Great Literature Quotes

• When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

  James Earl Jones

  Drama, Writing, Black History

  James Earl Jones, Penelope Niven (1993). “James Earl Jones: Voices and Silences”, Scribner Book Company

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• So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Inspirational, Tattoo, Time

  The Great Gatsby ch. 9 (1925).

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• What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

  E. M. Forster

  Reading, Men, Literature

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

  Ezra Pound

  Inspirational, Hygiene, Degrees

  How to Read pt. 2 (1931)

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• It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

  Henry James

  History, Historical, Literature

  Hawthorne ch. 1 (1879)

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• Love is not breathlessness; It is not excitement; It is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love”, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Romantic, Sad Love, Art

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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Sad Love, Love Is, Literature History

  FaceBook post by Louis de Bernieres from Dec 18, 2011

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• You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Adventure, Names

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 1 (1884)

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• Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning ---

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Running, Morning, Years

  Great Gatsby (1925) ch. 9

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

  Charles Dickens

  Spring, Communication, Winter

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

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• Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Running, Green Lights, Arms

  The Great Gatsby ch. 9 (1925).

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• Feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Remember, Great Gatsby Love, Great Father

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Book House (2016). “F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Complete Novels (Book House)”, p.383, Book House

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• In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Father, Years, Advice

  Great Gatsby (1925) ch. 1

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• Whenever you feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Thankful, Kindness, Attitude

  "The Great Gatsby". Book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.

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• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

  George Orwell

  Nineteen, April, Cold

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

  Jane Austen

  Inspirational, Funny, Relationship

  Pride and Prejudice ch. 1 (1813)

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Time, Cities

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

  Saint Augustine

  Love, Art, Passion

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• It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

  Jeff VanderMeer

  Literature, World, Born

  Jeff Vandermeer (2007). “City of Saints and Madmen”, p.261, Spectra

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• He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Shining, Fiction

  Stephen King (2008). “The Shining”, p.282, Anchor

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• Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising. The rules which we make up at the beginning seem ordinary and inevitable, but it is impossible to foresee their consequences. These have only been found out by long study, extending over many centuries. Much of our knowledge is due to a comparatively few great mathematicians such as Newton, Euler, Gauss, or Riemann; few careers can have been more satisfying than theirs. They have contributed something to human thought even more lasting than great literature, since it is independent of language.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Independent, Careers, Long

  "Mathematical Maxims and Minims". Book by Nicholas J. Rose, 1986.

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• Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.

  William Butler Yeats

  Pieces, Literature, Becoming

  William Butler Yeats (2017). “Ideas of Good and Evil”, p.79, Litres

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• And in down times it shakes a lot of the bad SF out, a lot the stuff that was bought for literary reasons, which is neither entertaining nor great literature.

  Jerry Pournelle

  Literature, Stuff, Reason

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• Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.

  Robert Benchley

  Spring, Writing, Soul

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• I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

  Kathy Reichs

  Writing, Character, People

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