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The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending Western subjects.

Lafcadio Hearn

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Lafcadio Hearn
Age: 54 †
Born: 1850
Born: June 27
Died: 1904
Died: September 26
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Professor
Screenwriter
Writer
Lefkas
Koizumi Yakumo
Yakumo Koizumi
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn
Poet
Subjects
Comprehending
Writer
Eastern
Kind
Romance
Difficulty
Western
Exactly

More quotes by Lafcadio Hearn

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One thing is always wrong-always: to cause suffering in others for the purpose of gratifying one's own pleasures that is everlastingly wrong.
Lafcadio Hearn
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There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being killed by others
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Any idealism is a proper subject for art.
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Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this is only in part true.
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As a result, the highly civilized man can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he has a great advantage over the savage.
Lafcadio Hearn
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In the world of reality the more beautiful a work of art, the longer, we may be sure, was the time required to make it, and the greater the number of different minds which assisted in its development.
Lafcadio Hearn
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Literary success of any enduring kind is made by refusing to do what publishers want, by refusing to write what the public wants, by refusing to accept any popular standard, by refusing to write anything to order.
Lafcadio Hearn
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Contemporary literature in the West has shown some signs of ethical change.
Lafcadio Hearn
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A proof of really great art is that it is generally true - it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable.
Lafcadio Hearn
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Some persons have ventured to say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that they began to discover how beautiful it was.
Lafcadio Hearn
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At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
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There are two methods for the literary study of any book - the first being the study of its thought and emotion the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from both points of view.
Lafcadio Hearn
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I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.
Lafcadio Hearn
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In order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand - or at least to learn to understand - the beauty of stone.
Lafcadio Hearn
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The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western poetry.
Lafcadio Hearn
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But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many generations.
Lafcadio Hearn
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Of course, the simple explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it.
Lafcadio Hearn
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The fact, however, to which I want to call attention is that the master of Judo never relies upon his own strength. He scarcely uses his own strength in the greatest emergency. Then what does he use? Simply the strength of his antagonist. The force of the enemy is the only means by which that enemy is overcome.
Lafcadio Hearn
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But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth that is the happiness of being truly loved.
Lafcadio Hearn
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To ancient Chinese fancy, the Milky Way was a luminous river, - the River of Heaven, - the Silver Stream.
Lafcadio Hearn