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To Instruct Calls For Energy, And To Remain Almost Silent, But Watchful And Helpful, While Students Instruct Themselves, Calls For Even Greater Energy. To See Someone Fall (which Will Teach Him Not To Fall Again) When A Word From You Would Keep Him On His Feet But Ignorant Of An Important Danger, Is One Of The Tasks Of The Teacher That Calls For Special Energy, Because Holding In Is More Demanding Than Crying Out.

-Robertson Davies

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To Instruct Calls For

Robertson Davies

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To Instruct Calls For Energy, And To Remain Almost Silent, But Watchful And Helpful, While Students Instruct Themselves, Calls For Even Greater Energy. To See Someone Fall (which Will Teach Him Not To Fall Again) When A Word From You Would Keep Him On His Feet But Ignorant Of An Important Danger, Is One Of The Tasks Of The Teacher That Calls For Special Energy, Because Holding In Is More Demanding Than Crying Out.

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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.

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Whether You Are Really Right Or Not Doesn't Matter; It's The Belief That Counts.

To Be Apt In Quotation Is A Splendid And Dangerous Gift. Splendid, Because It Ornaments A Man's Speech With Other Men's Jewels; Dangerous, For The Same Reason.

It Is Lost, Lovely Child, Somewhere In The Ragbag That I Laughingly Refer To As My Memory.

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

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.

I Don't Suppose God Laughs At The People Who Think He Doesn't Exist. He's Above Jokes. But The Devil Isn't. That's One Of His Most Endearing Qualities.

Oho, Now I Know What You Are. You Are An Advocate Of Useful Knowledge.... Well, Allow Me To Introduce Myself To You As An Advocate Of Ornamental Knowledge. You Like The Mind To Be A Neat Machine, Equipped To Work Efficiently, If Narrowly, And With No Extra Bits Or Useless Parts. I Like The Mind To Be A Dustbin Of Scraps Of Brilliant Fabric, Odd Gems, Worthless But Fascinating Curiosities, Tinsel, Quaint Bits Of Carving, And A Reasonable Amount Of Healthy Dirt. Shake The Machine And It Goes Out Of Order; Shake The Dustbin And It Adjusts Itself Beautifully To Its New Position.

My Curiosity Was In No Way Cruel. Deviations From The Commonplace Attracted Me Strongly, As They Still Do; And To Me The Hermaphrodite And The Living Skeleton Were Interesting For The Same Reason As Was Creatore, Or The Resplendent Guardsmen Of The Bands - Because Such People Did Not Often Come My Way, And I Hoped That They Might Impart Some Great Revelation To Me, Some Insight Which Would Help Me To A Clearer Understanding Of The World About Me.

I See Canada As A Country Torn Between A Very Northern, Rather Extraordinary, Mystical Spirit Which It Fears And Its Desire To Present Itself To The World As A Scotch Banker.

One Can Always Tell It's Summer When One Sees School Teachers Hanging About The Streets Idly, Looking Like Cannibals During A Shortage Of Missionaries.

Clarity Is Not A Characteristic Of The Human Spirit.

Characteristics

If I Had My Way Books Would Not Be Written In English, But In An Exceedingly Difficult Secret Language That Only Skilled Professional Readers And Story-tellers Could Interpret. Then People Would Have To Go To Public Halls And Pay Good Prices To Hear. . .

"there Is No Disputing About Tastes," Says The Old Saw. In My Experience There Is Little Else.

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

Speakers' Nerves Affect Them In Various Ways. Some Tremble, Some Become Frenzied. I Lose All Confidence, And Suffer From A Leaden Oppression That Makes Me Wonder Why I Ever Agreed To Speak At All; The Tomb And The Conqueror Worm Seem Preferable To Delivering The Stupid And Piffling Speech I Have So Carefully Prepared.

The Art Of The Quoter Is To Know When To Stop.

Conversation In Its True Meaning Isn't All Wagging The Tongue; Sometimes It Is A Deeply Shared Silence.

He Was A Genius - That Is To Say, A Man Who Does Superlatively And Without Obvious Effort Something That Most People Cannot Do By The Uttermost Exertion Of Their Abilities.

