Quotes on Literature

Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.

Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.

Take all that is given whether wealth, love or language, nothing comes by mistake and with good digestion all can be turned to health.

The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

Literature is analysis after the event.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.

Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.

Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!