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Pessimism Is A Very Easy Way Out Because It Is A Short View Of Life. If You Look At What Is Happening Around Us Today, You Can't Help But Feel That Life Is A Terrible Complexity Of Problems. But If You Look Back A Few Thousand Years, You Realize That We Have Advanced Fantastically. If You Take A Long View, I Do Not See How You Can Be Pessimistic About The Future Of Mankind.

-Robertson Davies

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Pessimism Is A Very

Robertson Davies

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Pessimism Is A Very Easy Way Out Because It Is A Short View Of Life. If You Look At What Is Happening Around Us Today, You Can't Help But Feel That Life Is A Terrible Complexity Of Problems. But If You Look Back A Few Thousand Years, You Realize That We Have Advanced Fantastically. If You Take A Long View, I Do Not See How You Can Be Pessimistic About The Future Of Mankind.

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If I Had To Describe My Remarks This Evening Frankly As If I Were In Police Court And On Oath, So To Speak I Should Have To Call It A Ramble Over Several Subjects, Portions Of Which May Seem To You To Be Impudent, And Portions Of Which Will Be Ignorant, And Portions Of Which May Contrive To Be Both At Once.

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Energy And Curiosity Are The Lifeblood Of Universities; The Desire To Find Out, To Uncover, To Dig Deeper, To Puzzle Out Obscurities, Is The Spirit Of The University, And It Is A Channelling Of That Unresting Curiosity That Holds Mankind Together.

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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.

I Do Not Really Like Vacations. I Much Prefer An Occasional Day Off When I Do Not Feel Like Working. When I Am Confronted With A Whole Week In Which I Have Nothing To Do But Enjoy Myself I Do Not Know Where To Begin. To Me, Enjoyment Comes Fleetingly And Unheralded; I Cannot Determinedly Enjoy Myself For A Whole Week At A Time.

The Us, For Historical Reasons, Mistrusts The Concept Of A Welfare State, And This Mistrust Shows Itself Nakedly Under Present Us Government, Which Commits Uncounted Billions Of The National Wealth To What It Calls Defence, And Is Close-fisted In Giving Money To Plans Which Would Ameliorate The Grinding Poverty Of A Great Part Of Its People. Quite Simply, In Canada You Could Not Get Away With That.

When One Is Traveling, One Must Expect To Spend A Certain Amount Of Money Foolishly.

Tristan And Isolde Were Lucky To Die When They Did. They'd Have Been Sick Of All That Rubbish In A Year.

All Mothers Think Their Children Are Oaks, But The World Never Lacks For Cabbages.

Marriage Is A Framework To Preserve Friendship. It Is Valuable Because It Gives Much More Room To Develop Than Just Living Together. It Provides A Base From Which A Person Can Work At Understanding Himself And Another Person.

If We Seek The Pleasures Of Love, Passion Should Be Occasional, And Common Sense Continual.

Love Affairs Are For Emotional Sprinters; The Pleasures Of Love Are For The Emotional Marathoners.

Real Bibliophiles Do Not Put Their Books On Shelves For People To Look At Or Handle. They Have No Desire To Show Off Their Darlings, Or To Amaze People With Their Possessions. They Keep Their Prized Books Hidden Away In A Secret Spot To Which They Resort Stealthily, Like A Caliph Visiting His Harem, Or A Church Elder Sneaking Into A Bar. To Be A Book Collector Is To Combine The Worst Characteristics Of A Dope-fiend With Those Of A Miser.

When A Man Is Down On His Luck He Seems To Consume All He Can Get Of Coffee And Doughnuts.

Curiosity Is Part Of The Cement That Holds Society Together.

I Do Not 'get' Ideas; Ideas Get Me

Let People Alone. Let Them Find Their Way. Let Them Find Their Level And You May Sometimes Be Delighted And Astonished At The Extraordinary High Level To Which They'll Rise If They're Let Alone.

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.

I Cannot Imagine Any Boy Of Spirit Who Would Not Be Delighted To Play A Drunkard Even To Vomiting In Front Of His Sunday School. Indeed, The Vomiting Might Be The Chief Attraction Of The Role.

The Young Are Often Accused Of Exaggerating Their Troubles; They Do So, Very Often, In The Hope Of Making Some Impression Upon The Inertia And The Immovability Of The Selfish Old.

Humour Very Often Consists Of Shrewd Perceptions About People. It's Usually Fun At Someone's Expense. Nowadays If You're Funny At Anybody's Expense They Run To The Un And Say, "i Must Have An Ombudsman To Protect Me." You Hardly Dare Have A Shrewd Perception About Anybody.

