Robertson Davies citations (305 citations, Page 7)

Robertson Davies: 305 citations0 J'aime

Robertson Davies citations célèbres

“Qu'est-ce qu'une autobiographie? Une histoire romantique dont on est soi-même le héros. Sinon, pourquoi l'écrire? Vous pouvez vous donner un caractère peu reluisant, comme Rousseau ou H. G. Wells, mais c'est juste une autre façon de vous rendre intéressant.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Mon père avait sans doute entendu parler de Shakespeare, mais je suis certain qu'il le rejeta, le considérant comme un individu ayant perdu son temps au théâtre, ce royaume du Diable où le mensonge revêt une forme séduisante pour attirer les êtres frivoles.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Les coïncidences sont des calembours d'ordre spirituel.”

Robertson Davies

Citation de G.K. Chesterton
Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“Dieu et le Diable désirent tous deux intervenir dans les affaires humaines; le Diable choisit toujours bien son moment.”

Robertson Davies

De Ramsay, ami calviniste d'Eisengrim.
Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Je n'ai rien contre l'instruction : pour la plupart des gens, elle est nécessaire. Mais si vous avez l'intention de devenir un génie, vous devriez soit l'éviter complètement, soit essayer de toutes vos forces de vous débarrasser de celle qu'on vous a donnée. L'instruction, c'est pour les personnes ordinaires : elle renforce leur banalité. Elle les rend utiles, certes, mais d'une manière ordinaire.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“On a souvent dit que Robertson Davies est le Trollope du Canada; moi, j'ajouterais volontiers qu'il en est le Dickens.”

Robertson Davies

Citations sur les personnes de Robertson Davies

“La qualité de l'humour dépend de la personne qui l'exerce; or le vôtre est pareil à l'égratignure d'un clou rouillé.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Le Diable crée et gouverne-t-il ce vaste domaine de misères indéniablement effroyables qui, pour autant que nous puissions en juger, ne sont de la faute de personne ni les conséquences d'un péché? Les pavillons de cancéreux, les services d'hôpitaux pour enfants déformés ou débiles? J'ai eu l'occasion de visiter de tels endroits, des asiles de fous en particulier; je ne crois pas montrer une imagination débridée ni une sensibilité excessive en disant que le mal, là-bas, se manifeste d'une façon palpable, malgré tout ce que l'on peut faire pour l'atténuer.”

Robertson Davies

De Ramsay, ami calviniste d'Eisengrim.
Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Il perdait son emprise sur le monde comme sur moi et, à l'instar d'un grand nombre de personnes auxquelles cela arrive, il croyait à tort avoir atteint une certaine sagesse.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

Robertson Davies Citations

“Le temps lui a donné raison, comme il le fait souvent avec les gens désagréables.”

Robertson Davies

Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“Nous tenons tous à nos chaînes. Il n'y a pas d'homme libre.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Les grands mythes ne sont pas des histoires inventées, mais l'objectivation d'images et de situations profondément enfouies dans la psyché. Un poète peut exprimer un mythe d'une façon magistrale, mais c'est l'humanité qui reconnaît dans celui-ci une vérité spirituelle et, de ce fait, aime ce poème.”

Robertson Davies

Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“L'amour physique, c'est comme l'aquarelle, vous savez : cela a l'air faussement facile.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“C'était cela, la force d'Hannah. Toute son énorme masse était remplie à ras bord de la connaissance et de citations de la Bible, qui suintaient d'elle comme du jus de groseilles d'une chausse à filtrer la gelée.”

Robertson Davies

À propos d'une femme obèse.
Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Caroline avait douze ans. Elle était à cet âge, entre enfance et nubilité, où les filles semblent avoir la sagesse qui ne repose sur aucune expérience et une certaine lucidité qu'elles ne retrouveront qu'après la ménopause.”

Robertson Davies

Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“En quoi consiste cette bonté? Ce n'est qu'une acceptation bête et minable des choses telles qu'elles sont, une version théâtrale du rêve qui, en Amérique du Nord, s'appelle maman et tarte aux pommes.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Le merveilleux est une chose très belle, mais il est aussi cruel, très très cruel. Il est antidémocratique, discriminatoire, impitoyable.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Milady préconisait un phrasé équilibré et de longues respirations; elle recommandait de ne jamais accentuer les pronoms possessifs : d'après elle, cela donnait à presque n'importe quel texte un côté mesquin.”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Maintenant, je fais plus l'amour pour me rassurer que pour le plaisir. Mes jeunes conquêtes – et elles doivent être de plus en plus jeunes -– sont flattées à cause de ma personnalité et de mon prestige. Mais il y a toujours cette expression que vous surprenez quand elles croient que vous ne les regardez pas : Il-est-vraiment-étonnant-pour-son-âge-je-me-demande-ce-que-je-ferais-s'il-avait-une-crise-cardiaque-serais-je-obligée-de-le-traîner-dehors-sur-le-palier-et-de-le-laisser-à-côté-de-l'ascenseur-et-comment-parviendrais-je-à-le-rhabiller?”