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

I Think We're Living In An Age Which Despises Humanity And Despises Bravery And Doesn't Need Bravery Because Modern Warfare Has Rather Gone Beyond Bravery. It Is A Kind Of Warfare Where People Are Fighting Enemies They Never See, Killing People Of Whom They Know Nothing.

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

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

Sometimes There Was A Serious Article On A Hot Topic, And I Especially Remember One By A Bishop Headed "is Nudity Salacious?" The Bishop Thought It Need Not Be, If Encountered In The Proper Spirit, But He Gave A Lot Of Enlightening Examples Of Conditions Under Which It Might Be, In His Word, "inflammatory." There Wasn't Much Nudity In Our Neck Of The Woods, And I Enjoyed That Article Tremendously.

Women Always Think That If They Tell A Man Not To Be Pompous That Will Shut Him Up, But I Am An Old Hand At That Game. I Know That If A Man Bides His Time His Moment Will Come.

And Why Should It Not Be Terrifying? A Little Terror, In My View, Is Good For The Soul, When It Is Terror In The Face Of A Noble Object.

It Is Odd How All Men Develop The Notion, As They Grow Older, That Their Mothers Were Wonderful Cooks. I Have Yet To Meet A Man Who Will Admit That His Mother Was A Kitchen Assassin And Nearly Poisoned Him.

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Art Is Wine And Experience Is The Brandy We Distill From It.

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.

I Do Not 'get' Ideas; Ideas Get Me

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I Was Not Sure I Wanted To Issue Orders To Life; I Rather Liked The Greek Notion Of Allowing Chance To Take A Formative Hand In My Affairs.

There Is No Nonsense So Gross That Society Will Not, At Some Time, Make A Doctrine Of It And Defend It With Every Weapon Of Communal Stupidity.

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The First Principle, When You Don't Know Anything About The Subject Of A Thesis, Is To Let The Candidate Talk, Nodding Now And Then With An Ambiguous Smile. He Thinks You Know, And Are Counting His Mistakes, And It Unnerves Him... The Second Principle Of Conducting An Oral, ... Is To Pretend Ignorance, And Ask For Explanations Of Very Simple Points. Of Course Your Ignorance Is Real, But The Examinee Thinks You Are Being Subtle, And That He Is Making An Ass Of Himself, And This Rattles Him.

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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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"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.

The Victorians Have Been Immoderately Praised, And Immoderately Blamed, And Surely It Is Time We Formed Some Reasonable Picture Of Them? There Was Their Courageous, Intellectually Adventurous Side, Their Greedy And Inhuman Side, Their Superbly Poetic Side, Their Morally Pretentious Side, Their Tea And Buttered Toast Side, And Their Champagne And Skittles Side. Much Like Ourselves, In Fact, Though Rather Dirtier.

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If You Attack Stupidity You Attack An Entrenched Interest With Friends In Government And Every Walk Of Public Life.

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Only A Fool Expects To Be Happy All The Time.

This Is One Of The Cruelties Of The Theatre Of Life; We All Think Of Ourselves As Stars And Rarely Recognize It When We Are Indeed Mere Supporting Characters Or Even Supernumeraries.

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

The Wit Of A Graduate Student Is Like Champagne. Canadian Champagne.

All Art Is Holy. Not That It Is All Long-faced And Miserable; It Can Be Wild And Wooly. But If It Transforms You, It Is Art. And It Is Holy.

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

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

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Authors Like Cats Because They Are Such Quiet, Lovable, Wise Creatures, And Cats Like Authors For The Same Reasons.

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

Fanaticism Is Overcompensation For Doubt.

The Drama May Be Called That Part Of Theatrical Art Which Lends Itself Most Readily To Intellectual Discussion: What Is Left Is Theater.

I Saw Corpses, And Grew Used To Their Unimportant Look, For A Dead Man Without Any Of The Panoply Of Death Is A Desperately Insignificant Object.

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The Division Between Art And Deviousness And Crime Is Sometimes As Thin As A Cigarette Paper.

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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.

Childhood May Have Periods Of Great Happiness, But It Also Has Times That Must Simply Be Endured. Childhood At Its Best Is A Form Of Slavery Tempered By Affection.

