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
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
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
The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. – Robertson Davies
The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent. – E. M. Forster