After All, We Are Human Beings, And Not Creatures Of Infinite Possibilities.

The Clerisy Are Those Who Read For Pleasure, But Not For Idleness; Who Read For Pastime But Not To Kill Time; Who Love Books, But Do Not Live By Books

A Happy Childhood Has Spoiled Many A Promising Life.

A Librettist Is A Mere Drudge In The World Of Opera.

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If A Man Wants To Be Of The Greatest Possible Value To His Fellow-creature S Let Him Begin The Long, Solitary Task Of Perfecting Himself.

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In My Experience Tact Is Usually Worse Than The Brutalities Of Truth.

You're All Mad For Words. Words Are Just Farts From A Lot Of Fools Who Have Swallowed Too Many Books. Give Me Things!

Boredom And Stupidity And Patriotism, Especially When Combined, Are Three Of The Greatest Evils Of The World We Live In.

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To This Day I Am Indulgent Toward Orchestras That Are Trying To Lift Themselves In The World, While Critics Are Busy Assuring Them That They Are Not The Vienna Philharmonic And Never Will Be.

A Boy Is A Man In Miniature, And Though He May Sometimes Exhibit Notable Virtue, As Well As Characteristics That Seem To Be Charming Because They Are Childlike, He Is Also A Schemer, Self-seeker, Traitor, Judas, Crook, And Villain - In Short, A Man.

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.

Pessimism Is A Very Easy Way Out Because It Is A Short View Of Life. If You Look At What Is Happening Around Us Today, You Can't Help But Feel That Life Is A Terrible Complexity Of Problems. But If You Look Back A Few Thousand Years, You Realize That We Have Advanced Fantastically. If You Take A Long View, I Do Not See How You Can Be Pessimistic About The Future Of Mankind.

Too Much Traffic With A Quotation Book Begets A Conviction Of Ignorance In A Sensitive Reader. Not Only Is There A Mass Of Quotable Stuff He Never Quotes, But An Even Vaster Realm Of Which He Has Never Heard.

Canada, Having Few Indigenous Prejudices, Has Been Compelled To Import Them From Elsewhere, Duty-free, And It Is The Rare Canadian Who Is Not Shaken, At Some Time In The Year, By "old, Unhappy, Far-off Things / And Battles Long Ago", Like Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper. We Are A Nation Of Immigrants, And Not Happy In Our Minds.

The Ideal Companion In Bed Is A Good Book.

Secrets Are The Blood Of Life. Every Big Thing Is A Secret, Even When You Know It, Because You Never Know All Of It. If You Can Know Everything About Anything, It Is Not Worth Knowing.

The Love Of Truth Lies At The Root Of Much Humor.

Fiction Is Not Photography, It's Oil Painting.

Several Children Present Me With Scraps Of Paper For Autographs: Obviously Don't Know Who I Am And Don't Care. I Sign "jackie Collins" And They Go Away Quite Content.

The Inert Mind Is A Greater Danger Than The Inert Body, For It Overlays And Stifles The Desire To Live.

The Nature Of Happiness Is Such That Happiness Retreats The More Intensely You Pursue It.

There Is More To Marriage Than Four Bare Legs Under A Blanket.

The Average Politician Goes Through A Sentence Like A Man Exploring A Disused Mine Shaft-blind, Groping, Timorous And In Imminent Danger Of Cracking His Shins On A Subordinate Clause Or A Nasty Bit Of Subjunctive.

The Dog Is A Yes-animal. Very Popular With People Who Can't Afford A Yes Man.

This Is The Great Theatre Of Life. Admission Is Free, But The Taxation Is Mortal. You Come When You Can, And Leave When You Must. The Show Is Continuous. Goodnight.

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.

A Man Who Recognizes No God Is Probably Placing An Inordinate Value On Himself.

She Has Been Kissed As Often As A Police-court Bible, And By Much The Same Class Of People.

It Used To Be Fashionable For Authors To Have Their Pictures Taken With Dogs, But The Dogs Always Looked Like Models Hired From An Advertising Agency, And Probably Were.

I Think Of The Author As Somebody Who Goes Into The Marketplace And Puts Down His Rug And Says, 'i Will Tell You A Story' And Then He Passes The Hat.

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.

Few People Can See Genius In Someone Who Has Offended Them.

The Great Charm Of Cats Is Their Rampant Egotism, Their Devil-may-care Attitude Toward Responsibility, Their Disinclination To Earn An Honest Dollar.

