Dantès: “I was reflecting, in the first place…upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained;—if you thus surpass all mankind while but a prisoner, what would you not have accomplished free?”
Faria: “Possibly nothing at all;—the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; it needs trouble and difficulty and danger to hollow out various mysterious and hidden mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to ignite powder: captivity has collected into one single focus all the floating faculties of my mind; they have come into close contact in the narrow space in which they have been wedged, and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced—from electricity comes the lightning, from whose flash we have light amid our greatest darkness.”
(The Count of Monte Cristo, pages 183-184)
Wow! This passage really grabbed my attention. As a homeschooling, entrepreneurial mom, I have so many irons in the fire that it is really easy to dissipate my efforts in a million directions. I may have to post this quote above my computer as a reminder of the power of focus.