“Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved…" by Edward Gibbon?

Edward Gibbon43

English historian and Member of Parliament 1737–1794

Related quotes

“I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“The art of writing books is not yet invented. But it is at the point of being invented.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 114
Blüthenstaub (1798)
Context: The art of writing books is not yet invented. But it is at the point of being invented. Fragments of this nature are literary seeds. There may be many an infertile grain among them: nevertheless, if only some come up!

“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

“A book at the very start comes to me as a nebulous geometric form, a kind of tension in space that has to be resolved. The resolution is effected by fleshing out the form with character, plot, dialogue, etc. But the original structure perseveres throughout, even when, or perhaps especially when, I am not conscious of it being at work. Art is a mysterious business.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

Fully Booked: Q & A with John Banville (2012)

“I would say that my aims of writing this book are less concerned with the facts of history than with the truth of art.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

Argument of Kings, 1987

“I learned 60 compositions in drut laya within a year.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

When she was thirteen learned it from her first guru Krishna Acharya, in Khyāl: Creativity Within North India's Classical Music http://books.google.co.in/books?id=MiE9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA192, p. 192

“My first book “The Naked Manager”, a big success in 1971, had been followed by many others, and I wanted to write still more. Writing books is very interesting as each new project takes you in a different direction. You learn a lot – especially about what you yourself really think.”

Robert Heller (1932–2012) British magician

Interview: Robert Heller (2006)

“Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 6, Words, p. 36.