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Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

Van Wyck Brooks

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Van Wyck Brooks
Age: 77 †
Born: 1886
Born: February 16
Died: 1963
Died: May 2
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Plainfield
New Jersey
Esteem
Family
Seems
Forebears
Find
Absolve
Nothing
Heredity
Self
Ancestry
Soothing
Traits

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The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.
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People of small calibre are always carping. How affected so-and-so is! Don't you think he is silly? He was certainly quite mistaken about this or that. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or their prowess or good breeding.
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As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.
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The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.
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It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.
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The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them.
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Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.
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