Robertson Davies

Dans la bouche d'un chef d'entreprise largement sexagénaire.
Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Chacun de nous porte sur ses épaules un fardeau de choses tues, de choses qui semblent parfois impossibles à dire. Très souvent elles n'ont rien de honteux ou de criminel : il s'agit simplement du sentiment de ne pas s'être conduit tout à fait correctement; d'avoir commis une action dont on savait qu'elle nuirait à autrui; de s'être emparé d'un avantage alors qu'on aurait pu l'attendre avec décence; de s'être éclipsé, mettant ainsi quelqu'un d'autre dans l'embarras; d'avoir parlé du bien général tout en ne pensant qu'à soi-même; d'être tombé au-dessous du niveau qu'on s'était fixé.”

Robertson Davies

Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“Quelle vérité avons-nous entendue cet après-midi? Je ne crois pas que Magnus pense nous dire la vérité. Il nous donne un tas de détails et je suis certain que chaque mot qu'il prononce est vrai en lui-même, mais appeler ça « vérité » et ridicule.”

Robertson Davies

De Kinghovn.
Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

“Touriste méthodique comme à l'habitude, je pars visiter la cathédrale [de Saint-Gall] à 9 h 30. Savais qu'elle était baroque, mais ne m'attendais pas à ce qu'elle le fût autant! Partout d'époustouflantes monstruosités dues à des excès spirituels, mais sans effet de fouillis ou de pacotille.”

Robertson Davies

Le Manticore (Trilogie de Deptford, II)

“Toutes les citations suivantes sont mises dans la bouche de Magnus Eisengrim, ancien prestidigitateur extrêmement renommé, qui dévoile une grande partie de sa vie durant le roman (les citations des autres personnages sont indiquées expressément).”

Robertson Davies

Le monde des merveilles (Trilogie de Deptford, III)

Robertson Davies: Citations en anglais

“There stole into my mind Coleridge's poignant lines:
Ah God! It is fell Christmas-tide
So to the shops I hie;
And my shopping-list, like the Albatross,
About my neck doth lie.
This was to be included in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" but was dropped to please Wordsworth, who secretly held shares in a large toy-shop and was afraid it might hurt business.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“Surely we all know scores of professional men and women who, apart from their professional concerns, seem not to have enough brains to butter a biscuit. They probably had intelligence once. But when their university had given them its blessing, they thought that enough had been done for one lifetime.”

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Robertson Davies

Reading (1990)

“In too many modern churches there is no emphasis on theology at all. There is a kind of justification by works or by keeping up with modern trends — anything that will drag in a few more people.”

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Robertson Davies

"Author Says Messiah Could Be a Woman".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

“The brigand's life is a very fine life
For men of generous mind;
We rob the rich to help the poor
And succour oppressed mankind.
The rich, dear souls, are close around
And it's easy work to skelp 'em;
But the poor — damn their eyes — can never be found
When we're in the mood to help them.”

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Robertson Davies

The Golden Ass (1999)

“As for an afterlife, there has been a general decline in the general acceptance of it as a certainty, and though a few rationalists may be pleased, to many people this has added a new terror to death. We are reluctant, in the main, to consider the disappearance of ourselves and consequently all we feel and know. Every man's death is, literally, the end of a world if he dies without hope. We have exchanged Gone Elsewhere for Gone Nowhere.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Modern disillusion is unlikely to last forever, and nothing rings so hollow as the angst of yesterday.”

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Robertson Davies

Reading (1990)

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

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Robertson Davies

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

“The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“If I tended toward frivolity as a boy, I am incorrigibly settled in it now.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“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.”

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Robertson Davies

Edward Johnston (1960).