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I Just Am A Canadian. It Is Not A Thing Which You Can Escape From. It Is Like Having Blue Eyes

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Not Enough Attention Is Paid To The Negative Side Of Fashion. Great Effort Is Exerted To Make People Look Smart, But Somebody Should Face The Fact That A Lot Of People Never Will Be Smart, And That They Should Be Given Some Assistance In Maintaining Their Fascinating Dowdiness.

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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.

To Be A Book-collector Is To Combine The Worst Characteristics Of A Dope Fiend With Those Of A Miser.

It Is Those Pent-up, Craving Children Who Make All The Wars And All The Horrors And All The Art And All The Beauty And Discovery In Life, Because They Are Trying To Achieve What Lay Beyond Their Grasp Before They Were Five Years Old.

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.

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

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.

It Is A Waste Of Time To Dissipate One's Moral Zeal In Disapproving Of Royal Persons Who Have Mistresses.

I Think We Should See Whether We Are Wise Trying To Educate Everybody To A High Standard The Way We Are Trying To Do Now. There Has To Be A High Level Of Education So Everybody Is Literate, But Whether University Education Is Necessary For Everyone Is Open To Question.

Inactivity And Deprivation Of All Accustomed Stimulus Is Not Rest; It Is A Preparation For The Tomb

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.

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

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

The Egotist Is All Surface; Underneath Is A Pulpy Mess And A Lot Of Self-doubt. But The Egoist May Be Yielding And Even Deferential In Things He Doesn't Consider Important; In Anything That Touches His Core He Is Remorseless.

The Quality Of What Is Said Inevitably Influences The Way In Which It Is Said, However Inexperienced The Writer.

Imagination Is A Good Horse To Carry You Over The Ground - Not A Flying Carpet To Set You Free From Probability.

It Is Not Always Easy To Diagnose. The Simplest Form Of Stupidity - The Mumbling, Nose-picking, Stolid Incomprehension - Can Be Detected By Anyone. But The Stupidity Which Disguises Itself As Thought, And Which Talks So Glibly And Eloquently, Indeed Never Stops Talking, In Every Walk Of Life Is Not So Easy To Identify, Because It Marches Under A Formidable Name, Which Few Dare Attack. It Is Called Popular Opinion.

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

Great Drama, Drama That May Reach The Alchemical Level, Must Have Dimension And Its Relevance Will Take Care Of Itself. Writing About Aids Rather Than The Cocktail Set, Or Possibly The Fairy Kingdom, Will Not Guarantee Importance. . . . The Old Comment That All Periods Of Time Are At An Equal Distance From Eternity Says Much, And Pondering On It Will Lead To Alchemical Theatre While Relevance Becomes Old Hat.

When Irony First Makes Itself Known In A Young Man's Life, It Can Be Like His First Experience Of Getting Drunk; He Has Met With A Powerful Thing Which He Does Not Know How To Handle.

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.

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

But As A Skeptic I Am Dubious About Science As About Everything Else, Unless The Scientist Is Himself A Skeptic, And Few Of Them Are. The Stench Of Formaldehyde May Be As Potent As The Whiff Of Incense In Stimulating A Naturally Idolatrous Understanding.

They're All So Highly Educated, You Know. Education Is A Great Shield Against Experience. It Offers So Much, Ready-made And All From The Best Shops, That There's A Temptation To Miss Your Own Life In Pursuing The Lives Of Your Betters. It Makes You Wise In Some Ways, But It Can Make You A Blindfolded Fool In Others.

The Book Forces Itself Into My Mind When I Am Lugging Furniture, Or Pulling Weeds.

It Seemed To Me As If The Stones Sang, In The Strangest Voices, In The Language Of Ultima Thule.

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.

Some Countries You Love. Some Countries You Hate. Canada Is A Country You Worry About.

If You're Going To Do Something That Looks Evil, Don't Smear It With Icing And Pretend It's Good; Just Bloody Well Do It And Keep Your Eyes Peeled.

We Have Educated Ourselves Into A World From Which Wonder, And He Fear And Dread And Splendor And Freedom Of Wonder Have Been Banished. Of Course Wonder Is Costly. You Couldn't Incorporate It Into A Modern State, Beacuse It Is The Antithesis Of The Anxiously Worshiped Security Which Is What A Modern State Is Asked To Give. Wonder Is Marvellous But It Is Also Cruel, Cruel, Cruel. It Is Undemocratic, Discriminatory And Pitiless.

