Henry Adams on choosing one’s path

    For many of us, the best path through life is an unpopular path. Included in having this view is Henry Adams:

My path is a different one; and was never chosen in order to suit other people’s tastes, but my own. Of course a man can’t do this without appearing to think a great deal about himself, and perhaps doing so in fact. The very line he draws requires care to observe, and is invidious to everyone else. In America there is such class, and the tendency is incessant to draw everyone into the main current. I have told you before that I mean to be unpopular, and do it because I must do it, or do as other people do and give up the path I chose for myself years ago. Your ideas and mine don’t agree, but they never have agreed. You like the strife of the world. I detest it and despise it. You work for power. I work for my own satisfaction. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 195.)
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    For a brief biography of Henry Adams, click here.