Robertson Davies: Man

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

“During the years when my own daughters were pupils in this school I attended many of these gatherings, and heard many speeches made by men who stood where I stand at this moment. They said all sorts of things. I recall one speaker who said that as he looked out at the girls who were assembled to receive prizes, and to pay their last respects to their school, he felt as though he were looking over a garden of exquisite flowers. He was drunk, poor man, and it would be absurd to treat his remark as though he were speaking on oath.”

Robertson Davies

What Every Girl Should Know.
One-Half of Robertson Davies (1977)

“Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.”

Robertson Davies

Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack (1967)

“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)

“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)

“Why are so many people ashamed of having intelligence and using it? There is nothing democratic about such an attitude. To pretend to be less intelligent that one is deceives nobody and begets dislike, for intelligence cannot be hidden; like a cough, it will out, stifle it how you may. No man has ever won commendation for standing at less than his full height, either physically, morally, or intellectually.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Women always think that if they tell a man not to be pompous that will shut him up, but I am an old hand at that game. I know that if a man bides his time his moment will come.”

Robertson Davies

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

“This evening heard Carmen on the radio, and reflected how hard it was to vamp a man while singing at the top of one's voice. That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a head of stream while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of verisimilitude.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)