Literature quotes
4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside literature — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"We have to be willing to give up all the injustices of the past that did exist - and that do exist right now. When we become interested in liberation, we then become interested in that which transcends time."
"We have been very conditioned by the cultures that we come from and are usually very identified with the particular gender that we happen to be a member of."
"In my experience, men are not necessarily less sensitive or compassionate than women are, and women are not necessarily any less aggressive or competitive than men are - as a matter of fact, often they are more so!"
"I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature."
"If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one."
"I'm pulling out, and I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall because I realize now that's the only way to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger."
"To a large extent, the problems of poets are the problems of painters, and poets must often turn to the literature of painting for a discussion of their own problems."
"Our lives are greatly enriched when we immerse ourselves in literature and spiritual writing, not because we are going to be tested but purely for the sake of enrichment."
"What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?"
"Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else."
"It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association"
"Literature is a comprehensive essence of the intellectual life of a nation."
"English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all - there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform."
"Let's say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare's plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do?"
"Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature."
"Realism is a very sophisticated form of literature, a very grown-up one. And that may be its weakness. But fantasy seems to be eternal and omnipresent and always attractive to kids."
"The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards."
"Circumstances are the seeds of literature."
"In many parts of the world, including the Arab world, the Latin American world, and even parts of the Western world, there is a tradition of writers being quite engaged. Particularly in the Arab world you have had very, very strong traditions of literature and poetry and most of the writers have been deeply committed to the cause of the Arab nation."
"As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist of.... In literature, as in allthings, there is only the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false."
