“Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been known and thought and written in the world.”

Vol. 3, p. 611
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day

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 "Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been …" by George Saintsbury?

George Saintsbury14

British literary critic 1845–1933

Related quotes

“I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)

“Of all that is written I love only what a man has written in his own blood.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double standards involved in recommending free trade and free market to developing countries.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Prologue, p. 16
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

“Culture is knowing the best that has been thought and said in the world; in other words, culture means reading, not idle and casual reading, but reading that is controlled and directed by a definite purpose.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Source: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 194
Context: Culture is knowing the best that has been thought and said in the world; in other words, culture means reading, not idle and casual reading, but reading that is controlled and directed by a definite purpose. Reading, so understood, is difficult, and contrary to an almost universal belief, those who can do it are very few. I have already remarked the fact that there is no more groundless assumption than that literacy carries with it the ability to read. At the age of seventy-nine Goethe said that those who make this assumption "do not know what time and trouble it costs to learn to read. I have been working at it for eighteen years, and I can't say yet that I am completely successful."