Source: Letters and Social Aims
'Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree, the basis of my intellectual creed, I had obtained in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives and characters of heroic persons; especially the heroes of philosophy.'
Autobiography (1873)
“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”
On royal life, 'Courtesies and curtsies: what it takes to interview Princess 'Maz, Interview with DailyLife.com.au http://www.dailylife.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/courtesies-and-curtsies-what-it-takes-to-interview-princess-maz-20131011-2vcro.html (11 October 2013)
“Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.”
La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose. (Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.) —Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".
Misattributed
“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”
Attributed in Evan Esar (1949), The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
Misattributed
“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud.”
"The Divine Comedy" (1977)
Context: Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
