“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

— Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Red Headed League

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Arthur Conan Doyle 166

Scottish physician and author 1859–1930

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
Hardball with Chris Matthews, November 16 2004
2000s

“He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.”

Friedrich Schiller Wallenstein

Prologue
Wallenstein (1798), Prologue - Wallensteins Lager (Wallenstein's Camp)

“The surrealist thinks he has outstripped the whole of literary history when he has written (here a word that there is no need to write) where others have written "jasmines, swans and fauns." But what he has really done has been simply to bring to light another form of rhetoric which hitherto lay hidden in the latrines.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XI: The Self-Satisfied Age

“Gary Barlow has done a huge amount for the country, he’s raised money for charity, he’s done very well for Children in Need so I’m not sure, the OBE was in respect of that work and what he’s done but clearly what this scheme was was wrong and it’s right that they’re going to pay back the money.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Good Morning Britain speaking about his view of tax avoidance schemes and if Gary Barlow should give back his OBE following claims that the singer took part in one - Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Good Morning Britain, ITV (12 May 2014) http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/prime-minister-david-cameron-speaks-good-morning-britain
2010s, 2014

“Some of the things Mussolini has done, and some that he is threatening to do go further in the direction of Socialism than the English Labour Party could yet venture if they were in power.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Letter from G. Bernard Shaw to a friend, “Bernard Shaw's Defence of Mussolini,” (Feb, 7, 1927)
1920s

“.. to express himself well, the artist should be hidden... The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

Quoted in: Raymond Durgnat (1974) Jean Renoir: Raymond Durgnat, p. 370
undated quotes

“He who has nothing—it has been said many times—has nothing to lose but his chains.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Nobel Prize Speech (1954)
Context: Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten. Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 10

“Nothing could tempt me to do this man injustice, though I could hardly add to the injury he has done himself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.

“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

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Arthur Conan Doyle 166

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