Quote

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Robertson Davies

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Distill
Brandy
Alcohol
Wine
Experience
Art

More quotes by Robertson Davies

Image
The division between art and deviousness and crime is sometimes as thin as a cigarette paper.
Robertson Davies
Image
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.
Robertson Davies
Image
One can always tell it's summer when one sees school teachers hanging about the streets idly, looking like cannibals during a shortage of missionaries.
Robertson Davies
Image
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog fewer when pursued by a mad woman only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
Robertson Davies
Image
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
Image
He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.
Robertson Davies
Image
All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages.
Robertson Davies
Image
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
Robertson Davies
Image
There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.
Robertson Davies
Image
We live in a world where bulk is equated with quality.
Robertson Davies
Image
In too many modern churches there is no emphasis on theology at all. There is a kind of justification by works or by keeping up with modern trends anything that will drag in a few more people.
Robertson Davies
Image
I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They're always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: Maybe I'm not worthy of an epiphany.
Robertson Davies
Image
The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.
Robertson Davies
Image
Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.
Robertson Davies
Image
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson Davies
Image
Whoever declares a child to be delicate thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.
Robertson Davies
Image
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
Robertson Davies
Image
I was not sure I wanted to issue orders to life I rather liked the Greek notion of allowing Chance to take a formative hand in my affairs.
Robertson Davies
Image
The Wild Hunt is known in all Celtic countries it is a huntsman with a pack of hounds who is seen or heard to rush through the country. Those who see him are doomed to die. The writer heard the Wild Hunt quite distinctly one night in Wales several years ago, but has not suffered any ill effects from it as yet.
Robertson Davies
Image
The egotist is all surface underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
Robertson Davies