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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.

Lytton Strachey

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Lytton Strachey
Age: 52 †
Born: 1880
Born: January 1
Died: 1932
Died: January 1
Biographer
Literary Critic
Painter
Poet
Writer
London
England
Giles Lytton Strachey
Highest
Selects
Art
Placid
Firsts
Requisite
First
Unattainable
Simplify
Historian
Omits
Perfection
Simplifies
Ignorance
Clarifies

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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.
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It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.
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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.
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Discretion is not the better part of biography.
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Englishmen have always loved Moliere.
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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.
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The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.
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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.
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There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.
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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.
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