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If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder.
If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder.
In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the read more
In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write? - Nobel Lecture 2000.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
The walls are the publishers of the poor.
The walls are the publishers of the poor.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?Since sorrow never comes too late,And happiness too swiftly flies.Thought would destroy their read more
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?Since sorrow never comes too late,And happiness too swiftly flies.Thought would destroy their paradise.No more; where ignorance is bliss,'Tis folly to be wise. - Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Oh you who are born of the blood of the gods, Trojan son of Anchises, easy is the descent to read more
Oh you who are born of the blood of the gods, Trojan son of Anchises, easy is the descent to Hell; the door of dark Dis stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps and come out to the air above, that is work, that is labor! - Aeneid, The.
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.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
