Davies Robertson Quotes

Davies Robertson Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Davies Robertson quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth. — Robertson Davies

You're all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things! — Robertson Davies

But I was a lonely creature, and although I would have been very happy to have a friend I just never happened to meet one. — Robertson Davies

The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring. — Robertson Davies

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me. — Robertson Davies

The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne. — Robertson Davies

I saw corpses, and grew used to their unimportant look, for a dead man without any of the panoply of death is a desperately insignificant object. — Robertson Davies

Whether you are really right or not doesn't matter; it's the belief that counts. — Robertson Davies

There's the satisfaction of Eng-Lang-and-Lit; somebody else has said everything for you, and said it better. — Robertson Davies

It is lost, lovely child, somewhere in the ragbag that I laughingly refer to as my memory. — Robertson Davies

Curiosity is part of the cement that holds society together. — Robertson Davies

You are like a fire: you warm me. — Robertson Davies

There is really no such thing as a secret; everybody likes to tell, and everybody does tell. — Robertson Davies

What had Pledger-Brown said? Too bad, Davey; he wanted blood and all we could offer was guts. — Robertson Davies

What is meant to be heard is necessarily more direct in expression, and perhaps more boldly coloured, than what is meant for the reader. — Robertson Davies

Nothing is more dangerous to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library. — Robertson Davies

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision. — Robertson Davies

There is more to marriage than four bare legs under a blanket. — Robertson Davies

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man. — Robertson Davies

If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life. — Robertson Davies

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. — Robertson Davies

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

Pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. — Robertson Davies

We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity. — Robertson Davies

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. — Robertson Davies

How much more complicated life is than the attainment of a Ph.D. would lead one to believe! — Robertson Davies

After all, we are human beings, and not creatures of infinite possibilities. — Robertson Davies

I seemed to be the only person I knew without a plan that would put the world on its feet and wipe the tear from every eye. — Robertson Davies

Never neglect the charms of narrative for the human heart. — Robertson Davies

All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children ... — Robertson Davies

Having me in the dining-room was almost the equivalent of having a Raeburn on the walls; I was classy, I was heavily varnished, and I offended nobody. — Robertson Davies

Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather. — Robertson Davies

A Library goes on as far as thought can reach. — Robertson Davies

The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness. — Robertson Davies

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart. — Robertson Davies

No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English. — Robertson Davies

The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer. — Robertson Davies

My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing but could not help regretting the damnable expense. — Robertson Davies

To know all is to despise all. — Robertson Davies

And why should it not be terrifying? A little terror, in my view, is good for the soul, when it is terror in the face of a noble object. — Robertson Davies

I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, "I will tell you a story," and then he passes the hat. — Robertson Davies

It is a waste of time to dissipate one's moral zeal in disapproving of royal persons who have mistresses. — Robertson Davies

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life. — Robertson Davies

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion. — Robertson Davies

They were anxious to make men of us, by which they meant making us like themselves. — Robertson Davies

Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. — Robertson Davies

When a man is down on his luck he seems to consume all he can get of coffee and doughnuts. — Robertson Davies

Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures. — Robertson Davies

All eras of history are an equal distance from eternity. — Robertson Davies

I just am a Canadian. It is not a thing which you can escape from. It is like having blue eyes — Robertson Davies

One learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence. — Robertson Davies

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera. — Robertson Davies

Geordie wrote a letter to Mr. Webster in which the shrieking figure of Apology was hounded through a labyrinth of agonized syntax. — Robertson Davies

There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die. — Robertson Davies

Wake up! Be yourself, not a bad copy of something else! — Robertson Davies

Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity. — Robertson Davies

Only a fool expects to be happy all the time. — Robertson Davies

Fiction is not photography, it's oil painting. — Robertson Davies

So Leola thought that a modest romance with a hero in embryo could do no harm - might even be a patriotic duty. — Robertson Davies

What an amusing drama life is when one is not obliged to be one of the characters! — Robertson Davies

Life itself is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about potty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order. — Robertson Davies

All art is holy. Not that it is all long-faced and miserable; it can be wild and wooly. But if it transforms you, it is art. And it is holy. — Robertson Davies

A world without corruption would be a strange world indeed - and a damned bad world for lawyers, let me say. — Robertson Davies

Wisdom may be rented ... on the experience of other people, but we buy it at an inordinate price before we make it our own forever. — Robertson Davies

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving. — Robertson Davies

There are two trilogies I admire: Robertson Davies's 'The Deptford Trilogy' and Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials.' — Amy Bloom

Very few [doctors] are men of science in any very serious sense; they're men of technique. — Robertson Davies

We live in a world where bulk is equated with quality. — Robertson Davies

It seemed to me as if the stones sang, in the strangest voices, in the language of Ultima Thule. — Robertson Davies

Nobody who looks as though he enjoyed life is ever called distinguished, though he is a man in a million. — Robertson Davies

In the end, it is upon the quality and commitment of individuals that all group movements depend. — Robertson Davies

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence. — Robertson Davies

I don't think Emily was quite up to the demands of being everything to Chips. Love lays heavy burdens on the loved one, sometimes — Robertson Davies

I cannot remember a time when I did not take it as understood that everybody has at least two, if not twenty-two sides to him. — Robertson Davies

Love affairs are for emotional sprinters; the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners. — Robertson Davies

You'll go far. How do I know? Because life is goosing you so hard you'll never stop climbing. — Robertson Davies

My lifelong involvement with Mrs Dempster began at 5:58 o'clock p.m. on 27 December 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old. — Robertson Davies

The art of the quoter is to know when to stop. — Robertson Davies

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. — Robertson Davies

Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in. — Robertson Davies

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it. — Robertson Davies

"There is no disputing about tastes," says the old saw. In my experience there is little else. — Robertson Davies

Clarity is not a characteristic of the human spirit. — Robertson Davies

God, youth is a terrible time! So much feeling and so little notion of how to handle it! — Robertson Davies

If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow-creature s let him begin the long, solitary task of perfecting himself. — Robertson Davies

Subtle wits like to refresh themselves with a whiff of mild indecency. — Robertson Davies

Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground - not a flying carpet to set you free from probability. — Robertson Davies

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

No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary. — Robertson Davies

Any theologian understands martyrdom, but only the martyr experiences the fire. — Robertson Davies

Myself: But wasn't the decision a right one? Am I not here? What more could Feeling have achieved than was brought about by Reason? — Robertson Davies

You can't persuade most of the public that education and making a living aren't the same thing. — Robertson Davies

Some countries you love. Some countries you hate. Canada is a country you worry about. — Robertson Davies

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

A man who recognizes no God is probably placing an inordinate value on himself. — Robertson Davies

Be not another if thou canst be thyself. — Robertson Davies

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

To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. — Robertson Davies

I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard. — Robertson Davies

Women tell men things that men are not very likely to find out for themselves. — Robertson Davies