Quotation - August 18, 2020. – Robertson Davies We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure. Sourced quotations by the Canadian Journalist Robertson Davies (1913 — 1995) about people, life and man - Page 9. Personally, I have never had to fight a dozen pirates single-handed, and I have never jumped from a moving express-train onto the back of a horse, and I have never been discovered in the harem of the Grand Turk. -Robertson Davies Reading 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. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business/The Manticore/World of Wonders, The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading Writing & the World of Books. Robertson Davies-+ 0 A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera. William Robertson Davies, (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. More Robertson Davies Quotes Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Update this biography » Complete biography of Robertson Davies » He received a BLit in 1938 at Balliol College, Oxford. Third son of Senator William Rupert Davies, Robertson Davies participated in stage productions as a child and developed a lifelong interest in drama. Robertson Davies. A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. Robertson_Davies Quotes. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? “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.”, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”, “Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.”, “Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.”, “I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard.”, “Happiness is always a by-product. They dared heroically. “Who are you? Wonder is marvellous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. 8 Quotes by Robertson Davies . It was from their self-knowledge they spoke. A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them. Just as we complete them, of course; it’s not a one-way thing. No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English. 1 2 Next . *The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (died in Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, journalist, critic, and professor. Robertson Davies-+ +3. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time. Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.”. To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. Collection of quotes from Robertson Davies. -- Robertson Davies . Robertson Davies, novelist and playwright whose works offer penetrating observations on Canadian provincialism and prudery. 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. Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself. Robertson Davies quotes on thetimes It was easier to keep myself from becoming a success as an actor. Update this biography » Complete biography of Robertson Davies » Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision. ” ― Robertson Davies, quote from The Rebel Angels ... For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas. WhatsApp “My own opinion is that [love] is felt most completely in marriage, or some comparable attachment of long duration. Quotes by "Robertson Davies" 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. 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 great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. 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. *Experience is wine, and art is the brandy we distill from it. Robertson Davies-+ 0 They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year. A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera. Fifth Business Quotes Showing 1-30 of 65 “If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.” ― Robertson Davies, Fifth Business Educated in England at the University of Oxford, Davies had training in acting, directing, and stage management as a member of the Old Vic Repertory Company. Twitter. Robertson Davies. Robertson Davies quotes Showing 1-30 of 250 “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.” The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater. Quotations by Robertson Davies, Novelist, Canadian, Born August 28, 1913. We make things happen to us.”-- 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. 35 Robertson Davies Quotes - BrainyQuote The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Enjoy the best Robertson Davies quotes and picture quotes! — Robertson Davies “ Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons. Leola and I, when romance was stripped away, were too much alike; our strengths and weaknesses were too nearly the same. Quotes: Robertson Davies Quotes 1 till 15 of 18. Where do you fit into poetry and myth? all men of extraordinary character, and they devised systems that are forever stamped with that character.… Davey, did you ever think that these three men who were so splendid at understanding others had first to understand themselves? Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures. Facebook. Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need. Robertson Davies Quotes William Robertson Davies was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. You don't know what that is? Love takes time. Robertson Davies Quotes - 2 Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. BrainyQuote has been providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community. 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. The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command.”, “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.”, “If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.”, “One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.”, “It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way”, “We tend to think human knowledge as progressive; because we know more and more, our parents and grandparents are back numbers. His thesis, Shakespeare's Boy Actors, appeared in 1939, a year in which he pursued an acting career outside London. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. Freud, monumentally hipped on sex (for which he personally had little use) and almost ignorant of Nature: Adler, reducing almost everything to the will to power: and Jung, certainly the most humane and gentlest of them, and possibly the greatest, but nevertheless the descendant of parsons and professors, and himself a super-parson and a super-professor. