Rebecca West Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

Rebecca West

Mean, England And America, Europe

9 Copy quote
All gambling is the telling of a fortune, but of a monstrously depleted fortune, empty of everything save one numerical circumstance, shorn of all such richness as a voyage across the water, a fair man that loves you, a dark woman that means you harm.

Rebecca West

Love You, Mean, Dark

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.193, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
There are two kinds of imperialists - imperialists and bloody imperialists.

Rebecca West

Two, Kind, Imperialism

Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.4, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

Rebecca West

Funny, Military, Real

Quoted in Jonathon Green, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982)

8 Copy quote
It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

Rebecca West

Writing, Race, History

4 Copy quote
My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it. ... I think your hand concentrates for you. I don't know why it should be so.

Rebecca West

Memories, Writing, Thinking

4 Copy quote
There is nothing rarer than a man who can be trusted never to throw away happiness, however eagerly he sometimes grasps it. In history we are as frequently interested in our own doom.

Rebecca West

Men, Sometimes, Doom

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.818, Open Road Media

6 Copy quote
A great many quite good plays could be performed with rhythmic howls in the place of dialogue and lose almost nothing by the change.

Rebecca West

Change, Drama, Play

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.16, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
every human activity, whether it be love, philosophy, art, or revolution, is carried on with a special intensity in Paris.

Rebecca West

Art, Philosophy, Paris

Rebecca West (2010). “The Birds Fall Down”, p.81, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come into the room, not many of us would find our hearts breaking into flower as we heard the door handle turn.

Rebecca West

Flower, Heart, Doors

Rebecca West (2010). “A Train of Powder”, p.75, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
If ever peace is to be imposed on the world it will only be because a large number of men who could have taken part in the drill display by the Guards or Marines or at the Royal Tournament turn that strength and precision to the service of life.

Rebecca West

Peace, Taken, Marine

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.442, Open Road Media

7 Copy quote
Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.

Rebecca West

Music, Quiet, Certain

Rebecca West (2012). “The Saga of the Century: The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund”, p.554, Open Road Media

6 Copy quote
I've never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being surprised by the extreme, marvelous qualities of a small minority of men. But I can't see the rest of them. They seem awful rubbish.

Rebecca West

Men, Expectations, Quality

4 Copy quote
Good God enlighten us! Which of these two belongs to the sterner sex - the man who sits in Whitehall all his life on a comfortable salary, or the woman who has to keep her teeth bared lest she has her meatless bone of 17s. 4d. a week snatched away from her and who has to produce the next generation on her off-days?

Rebecca West

Sex, Men, Two

Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.139, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
Mr. Arnold Bennett feels he has ranked himself for ever as a dry wine by what he mixed with himself of Maupassant; nevertheless he has put on the market some grocer's Sauterne in the form of several novels that are highly sentimental so far as their fundamental balance of values is concerned.

Rebecca West

Wine, Balance, Fundamentals

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.6, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
For some reason a nation feels as shy about admitting that it ever went forth to war for the sake of more wealth as a man would about admitting that he had accepted an invitation just for the sake of the food. This is one of humanity's most profound imbecilities, as perhaps the only justification for asking one's fellowmen to endure the horrors of war would be the knowledge that if they did not fight they would starve.

Rebecca West

War, Fighting, Men

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.143, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

Rebecca West

Gestures, Imperfect, International

"The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews".

7 Copy quote
We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.

Rebecca West

Real, War, Glasses

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.292, Open Road Media

12 Copy quote
The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

Rebecca West

Sacrifice, Race, Childhood

5 Copy quote
... A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is like a beautiful hand with long fingers reaching out to pluck a perfect fruit, without error,for the accurate eye knows well it is growing just there on the branch, while Ulysses is the fumbling of a horned hand in darkness after a doubted jewel.

Rebecca West

Beautiful, Eye, Errors

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.139, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

Rebecca West

Funny, Art, Humor

7 Copy quote
Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.

Rebecca West

Father, Years, Waiting

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.36, Open Road Media

4 Copy quote
In these pages your imaginations, your desires, your passions are given life; Thoughts take shape that turn into dreams and our aspirations all start with a dream. Reading is where those dreams really can come true over and over again.

Rebecca West

Dream, Reading, Passion

5 Copy quote
[On Jane Austen:] To believe her limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the Atlantic Ocean is as smooth as a mill-pond it shrinks to the size of a mill-pond.

Rebecca West

Believe, Ocean, Ponds

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.165, Open Road Media

16 Copy quote
one of Mr. [Thomas] Hardy's ancestors must have married a weeping willow. There are pages and pages in his collected poems which are simply plain narratives in ballad form of how an unenjoyable time was had by all.

Rebecca West

Weeping Willows, Narrative, Pages

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.118, Open Road Media

5 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Dorothy Thompson

Victoria Glendinning

Emmeline Pankhurst

Stephen Sondheim

Rebecca West

Follow

Born: December 21, 1892
Died: March 15, 1983
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics