Brooks Atkinson Quotes

Quotes about:

• Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.

  Brooks Atkinson

  New Year, Memories, Holiday

  79 Copy quote

• In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.

  Brooks Atkinson

  People, Atheism, Age

  Once Around the Sun (1951) 8 Feb.

  19 Copy quote

• Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Sea, Land, Pirate

  86 Copy quote

• Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Spiritual, Enemy, Bureaucracy

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  13 Copy quote

• This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Men, Risk, Dreamer

  12 Copy quote

• Poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Thinking, Poetry Is

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  12 Copy quote

• The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Life, Science, Views

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  8 Copy quote

• The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Responsibility, Men, Perfect

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  7 Copy quote

• People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Fear, Believe, Responsibility

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

  6 Copy quote

• Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Dream, Attitude, Sky

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

  9 Copy quote

• Writing is not an end in itself but life transmuted into radiance.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Book, Writing, Radiance

  Brooks Atkinson, Robert G. Lowery (1982). “Sean O'Casey, from times past”, Barnes & Noble

  3 Copy quote

• After each war there is a little less democracy left to save.

  Brooks Atkinson

  War, Democracy, Littles

  6 Copy quote

• Walking companions, like heroes, are difficult to pluck out of the crowd of acquaintances. Good dispositions, ready wit, friendly conversation serve well enough by the fireside but they prove insufficient in the field. For there you need transcendentalists-nothing less; you need poets, sages, humorists and natural philosophers.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Hero, Friendly, Sage

  6 Copy quote

• The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Humorous, Men, Years

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  8 Copy quote

• I have no objections to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Long, Justice, Diversity

  5 Copy quote

• In the ideal sense nothing is uninteresting; there are only uninterested people.

  Brooks Atkinson

  People, Perspective, Ideals

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  7 Copy quote

• There should be a dash of the amateur in criticism. For the amateur is a man of enthusiasm who has not settled down and is not habit bound.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Men, Criticism, Down And

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  3 Copy quote

• It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Graduation, College, Men

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  7 Copy quote

• The evil that men do lives on the front pages of greedy newspapers, but the good is oft interred apathetically inside.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Life, Men, Evil

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  6 Copy quote

• We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sound like heresy or plots.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Differences, People, Sound

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  6 Copy quote

• The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Photography, Artist, Giving

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

  9 Copy quote

• Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Guilt, Daily Life, Shame

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

  3 Copy quote

• Nothing a man writes can please him as profoundly as something he does with his back, shoulders and hands. For writing is an artificial activity. It is a lonely and private substitute for conversation.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Lonely, Writing, Men

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

  6 Copy quote

• It seems to me that the thing that makes the theater worthwhile is the fact that it attracts so many people with ideas who are constantly trying to share them with the public. Real art is illumination. It gives a man an idea he never had before or lights up ideas that were formless or only lurking in the shadows of his mind. It adds stature to life.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Art, Real, Men

  3 Copy quote

• The cheese and wine party has the form of friendship without the warmth and devotion. It is a device either for getting rid of social obligations hurriedly en mass, or for making overtures towards more serious social relationships, as in the etiquette of whoring.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Party, Wine, Serious

  3 Copy quote

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin