|
|
There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an
art of writing.
Topic: Art
Source: Literary Character (ch. XI)
|
It does at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction,
while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite than a farmer
who in conducting his team.
- Isaac D'Israeli,
Topic: Astronomy
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius--On Habituating Ourselves to Indiv. Pursuit
|
Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents
besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is
that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners.
Topic: Borrowing
Source: Curiosities of Literature--The Bibliomania
|
A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of
calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity.
This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite.
Topic: Calumny
Source: Amenities of Literature--The First Jesuits in England
|
The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.
Topic: Contemplation
Source: Literary Character (ch. XII)
|
The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the
antagonist so much as the rival of the author.
Topic: Criticism
Source: Curiosities of Literature--Literary Journals
|
Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be
criticised.
Topic: Criticism
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. VI)
|
The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities.
Topic: Education
Source: Literary Character (ch. VI)
|
The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.
Topic: Faults
Source: Essay on the Literary Character (preface, p. XXIX and vol. I, p. 187)
|
Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.
[Fr., Heureux l'homme quand il n'a pas les defauts de ses
qualites.]
Topic: Faults
Source: Essay on the Literary Character (preface, p. XXIX and vol. I, p. 187)
|
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.
Topic: Genius
Source: Curiosities of Literature--Poverty of the Learned
|
Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius
can appear.
Topic: Genius
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius
|
To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men
of genius--the men of reasoning and the men of imagination.
Topic: Genius
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. II)
|
Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the
enthusiasm of genius.
Topic: Genius
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XII)
|
Every work of Genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often
originates in the events of times.
Topic: Genius
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XXV)
|
The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing
that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire.
Topic: Greatness
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XV)
|
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.
Topic: Inspirational
Source: None
|
The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and
when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the
vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him
as one of themselves--the creature of habits and infirmities.
Topic: Invention
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XVI)
|
Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people;
for it is they who form a communication between the learned and
the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two
great divisions of the public.
Topic: Journalism
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius--Miscellanists
|
But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts
better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses.
Topic: Literature
Source: Curiosities of Literature--Pamphlets
|
Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges
the patrimony of literature to its possessor.
Topic: Literature
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XXII)
|
Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious
men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.
Topic: Literature
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XXIV)
|
The Plagiarism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy
mode, which some adroitly employ to change, or disguise, all
sorts of speeches or their own composition, or that of other
authors, for their pleasure, or their utility; in such a manner
that it becomes impossible even for the author himself to
recognize his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so
skillfully shall the whole be disguised.
- Isaac D'Israeli,
Topic: Plagiarism
Source: Curiosities of Literature--Professors of Plagiarism and Obscurity
|
The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading,
imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age.
Topic: Reading
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. XXII)
|
Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true
parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for--has
been flown to.
Topic: Solitude
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
|
There is a society in the deepest solitude.
Topic: Solitude
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
|
And, after all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge
of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but
his style.
Topic: Style
Source: Literary Miscellanies--Style
|
Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very
thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly
as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the
throbbing of this pulse,--in short, as any part of his being is
at least subjected to the action of the will.
Topic: Style
Source: Literary Miscellanies--Style
|
