There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough -- the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.
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If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no read more
If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
I can find my biography in every fable that I read.
I can find my biography in every fable that I read.
Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious
men who are deprived of honours or of read more
Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious
men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.
People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.
People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a read more
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
They castrate the books of other men in order that with the fat of their works they may lard their read more
They castrate the books of other men in order that with the fat of their works they may lard their own lean volumes.
. . . A man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters
amongst men of read more
. . . A man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters
amongst men of the world.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
