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Robertson Davies Quotes
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I delivered my body into the hands of Learned Physicians this morning confiding that they may discover why I have hay fever. As soon as they got me out of my clothes I ceased to be a man to them, and they began to talk about me as though I did not understand English.
Robertson Davies
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Nobody who looks as though he enjoyed life is ever called distinguished, though he is a man in a million.
Robertson Davies
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No, it's the musicians and I must say they are an accomplished bunch, but odd, as musicians tend to be. Is it the vibration from their instruments, do you suppose, working on the brain? All that fraught buzzing?
Robertson Davies
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Knowledge may enable you to memorize the whole of Gray's Anatomy and Osler's Principles and Practice of Medicine, but only wisdom can teach you what to do with what you have learned.
Robertson Davies
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In odd corners of the world strange dentists still lurk; an Irish friend of mine told me recently of visiting a dentist on the West Coast of Ireland who had no running water, and bade his patients spit into a potted fern which was conveniently placed by the chair...
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To this day I am indulgent toward orchestras that are trying to lift themselves in the world, while critics are busy assuring them that they are not the Vienna Philharmonic and never will be.
Robertson Davies
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A big man is always accused of gluttony, whereas a wizened or osseous man can eat like a refugee at every meal, and no one ever notices his greed.
Robertson Davies
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Inactivity and deprivation of all accustomed stimulus is not rest; it is a preparation for the tomb
Robertson Davies
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A man who recognizes no God is probably placing an inordinate value on himself.
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I saw corpses, and grew used to their unimportant look, for a dead man without any of the panoply of death is a desperately insignificant object.
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Although there may be nothing new under the sun, what is old is new to us and so rich and astonishing that we never tire of it. If we do tire of it, if we lose our curiosity, we have lost something of infinite value, because to a high degree it is curiosity that gives meaning and savour to life.
Robertson Davies
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Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.
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Not enough attention is paid to the negative side of fashion. Great effort is exerted to make people look smart, but somebody should face the fact that a lot of people never will be smart, and that they should be given some assistance in maintaining their fascinating dowdiness.
Robertson Davies
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In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.
Robertson Davies
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Knowledge and Wisdom and they are not the same,- because Knowledge is what you are taught, but Wisdom is what you bring to it.
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Canada has one of the highest rates of insanity in any civilized country and one reason might be that life in many places is so desperately dull.
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I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.
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And why should it not be terrifying? A little terror, in my view, is good for the soul, when it is terror in the face of a noble object.
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The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights, actors and audiences - a figure dreaded, and occasionally comic, but never welcome, never loved.
Robertson Davies
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Oh hearts! Nobody gets through life without a broken heart. The important thing is to break the heart so that when it mends it will be stronger than before.
Robertson Davies
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I went to my dentist today in a high state of apprehension. None of my teeth were hurting me, but I know from bitter experience that a tooth of mine can have a cavity as big as the Grotto at Lourdes before it informs me of the fact.
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Comparatively few people know what a million dollars actually is. To the majority it is a gaseous concept, swelling or decreasing as the occasion suggests.
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Secrets are the blood of life. Every big thing is a secret, even when you know it, because you never know all of it. If you can know everything about anything, it is not worth knowing.
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I don't suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn't exist. He's above jokes. But the devil isn't. That's one of his most endearing qualities.
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Energy and curiosity are the lifeblood of universities; the desire to find out, to uncover, to dig deeper, to puzzle out obscurities, is the spirit of the university, and it is a channelling of that unresting curiosity that holds mankind together.
Robertson Davies
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Quote of the day
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Robertson Davies
Creative Commons
Born:
August 28, 1913
Died:
December 2, 1995
(aged 82)
Bio:
William Robertson Davies was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor.
Known for:
Fifth Business (1970)
The Manticore (1972)
The Rebel Angels (1981)
What's Bred in the Bone (1985)
World of Wonders (1975)
Most used words:
people
life
man
time
book
kind
course
modern
god
experience
feel
age
young
spirit
human
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