Lytton Strachey quotes

Discretion is not the better part of biography. (Lytton Strachey)
If this is dying, then I don't think much of it. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian – ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. View quote
Lytton Strachey
There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization. View quote
Lytton Strachey
In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion. View quote
Lytton Strachey
It is not the historian's business to be complimentary it is his business to lay bare the facts of the case, as he understands them . . . dispassionately, impartially and without ulterior motives. View quote
Lytton Strachey
[His reply to the chairman's other stock question, which had previously never failed to embarrass the claimant: "Tell me, Mr. Strachey, what would you do if you saw a German soldier trying to violate your sister?" With an air of noble virtue:] "I would try to get between them." View quote
Lytton Strachey
The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own. (Lytton Strachey)
Modern as the style of Pascal's writing is, his thought is deeply impregnated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. He belonged, almost equally, to the future and to the past. View quote
Lytton Strachey
Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work. View quote
Lytton Strachey
English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind. View quote
Lytton Strachey
In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national - it is universal. View quote
Lytton Strachey
In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought. View quote
Lytton Strachey
When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint. View quote
Lytton Strachey
Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. View quote
Lytton Strachey
During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius. View quote
Lytton Strachey
But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist. (Lytton Strachey)
Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic. View quote
Lytton Strachey
To us, with our broader outlook, our more complicated interests, our more elusive moods, their small bright world is apt to seem uninteresting and out of date, unless we spend some patient sympathy in the discovery of the real charm and the real beauty that it contains. View quote
Lytton Strachey
The art of biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. ... With us, the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the journeymen of letters; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one. View quote
Lytton Strachey
With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin. View quote
Lytton Strachey