Robertson Davies Quotes

• Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happy, Expects

• No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Small, English

• May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Help

• Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn’t, he should be ashamed of himself.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Art

• If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Passion, Sense

• I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Country

• I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ever, Wanted

• I do not ‘get’ ideas; ideas get me.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ideas

• Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Genius

• Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Doubt, Fanaticism

• Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Survive, Terrible

• Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Wise

  Tags in Woman

• Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in God

  Tags in Best

• Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Spiritual, Place

• Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Wise

  Tags in Lovable, Books

• A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Opera

• A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happy, Childhood

• Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Politics

• The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

  Robertson Davies

  Topics in Age

• The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

  Robertson Davies

  Tags in Writers And Writing

Robertson Davies (42)

Birth:	28th August, 1913
Death:	2nd December, 1995
Nationality:	Canadian
Profession:	Critic, Journalist, Novelist, Professor, Playwriter

About

William Robertson Davies was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself and to have detested.

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Today's Anniversary - 27th December

Births

• 1822 - Louis Pasteur
• 1901 - Marlene Dietrich
• 1915 - William Howell Masters
• 1969 - Sarah Vowell
• 1931 - Scotty Moore

Deaths

• 1985 - Potter Stewart
• 1938 - Zona Gale
• 1994 - Marjorie Joyner
• 2003 - Alan Bates