Robertson Davies: Doing

Robertson Davies was Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Robertson Davies: 564 quotes4 likes

“Happiness is a by-product. It is not a primary product of life. It is a thing which you suddenly realize you have because you're so delighted to be doing something which perhaps has nothing whatever to do with happiness.”

Robertson Davies

"Sunday Morning".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

“The world does so well without me, that I am moved to wish that I could do equally well without the world.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“People marry most happily with their own kind. The trouble lies in the fact that people usually marry at an age where they do not really know what their own kind is.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“A pig can learn more tricks than a dog, but has too much sense to want to do it.”

Robertson Davies

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

“A life given to determining the best form for the letters of the alphabet — does it seem extraordinary to you? But no day passes that our eyes do not fall upon something that was influenced, and made better, by this extraordinary, eccentric Scot, and if that is not a life well spent, I should be interested in a better definition.”

Robertson Davies

Edward Johnston (1960).

“If you stay in Canada, I can, too. Everybody says Canada is a hard country to govern, but nobody mentions that for some people it is also a hard country to live in. Still, if we all run away it will never be any better. So let the geniuses of easy virtue go southward; I know what they feel too well to blame them. But for some of us there is no choice; let Canada do what she will with us, we must stay.”

Robertson Davies

Fortune, My Foe (1949).

“Poetry which has decided to do without music, to divorce itself from song, has thrown away much of its reason for being…”

Robertson Davies

Reading (1990)

“It would certainly be better if a writer like Leacock knew always what was best to do and what would look best in the eyes of posterity, but such unnatural foresight cannot be required of any man.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“I am a Democrat. All of my family have been persons of peasant origin, who have wrung a meagre sufficiency from a harsh world by the labour of their hands. I acknowledge no one my superior merely on grounds of a more fortunate destiny, a favoured birth. I did what any such man would do when confronted with Queen Victoria; I fell immediately to my knees.”

Robertson Davies

The Great Queen is Amused.
High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982)

“There must be times, in the world of business, when two Peale-powered personalities find themselves in opposition. Number One is determined to achieve success by selling Number Two a great gross of non-molting dust mops; Number Two is equally determined not to have the mops. Both have affirmed an equal number of times that he can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth him. What happens? Theologians will scratch their heads over this, and Immensity itself may feel a tremor.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“You have to come to terms with yourself and your place in the scheme of life — something a good many people don't want to do. In the last century we have extended the normal life-span. Many seem to believe that this means we have extended the period when they should enjoy the things they enjoyed in youth. But I don't think they realize that we've also expanded the period of life when we can learn to think, feel, and experience the largeness and the splendor of life.”

Robertson Davies

"You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

“And how often do we meet the man who prefaces his remarks with: "I was reading a book last night…" in the too loud, overenunciated fashion of one who might be saying: "I keep a hippogryph in my basement."”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

Reading confers status.
A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“In spite of all this chaos, however, most people seem to lead humdrum lives, and badly want livening up. Do you think we should organize a Chaos-of-the-Month Club, guaranteeing to supply all members with something really unnerving every thirty days?”

Robertson Davies

Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack (1967)

“It is not as though "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" was a precept from which splendid fiction could not be drawn; it is rather that what these small-time rebels choose to do is so trivial, so cheap, and in the end, so dreary.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“So, I was to talk about "Opera as Related to Literature", was I not? And because the subject is so vast, I have wandered here and there, trying to illuminate, as if with a candle, a vast chamber full of fascinating corners, mysterious with mirrors, and echoing with some of the loveliest music ever written. I have not succeeded on any high level, but then, I never expected to do so. But perhaps I have thrown out an idea or two which you would like to consider for yourselves.”

Robertson Davies

Opera for the Man Who Reads Hamlet (1989).

“The King had every privilege except that of being at ease. Pompadour provided the atmosphere in which that final luxury was possible. She did not do this, as anyone who thinks about the matter for twenty seconds will know, by twenty years of rapt contemplation of the ceilings of Versailles. Indeed, Pompadour was not a physically ardent woman, and love-making tired her. After about eight years of their association Louis XV did not sleep with her… But it was to Pompadour that he talked, and it was to Pompadour that he listened.”

Robertson Davies

Madame de Pompadour.

“Do they show us the future as it matures in the womb of the present?”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)