Robertson Davies Quotes - Page 8

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• To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Writing, Dope

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

  9 Copy quote

• Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Reading, People

  Robertson Davies (1997). “The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books”, Viking Press

  4 Copy quote

• One can always tell it's summer when one sees school teachers hanging about the streets idly, looking like cannibals during a shortage of missionaries.

  Robertson Davies

  Summer, Teacher, School

  4 Copy quote

• I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read.

  Robertson Davies

  Love, Moving, Book

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

  4 Copy quote

• If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life.

  Robertson Davies

  Life, Government, Stupidity

  "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks". Book by Robertson Davies, 1949.

  4 Copy quote

• Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

  Robertson Davies

  Political, Politics, Conservatism

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

  8 Copy quote

• The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.

  Robertson Davies

  Art, Drama, Intellectual

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

  8 Copy quote

• Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so.

  Robertson Davies

  Math, Fool, Enough

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

  7 Copy quote

• Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

  Robertson Davies

  Art, Suffering, Want

  "Somerset Maugham". 1982.

  8 Copy quote

• In a government like ours, the Crown is the abiding and unshakable element in government; politicians may come and go, but the Crown remains and certain aspects of our system pertain to it which are not dependent on any political party. In this sense, the Crown is the consecrated spirit of Canada.

  Robertson Davies

  Party, Government, Political

  Robertson Davies (1994). “Hunting Stuart and The Voice of the People”, p.7, Dundurn

  4 Copy quote

• These matters require what I think of as the Shakespearean cast of thought. That is to say, a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively skepticism about everything.... It keeps you constantly alert to every possibility.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Healthy, Matter

  Robertson Davies (1991). “Murther and Walking Spirits”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• Female beauty is an important Minor Sacrament which cannot be received too often; I am not at all sure that neglect of it does not constitute a sin of some kind.

  Robertson Davies

  Beauty, Kindness, Important

  "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks".

  4 Copy quote

• He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.

  Robertson Davies

  Business, Men, People

  Robertson Davies (1983). “The Deptford trilogy”, Penguin Mass Market

  6 Copy quote

• Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.

  Robertson Davies

  Love, Years, Sick

  4 Copy quote

• Women say . . . that if men had to have babies there would soon be no babies in the world. . . . I have sometimes wished that some clever man would actually have a baby in some new labor-saving way; then all men could take it up, and one of the oldest taunts in the world would be stilled forever.

  Robertson Davies

  Baby, Clever, Men

  8 Copy quote

• The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Tasks, Difficult

  4 Copy quote

• The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.

  Robertson Davies

  Past, Mirrors, Order

  "A Voice from the Attic". Book by Robertson Davies, 1960.

  6 Copy quote

• And why should it not be terrifying? A little terror, in my view, is good for the soul, when it is terror in the face of a noble object.

  Robertson Davies

  Fear, Views, Soul

  Robertson Davies (1976). “World of wonders”, Penguin Books, 1977

  4 Copy quote

• "Civilization rests on two things," said Hitzig; "the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?"

  Robertson Davies

  Discovery, Civilization, Two

  "The Cornish Trilogy".

  10 Copy quote

• I don't suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn't exist. He's above jokes. But the devil isn't. That's one of his most endearing qualities.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, People, Laughing

  Robertson Davies (1976). “World of wonders”, Penguin Books, 1977

  4 Copy quote

• Nobody who looks as though he enjoyed life is ever called distinguished, though he is a man in a million.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Looks, Life Is

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

  4 Copy quote

• I have no skills with machines. I fear them, and because I cannot help attributing human qualities to them, I suspect that they hate me and will kill me if they can.

  Robertson Davies

  Hate, Technology, Skills

  Robertson Davies (1997). “The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books”, Viking Press

  4 Copy quote

• The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to find refreshment in doing so... That is a dark frivolity, but still frivolity.

  Robertson Davies

  Dark, America, People

  17 Copy quote

• Very often when I am introduced to women, I think, What is she really like behind the disguise which she wears? And very often I discover that she is pleasant enough, and probably would expand and glow if she received enough affection.

  Robertson Davies

  Women, Thinking, Affection

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

  4 Copy quote

• Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind.

  Robertson Davies

  Class, People, Mind

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

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