
“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”
Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters" in Horizon (September 1946).
General sources
On being a lawyer, as quoted by Claire Birge in The Stevensons : A Biography of an American Family (1997) by Jean H. Baker, p. 262
“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”
Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters" in Horizon (September 1946).
General sources
J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible.
Letter to Jules Boucoiran, (4 March 1831), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 1, pp. 817-18; Frederick Niecks Frederick Chopin: As a Man and Musician (London: Novello, 1890) vol. 1, p. 334
“I feel I can't go on with this bloody business: I would rather resign.”
Quoted by C. P. Scott in his diary (28 December 1917), in Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott, 1911-1928 (London: Collins, 1970), p. 324
Prime Minister
Context: "I warn you", said Lloyd George, "that I am in a very pacifist temper". I listened last night, at a dinner given to Philip Gibbs on his return from the front, to the most impressive and moving description from him of what the war really means that I have heard. Even an audience of hardened politicians and journalists was strongly affected. The thing is horrible and beyond human nature to bear and "I feel I can't go on with this bloody business: I would rather resign."
2009 speech at the opening ceremony for Chekhov Studio International Los Angeles ( online http://chekhovstudio.com/2013/07/inspiring-quotes/ and books.google.com http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Spirit_of_Creation_Discipline_and_At.html?id=jqMInoDQoxMC)
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Limits of Evolution, p.53-4
Source: 1960s - 1970s, Guest editorial: Wicked problems (1967), p. 142 cited in: Rob Hundman (2010) Weerbarstig veranderen. p. 38
Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: My life is pretty well at peace, and the profession is more of an avocation. It's a calling, if you like, rather than a job. I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would. Scientists function in the same way. I see all these as creative activities, as all part of the process of discovery. Perhaps that's one of the characteristics of what I call the evolvers, any subset of the population who keep things moving in a positive, creative, constructive way, revealing the truth and beauty that exists in life and in nature.
"Business — The New Profession", La Follette's Weekly Magazine, Volume 4, No. 47 (November 23, 1912), p. 7.
Extra-judicial writings
"Professions for Women"
The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)