Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self.
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.