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Quotes by

Robertson Davies

The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera. – Robertson Davies

He types his labored column — weary drudge! Senile fudge and solemn: spare, editor, to condemn these dry leaves of his autumn. – Robertson Davies

What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they dont know what they are conserving. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring. – Robertson Davies

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. – Robertson Davies

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. – Robertson Davies

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. – Robertson Davies

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. – Robertson Davies

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need. – Robertson Davies

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons. – Robertson Davies