Robert Wilson Lynd Quotes

Quotes about:

Animals Birds Children Earth

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Life, Dog, Men

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Most human beings are quite likable if you don't see too much of them.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Too Much, Likeable, Humans

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In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Inspirational, Motivational, Nature

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The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Peace, Military, War

"Searchlights and Nightingales". Book by Robert Wilson Lynd, 1939.

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It may be that all games are silly. But then, so are humans.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Sports, Silly, Playing Games

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We cannot get happiness by striving after it, and yet with an effort we can impart it.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Effort, Strive, Impart

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A cat is only technically an animal, being divine.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Cat, Animal, Divine

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We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Age, Forget, Stills

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A boy in love is not mainly a calf but a poet.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Boys, Love Is, Poet

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There are two sorts of curiosity - the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Inspirational, Life, Two

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Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Christmas, Xmas, Children

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The art of writing history is the art of emphasizing the significant facts at the expense of the insignificant. And it is the same in every field of knowledge. Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Art, Writing, Men

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No man is uninteresting when his hat is blown off and he has to scuttle after it down the street.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Men, Hats, Streets

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The days on which one has been the most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Inquisitive, Has Beens

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It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Sports, Golf, World

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Dostoevsky's visible world was a world of sensationalism. He may in the last analysis be a great mystic or a great psychologist; but he almost always reveals his genius on a stage crowded with people who behave like the men and women one reads about in the police news.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Men, People, Police

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Mr. Shaw came for a short time recently to be regarded less as an author than as an incident in the European War. In the opinion of many people it seemed as if the Allies were fighting against a combination composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Mr. Shaw.

Robert Wilson Lynd

War, Fighting, Turkeys

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Mystery lies over the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Lying, Sea, Ships

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It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Praise, Expenses, Customs

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When people complain of the decay of manners they have in mind not the impudent abbreviations of the crowd, but the decline in bowing and scraping and in speaking of one's employer as "the master." What the rich mean by the good manners of the poor is usually not civility, but servility.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Mean, People, Good Man

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Chekhov will seek out the key situation in the life of a cabman or a charwoman, and make them glow for a brief moment in the tender light of his sympathy.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Keys, Light, Moments

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On the whole, however, the critic is far less of a professional faultfinder than is sometimes imagined. He is first of all a virtue-finder, a singer of praise. He is not concerned with getting rid of dross except in so far as it hides the gold. In other words, the destructive side of criticism is purely a subsidiary affair. None of the best critics have been men of destructive minds. They are like gardeners whose business is more with the flowers than with the weeds.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Weed, Flower, Men

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The happiness even of the naturalist depends in some measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each bright particular with his eyes.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Book, Ignorance, Eye

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The mirror that Strindberg held up to Nature was a cracked one. It was cracked in a double sense -- it was crazy. It gave back broken images of a world which it made look like the chaos of a lunatic dream.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Dream, Crazy, Mirrors

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When one has praised Turgenev, however, for the beauty of his character and the beautiful truth of his art, one remembers that he, too, was human and therefore less than perfect. His chief failing was, perhaps, that of all the great artists, he was the most lacking in exuberance. That is why he began to be scorned in a world which rated exuberance higher than beauty or love or pity.

Robert Wilson Lynd

Beautiful, Art, Character

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Born: April 20, 1879
Died: October 6, 1949
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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