Lytton Strachey Quotes

• Perhaps of all the creations of man language is the most astonishing.

  Lytton Strachey

  Writing, Men, Creation Of Man

  52 Copy quote

• It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.

  Lytton Strachey

  Poet

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.751, Delphi Classics

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• It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.

  Lytton Strachey

  Good Life, Writing, Difficult

  Eminent Victorians preface (1918)

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• Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process──which is eternal, and must be felt for its own sake.

  Lytton Strachey

  Independent, Past, Important

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• Perhaps the best test of a man's intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.

  Lytton Strachey

  Men, Tests, Capacity

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.703, Delphi Classics

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• There are a great deal of a great many kinds of love.

  Lytton Strachey

  Life, Kind, Great Men

  Lytton Strachey remarks to Dora Carrington, March 23, 1917.

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• Discretion is not the better part of biography.

  Lytton Strachey

  Biographies, Discretion

  In Michael Holroyd 'Lytton Strachey' vol. 1 (1967) preface

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• The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.

  Lytton Strachey

  History, Age, Unattainable

  Eminent Victorians preface (1918)

  7 Copy quote

• A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile

  Lytton Strachey

  Promise, Tigers

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• Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.

  Lytton Strachey

  Art, Ignorance, Perfection

  Eminent Victorians preface (1918)

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• The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization.

  Lytton Strachey

  War, Taken, Passion

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.48, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

• If this is dying, I don't think much of it.

  Lytton Strachey

  Thinking, Dying, Last Words

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• There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.

  Lytton Strachey

  Dark, Atmosphere, Age

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.30, Delphi Classics

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• The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.

  Lytton Strachey

  Literature, Common, French Literature

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.39, Delphi Classics

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• In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.

  Lytton Strachey

  Character, Quality, Genius

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.44, Delphi Classics

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• Modern as the style of Pascal's writing is, his thought is deeply impregnated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. He belonged, almost equally, to the future and to the past.

  Lytton Strachey

  Writing, Past, Style

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.45, Delphi Classics

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• In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought.

  Lytton Strachey

  Triumph, Peculiar, Literature

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.77, Delphi Classics

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• Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

  Lytton Strachey

  Giving, Age, Majority

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.72, Delphi Classics

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• English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.

  Lytton Strachey

  Drama, Mind, Literature

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.58, Delphi Classics

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• When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.

  Lytton Strachey

  Flower, Maturity, Government

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.46, Delphi Classics

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• In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national - it is universal.

  Lytton Strachey

  Spain, Literature, France

  Lytton Strachey (1912). “Landmarks in French Literature”

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• With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.

  Lytton Strachey

  Latin, Vocabulary, Exception

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.22, Delphi Classics

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• Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic.

  Lytton Strachey

  Political, France, Advertising

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.46, Delphi Classics

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• The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

  Lytton Strachey

  Latin, Simplicity, Unity

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.22, Delphi Classics

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• During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius.

  Lytton Strachey

  Trying, Quality, Genius

  Lytton Strachey (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Lytton Strachey (Illustrated)”, p.81, Delphi Classics

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