“To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me.”

“The impossible is merely the possible for which we don't yet know the science”

“So there you have it: two things & I can't bring them together & they are wrenching me apart. These two feelings, this knowledge of a world so awful, this sense of a life so extraordinary—how am I to resolve them?”

“Maybe the clever people are not the ones who think they’re clever. Maybe the clever people are the ones who accept that they know nothing.”

“We do not have to let other people’s irresponsible emotional expression alienate us from our feelings.”

“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”

“Take work as a game and enjoy it. Everything is a challenge. Just don’t go on doing it, dragging yourself because it has to be done. So there are only two possibilities: either find work you like or become capable of liking the work, whatsoever it is. The second is the best alternative because it is very difficult to find work that you like.like. Sooner or later you will dislike it. In the beginning, maybe you like it.”

“Your Shadow is all of the things, 'positive' and 'negative', that you’ve denied about yourself and hidden beneath the surface of the mask you forgot that you’re wearing.”