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Category Literature

Featured Quote in Literature

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my bookfriends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and heavenly charities.
Helen Keller The Story of My Life · 1903

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Essays (0) Language (0) Authorship (8) Poetry (1) Fiction (0) Drama (1) Criticism (2) Translation (1)

Literature Quotes

“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my bookfriends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and heavenly charities.”

Helen Keller · The Story of My Life, 1903 · Primary source

“Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The muses love the morning.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty centuries for us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“I do not hesitate to read all the books I have named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable—any real insight or broad human sentiment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“I do not remember a time since I have been capable of loving books that I have not loved Shakespeare.”

Helen Keller · The Story of My Life, 1903 · Primary source

“I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Mans
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create”

William Blake · Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, 1804 · Primary source

“Good criticism is very rare, and always precious.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Culture, 1860 · Primary source

“You only live twice:
Once when you’re born,
Once when you look death in the face.”

Ian Fleming · You Only Live Twice, 1964 · Primary source

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake · Auguries of Innocence, 1803 · Primary source

“The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are: 1. Never read any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. 3. Never read any but what you like.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”

Jack London · The Call of the Wild, 1903 · Primary source

“Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“If you cannot read them [books], at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“The whole scene, the empty beach, the green and blue sea, the naked girl with the strands of fair hair, reminded Bond of something. He searched his mind. Yes, she was Botticelli’s Venus, seen from behind.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“In comparing the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well be read by proxy, if we had good proxies.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Books, 1870 · Primary source

“You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. ‘Huh,’ ‘hun’ and ‘hi!’ in their various modulations, together with ‘sure,’ ‘guess so,’ ‘that so?’ and ‘nuts!’ will meet almost any contingency.”

Ian Fleming · For Your Eyes Only, 1960 · Primary source

“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · The American Scholar, 1837 · Primary source

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.”

Leonardo da Vinci · No reliable source

“He [James Bond] was about six feet tall, slim and fit-looking. The eyes in the lean, slightly tanned face were a very clear gray-blue and as they observed the men they were cold and watchful. The narrowed watchful eyes gave his good looks the dangerous, almost cruel quality that had frightened me when I had first set eyes on him.”

Ian Fleming · The Spy Who Loved Me, 1962 · Primary source

Explore the category

Literature

8 subcategories · 6 authors · 7 works · 58 themes · 116 tags
Authors
Benjamin Franklin American statesmanRalph Waldo Emerson American essayist and philosopherHenry David Thoreau American writer and philosopher
Works
Poor Richard’s Almanack Benjamin Franklin · 1732-1758Walden Henry David Thoreau · 1849Culture Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1860
Themes
Literature as freedomAccess beyond sensory barriersWriting from lived experience
Tags
ReadingBooksLibrariesInspiration
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