David Copperfield

The man who reviews his own life had need to have been a good man, indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well.... Never to put one hand to anything on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept I owe to Agnes I will not repeat here.

—Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. XLII, p. 539-540.