Robertson Davies quotes - page 12

The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. (Robertson Davies)
Have you never read the manifesto of the Marchbanks Humanist Party? How does it begin? The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world The poorer the people will be. The more sharp weapons the people have The more troubled the state will be. View quote
Robertson Davies
Viewed unsympathetically, this is nothing, a chance association-by-knees; yet if we cherish life, and are not mere creatures of death and sepulcher, deluded by the notion that only our own experience is real and our demise the end of the world, we see in it a reminder that we are all beads on a string - separate yet part of a unity. View quote
Robertson Davies
He sets a thief to guard his purse Who trusts a dial with his hours. View quote
Robertson Davies
Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. View quote
Robertson Davies
These people seemed to think that whizzing through space in a car really altered the universe for them, but they were wrong; each one remained right in the centre of his private universe, which is the only field of knowledge of which he has any direct experience. View quote
Robertson Davies
Modern man is a debtor, or he is nothing, and money becomes more and more illusory. View quote
Robertson Davies
The word "religion" just means "law," the consideration of law and consequence. That's what interests me: what happens as a result of what people do. View quote
Robertson Davies
He doesn't care nearly as much about individuals and individual fates as we would like to suppose. But by trying to ally ourselves with the totality of things, we may get into Tao as they say in the East and be part of it, really take part in it, and not just regard ourselves as a kind of miraculous creation and the rest just sort of stage scenery against which we perform. View quote
Robertson Davies
A sense of wonder is in itself a religious feeling. But in so many people the sense of wonder gets lost. It gets scarred over. View quote
Robertson Davies
I was a frequent visitor at the London Zoo; in the lion house there were always ninnies who mocked the captive lions. I often wished that the bars would turn to butter, and that the great, noble beasts would practise their particular form of wit upon the little, ignoble men. (Robertson Davies)
The truth is that art does not teach; it makes you feel, and any teaching that may arise from the feeling is an extra, and must not be stressed too much. View quote
Robertson Davies
The mind of man, though perhaps the most splendid achievement of evolution, is not, surely, that answer to every problem of the universe. View quote
Robertson Davies
Again he struck the harp and began the jig. But this time it was such music as never came from a harp. View quote
Robertson Davies
A thing to have a mystique must necessarily have many aspects, many corridors, many avenues, many things that open up. View quote
Robertson Davies
I think possibly the final sophistication is the recovery of innocence. Where you really get where you take things rather simply. View quote
Robertson Davies
Much like ourselves, in fact, though rather dirtier. View quote
Robertson Davies
Emotional chaos is not pleasant; distillation of that chaos afterward may perhaps be pleasant in some of its aspects, and undoubtedly gives pleasure to others. View quote
Robertson Davies
I am constantly astonished by the people, otherwise intelligent, who think that anything so complex and delicate as a marriage can be left to take care of itself. View quote
Robertson Davies
I have never consciously "used" humour in my life. Such humour as I may have is one of the elements in which I live. View quote
Robertson Davies
They live and laugh who know the better part - Count length of pleasure not by dial or glass But by the heart. (Robertson Davies)
If I am a moralist - and I suppose I am - I am certainly not a gloomy moralist, and if humour finds its way into my work it is because I cannot help it. View quote
Robertson Davies
Sometimes there was a serious article on a hot topic, and I especially remember one by a bishop headed "Is Nudity Salacious?" View quote
Robertson Davies
Prayer is petition, intercession, adoration, and contemplation; great saints and mystics have agreed on this definition. To stop short at petition is to pray only in a crippled fashion. View quote
Robertson Davies
Strange reading? It is meant to be. The world is full of romantic, macabre, improbable things which would never do in works of fiction. View quote
Robertson Davies