Osbert Sitwell Quotes (11 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Osbert Sitwell: 11 quotes0 likes

Famous Osbert Sitwell Quotes

“Everywhere men have unlocked the prisoners within, and from under the disguising skins the apes have leapt joyfully out.”

Osbert Sitwell

Left Hand, Right Hand!, Introduction (1945).

“The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy…to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted.”

Osbert Sitwell

Noble Essences, Bk. IX, ch. 7 (1950).

“How simple-minded of the Germans to imagine that we British could be cowed by the destruction of our ancient monuments! As though any havoc of the German bombs could possibly equal the things we have done ourselves!”

Osbert Sitwell

Quoted by George Orwell in Tribune, December 31, 1943.
Referring to the Baedeker Blitz: a series of German air raids on English cities of historic and architectural interest.

“Heroic figures are now obsolete,
So Demigod and Devil find retreat
In minds of children — as rare beasts and men,
Elsewhere extinct, persist in hill or fen
From man protected — where each form assumes
Gigantic stature and intention, looms
From wind-moved, twilight-woven histories:
For them each flower teems with mysteries.”

Osbert Sitwell

"When First the Poets Sung", line 34 (1927).

“Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space.”

Osbert Sitwell

The Scarlet Tree, Bk. IV, ch. 1 (1946).

“Educ[ated]: during the holidays from Eton.”

Osbert Sitwell

Entry in Who's Who (1929).

Osbert Sitwell Quotes

“They loved him, I think, because, with all his merits, he showed them to be rich: looking at his portraits, they understood at last how rich they really were.”

Osbert Sitwell

Left Hand, Right Hand!, Bk. II, ch. 6.
Of the portrait-painter John Singer Sargent's relationship with his clients.

“The Rich Man's Banquet, which was to last for a decade, had now begun: the feast, it was recognised, went to the greediest.”

Osbert Sitwell

Left Hand, Right Hand!, Bk. II, ch. 6.
Of the Edwardian age.

“The British bourgeoisie
Is not born
And does not die,
But, if it is ill,
It has a frightened look in its eyes.”

Osbert Sitwell

"At the House of Mrs. Kinfoot", line 49 (1919).

“For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood,
That scarlet tree within, which has the power
To make dull words bud forth and burst in flower.”

Osbert Sitwell

"When First the Poets Sung", line 47.
These lines were repeatedly drawn on by Sitwell in his later works.

“The artist, like the idiot or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it.”

Osbert Sitwell

The Scarlet Tree, Bk. IV, ch. 2.

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