Robertson Davies Quotes - Famous Quotes by Robertson Davies
Born: 1913-08-28
Died: 1995-12-03
Robertson Davies Biography
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.
- Robertson Davies
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A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
- Robertson Davies
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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
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Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.
- Robertson Davies
More quotations on: [ Doubt ] ***
Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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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
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I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme, I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.
- Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.
- Robertson Davies
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The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.
- Robertson Davies
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Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.
- Robertson Davies
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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.
- Robertson Davies
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To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
- Robertson Davies
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To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
- Robertson Davies, "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks"
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