418 Quotes About Classics

I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two. Classics read well this way. They must be written this way. Sometimes we have spent a whole evening reading and talking and discovered we have only covered two or three pages. It's a form of reading done a century ago.. when Chautauquas were popular. In less you've tried it you can't imagine how pleasant it is to do it this way.

I've never met anyone as kind as you are, except me Mum, o' course." --Benjamin Trimmel to Lady Alexandra.

Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion - you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.

Pearls' burst out the Snork Maiden excitedly. 'Could ankle rings be made out of pearls?''I should think they could,' said Moomintoll. 'Ankle-rings, and nose-rings and ear-rings and engagement rings...

Every act of reading is an act of forgetting: the experience of reading is a palimpsest, in which each text partially covers those that came before. Those books that allow us to forget the most are accorded he authority of the classic.

Any one can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.

And what does a person with such romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics?"If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective, I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.

nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose

Either I'm changing very quickly, and everything is standing still, or I'm the one standing still and everything is changing around me. Either way, I'm out of joint with the world.