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Quote by Lawrence Durrell

“No: Shakespear's household bills Could never be responsible, they say, For all the heartache and the 1000 ills His work is heir to, poem, sonnet, play . . . Emended readings give the real reason: The times were out of joint, the loves, the season. - The Critics”

Quote by Lawrence Durrell

Work

On Seeming to Presume

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Author

Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell was an English novelist known for his complex narrative structures and rich cultural background. His works often explore human emotions, religious beliefs, and philosophical thoughts, with his most famous work being the 'Alexandria Quartet'. more

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“Dear reader, mon frère, increasingly rare, and less and less willing to descend into the depths of unknown literature to find the new, remember well that, as the great Voltaire said, some sentences are worth more than entire libraries, and to quote Prospero, Me, poor man, my library was a dukedom large enough!... So, of his gentleness, knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me from my own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom!”

“Shakespeare, with his wisdom and creative ability, enhanced by his brilliant rhetoric, created works truly full of aphorisms and memorable phrases capable of distilling profound insights into human nature, ethics, politics, love, suffering, in practice, into the whole existence.”

“It is bad psychology to tell people who do not believe that they are racist—who may even actively despise racism—that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racist—and then ask them to help you. It is even less helpful to tell them that even their own good intentions are proof of their latent racism. Worst of all is to set up double-binds, like telling them that if they notice race it is because they are racist, but if they don’t notice race it’s because their privilege affords them the luxury of not noticing race, which is racist.”

“So meaning is only a moment and a transition from absurdity to absurdity, and absurdity only a moment and a transition from meaning to meaning. Oh, that Siegfried, blond and blue-eyed, the German hero, had to fall by my hand, the most loyal and courageous! He had everything in himself that I treasured as the greater and more beautiful; he was my power, my boldness, my pride. I would have gone under in the same battle, and so only assassination was left to me. If I wanted to go on living, it could only be through trickery and cunning. Judge not! Think of the blond savage of the German forests, who had to betray the hammer-brandishing thunder to the pale Near Eastern god who was nailed to the wood like a chicken marten. The courageous were overcome by a certain contempt for themselves. But their life force bade them to go on living, and they betrayed their beautiful wild Gods, their holy trees and their awe of the German forests.”