Andrew Lang Quotes

• An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.

  Andrew Lang

  Funny, Humorous, Men

  51 Copy quote

• Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the comtemplative life. He regards the wheel of existence from without, like the Buddha.

  Andrew Lang

  Cat, Animal, Wheels

  14 Copy quote

• Of all the minor creatures of mythology, fairies are the most beautiful, the most numerous, the most memorable.

  Andrew Lang

  Beautiful, Memorable, Fairy

  19 Copy quote

• You can cover a great deal of country in books.

  Andrew Lang

  Country, Book, Beer

  Andrew Lang (2013). “Delphi Works of Andrew Lang (Illustrated)”, p.8596, Delphi Classics

  18 Copy quote

• O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers! And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

  Andrew Lang

  Summer, Weed, Beach

  Andrew Lang “The Selected Works of Andrew Lang”, Library of Alexandria

  17 Copy quote

• I am the batsman and the bat, / I am the bowler and the ball, / The umpire, the pavilion cat, / The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

  Andrew Lang

  Cat, Umpires, Bats

  'Brahma'.

  17 Copy quote

• I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, for a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

  Andrew Lang

  Flower, Book, Garden

  Andrew Lang “The Selected Works of Andrew Lang”, Library of Alexandria

  13 Copy quote

• He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.

  Andrew Lang

  Opportunity, Tongue, Public Speaking

  8 Copy quote

• Life's more amusing than we thought.

  Andrew Lang

  Funny Life, Amusing

  Andrew Lang (2014). “Rhymes à la Mode”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

  11 Copy quote

• Why should I laugh?' asked the old man. 'Madness in youth is true wisdom. Go, young man, follow your dream, and if you do not find the happiness that you seek, at any rate you will have had the happiness of seeking it.

  Andrew Lang

  Dream, Men, Laughing

  Andrew Lang, Henry Justice Ford, Lancelot Speed (1966). “The Red Fairy Book”, p.260, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

• Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-postsfor support rather than illumination.

  Andrew Lang

  Illumination, Drunk, Support

  1910 Speech. Quoted in Alan L Mackay The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977).

  6 Copy quote

• A book is a friend whose face is constantly changing. If you read it when you are recovering from an illness, and return to it years after, it is changed surely, with the change in yourself.

  Andrew Lang

  Book, Years, Faces

  Andrew Lang (1892). “The Library”, p.11, Library of Alexandria

  6 Copy quote

• There's a joy without canker or cark,
  There's a pleasure eternally new,
  'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark
  Of china that's ancient and blue.

  Andrew Lang

  Blue, Joy, Ancient

  Andrew Lang (2015). “Ballads in Blue China”, p.35, Library of Alexandria

  13 Copy quote

• Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who really care for books read all of them. There is no other course.

  Andrew Lang

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Andrew Lang (2012). “Adventures Among Books (Annotated Edition)”, p.21, Jazzybee Verlag

  4 Copy quote

• And remember that the danger which is most to be feared is never the danger we are most afraid of.

  Andrew Lang

  Fear, Remember, Danger

  "The Complete Coloured Fairy Books".

  4 Copy quote

• Again, if there are really no fairies, why do people believe in them, all over the world? The ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the Hindoos, and the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no fairies, that so many different peoples would have seen and heard them?

  Andrew Lang

  Believe, People, Greek

  Andrew Lang (2015). “The Yellow Fairy Book”, p.4, Booklassic

  9 Copy quote

• Among the various forms of science which are reaching and affecting the new popular tradition, we have reckoned Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, Anthropology has herself but recently emerged from that limbo of the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining.

  Andrew Lang

  Research, Tradition, Enough

  Andrew Lang (2012). “The Making Of Religion (Annotated Edition)”, p.50, Jazzybee Verlag

  10 Copy quote

• Either a wise man will not go into bunkers, or, being in, he will endure such things as befall him with patience.

  Andrew Lang

  Wise, Men, Bunkers

  5 Copy quote

• I don't think the idea of homosexuality is really taboo any more. Our culture is evolving. This is an exciting time to be living.

  Andrew Lang

  Thinking, Ideas, Culture

  4 Copy quote

• Of all animals, he alone attains to the Contemplative Life.

  Andrew Lang

  Cat, Animal, Contemplative Life

  4 Copy quote

• . . . had I a river I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, but where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'free fishing' spells no fishing at all.

  Andrew Lang

  Sea, Fishing, Rivers

  Andrew Lang (2014). “Introduction to the Compleat Angler”, p.26, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

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