Quotes on Literature

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored.

Let none think to fly the danger for soon or late love is his own avenger.

Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

America is a model of force and freedom and moderation - with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

He who is only just is cruel; who Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?

Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe; you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.

The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.

Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not.

There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves--so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.

Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.