“England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.”

—  Victor Hugo

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England." by Victor Hugo?
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo 308
French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802–1885

Related quotes

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“My posts are the bible. My brain is the bible. The books I'm releasing are bibles. It's all bible, baby”

Dril Twitter user

[ "We Interviewed the Guy Behind @dril, the Undisputed King of Twitter", Caffier, Justin, August 24, 2018, Vice, August 25, 2018, http://archive.today/2018.08.26-011141/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kymv8/we-interviewed-the-guy-behind-dril-the-undisputed-king-of-twitter, August 25, 2018, no https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kymv8/we-interviewed-the-guy-behind-dril-the-undisputed-king-of-twitter,]
dril in interviews

Michael Dirda photo
Ted Hughes photo

“From the age of about eight or nine I read just about every comic book available in England.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

The Paris Review interview
Context: From the age of about eight or nine I read just about every comic book available in England. At that time my parents owned a newsagent’s shop. I took the comics from the shop, read them, and put them back. That went on until I was twelve or thirteen. Then my mother brought in a sort of children’s encyclopedia that included sections of folklore. Little folktales. I remember the shock of reading those stories. I could not believe that such wonderful things existed. … throughout your life you have certain literary shocks, and the folktales were my first. From then on I began to collect folklore, folk stories, and mythology. That became my craze.

Jeremy Clarkson photo

“He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he's actually seen the books. In England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

BBC News February 9, 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7873624.stm

José Saramago photo

“To me, the Bible is a book. Important, no doubt, but a book.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview to the newspaper "O Globo", 2009.

Northrop Frye photo

“The real Bible is a sealed book, an apocryphon, a book not to be opened (mentally) until its time has come.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

2:568
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

George Saintsbury photo

“The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

George Saintsbury: The Memorial Volume (London: Methuen, 1946) p. 120.

Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“The enormous and half-educated publics of present-day England and America… acclaim as masterpieces books that are soon forgotten, while ignoring all that is exquisite and rare.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Fine Writing,” p. 308
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Ellen G. White photo

“The Bible is God's great lesson book.”

Source: Christ's Object Lessons (1900), Ch. 8, p. 107

Related topics