“Perhaps the most striking difference between Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Tennyson's Idylls of the King is that Malory's women are all human beings, and that Tennyson's are, in greater or less degree, prizes for good conduct.”
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
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Robertson Davies 282
Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and nov… 1913–1995Related quotes

1780s, Letter to Peter Carr (1787)
Context: The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.
"Modernism's Patriarch (Cezanne)", Time Magazine, June 10, 1996
Time Magazine (1996)

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 110

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 14

Speech in Perth, Scotland (13 May 1983), quoted in New York Times (14 May 1983) "British Vote Campaign Gets Off to Angry Start"
First term as Prime Minister