Quotessence
Home / Authors / D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsLiteratureKnowsSoulWorldLoveWantHumansPeople

Famous D. H. Lawrence Quotes

“That is the real pivot of all bourgeois consciousness in all countries: fear and hate of the instinctive, intuitional, procreativebody in man or woman. But of course this fear and hate had to take on a righteous appearance, so it became moral, said that the instincts, intuitions and all the activities of the procreative body were evil, and promised a reward for their suppression. That is the great clue to bourgeois psychology: the reward business.”

MenSaidRealCountryBodyHateCoursesEvilSexConsciousnessMoralPsychologyMoralityActivityInstinctRewardsAppearanceIntuitionRighteousClueBourgeoisSuppressionInstinct Intuition
Book:Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
Create image

“Anyone who is kind to man knows the fragmentariness of most men, and wants to arrange a society of power in which men fall naturally into a collective wholeness, since they cannot have an individual wholeness. In this collective wholeness they will be fulfilled. But if they make efforts at individual fulfilment, they must fail for they are by nature fragmentary.”

IfsKnowsMenWantKindFallIndividualEffortPowerFailingSocietyCollectivesIndividualismFulfilledWholenessFulfilment
Book:Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation
Create image

“The mystery of the evening-star brilliant in silence and distance between the downward-surging plunge of the sun and the vast, hollow seething of inpouring night. The magnificence of the watchful morning-star, that watches between the night and the day, the gleaming clue to the two opposites.”

TwoNightStarsSilenceWatchesMorningSunMysteryOppositesDistanceBrilliantEveningCosmosClueHollowPlungeMagnificenceSeethingTwo Opposites
Book:Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
Create image

“While the white man keeps the impetus of his own proud, onward march, the dark races will yield and serve, perforce. But let the white man once have a misgiving about his own leadership, and the dark races will at once attack him, to pull him down into the old gulfs.”

MenLeadershipDarkWhiteRacePrideProudMarchYieldWhite ManImpetusMisgivings
Book:Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
Create image

“It is time that the Protestant Church, the Church of the Son, should be one again with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Father. It is time that man shall cease, first to live in the flesh, with joy, and then, unsatisfied, to renounce and to mortify the flesh.”

MenShouldFirstsJoyFatherChurchChristianitySonOppositesCatholicFleshCeaseCatholic ChurchProtestantsRenounceUnsatisfiedProtestantismRoman CatholicRoman Catholic Church
Book:Delphi Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
Create image

“The lion shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two are separate and never to be confused.”

KnowsMenTwoSpiritualLyingEternalOppositesFleshSensualitySensualConfusedEcstasyLionsLambsNever LieUnanimity
Book:Twilight in Italy and Other Essays
Create image

“The whole question of pornography seems to me a question of secrecy. Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things. Secrecy has always an element of fear in it, amounting very often to hate. Modesty is gentle and reserved. Today, modesty is thrown to the winds, even in the presence of the grey guardians. But secrecy is hugged, being a vice in itself. And the attitude of the grey ones is: Dear young ladies, you may abandon all modesty, so long as you hug your dirty little secret.”

MayLittlesLongTwoDifferentWholeSeemsWould BeTodayYoungHateSecretAttitudeWindElementsDearVicesDirtyGentleThrownDifferent ThingsAbandonModestyHugGreyPornographyGuardianSecrecyReservedYoung LadiesHug You
Book:Selected Poems of D.h. Lawrence
Create image

“In masturbation there is nothing but loss. There is no reciprocity. There is merely the spending away of a certain force, and no return. The body remains, in a sense, a corpse, after the act of self-abuse. There is no change, only deadening. There is what we call dead loss. And this is not the case in any act of sexual intercourse between two people. Two people may destroy one another in sex. But they cannot just produce the null effect of masturbation.”

PeopleMayTwoSelfBodyCertainForceSexLossCasesEffectsProduceReturnAbuseRemainsSpendingCorpsesIntercourseMasturbationReciprocityNull
Book:Phoenix: the Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence by D. H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
Create image