Happiness Is Always A By-product. It Is Probably A Matter Of Temperament, And For Anything I Know It May Be Glandular. But It Is Not Something That Can Be Demanded From Life, And If You Are Not Happy You Had Better Stop Worrying About It And See What Treasures You Can Pluck From Your Own Brand Of Unhappiness.

Though Thousands Of People Indulge Themselves In It Regularly, And Even Develop A Taste For It, There Is No Doubt In My Mind (and That Of Scientists Whom I Employ To Prove It) That Work Is A Dangerous And Destructive Drug, And Should Be Called By Its Right Name, Which Is Fatigue.

In My Collection, To Me At Least, The Theatre Of The Past Lives Again And Those Long-dead Playwrights And Actors Have In Me An Enthralled Audience Of One, And I Applaud Them Across The Centuries.

Audience Of One

Moderation, The Golden Mean, The Aristonmetron, Is The Secret Of Wisdom And Of Happiness. But It Does Not Mean Embracing An Unadventurous Mediocrity; Rather It Is An Elaborate Balancing Act, A Feat Of Intellectual Skill Demanding Constant Vigilance. Its Aim Is A Reconciliation Of Opposites.

The Problem For A Paracelsian Physician Like Me Is That I See Diseases As Disguises In Which People Present Me With Their Wretchedness.

I Was Afraid And Did Not Know What I Feared, Which Is The Worst Kind Of Fear.

I Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was Really Literate Or Who Ever Really Loved Books Who Wanted To Suppress Any Of Them.

I Am Constantly Astonished By The People, Otherwise Intelligent, Who Think That Anything So Complex And Delicate As A Marriage Can Be Left To Take Care Of Itself. One Sees Them Fussing About All Sorts Of Lesser Concerns, Apparently Unaware That Side By Side With Them Often In The Same Bed A Human Creature Is Perishing From Lack Of Affection, Of Emotional Malnutrition.

No One Needs A Word Processor If He Has An Efficient Secretary.

Nothing Grows Old-fashioned So Fast As Modernity.

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.

Happiness Is Always A By-product. It Is Probably A Matter Of Temperament, And For Anything I Know It May Be Glandular.

We Tend To Think Human Knowledge As Progressive; Because We Know More And More, Our Parents And Grandparents Are Back Numbers. But A Contrary Theory Is Possible - That We Simply Recognize Different Things At Different Times And In Different Ways.

Nobody Who Looks As Though He Enjoyed Life Is Ever Called Distinguished, Though He Is A Man In A Million.

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.

Extraordinary People Survive Under The Most Terrible Circumstances And They Become More Extraordinary Because Of It.

Ordinary Extraordinary

The Clerisy Are Those Who Seek, And Find, Delight And Enlargement Of Life In Books. The Clerisy Are Those For Whom Reading Is A Personal Art.

"children, Don't Speak So Coarsely," Said Mr Webster, Who Had A Vague Notion That Some Supervision Should Be Exercised Over His Daughters' Speech, And That A Line Should Be Drawn, But Never Knew Quite When To Draw It. He Had Allowed His Daughters To Use His Library Without Restraint, And Nothing Is More Fatal To Maidenly Delicacy Of Speech Than The Run Of A Good Library.

Did You Know That Puritanism Went Hand In Hand With Dirt, That Oliver Cromwell Put A 100 Per Cent Tax On Soap And That The Repeal Of The Soap Tax Was One Of The Most Popular Acts Of Charles Ii At His Restoration?

The Whole World Is Burdened With Young Fogies. Old Men With Ossified Minds Are Easily Dealt With. But Men Who Look Young, Act Young, And Everlastingly Harp On The Fact They Are Young, But Who Nevertheless Think And Act With A Degree Of Caution Which Would Be Excessive In Their Grandfathers, Are The Curses Of The World.

The Attributes Of God Have Been Carefully Explored. But The Devil's Attributes Have Been Left Vague. I Think I've Found One Of Them. It Is He Who Puts The Prices On Things." "doesn't God Put A Price On Things?" "no. One Of His Attributes Is Magnanimity. But The Devil Is A Setter Of Prices, And A Usurer, As Well. You Buy From Him At An Agreed Price, But The Payments Are All On Time, And The Interest Is Charged On The Whole Of The Principal, Right Up To The Last Payment, However Much Of The Principal You Think You Have Paid Off In The Meantime.

People Are Not Saints Just Because They Haven't Got Much Money Or Education.

Whoever Declares A Child To Be "delicate" Thereby Crowns And Anoints A Tyrant.

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