“We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire.”
Vol. 1, pp. 4–5
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day
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George Saintsbury 14
British literary critic 1845–1933Related quotes

"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Variant: In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
Source: The Essential Gore Vidal

“Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.”
Page 180.
A Grammar of the English Language (1818)

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

“Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.”
"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904)
Florilegium

“True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.”

1 Cababe & Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 136.
Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

"On the Ignorance of the Learned"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)