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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

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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
Problem
Disguises
Like
Wretchedness
People
Physician
Diseases
Physicians
Disguise
Disease
Present

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When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.
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She has been kissed as often as a police-court Bible, and by much the same class of people.
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Art is always at peril in universities, where there are so many people, young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text that provides the nutritious pemmican on which scholars love to chew.
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The nature of happiness is such that happiness retreats the more intensely you pursue it.
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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.
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Canada, having few indigenous prejudices, has been compelled to import them from elsewhere, duty-free, and it is the rare Canadian who is not shaken, at some time in the year, by old, unhappy, far-off things / And battles long ago, like Wordsworth's solitary reaper. We are a nation of immigrants, and not happy in our minds.
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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.
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There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.
Robertson Davies
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Whoever declares a child to be delicate thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.
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All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children.
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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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I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.
Robertson Davies
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We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity.
Robertson Davies
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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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Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.
Robertson Davies
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There is no disputing about tastes, says the old saw. In my experience there is little else.
Robertson Davies
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Canada has one of the highest rates of insanity in any civilized country and one reason might be that life in many places is so desperately dull.
Robertson Davies
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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.
Robertson Davies
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No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.
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The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar.
Robertson Davies