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A boy is a man in miniature, and though he may sometimes exhibit notable virtue, as well as characteristics that seem to be charming because they are childlike, he is also a schemer, self-seeker, traitor, Judas, crook, and villain - in short, a man.

Robertson Davies

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Robertson Davies
Age: 82 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 28
Died: 1995
Died: December 3
Journalist
Literary Critic
Musicologist
Novelist
Playwright
Professor
Reporter
Writer
William Robertson Davies
Wells
Short
Childlike
Well
Seem
Traitor
Crook
Self
Boys
Exhibits
Miniature
Sometimes
Virtue
Notable
Miniatures
Men
Though
Seekers
Crooks
Also
Villain
Judas
Seems
Charming
Seeker
May
Characteristics
Exhibit

More quotes by Robertson Davies

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I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read.
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Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.
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Like it or not, to reach middle age with less money or less prestige than our father had is somewhat to lose face. Stupid of course, when put like that, but who is prepared to argue that we are not stupid in several important ways?
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May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.
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No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.
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Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity rather it is an elaborate balancing act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites.
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If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.
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The clerisy are those who seek, and find, delight and enlargement of life in books. The clerisy are those for whom reading is a personal art.
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There can be no doubt that Samuel Marchbanks is one of the choice and master spirits of this age. If there were such a volume as Who Really Ought To Be Who his entry would require several pages.
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I think of the author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, 'I will tell you a story' and then he passes the hat.
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Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground - not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.
Robertson Davies
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In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.
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Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.
Robertson Davies
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This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.
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The division between art and deviousness and crime is sometimes as thin as a cigarette paper.
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People are not saints just because they haven't got much money or education.
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Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.
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The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
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I would not for a moment have you suppose that I am one of those idiots who scorns Science, merely because it is always twisting and turning, and sometimes shedding its skin, like the serpent that is [the doctors'] symbol.
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We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity.
Robertson Davies