As The Tragic Writer Rids Us Of What Is Petty And Ignoble In Our Nature, So Also The Humorist Rids Us Of What Is Cautious, Calculating, And Priggish--about Half Of Our Social Conscience, Indeed. Both Of Them Permit Us, In Blessed Moments Of Revelation, To Soar Above The Common Level Of Our Lives.

And I Say To You That If You Bring Curiosity To Your Work It Will Cease To Be Merely A Job And Become A Door Through Which You Enter The Best That Life Has To Give You.

Fiction Is Not Photography, It's Oil Painting.

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.

Never Harbor Grudges; They Sour Your Stomach And Do No Harm To Anyone Else.

Every Man Is Wise When Attacked By A Mad Dog; Fewer When Pursued By A Mad Woman; Only The Wisest Survive When Attacked By A Mad Notion.

The Little Boy Nodded At The Peony And The Peony Seemed To Nod Back. The Little Boy Was Neat, Clean And Pretty. The Peony Was Unchaste, Dishevelled As Peonies Must Be, And At The Height Of Its Beauty.(...) Every Hour Is Filled With Such Moments, Big With Significance For Someone.

Happiness Is A By-product. It Is Not A Primary Product Of Life. It Is A Thing Which You Suddenly Realize You Have Because You're So Delighted To Be Doing Something Which Perhaps Has Nothing Whatever To Do With Happiness.

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.

No People In The World Can Make You Feel So Small As The English.

The People Who Fear Humor - And They Are Many - Are Suspicious Of Its Power To Present Things In Unexpected Lights, To Question Received Opinions And To Suggest Unforeseen Possibilities.

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

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

Ordinary Extraordinary

Although There May Be Nothing New Under The Sun, What Is Old Is New To Us And So Rich And Astonishing That We Never Tire Of It. If We Do Tire Of It, If We Lose Our Curiosity, We Have Lost Something Of Infinite Value, Because To A High Degree It Is Curiosity That Gives Meaning And Savour To Life.

Are You Going To Be Just Kind Of A Walking Monument To A Job, Or Are You Going To Have Some Kind Of Really Significant Inner Life Of Your Own? Because The External Things The Job, The House, The This, The That Do Not Really Fill The Place Inside.

My Dear Fellow, My Whole Life Is Moved By The Principle That The One Thing Which Is More Important Than Peace Is Music. It Is Because I Believe That I Am Poor.

Anybody Who Has Had Experience Of Poetesses Knows That They May Forgive A Punch On The Jaw, But Never A Suggestion That They Would Be Wiser To Give Up Versifying.

The Critic Is The Duenna In The Passionate Affair Between Playwrights, Actors And Audiences - A Figure Dreaded, And Occasionally Comic, But Never Welcome, Never Loved.

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.

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.

One Learns One’s Mystery At The Price Of One’s Innocence.

Like It Or Not, To Reach Middle Age With Less Money Or Less Prestige Than Our Father Had Is Somewhat To Lose Face. Stupid Of Course, When Put Like That, But Who Is Prepared To Argue That We Are Not Stupid In Several Important Ways?

Everything Matters. The Universe Is Approximately Fifteen Billion Years Old, And I Swear That In All That Time, Nothing Has Ever Happened That Has Not Mattered, Has Not Contributed In Some Way To The Totality.

The Ideal Companion In Bed Is A Good Book.

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

I Object To Being Told That I Am Saving Daylight When My Reason Tells Me That I Am Doing Nothing Of The Kind... At The Back Of The Daylight Saving Scheme I Detect The Bony, Blue-fingered Hand Of Puritanism, Eager To Push People Into Bed Earlier, And Get Them Up Earlier, To Make Them Healthy, Wealthy And Wise In Spite Of Themselves.

One Of The Things That Puzzles Me Is That So Few People Want To Look At Life As A Totality And To Recognize That Death Is No More Extraordinary Than Birth. When They Say It's The End Of Everything They Don't Seem To Recognize That We Came From Somewhere And It Would Be Very, Very Strange Indeed To Suppose That We're Not Going Somewhere.

