Literature Quotes - Page 20

Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.

Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.

There is little more powerful than when truth joins action.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

Persuasion is often more effectual than force.

Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.

Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.

Literature provides us with experiences it would not be wise or possible to introduce into our own world and thus enlarges our understanding of the world.

I know I'll be under a spotlight, I know I'll be under the microscope.

Terrence, the Roman slave who freed himself with his writings, once observed, "I am a human being. Nothing human is alien to me." That could be the motto of literature!

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

Choose a subject equal to your abilities; think carefully what your shoulders may refuse, and what they are capable of bearing.

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand.

The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.