“The inert mind is a greater danger than the inert body, for it overlays and stifles the desire to live.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Cunning Man

Part 4, section 1.
The Cunning Man (1994)

“A Library goes on as far as thought can reach.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Cunning Man

Part 4, section 4.
The Cunning Man (1994)

“This is an age of groups, clubs, associations, and whatnot; most members of the clerisy belong to enough of these already. It is within the groups to which they already belong that they can best assert the values of the humanist — curiosity, the free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“One receives the impression from his writings that he made it his plan to read any book whatever that no one else can bear to read.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“There is no democracy in the world of intellect, and no democracy of taste.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Let people alone. Let them find their way. Let them find their level and you may sometimes be delighted and astonished at the extraordinary high level to which they'll rise if they're let alone.”

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Robertson Davies

"Gzowski on FM".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

“As for hair in the nose, it is picturesque, and with a little practise it can be made to quiver, like the antennae of one of the more intelligent and sensitive insects. Anything which gives interest to the gloomy, immobile pan of the average Canadian should be cherished and not extirpated with circular scissors.”

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Robertson Davies

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

“He has lived to see Sex replaced by Fat as the Ultimate Sin, and at the annual shows of the Ontario Society of Water-colourists pictures of Christ Forgiving the Woman Taken in Adultery have given way to a new theme — Christ Forgiving the Woman Surprised in Laura Secord's.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“If our age is not distinguished for a greatly increased number of happy marriages and a more intelligent approach to the problems of sex, we may surely assert that some forms of misery in the sexual realm are less widespread than they used to be; and of the many people who are unhappy, thousands have some idea of what lies at the root of their unhappiness, and thus far they are better off than their forefathers, who had none, or attributed their distress to sin.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Not long ago a friend of mine opened the door of the garage at her summer cottage, and found a man inside who had hanged himself about two months before; what is more he had been cut down. She is deeply anxious to know (a) why he hanged himself; (b) if he hanged himself or was hanged; (c) who cut him down; (d) what it was about her garage that appealed to his morbid fancy. She will probably never know any of these things. It is thus that life falls short of the movies.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“The reclusive man who marries the gregarious woman, the timid woman who marries the courageous man, the idealist who marries the realist — we can all see these unions: the marriages in which tenderness meets loyalty, where generosity sweetens moroseness, where a sense of beauty eases some aridity of the spirit, are not so easy for outsiders to recognize; the parties themselves may not be fully aware of such elements in a good match.”

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Robertson Davies

The Pleasures of Love.

“It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.”

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Robertson Davies

Elements of Style (1959).

“For them, in a time when the individual has lost significance (despite loud assertions to the contrary), an informed, rational, and intellectually adventurous individuality must take precedence over all else. In their seeming disunion lies their real strength.”

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Robertson Davies livre A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity — the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension — can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion.”

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Robertson Davies

Can a Doctor Be a Humanist? (1984).

“Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather.”

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Robertson Davies

Three Worlds, Three Summers — But Not the Summer Just Past.

“People who have taken the [writing] course write eagerly, "Last week I hit "The Country Gentleman"; this week I hit "Mademoiselle"; next week I hope to hit the "American Mother"! Frankly, I don't think this course would suit me; I don't want to hit any of those people, though I might toss a pie at the American Mother, just for fun…”

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Robertson Davies livre The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

“Anybody who has had experience of poetesses knows that they may forgive a punch on the jaw, but never a suggestion that they would be wiser to give up versifying.”

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Robertson Davies

A Curmudgeon (1961).

“Art is always at peril in universities, where there are so many people, young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text that provides the nutritious pemmican on which scholars love to chew.”

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Robertson Davies livre The Cunning Man

Part 2, section 11.
The Cunning Man (1994)

“Try some Symbolic Logic on your little Couch Potato when you go home, and see what happens.”

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Robertson Davies

Lewis Carroll in the Theatre (1994)

“When the time came for Pompadour herself to die, she confessed, was given her viaticum, and was from that time forth forbidden to see her lover. And when her body was borne away from Versailles, Louis was thought to have behaved rather badly because he watched the sad procession from a balcony. Let no one suppose that these people lived lives that were any more free from religious and neighbourly censure than the adulterers in our smallest Canadian villages. Even wealth and privilege could not wholly insulate them from that frost.”

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Robertson Davies

Madame de Pompadour (1954).

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Robertson Davies citations Page 7

Robertson Davies citations célèbres

Citations sur les personnes de Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies Citations

Robertson Davies: Citations en anglais

Auteurs similaires

Colette49

André Maurois44

Aldous Huxley43

Simone de Beauvoir76

James Joyce73

Romain Gary130

Camilo José Cela5

Paulo Coelho102

André Gide68

Jean-Paul Sartre119

Robertson Davies citations
Page 7