Be Sure To Choose What You Believe And Why You Believe It, Because If You Don't Choose Your Beliefs, You May Be Certain That Some Belief, And Probably Not A Very Credible One, Will Choose You.

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.

On The Whole, We Treat The Devil Shamefully, And The Worse We Treat Him The More He Laughs At Us.

Computers Will Have To Learn That When I Quote From Some Old Author Who Spelled Differently From The Machine, The Wishes Of The Long-dead Author Will Have To Be Respected, And The Machine Will Have To Mind Its Manners

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

"civilization Rests On Two Things," Said Hitzig; "the Discovery That Fermentation Produces Alcohol, And Voluntary Ability To Inhibit Defecation. And I Put It To You, Where Would This Splendidly Civilized Occasion Be Without Both?"

Curiosity Is Part Of The Cement That Holds Society Together.

A Great Many Complimentary Things Have Been Said About The Faculty Of Memory, And If You Look In A Good Quotation Book You Will Find Them Neatly Arranged.

You Would Not Serve Junk Food At A Banquet, And Your Book Must Be A Banquet. Get Your Language From Swift, Not From Shopsy's.

Very Few [doctors] Are Men Of Science In Any Very Serious Sense; They're Men Of Technique.

Comparatively Few People Know What A Million Dollars Actually Is. To The Majority It Is A Gaseous Concept, Swelling Or Decreasing As The Occasion Suggests.

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

In Too Many Modern Churches There Is No Emphasis On Theology At All. There Is A Kind Of Justification By Works Or By Keeping Up With Modern Trends Anything That Will Drag In A Few More People.

The Reclusive Man Who Marries The Gregarious Woman, The Timid Woman Who Marries The Courageous Man, The Idealist Who Marries The Realist We Can All See These Unions: The Marriages In Which Tenderness Meets Loyalty, Where Generosity Sweetens Moroseness, Where A Sense Of Beauty Eases Some Aridity Of The Spirit, Are Not So Easy For Outsiders To Recognize; The Parties Themselves May Not Be Fully Aware Of Such Elements In A Good Match.

The Alexander Technique Keeps The Body Alive, At Ages When Many People Have Resigned Themselves To Irreversible Decline.

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

The Wild Hunt Is Known In All Celtic Countries; It Is A Huntsman With A Pack Of Hounds Who Is Seen Or Heard To Rush Through The Country. Those Who See Him Are Doomed To Die. The Writer Heard The Wild Hunt Quite Distinctly One Night In Wales Several Years Ago, But Has Not Suffered Any Ill Effects From It As Yet.

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

Money, It Is Often Said, Does Not Bring Happiness; It Must Be Added, However, That It Makes It Possible To Support Unhappiness With Exemplary Fortitude.

It Is In This Matter That I Fall Foul Of So Many American Writers On Writing; They Seem To Think That Writing Is A Confidence Game By Means Of Which The Author Cajoles A Restless, Dull-witted, Shallow Audience Into Hearing His Point Of View. Such An Attitude Is Base, And Can Only Beget Base Prose.

The Most Original Thing A Writer Can Do Is Write Like Himself. It Is Also His Most Difficult Task.

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.

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.

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.

If You Don't Hurry Up And Let Life Know What You Want, Life Will Damned Soon Show You What You'll Get.

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.

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.

There Is Absolutely No Point In Sitting Down To Write A Book Unless You Feel That You Must Write That Book, Or Else Go Mad, Or Die.

I Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was Really Literate Or Who Ever Really Loved Books Who Wanted To Suppress Any Of Them. Censors Only Read A Book With Great Difficulty, Moving Their Lips As They Puzzle Out Each Syllable, When Someone Tells Them That The Book Is Unfit To Read.

No, It's The Musicians And I Must Say They Are An Accomplished Bunch, But Odd, As Musicians Tend To Be. Is It The Vibration From Their Instruments, Do You Suppose, Working On The Brain? All That Fraught Buzzing?

We Live In A World Where Bulk Is Equated With Quality.

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.

Pornography Is Rather Like Trying To Find Out About A Beethoven Symphony By Having Somebody Tell You About It And Perhaps Hum A Few Bars.

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