
“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”
Source: Among Others
The Master Key (1901)
Context: Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage door by his creditors.
“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”
Source: Among Others
“Any thing awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.”
Letter to Southey (August 9, 1815)
“New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.”
The Life of Pope
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
“Prestige bars any serious attack on power. Do people attack a thing they consider with awe?”
Source: Blood in My Eye (1971), p. 50
“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”
Source: The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.”
In this work are exhibited in a very high degree the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new. ~ Samuel Johnson, "The Life of Alexander Pope" from Lives of the English Poets (1781) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvpc10.txt
Misattributed