“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”

— Gore Vidal , book Julian

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch March 380

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Gore Vidal 163

American writer 1925–2012

Gillian Rubinstein Tales of the Otori

Source: Across the Nightingale Floor

“Human beings betray their worst failings when they marvel to find that a world ruler is neither foolishly indolent, presumptuous, nor cruel.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Les êtres humains avouent leurs pires faiblesses quand ils s'étonnent qu'un maître du monde ne soit pas sottement indolent, présomptueux, ou cruel.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 103

“Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

George Bosworth Burch Early Medieval Philosophy (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951) p. 5.

Of De Divisione Naturae.
Criticism

“Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.”

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) Novelist, playwright

“This is a brutal book – sensual, rude, coarse, and cruel. However, it is timely and well-written, even witty.”

William Powell (author) book The Anarchist Cookbook

Introductory words by P. M. Bergman.
The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)

“But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”

Christopher Morley book The Haunted Bookshop

The Haunted Bookshop (1919)
Context: Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.

“Later Julian would give me another book he had culled from among the Archival duplicates, a short novel called The Time Machine by Mr. H. G. Wells, about a marvelous but apparently imaginary cart which carried a man into the future—and it fascinated me—but the Archive itself was a Time Machine in everything but name. Here were voices preserved on browning paper like pressed flowers, whispering apostasies into the ear of a new century.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 332

“Imperialism has been defeated in many partial battles. But it remains a considerable force in the world, and we cannot expect its final defeat save through effort and sacrifice on the part of us all.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”

Cressida Cowell book How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

Source: How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Какое наслаждение уважать людей! Когда я вижу книги, мне нет дела до того, как авторы любили, играли в карты, я вижу только их изумительные дела.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”

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Gore Vidal 163

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