George Gissing
George Gissing
George Robert Gissingwas an English novelist who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. Gissing also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. He published his first novel, Workers in the Dawn, in 1880. His best known novels, which are published in modern editions, include The Nether World, New Grub Street, and The Odd Women...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 November 1857
understanding tests capacity
To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.
art morning mean
How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, and they are free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support! When the most trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly.
children long steps
It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience . . .
book smell noses
I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.
laughter fate farce
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.
money time turns
Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.
grandmother tea mind
In nothing more is the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival-almost one may call it-of afternoon tea...the mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.
happiness passing-moments passings
I have the happiness of a passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?
acceptance compassion self
Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.
cheerful use miserable
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.
successful men thinking
Literature nowadays is a trade... the successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets.
mind growing calm
The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.
success bravery desire
Have the courage of your desire.
way events calamity
Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.