“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.”
Source: 1910s, Prejudices, First Series (1919), Ch. 16
Context: The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man — that is, virtuous in the Y. M. C. A. sense — has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
H.L. Mencken281
American journalist and writer 1880–1956Related quotes
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Action and Study
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting
Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves
Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 3 “Blood and Breath and Water” section 1 (p. 146)
“What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer
Speech at the dinner of the Pilgrim Society (21 December 1855), published in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips https://archive.org/details/speecheslectures7056phil (1884), p. 229 <br class="br">1850s
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
"...like captured fireflies" (1955); also published in America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (2003), p. 142
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
A Little Book in C Major, New York, NY, John Lane Company (1916) p. 76
1910s
Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz
Ch 23
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Lux
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist
Motherwell's writing in 1944; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker' https://www.theartstory.org/artist-motherwell-robert-life-and-legacy.htm#writings_and_ideas_header, on 'Artstory' <br class="br">1940s