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Robertson Davies Quotes. Together we would have doubled our gains and our losses, but that isn’t what love is.”, “God, youth is a terrible time! Read and enjoy the great quotations by Robertson Davies. God save us from reading nothing but the best. 28 quotes by Robertson Davies. Robertson Davies Was their heroism simply meant to raise a whole new crop of invalids? He was one of the most popular and best-known authors in Canada, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters," a term that Davies … It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless.”, “Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.”, “To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. Robertson Davies Quotes A collection of thoughts and quotes by Robertson Davies on philosophy, books, reading, writing, perspective, belief, bias, love, reality and adversity. Pinterest. Of course wonder is costly. The show is continuous. View our entire collection of robertson davies quotes and images that you can save into your jar and share with your friends. By. Welcome back. If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual. Why don't you go home and shoulder your yoke, and be a hero too?”, “Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. Selected Robertson Davies Quotes at 9quotes. Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna -- always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor. I can only protest, like all rakes in their shameful senescence, that I have had a good time.”, “We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and he fear and dread and splendor and freedom of wonder have been banished. Be the first to learn about new releases! William Robertson Davies CC OOnt FRSL FRSC (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. Robertson Davies, "Fifth Business" If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual. Robertson Davies Quotes The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. And it should never be forgotten that they made the inward journey while they were working like galley-slaves at their daily tasks, considering other people's troubles, raising families, living full lives. It was a draw; they claimed superiority because of their long history, and I claimed it because of Canada's immense land mass, which gives us space for tremendous expansion, even of such things as dullness. He spent 1940 playing minor roles and doi… Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it. Robertson Davies Quotes Search in the quotations of Robertson Davies : ''Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery. It is also his most difficult task. #Love #Wise #Cat “What we call luck is the inner man externalized. 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.”, “Love affairs are for emotional sprinters; the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners.”, “Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.”, “To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.”, “This is the Great Theatre of Life. We make things happen to us. *Biography at its best is a form of fiction. – Robertson Davies The great book for you is the book that has … I have read those things which I ought not to have read, and I have not read those things which I ought to have read, and there is no health in me -- if by health you mean an inclusive and coherent knowledge of any body of great literature. Quotes 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.“ Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons. Free Daily Quotes. 0. I have seen such diets at work. The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Robertson Davies Quotes. #Men #Luck #Things Happen The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. They did not go trustingly to some doctor and follow his lead because they were too lazy or too scared to make the inward journey alone. But a contrary theory is possible - that we simply recognize different things at different times and in different ways.”, “To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. Write it down: write down what you feel. Subscribe Robertson Davies — Canadian Novelist born on August 28, 1913, died on December 02, 1995 William Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSL was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. These are the best and most popular Robertson Davies quotes. ”, “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.”, “She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. 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. I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. 23. May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? “ The young are often accused of exaggerating their troubles; they do so, very often, in the hope of making some impression upon the … Students today are a pretty solemn lot. — Robertson Davies. Robertson Davies, "A Voice from the Attic", 1960 - More quotations on: [ The Future] 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. 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. I think you are Fifth Business. So much feeling and so little notion of how to handle it!”, We’d love your help. Only a fool expects to be happy all the time. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have bo th gladly accepted for himself and to have detested. He edited the — Robertson Davies, libro The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947), Context: It seems to me that most of us get all the adventure we are capable of digesting. You come when you can, and leave when you must. They were heroes, in a sense that no space-explorer can be a hero, because they went into the unknown absolutely alone. Tags: critics-and-criticism. #Morning #Book #Reading “Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.”-- Robertson Davies . *Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. Davies Robertson quotes I once had a dispute with a group of Swedish professors at the University of Uppsala as to which country, Sweden or Canada, was the dullest in the world. You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery. William Robertson Davies, (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. *What we call luck is the inner man externalized. The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. “The women we really love are the women who complete us, who have the qualities we can borrow and so become something nearer to whole men. We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure. Critics were careful not to outrage my modesty by their praise, and the public scrupulously refused to debauch me with applause. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.”, “I was afraid and did not know what I feared, which is the worst kind of fear.”, “A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.”, “Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity.”, “So -- I confess I have been a rake at reading. He attended Upper Canada College from 1926 to 1932 and went on to Queen's University from 1932 to 1935 as a special student not working towards a degree. What we call luck is the inner man externalized. Famous As: Author and Journalist Robertson Davies Quotes #20 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. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Goodnight.”, “But one must remember that they were all men with systems. Call luck is the book that has … 28 quotes by Robertson Davies temperament! 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