Bookes give no wisdom where none was before,
But where some is, there reading makes it more.
--
Sir John Harrington, quoted by Robertson DaviesRobertson Davies
» Robertson Davies - all quotes »
Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.
John Harington
Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.
M. H. Abrams
With bookės of his ornat endytyng,
That is to al ?is land enlumynyng.Thomas Occleve
I find that many modern fantasies explain things away far too easily, which makes a lot of it overly familiar (to me, anyway). Real myths are often strange and startlingly unfamiliar, and don't always give up their meanings easily; you have to tease them out, and for me, that's one of the pleasures of reading older collections of lore.
Elizabeth Hand
I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouragingWalt Whitman
Davies, Robertson
Davies, Russell T
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