Robertson Davies Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity; rather it is an elaborate balancing act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites.

  Robertson Davies

  Mean, Acceptance, Skills

  Robertson Davies, Surridge, Jennifer (1997). “Happy Alchemy: Writings on the Theatre and Other Lively Arts”, M&S

  18 Copy quote

• There is more to marriage than four bare legs under a blanket.

  Robertson Davies

  Legs, Four, Blanket

  1957 Love and Libel.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robertson Davies

  Stars, Character, Thinking

  Robertson Davies (1996). “Fifth business”, Penguin, 1996

  4 Copy quote

• The pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to another living creature.

  Robertson Davies

  Pleasure, Creatures, Living Creatures

  "The Pleasures of Love". 1961.

  8 Copy quote

• A Library goes on as far as thought can reach.

  Robertson Davies

  Library, Goes On

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

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• The book forces itself into my mind when I am lugging furniture, or pulling weeds.

  Robertson Davies

  Weed, Book, Mind

  Robertson Davies (2002). “For Your Eye Alone: The Letters of Robertson Davies”, Penguin Group USA

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• I am constantly astonished by the people, otherwise intelligent, who think that anything so complex and delicate as a marriage can be left to take care of itself. One sees them fussing about all sorts of lesser concerns, apparently unaware that side by side with them often in the same bed a human creature is perishing from lack of affection, of emotional malnutrition.

  Robertson Davies

  Intelligent, Emotional, Thinking

  "The Pleasures of Love". 1961.

  4 Copy quote

• The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

  Robertson Davies

  Spiritual, Reading, Book

  Robertson Davies (2008). “Selected works on the art of writing”, Penguin Group Canada

  11 Copy quote

• 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. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Spiders, Asking

  Robertson Davies (1997). “The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books”, Viking Press

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robertson Davies

  Wise, Blue, Hands

  "The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks". Book by Robertson Davies, 1947.

  14 Copy quote

• Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

  Robertson Davies

  Love, Funny, Wise

  20 Copy quote

• Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. 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. 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. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines - not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality.

  Robertson Davies

  Lying, Book, Reality

  "Tempest-Tost". Book by Robertson Davies, Part 6, 1951.

  6 Copy quote

• Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

  Robertson Davies

  People, Genius, Offended

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• The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Pleasure, Live By

  Robertson Davies (2008). “Selected Works on the Pleasures of Reading”, Penguin Group Canada

  4 Copy quote

• Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman.

  Robertson Davies

  Inspirational, Careers, Single Life

  8 Copy quote

• When irony first makes itself known in a young man's life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.

  Robertson Davies

  Powerful, Men, Drunk

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

  13 Copy quote

• The clerisy are those who seek, and find, delight and enlargement of life in books. The clerisy are those for whom reading is a personal art.

  Robertson Davies

  Art, Book, Reading

  7 Copy quote

• I was afraid and did not know what I feared, which is the worst kind of fear.

  Robertson Davies

  Fear, Kind, Worst

  Robertson Davies (1996). “Fifth business”, Penguin, 1996

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• The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Thinking, Grandfather

  "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks".

  15 Copy quote

• Money, it is often said, does not bring happiness; it must be added, however, that it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.

  Robertson Davies

  Support, Doe, Fortitude

  Robertson Davies (1952). “Tempest-tost”, Clarke Irwin

  5 Copy quote

• The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline.

  Robertson Davies

  People, Age, Technique

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• Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.

  Robertson Davies

  Years, Fifteen, Matter

  Robertson Davies (1992). “The Cornish Trilogy”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.

  Robertson Davies

  Brutality, Tact

  Robertson Davies (1976). “World of wonders”, Penguin Books, 1977

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• The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.

  Robertson Davies

  Students, Graduates, Champagne

  Robertson Davies (1983). “High spirits”, Viking Adult

  7 Copy quote

• If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.

  Robertson Davies

  Love, Life, Passion

  "The Pleasures of Love," in "Saturday Night", December 23, 1961.

  8 Copy quote

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