Quotes About Classics

1 )Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them. 2)A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.

All that can be done is for each of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would say that one half of it would consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries.

To be able to read the classics you have to know "from where" you are reading them; otherwise both the book and the reader will be lost in a timeless cloud.

All that can be done is for each one of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would say that one half of it should consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us, and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries.

No se leen los clásicos por deber o por respeto, sino sólo por amor.

Non si creda che i classici vanno letti perché "servono" a qualcosa. La sola ragione che si può addurre è che leggere i classici è meglio che non leggere i classici. E se qualcuno obietta che non val la pena di far tanta fatica, citerò Cioran: «Mentre veniva preparata la cicuta, Socrate stava imparando un'aria sul flauto. "A cosa ti servirà?" gli fu chiesto. "A sapere quest'aria prima di morire"».

These days, the practice of reading spiritual classics is on the wane. We have more leisure today than ever before in history, but many people claim to have no time for reading. A spiritual leader cannot use that excuse.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

I ripped it off from that old movie They Live. You remember They Live, with the glasses?" I shrug, and he shakes his head. "Nobody watches the classics anymore.

I collect vintage cars, so you always find them in my books.

I go for a nice walk in my neighborhood and search for vinyl, old jazz, classics. Then I go home and listen to them.

I like reading... French, Russian classics - Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert. I also like Hemingway, Virginia Woolf.

Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.

her book. Ngaio Marsh. Myrna was re-reading the classics.

I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics.

Jane Eyre. Villette. The Woman in White." "Middlemarch

When readers feel strongly, their hearts are open. Your stories can not only reach them for a moment, but they can change them forever. I don't care about what you write, how you write it, your choices in publishing, or what you want out of your career. What I want is to feel deeply as I read your work. I want to feel connected to you and your characters in the way I do to the most memorable classics and the most stunning new titles I'll read this year.

Henry's a perfectionist, I mean, really-really kind of inhuman — very brilliant, very erratic and enigmatic. He's a stiff, cold person, Machiavellian, ascetic and he's made himself what he is by sheer strength of will. His aspiration is to be this Platonic creature of pure rationality and that's why he's attracted to the Classics, and particularly to the Greeks — all those high, cold ideas of beauty and perfection.

You want to know what Classics are? said a drunk Dean of Admissions to me at a faculty party a couple of years ago. I'll tell you what Classics are. Wars and homos.

And what does a person with such romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics? If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective, I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.

And what does a person with such a romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics? He asked this as if, having had the good fortune to catch such a rare bird as myself, he was anxious to extract my opinion while I was still captive in his office. 'If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective,' I said, 'I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.' He laughed. 'The great romantics are often failed classicists. But that's beside the point, isn't it?

You wan't to know what Classics are? said a drunk Dean of Admissions to me at a faculty party a couple of years ago. I'll tell you what Clasdics are. War and homos. A sententious and vulgar statement, certainly, but like many such gnomic vulgarities, it also contains a tiny splinter of truth.

You couldn't beat him away from Greek with a stick.

O outono é a única estação civilizada. A primavera é um descontrole glandular da Natureza. O inverno é o preço que a gente paga para ter o outono, e por isso está perdoado. O verão é uma indignidade. [...] Clássicos ao pé do fogo, um vago cachorro e sherry seco contra o catarro. Um gentleman não deve suar, meu caro.