Robertson Davies Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• Very few [doctors] are men of science in any very serious sense; they're men of technique.

  Robertson Davies

  Science, Men, Doctors

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• "Children, don't speak so coarsely," said Mr Webster, who had a vague notion that some supervision should be exercised over his daughters' speech, and that a line should be drawn, but never knew quite when to draw it. He had allowed his daughters to use his library without restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library.

  Robertson Davies

  Daughter, Running, Children

  "Tempest-Tost" by Robertson Davies, (Part 1), 1951.

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• That was what stuck in the craws of all the good women of Deptford: Mrs Dempster had not been raped, as a decent woman would have been-no, she had yielded because a man wanted her. The subject was not one that could be freely discussed even among intimates, but it was understood without saying that if women began to yield for such reasons as that, marriage and society would not last long. Any man who spoke up for Mrs Dempster probably believed in Free Love. Certainly he associated sex with pleasure, and that put him in a class with filthy thinkers like Cece Athelstan.

  Robertson Davies

  Love, Sex, Men

  Robertson Davies (1996). “Fifth business”, Penguin, 1996

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• A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

  Robertson Davies

  World, Opera, Mere

  Robertson Davies (1999). “Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre”, Penguin Group USA

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• I think we should see whether we are wise trying to educate everybody to a high standard the way we are trying to do now. There has to be a high level of education so everybody is literate, but whether university education is necessary for everyone is open to question.

  Robertson Davies

  Wise, Thinking, Trying

  Robertson Davies, J. Madison Davis (1989). “Conversations with Robertson Davies”, p.66, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They're always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: "Maybe I'm not worthy of an epiphany.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Sky, People

  Robertson Davies, J. Madison Davis (1989). “Conversations with Robertson Davies”, p.160, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.

  Robertson Davies

  Work, Names, People

  Robertson Davies (1986). “The papers of Samuel Marchbanks”, Viking, 1986

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• The truth is that art does not teach; it makes you feel, and any teaching that may arise from the feeling is an extra, and must not be stressed too much. In the modern world, and in Canada as much as anywhere, we are obsessed with the notion that to think is the highest achievement of mankind, but we neglect the fact that thought untouched by feeling is thin, delusive, treacherous stuff.

  Robertson Davies

  Art, Teaching, Thinking

  Robertson Davies (1993). “Fortune, My Foe and Eros at Breakfast”, p.8, Dundurn

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• Women always think that if they tell a man not to be pompous that will shut him up, but I am an old hand at that game. I know that if a man bides his time his moment will come.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Thinking, Games

  "High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories". Book by Robertson Davies, 1982.

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• Like it or not, to reach middle age with less money or less prestige than our father had is somewhat to lose face. Stupid of course, when put like that, but who is prepared to argue that we are not stupid in several important ways?

  Robertson Davies

  Stupid, Father, Important

  "Haunted by Halloween". The New York Times, October 31, 1990.

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• I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing.

  Robertson Davies

  Fighting, Thinking, People

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• The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights, actors and audiences - a figure dreaded, and occasionally comic, but never welcome, never loved.

  Robertson Davies

  Passionate, Actors, Welcome

  Robertson Davies (1961). “The Personal Art: Reading to Good Purpose”, London : Secker & Warburg

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• A big man is always accused of gluttony, whereas a wizened or osseous man can eat like a refugee at every meal, and no one ever notices his greed.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Greed, Meals

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.

  Robertson Davies

  Truth, Forever, Want

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• I came at last to a recognition of myself as, in part, a Tom Sawyer who wanted everything done according to the rules of romantic fiction, and complicated simple solutions with his absurd adolescent, book-born nonsense.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Simple, Fiction

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• Comparatively few people know what a million dollars actually is. To the majority it is a gaseous concept, swelling or decreasing as the occasion suggests.

  Robertson Davies

  People, Dollars, Majority

  Robertson Davies (1992). “The Cornish Trilogy”, Penguin Group USA

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• My dear fellow, my whole life is moved by the principle that the one thing which is more important than peace is music. It is because I believe that I am poor.

  Robertson Davies

  Believe, Important, Principles

  Robertson Davies (1952). “Tempest-tost”, Clarke Irwin

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• I still have trouble identifying grammatical structures by name, though I know them as matters of usage.

  Robertson Davies

  Names, Matter, Trouble

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• I just am a Canadian. It is not a thing which you can escape from. It is like having blue eyes

  Robertson Davies

  Eye, Blue, Blue Eyes

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• Did you know that Puritanism went hand in hand with dirt, that Oliver Cromwell put a 100 per cent tax on soap and that the repeal of the soap tax was one of the most popular acts of Charles II at his Restoration?

  Robertson Davies

  Hands, Restoration, Dirt

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• No, it's the musicians and I must say they are an accomplished bunch, but odd, as musicians tend to be. Is it the vibration from their instruments, do you suppose, working on the brain? All that fraught buzzing?

  Robertson Davies

  Brain, Musician, Vibrations

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

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• To this day I am indulgent toward orchestras that are trying to lift themselves in the world, while critics are busy assuring them that they are not the Vienna Philharmonic and never will be.

  Robertson Davies

  Trying, Vienna, World

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

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• The attributes of God have been carefully explored. But the Devil's attributes have been left vague. I think I've found one of them. It is he who puts the prices on things." "Doesn't God put a price on things?" "No. One of his attributes is magnanimity. But the Devil is a setter of prices, and a usurer, as well. You buy from him at an agreed price, but the payments are all on time, and the interest is charged on the whole of the principal, right up to the last payment, however much of the principal you think you have paid off in the meantime.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Devil, Lasts

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• "There is no disputing about tastes," says the old saw. In my experience there is little else.

  Robertson Davies

  Littles, Taste, Saws

  Robertson Davies (1967). “Marchbanks' Almanack”, Toronto ; Montreal : McClelland and Stewart

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• I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

  Robertson Davies

  Country, Scotch, Desire

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