Great Author Quotes

• A great book should leave you with many experiences.

  William Styron

  Book, Should, Inspirational Reading

  William Styron, James L. W. West (1985). “Conversations with William Styron”, p.12, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

  Albert Einstein

  Funny, Hilarious, Education

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.32, St. Martin's Press

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• Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Confusing, Easy

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• Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Goodbye, Art, Business

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Complete Poems of Longfellow”, Library of Alexandria

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• Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Writing, Judging, Down And

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• I can’t write five words but that I change seven.

  Dorothy Parker

  Writing, Revision, Seven

  Dorothy Parker, Stuart Y. Silverstein (2009). “Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• Seán Manchester is, unsurprisingly, very well read in both classical and more recent sources on vampires and vampirism, and cites them with great authority while taking the reader through a brief tour of vampire lore and mythology. This is a book I'd recommend to anybody with an interest in the author or vampires. The parts which deal with vampires are obviously based on years of substantial research and personal experience.

  Joe McNally

  Book, Years, Vampire

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• You should not put too much trust in any unproved conjecture, even if it has been propounded by a great authority, even if it has been propounded by yourself. You should try to prove it or disprove it.

  George Polya

  Trying, Too Much, Authority

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• There is one Quality, which has somewhat so heavenly in it; that by so much the more we are possess'd of it, by so much the more we draw nearer to the Great Author of Nature.

  Eliza Haywood

  Quality, Draws, Heavenly

  Eliza Haywood (1999). “Selections from The Female Spectator”, p.72, Oxford University Press

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• Why aren't more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books aren't within everybody's reach.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Life, Success, Country

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• Great editors do not discover nor produce great authors; great authors create and produce great publishers.

  John Farrar

  Editors, Produce, Publishers

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• Great old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get his own belief.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Country, Book, Mean

  "Lives of Northern Worthies".

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• The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals his feelings with undisputed authority.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Art, Inspiration, Practice

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 653-54, Curiosities of Literature, 1922.

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• The great authors share their souls with us- "literally.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Soul, Share

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• Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one's first productions.

  Andre Maurois

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe; who presides in the councils of nations; and whose providential aid can supply every human defect; that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good.

  George Washington

  God, Government, People

  First Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789. "The Writings of George Washington", edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, Volume 30, pp. 292-293,

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• There can be no real conflict between the two Books of the Great Author. Both are revelations made by Him to man,-the earlier telling of God-made harmonies coming up from the deep past, and rising to their height when man appeared, the later teaching man's relations to his Maker, and speaking of loftier harmonies in the eternal future.

  James Dwight Dana

  Real, Future, Book

  James Dwight Dana (1875). “Manual of Geology: Treating of the Principles of the Science with Special Reference to American Geological History”, p.770

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• All great authors are seers.

  George Henry Lewes

  Seers

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

  Andre Gide

  Respect, Differences, Generations

  Andre Gide (2017). “Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality”, p.93, Routledge

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• Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.

  Ross Perot

  Writing, Men, Two

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• I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.

  Mark Twain

  Sorry, Greatness, Names

  Mark Twain's speech to the Savage Club (June 9, 1899), as quoted in "Mark Twain's Speeches" edited by William Dean Howells (pp. 277-278), 1910.

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• No Man has a more perfect reliance on the all-wise and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks his aid more necessary...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf....In war He directed the sword, and in peace, He has ruled in our councils.

  George Washington

  Wise, Gratitude, Powerful

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• There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.

  Hannah Arendt

  Past, Able, Oblivion

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• Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Time, Age, Youth

  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cyrus R. Edmonds (1863). “Three Books of Offices; Or, Moral Duties: Also His Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age; Laelius, an Essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the Duties of a Magistrate. Literally Translated, with Notes, Designed to Exhibit a Comparative View of the Opinions of Cicero, and Those of Modern Moralists and Ethical Philosophers”, p.245

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• Learn to love humility, for it will cover all your sins. All sins are repulsive before God, but the most repulsive of all is pride of the heart. Do not consider yourself learned and wise; otherwise, all your efforts will be destroyed, and your boat will reach the harbor empty. If you have great authority, do not threaten anyone with death. Know that, according to nature, you too are susceptible to death, and that every soul sheds its body as its final garment.

  Anthony of Padua

  God, Wise, Heart

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