially useful labor.

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The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess
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“The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

Within his restrictive view of personality, Schopenhauer still assigns agency to choosing pursuits that use and develop one’s actual capacities rather than leaving them idle or mismatched.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The following clause recommends pursuits suited to the development of one’s capacities.

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