Edith Sitwell Quotes

Quotes about:

• I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

  Edith Sitwell

  Patience, Stupid, Ignorance

  "The Last Years of a Rebel: A Memoir of Edith Sitwell". Book by Elizabeth Salter, 1967.

  104 Copy quote

• Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

  Edith Sitwell

  Home, Winter, Weather

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.176, A&C Black

  86 Copy quote

• The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.

  Edith Sitwell

  Truth, Believe, Media Control

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.3, A&C Black

  18 Copy quote
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  My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.

  Edith Sitwell

  Funny, Music, Reading

  Reader's Digest, Volume 111, No. 666, October 1977.

  112 Copy quote

• I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.

  Edith Sitwell

  Women, Eels, People

  Attributed to Edith Sitwell in Life Magazine, January 4, 1963.

  41 Copy quote

• I'm dying, but otherwise I'm in very good health.

  Edith Sitwell

  Dying, Good Health, Very Good

  10 Copy quote

• When we think of cruelty, we must try to remember the stupidity, the envy, the frustration from which it has arisen.

  Edith Sitwell

  Frustration, Thinking, Envy

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.172, A&C Black

  17 Copy quote

• Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?

  Edith Sitwell

  Success, Being Yourself, Secret

  "Edith Sitwell, a Unicorn Among Lions". Book by Victoria Glendinning (p. 54), 1981; later quoted in "An Uncommon Scold" edited by Abby Adams (p. 74), November 1, 1989.

  35 Copy quote

• All great art contains an element of the irrational.

  Edith Sitwell

  Art, Elements, Irrational

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), Elizabeth Salter, Allanah Harper (1976). “Edith Sitwell: fire of the mind : an anthology”, Michael Joseph

  25 Copy quote

• There is no truth. Only points of view.

  Edith Sitwell

  Truth, Views, Point Of View

  15 Copy quote

• Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality.

  Edith Sitwell

  Dream, Reality, Rhythm

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “A Poet's Notebook”, p.25, A&C Black

  54 Copy quote

• Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes, and unveils the meaning of all things upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. It discovers the secret rays of the universe, and restores to us forgotten paradises.

  Edith Sitwell

  Heart, Eye, Secret

  16 Copy quote

• The child and the great artist -- these alone receive the sensation fresh as it was at the beginning of the world.

  Edith Sitwell

  Children, Artist, World

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.125, A&C Black

  25 Copy quote

• Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

  Edith Sitwell

  Fashion, Vices, Taste

  "The Last Years of a Rebel: A Memoir of Edith Sitwell". Book by Edith Sitwell, 1967.

  16 Copy quote

• Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

  Edith Sitwell

  Believe, Pride, Men

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.114, A&C Black

  13 Copy quote

• By 'happiness' I do not mean worldly success or outside approval, though it would be priggish to deny that both these things are most agreeable. I mean the inner consciousness, the inner conviction that one is doing well the thing that one is best fitted to do by nature.

  Edith Sitwell

  Happiness, Mean, Would Be

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), Elizabeth Salter, Allanah Harper (1976). “Edith Sitwell: fire of the mind : an anthology”, Michael Joseph

  7 Copy quote

• What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.

  Edith Sitwell

  Regret, Thinking, Special

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), Elizabeth Salter, Allanah Harper (1976). “Edith Sitwell: fire of the mind : an anthology”, Michael Joseph

  7 Copy quote

• The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.

  Edith Sitwell

  Men, Poetry, Speak

  "The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women" by Rosalie Maggio, (p. 247), 1992.

  12 Copy quote

• I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... but I am too busy thinking about myself.

  Edith Sitwell

  Time, Thinking, Modesty

  In Observer 30 Apr. 1950

  21 Copy quote

• Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

  Edith Sitwell

  God, Reality, Vulgarity Is

  "Taken Care Of" by Edith Sitwell, (Ch. 19), 1965.

  63 Copy quote

• The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.

  Edith Sitwell

  Encouragement, Opinion, Flattery

  "The Last Years of a Rebel : A Memoir of Edith Sitwell". Book by Elizabeth Salter, 1967.

  22 Copy quote

• ... all ugliness passes, and beauty endures, excepting of the skin.

  Edith Sitwell

  Skins, Endure, Ugliness

  Edith Sitwell (Dame), John Lehmann, Derek Parker (1970). “Selected letters”, MacMillan

  8 Copy quote

• My temper is not spoilt. I am absolutely non-homicidal. Nor do I ever attack unless I have been attacked first, and then Heaven have mercy upon the attacker, because I don't! I just sharpen my wits on a wooden head as a cat sharpens its claws on the wood legs of a table.

  Edith Sitwell

  Cat, Heaven, Firsts

  6 Copy quote

• It is part of the poet's work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees.

  Edith Sitwell

  Art, Men, Doe

  "The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary", Special Supplement (p. 2047), 1966.

  5 Copy quote

• I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.

  Edith Sitwell

  Eels, Pool, Catfish

  Attributed to Edith Sitwell in Life Magazine, January 4, 1963.

  69 Copy quote

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