Isaac Disraeli
Isaac Disraeli
Isaac D'Israeliwas a British writer, scholar and man of letters. He is best known for his essays, his associations with other men of letters, and as the father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli...
Isaac Disraeli quotes about
abuse bars may
Quotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had stagnated their own cause.
wise innovation age
This is one of the results of that adventurous spirit which is now stalking forth and raging for its own innovations. We have not only rejected AUTHORITY, but have also cast away EXPERIENCE; and often the unburthened vessel is driving to all points of the compass, and the passengers no longer know whither they are going. The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by QUOTATION.
running fashion people
It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!
book men fading
A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciæ of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day.
art reading writing
There is an art of reading, an art of thinking, and an art of writing.
eye air research
All this is labour which never meets the eye.... But too open and generous a revelation of the chapter and the page of the original quoted, has often proved detrimental to the legitimate honours of the quoter. They are unfairly appropriated by the next comer; the quoter is never quoted, but the authority he has afforded is produced by his successor with the air of an original research.
men dunces consolation
The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.
may matter ornaments
The ancients, who in these matters were not perhaps such blockheads as some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite ornaments of oratory.
luxury age pleasure
An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age.
self stubborn educated
The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities.
lying excellence taste
It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
judging style great-work
After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.
genius fortune companion
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.
book design secret
Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.