Written Quotes - Page 37

• A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

  Isaac Watts

  Believe, Dark, Men

  Isaac Watts, Joseph Emerson (1855). “The Improvement of the Mind”, p.29

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• Every one of his opinions appears to himself to be written with sunbeams.

  Isaac Watts

  Opinion, Sunbeams, Positiveness

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• Certainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.

  Margaret Fuller

  Baby, Children, Book

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• I had never thought of advertising as a life work, though I had on the side, written some very successful copy.

  Bruce Barton

  Successful, Sides, Advertising

  "The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators". Book by Stephen R. Fox, 1984.

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• Much brass has been sounded and many cymbals tinkled in the name of advertising; but the advertisements which persuade people to act are written by men who have an abiding respect for the intelligence of their readers, and a deep sincerity regarding the merits of the goods they have to sell.

  Bruce Barton

  Men, Names, People

  "The Man Nobody Knows". Book by Bruce Fairchild Barton. Chapter 5: "His Advertisements", 1925.

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• A story is an end in itself. It is not written to teach, sell, explain or destroy anything. It is not written even to entertain. It is written as a man is born - an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity - an end in itself, not a means to an end.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Law

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.179, Penguin

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• The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.

  Walter Bagehot

  Book, Writing, Eye

  Walter Bagehot, Norman St. John-Stevas (1965). “The collected works of Walter Bagehot”

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• I don't think many writers like their best-known piece of work, particularly when it was written a long time ago.

  Lillian Hellman

  Thinking, Long, Pieces

  Lillian Hellman, Jackson R. Bryer (1986). “Conversations with Lillian Hellman”, p.56, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Laura Alicia Deverell was born on May 10th, 1862, at precisely a quarter past one o'clock on a Thursday morning. Those interested in that pseudo-science astrology or astromancy may trace her life and character, if they wish, among the stars, where no doubt it is all written.

  Susan Ertz

  Morning, Stars, Book

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• in the press, my sex life was something else again. I was Lady Bountiful of the Sheets. Some of the best fiction of the Sixties was written about my amorous adventures with an assortment of lovers who could have only been chosen by a berserk random sampler.

  Doris Day

  Sex, Adventure, Fiction

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• A lot of what I've written in criticism of my lust for virtue - my discovery that I've committed idolatry, making of the good an idol - is open to the charge of being still caught within the dialectic of idolatry. I've made a moral criticism of my moral consciousness. Meta-idolatry.

  Susan Sontag

  Discovery, Idols, Lust

  Susan Sontag (2012). “As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980”, p.330, Macmillan

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• The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Eye, Style, Audience

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• This is what happens when the discourse of publishing, defined and driven by spoken and written language, is talked about in exactly the same vocabulary and syntax as any widgetmaking industry. Books are reformulated as 'product' - like screwdrivers or flea-bombs or soap - and the majority of writers are perceived as typists with bad attitudes.

  Suzette Haden Elgin

  Attitude, Book, Vocabulary

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• Great books are written for Christianity much oftener than great deeds are done for it. City libraries tell us of the reign of Jesus Christ but city streets tell us of the reign of Satan.

  Horace Mann

  Jesus, Book, Cities

  Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.192

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• I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Mean, Speech, Clumsiness

  Gwendolyn Brooks, Gloria Jean Wade Gayles (2003). “Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.21, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Each time we had a visiting writer, I asked what she thought of women and humor. By the end of the year, I had perfected my question and asked Adrienne Rich why there was so little written about women and humor. She looked at me right in the eye and said, 'You write it.' I took that as an order.

  Kate Clinton

  Eye, Writing, Years

  Kate Clinton (2012). “Don't Get Me Started”, p.8, Bywater Books

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• I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I have thought of it, as I remember all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones and unpleasant ones, that is how they come out and that is how we have to take them.

  Grandma Moses

  Years, Yesterday, Childhood

  "Grandma Moses : My Life's History". Book by Grandma Moses, 1951.

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• There are very few humorists who have written first-rate humor after they've become elderly.

  Richard Armour

  Elderly, Age, Firsts

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• I believe in a visual language that should be as strong as the written word.

  David LaChapelle

  Strong, Believe, Photographer

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• And what shall I tell you, lady, of the natural secrets I have discovered while cooking? And I often say, when observing these details: had Aristotle prepared victuals, he would have written more.

  Juana Inés de la Cruz

  Food, Cooking, Secret

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• In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece.

  A. J. Liebling

  Food, Loss, Light

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• For years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.

  Derek Sivers

  Nice, Book, Writing

  "Brave Interview: Derek Sivers". Interview with Margie Warrell, www.business2community.com. July 5, 2015.

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• An actor and a [theatre] director are both what I would call interpreters of work. We interpret a work, just as a musician will interpret a composer's work, we interpret the work of a playwright. We are servants of the theatre and I've always believed that. We must serve what has been written, that's what we're there for.

  George Ogilvie

  Theatre, Musician, Directors

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• I've written about a lot of different things, but the whole idea of writing for another character is unusual for pop music... Most of the repertory is love songs, and most of mine isn't. I don't know if that's a mental defect, or shyness, or what.

  Randy Newman

  Song, Writing, Character

  "Set List: Randy Newman". Interview with Sam Adams, music.avclub.com. May 31, 2011.

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• I've often written about places that are totally different from anything I know. Sometimes they turn out better.

  Randy Newman

  Different, Sometimes, Turns

  "Set List: Randy Newman". Interview with Sam Adams, music.avclub.com. May 31, 2011.

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