Quotes by Critics - Page 2

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.
Logan Pearsall Smith
I have lived long enough to be battered by the realities of life and not too long to be downed by them.
John Mason Brown
The misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen.
James Russell Lowell
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
George Bernard Shaw
No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him there is always work And tools to work withal for those who will And blessed are the horny hands of toil!
James Russell Lowell
It's not the having it's the getting.
Elizabeth Taylor
Work is the province of cattle.
Dorothy Parker
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.
Harriet Van Home
The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.
Logan Pearsall Smith
There are certain natures to whom work is nothing the act of work everything.
Arthur Symons
I work as my father drank.
George Bernard Shaw
When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure so I did ten times more work.
George Bernard Shaw
Hasten slowly and without losing heart put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
Nicolas Boileau
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
George Bernard Shaw
Unionism seldom if ever uses such powers as it has to ensure better work almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work.
H.L. Mencken
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.
Ezra Pound
England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
George Bernard Shaw
The fickleness of the woman I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw
Woman's dearest delight is to wound Man's self-conceit though Man's dearest delight is to gratify hers.
George Bernard Shaw
Earth's noblest thing a Woman perfected.
James Russell Lowell
Most men who run down women are running down one woman only.
Rémy de Gourmont
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
H.L. Mencken
Women are most adorable when they are afraid that's why they frighten so easily.
Ludwig Börne
Next to the wound what women make best is the bandage.
Barbey d'Aurevilly
Sex is like money only too much is enough.
John Updike
Wit has truth in it wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Dorothy Parker
Wit is the salt of conversation not the food.
William Hazlitt
Ah men do not know how much strength is in poise That he goes the farthest who goes far enough.
James Russell Lowell
The question of commonsense is always "what is it good for?" - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
James Russell Lowell
It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can.
George Bernard Shaw
It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.
Logan Pearsall Smith
There are few sorrows however poignant in which a good income is of no avail.
Logan Pearsall Smith
Ez for war I call it murder - There you hev it plain and flat I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment for that.
James Russell Lowell
War he sung is toil and trouble Honour but an empty bubble.
John Dryden
War is the trade of kings.
John Dryden
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
George Orwell
Virtue consists not in abstaining from vice but in not desiring it.
George Bernard Shaw
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace And saw within the moonlight in his room Making it rich and like a lily in bloom An angel writing in a book of gold Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold And to the presence in the room he said - "What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head And with a look made all of sweet accord Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
Leigh Hunt
No doubt alcohol tobacco and so forth are things that a saint must avoid but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.
George Orwell
A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.
George Orwell
He talks at the drop of a pause.
John Mason Brown
She realizes she doesn't know as much as God but feels she knows as much as God knew when he was her age.
Dorothy Parker
I'll habits gather by unseen degrees As brooks make rivers rivers run to seas.
John Dryden
Men are the only animals that devote themselves day in and day out to making one another unhappy.
H.L. Mencken
Unhappiness indicates wrong thinking just as ill health indicates a bad regimen.
Paul Bourget
One truth discovered one pang of regret at not being able to express it is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.
William Hazlitt
All great truths began as blasphemies.
George Bernard Shaw
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.
George Bernard Shaw
For truth has such a face and such a mien As to be lov'd needs only to be seen.
John Dryden
Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne.
James Russell Lowell
Russia is the only country of the world you can be homesick for while you're still in it.
John Updike
Happy the man and happy he alone He who can call today his own: He who secure within can say Tomorrow do thy worst for I have liv'd today.
John Dryden
I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.
George Bernard Shaw
Time is a great legalizer even in the field of morals.
H.L. Mencken
Almost everything comes from almost nothing.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes or when she'll say to thee "I find thee worthy do this deed for me?"
James Russell Lowell
Time is a great legalizer even in the fields of morals.
H.L. Mencken
Horus non numero nisi serenas (I count only the sunny hours).
William Hazlitt
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. ... And the choice goes by forever t'wixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
William Hazlitt