George Gissing Quotes

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This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

George Gissing
People have got that ancient prejudice so firmly rooted in their heads — that one mustn't write save at I the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, writing is a business.

George Gissing
Of course, if your work is strong, and you can afford to wait; the probability is that half a dozen people will at last begin to shout that you have been monstrously neglected, as you have.

George Gissing
The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought.

George Gissing
Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.

George Gissing
Honest winter, snow clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping loom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May - how often has it robbed me of heart and hope.

George Gissing
I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts.

George Gissing
Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.

George Gissing
Bits of jokes, bits of statistics, bits of foolery.

George Gissing
For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

George Gissing
I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils haricots - those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certified aridites calling themselves human food!

George Gissing
'A man who comes to be hanged,' pursued Jasper, impartially, 'has the satisfaction of knowing that he has brought society to its last resource. He is a man of such fatal importance that nothing will serve against him but the supreme effort of law. In a way, you know, that is success.'

George Gissing
Science brings forth its newest discoveries in earth and heaven; it speaks to the philosopher in his solitude, and to the crowd in the market-place.

George Gissing
Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure.

George Gissing
The thought, however, of his girls having to work for money was so utterly repulsive to him that he could never seriously dwell upon it.

George Gissing
It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

George Gissing
I maintain that we people of brains are justified in supplying the mob with the food it likes. We are not geniuses, and if we sit down in a spirit of long-eared gravity we shall produce only commonplace stuff. Let us use our wits to earn money, and make the best we can of our lives. If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies. But it needs skill, mind you; and to deny it is a gross error of the literary pedants. To please the vulgar you must, one way or another, incarnate the genius of vulgarity.

George Gissing
And why should any man who writes, even if he writes things immortal, nurse anger at the world's neglect? Who asked him to publish? Who promised him a hearing? Who has broken faith with him? Your poem, your novel, who bargained with you for it?

George Gissing
A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity.

George Gissing
It is our duty never to speak ill of others, you know; least of all when we know that to do so will be the cause of much pain and trouble.

George Gissing
Though a man be well versed in a science such as palaeontology it does not follow that he will view it in its philosophical relations.

George Gissing
Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman.

George Gissing
I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything.

George Gissing
He pointed to a heap of five or six hundred letters, and laughed consumedly. "Impossible to read them all, you know. It seemed to me that the fairest thing would to be to shake them together, stick my hand in, and take our one by chance. If it didn't seem very promising, I would try a second time."

George Gissing
I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets; when one kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income. Whatever he has to sell he'll get payment for it from all sorts of various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a middleman who will make six distinct profits.

George Gissing