Quotes About Literature

Three keys to success: read, read, read.

During the last fifteen to twenty years, especially since the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the economic and also the political literature of the two hemispheres has more and more often adopted the term "imperialism" in order to describe the present era. In 1902, a book by the English economist J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, was published in London and New York. This

As is invariably noted at the beginning of positively all literary biographies, the little boy was a glutton for books.... For his first writing exercise he painstakingly reproduced: "Obey your sovereign, honor him and submit to his laws," and the compressed ball of his index finger thus remained ink-stained forever. Now the thirties are over and the forties have begun.

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds.

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness.

All literature in some degree, exists to reveal a more powerful and passionate, a more divine world than ours.

All time spent reading is time well-spent.

Read a minimum of four good books a year, a monthly magazine like The Reader's Digest, and your daily morning and evening newspapers.

What is a Professor of Poetry? How can poetry be professed?

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

There's only one good test of pornography. Get twelve normal men to read the book, and then ask them, Did you get an erection? If the answer is Yes from a majority of the twelve, then the book is pornographic.

As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

Some books are undeservedly forgotten, none are undeservedly remembered

Atacar los libros malos no solo supone una pérdida de tiempo, sino que es malo para el carácter. Tratándose de un libro verdaderamente malo, el único interés que puede desprenderse de lo que escriba sobre él tendrá que provenir de mí mismo: de toda la inteligencia, ingenio y malicia que yo consiga desplegar. Es imposible reseñar un gran libro sin presunción.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miseries of life.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.