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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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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
Kind
Wants
Publishers
Public
Literary
Success
Standard
Write
Popular
Order
Endure
Anything
Standards
Writing
Accept
Refusing
Made
Accepting
Enduring

More quotes by Lafcadio Hearn

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All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.
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Contemporary literature in the West has shown some signs of ethical change.
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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.
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Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.
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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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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No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole universe changes and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.
Lafcadio Hearn
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Whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one's self: Well, who are the best people to live with?
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 time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can.
Lafcadio Hearn
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It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.
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
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