Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies
William Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSLwas a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself and to have detested. Davies was the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate residential college associated with the University of Toronto...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 August 1913
morning book reading
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
mean acceptance opposites
Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity; rather it is an elaborate balancing act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites.
writing cutting care
Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.
lying roots sense-of-humor
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
mother men home-cooking
It is odd how all men develop the notion, as they grow older, that their mothers were wonderful cooks. I have yet to meet a man who will admit that his mother was a kitchen assassin and nearly poisoned him.
educational optimistic knowledge
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
future past people
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.
attitude cat responsibility
The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar...
heart thinking men
A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.
people age alive
The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline.
beauty achievement today
Students today are a pretty solemn lot. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time.
courage adversity ordinary-extraordinary
Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.