The supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down is childish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blame on reviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundred reviewers.
Samuel Butler (novelist)
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
man
Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall; Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth: O God! O Montreal!
man beauty
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
man work
I do not like books. I believe I have the smallest library of any literary man in London, and I have no wish to increase it. I keep my books at the British Museum and at Mudie's, and it makes me very angry if anyone gives me one for my private library.
If a man would get hold of the public era, he must pay, marry, or fight.
man the-public
The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it.
vices virtues extremes man
They say the test of this is whether a man can write an inscription. I say Can he name a kitten? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.
tests man
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
doubt man
If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and white drawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The first step towards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much.
Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural pace.
force man
It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
We are not won by arguments that we can analyse, but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
manners temper man
The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
principles the-public
If I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from being bored by my own success.
success
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