44 Quotes by Robert Wilson Lynd

In order to see birds, you have to become part of the silence.

Most human beings are quite likeable if you do not see too much of them.

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

There are two sorts of curiosity - the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things.

It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

It is in games that many men discover their paradise.

When one has praised Turgenev, however, for the beauty of his character and the beautiful truth of his art, one remembers that he, too, was human and therefore less than perfect. His chief failing was, perhaps, that of all the great artists, he was the most lacking in exuberance. That is why he began to be scorned in a world which rated exuberance higher than beauty or love or pity.

The lovers of beauty must unite in a league, and carry out some great propagandist work through the country. They must demand the extermination of the bulldog and the dismantling of the cheap villa, both of which are responsible for a deal of our contentment amid ugliness.