“Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.”

Page 180.
A Grammar of the English Language (1818)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write." by William Cobbett?
William Cobbett photo
William Cobbett 58
English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist 1763–1835

Related quotes

George Saintsbury photo

“We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

Vol. 1, pp. 4–5
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day

Gore Vidal photo

“Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Variant: In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
Source: The Essential Gore Vidal

Neil Simon photo

“Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.”

Neil Simon (1927–2018) playwright, writer, academic

New York Times, March 24, 1985

Henry David Thoreau photo

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

August 19, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)
Variant: How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Joanna MacGregor photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Variant: There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

“May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Letter to Horace Davenport (3 April 1989).

Related topics