Robertson Davies Famous Quotes
"As A general rule, people marry most hapily with their own kind. The trouble lies in the fact that people usually marry at an age where they do not really know what their own kind is."
"The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past."
"Of mortals there is no one who is happy. If wealth flows in upon one, one may be perhaps Luckier than one's neighbor, but still not happy."
"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness."
"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."
"Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons."
The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.
"The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to find refreshment in doing so... That is a dark frivolity, but still frivolity."
Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and plain shiftlessness.
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
"There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."
Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
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.
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
"He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities."
Robertson Davies Quotations
"If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the 'as if' technique."
William James
Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.
Kahlil Gibran
Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.
R D Laing
"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."
Mark Twain
"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying"
Shantideva
"A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future."
Leonard Bernstein
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."
Buddha
"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it"
Jonathan Winters
"Naturally intelligent people are like lumps of coal. Eventually, we turn into diamonds, And the people we once envied, turn into coal."
Kevin R Hutson
"I've lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust Now all that's left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust."
Alekandr Sergeyevick Pushkin