Literature Quotes

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  There is no remedy for love but to love more.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Break Up

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.12, Yale University Press

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• Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.

  Chinua Achebe

  Reality, Giving, Mouths

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays”, p.215, Anchor

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• The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets its literature decay, and lets good writing meet with contempt, than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.

  Ezra Pound

  Letting Go, Country, Children

  "Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry".

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• Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Art, Truth, Creativity

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Virtue and Vice: A Dictionary of the Good Life”, p.12, Harper Collins

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• Literature is the thought of thinking souls.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Thinking, Soul

  John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle (2010). “Autobiography of J.S. Mill & on Liberty; Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott”, p.464, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

  C. S. Lewis

  Respect, Book, Healing

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• Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

  Oscar Wilde

  Purpose, Mould, Debris

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• Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reality, Doe, Add

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• The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Creativity, Two, Pace

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.109

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• Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Technology, Two Sides

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.310, Cambridge University Press

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• Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

  Cyril Connolly

  Art, Writing, Journalism

  Enemies of Promise (1938) ch. 3

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• Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

  Anton Chekhov

  Tired, Science, Night

  Letter to A. S. Suvorin, 11 Sept. 1888

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• Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.

  Cassandra Clare

  Inspirational, Funny, Book

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

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• Literature is the question minus the answer.

  Roland Barthes

  Art, Healing, Poetry

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• The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Book, Writing, Mean

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2014). “Memories, Portraits, Essays and Records (Annotated Edition)”, p.592, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The devil is compromise.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Devil, Compromise

  Henrik Ibsen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (Illustrated)”, p.1002, Delphi Classics

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• Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Literature History, Civilization

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• Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Life, Art, Solitude

  Fernando Pessoa (1988). “Numbers: 4”

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• I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.

  Gary Paulsen

  Book, Reading, Novelists

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• Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.

  Thornton Wilder

  Platitudes, Orchestration

  In Time 12 Jan. 1953

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• Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Art, Book, Toil

  D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.306, Cambridge University Press

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• A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

  Italo Calvino

  Art, Book, Classic

  Italo Calvino (2017). “The Uses of Literature”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

  Robert Frost

  Inspiration, Poetry, Delight

  Collected Poems preface (1939)

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• In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

  Andre Maurois

  Love, Chosen, Love You

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• The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Anger, Reading

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 19 (1891)

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