Literature Quotes

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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

"In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others"

Andre Maurois, Writer

"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

"Personal experience is the basis of all real Literature"

George Henry Lewes, Philosopher

"I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!"

Philip Pullman, Writer

"Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues"

Phillips Brooks, Clergyman

"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

"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill"

Barbara Tuchman, Historian

"Well, you sort of get out of the pool room, you get out of the Marine Corps, you get out and read some literature, you become involved with people who also want to know and are ready to share some ideas about literature and thoughts, and it becomes nourished that way"

Harvey Keitel, Actor

"Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions"

A. E. Housman, Poet

"In the same period, Polish literature also underwent some significant changes. From social-political literature, which had a great tradition and strong motivation to be that way, Polish literature changed its focus to a psychological rather than a social one"

Andrzej Wajda, Director

"Oh literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow in our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!"

David Herbert Lawrence, Writer

"That helped me to keep in touch with myself and to keep in touch with this really quite extraordinary language and literature into which I had pushed a little way"

Robert Fitzgerald, Author

"I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature"

Sidney Hook, Philosopher

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

Daniel J. Boorstin, Historian

"Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language"

Steven Pinker, Scientist

"An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence"

Raymond Chandler, Writer

"There are those who believe we have need of more literature, of a large international publishing house, of a great peace newspaper, or the like. I am rather skeptical about this idea"

Fredrik Bajer, Writer

"Literature precedes genre"

Rick Moody, Novelist

"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

"Indeed; peace literature is almost exclusively read, though to good effect, by pacifists, while what is needed is the canvassing of those who have not so far been won to the cause"

Fredrik Bajer, Writer

"Even before Europe was united in an economic level or was conceived at the level of economic interests and trade, it was culture that united all the countries of Europe. The arts, literature, music are the connecting link of Europe"

Dario Fo, Playwright

"Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past"

Andrzej Wajda, Director

"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

"I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies"

Francis Ford Coppola, Director

"What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature"

Henry Miller, Writer

"Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep"

David Herbert Lawrence, Writer

"A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature"

John Henry Newman, Clergyman

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