Literature Quotes

"I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it"

Clifford Geertz, Scientist

"And Marx spoke of the fact that socialism will be the kingdom of freedom, where man realizes himself in a way that humankind has never seen before. This was an inspiring body of literature to read"

Albert Maltz, Author

"It's interesting to note that all revolutionary literature was written by pastors. These guys were involved in a revolution against the mightiest power that the world had ever seen"

Randall Terry, Celebrity

"Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form"

Toni Morrison, Novelist

"And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s"

Thomas Keneally, Novelist

"Gender consciousness has become involved in almost every intellectual field: history, literature, science, anthropology. There's been an extraordinary advance"

Clifford Geertz, Scientist

"I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things"

Clifford Geertz, Scientist

"Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other"

Anton Chekhov, Dramatist

"If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside"

Evelyn Waugh, Author

"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government"

Milton Friedman, Economist

"In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects"

Jorge Luis Borges, Poet

"I didn't choose literature. Literature chose me. There was no decision on my side"

Manuel Puig, Author

"I have to keep up with the scientific literature as part of my job, but increasingly I found myself reading things that weren't really relevant to my academic work, but were relevant to gardening"

Ken Thompson, Scientist

"Tardiness in literature can make me nervous"

Manuel Puig, Author

"Literature is my calling To hold up the mirror to my countrymen comes natural to me; and in the open field of invention I am not without hopes of giving them pleasure"

Thomas Edward Brown, Poet

"The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order"

Jean Cocteau, Director

"We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men"

George Ripley, Activist

"When you read the psychedelic literature, there is a distinction between the so-called natural psychedelics and synthetic psychedelics that are artificially produced"

Stanislav Grof, Psychologist

"The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century"

Daniel J. Boorstin, Historian

"I think I was a good student, because I jumped over a school. My main interest was basically history and literature. Sports were basically basketball and swimming at a pool. I was so happy"

Shimon Peres, Statesman

"Hitchcock makes it very clear to us. There's an objective and a subjective camera, like there's a third- and a first-person narrator in literature"

Manuel Puig, Author

"He taught me literature, and he actually taught me how to read. He was my personal mentor"

Shimon Peres, Statesman

"Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science"

Larry Wall, Author

"Without literature my life would be miserable"

Naguib Mahfouz, Novelist

"I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature"

Naguib Mahfouz, Novelist

"The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition"

Naguib Mahfouz, Novelist

"If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays"

Ezra Pound, Poet

"A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations"

Ezra Pound, Poet

"A losing trade, I assure you, sir: literature is a drug"

George Borrow, Author

"Literature is news that stays news"

Ezra Pound, Poet

"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree"

Ezra Pound, Poet

"Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use"

Ezra Pound, Poet

"Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature"

Jean Cocteau, Director

"Internationalism on the other hand admits that spiritual achievements have their roots deep in national life; from this national consciousness art and literature derive their character and strength and on it even many of the humanistic sciences are firmly based"

Christian Lous Lange, Politician

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself"

Henry Miller, Writer

"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself"

Henry Miller, Writer

"Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

"Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

"It is unhappily true that much insincere Literature and Art, executed solely with a view to effect, does succeed by deceiving the public"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

"All good Literature rests primarily on insight"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

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