Van Wyck Brooks Quotes

• Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Jealousy, Vanity, People

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  48 Copy quote

• Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Genius, Virtue, Found

  105 Copy quote

• How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in the world about them. People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding. But magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And what is more, they find it everywhere.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Motivational, Vanity, People

  23 Copy quote

• No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Book, Men, Firsts

  16 Copy quote

• Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  People, Looks, Sides

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  4 Copy quote

• As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Beautiful, Writing, Rainy Day

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  7 Copy quote

• The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  War, Creativity, Men

  25 Copy quote

• Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  World, Littles, Herbs

  Van Wyck Brooks (1944). “Literature in New England: The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865. New England: Indian Summer, 1865-1915”, New York Garden City [1944]

  9 Copy quote

• Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Family, Self Esteem, Ancestry

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  7 Copy quote

• People of small calibre are always carping. How affected so-and-so is! Don't you think he is silly? He was certainly quite mistaken about this or that. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or their prowess or good breeding.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  People, Bent, Prowess

  "Opinions of Oliver Allston".

  9 Copy quote

• Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Mean, Standards, Worldly

  8 Copy quote

• It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Swans, Profound, Wells

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  9 Copy quote

• The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Fun, Men, Thinking

  Van Wyck Brooks (1958). “From a writer's notebook”

  7 Copy quote

• The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Successful, Men, He Man

  Van Wyck Brooks (1941). “Opinions of Oliver Allston”, New York, Dutton

  7 Copy quote

• If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Jobs, Men, Evil

  Van Wyck Brooks (1958). “From a writer's notebook”

  7 Copy quote

• How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in the world around them.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  People, Mind, World

  4 Copy quote

• Once you have a point of view all history will back you up.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Views, Point Of View

  Van Wyck Brooks (1968). “Van Wyck Brooks: the early years: a selection from his works, 1908-1921”

  7 Copy quote

• No one in this country has any root anywhere; we don't live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that run over the surface of the water.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Running, Country, Roots

  Van Wyck Brooks (1961). “From the Shadow of the Mountain: My Post-meridian Years”, New York : E.P. Dutton

  6 Copy quote

• The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Writing, Important, Territory

  4 Copy quote

• The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me, by newspapers and the Bible.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Book, Mind, Newspapers

  Van Wyck Brooks (1958). “From a writer's notebook”

  6 Copy quote

• Longfellow is to poetry what the barrel-organ is to music.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Barrels, Organs

  Van Wyck Brooks (1968). “Van Wyck Brooks: the early years: a selection from his works, 1908-1921”

  4 Copy quote

• No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Inspirational, Funny, Book

  Van Wyck Brooks (1958). “From a writer's notebook”

  24 Copy quote

• There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Religious, Ignorance, Political

  5 Copy quote

• A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them. They like a man who expresses their own superficial thoughts in a manner that appears to be profound. This enables them to feel that they are themselves profound.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Fun, Successful, Men

  Van Wyck Brooks (1958). “From a writer's notebook”

  4 Copy quote

• Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  Want, Vivid, Talent

  Van Wyck Brooks (1968). “Van Wyck Brooks: the early years: a selection from his works, 1908-1921”

  4 Copy quote

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