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Literature

Literature is the echo of life. – Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847), paraphrase

I… was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. – David Hume (1712–1776)

[L]iterature is a garden of weeds as well as flowers… – Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteen

Literature—our great archive of human expression… – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Resisting the Kindle,” The Atlantic, 2009 March 2nd

The extent of a palace is measured from east to west, or from north to south; but that of a literary work, from the earth to heaven; so that there may be found as much range and power of mind in a few pages… as in a whole epic poem. – Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. – Mark Twain

Literature is the question minus the answer. – Roland Barthes

Literature is news that stays news. – Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading, 1934

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. – Ezra Pound

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. – Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

To literature belongs the mighty privilege of embalming, for all ages, the departed kings of intellect. There they repose within the eternal pyramids of their fame. – Robert Aris Willmott, “Glimpses of the Pageant of Literature,” c.1844

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, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper — whether little or great, it belongs to Literature. – Sarah Orne Jewett, letter to Willa Cather

I doubt if anything learnt at school is of more value than great literature learnt by heart. – Richard Livingstone

What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us! – James Russell Lowell

The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference. – Anatole France

The object of literature is to make man a wiser and happier being. The poet makes us happy because he tells us how we may become so. – Charles Lanman, “Thoughts on Literature,” 1840

When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before. – Clifton Fadiman

The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

The sermon is now the true poppy of literature. – David Swing