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Quote by Ernest Vincent Wright

“Now this is a most satisfactory and important thing to think about, for brutality will not,—cannot,—accomplish what a kindly disposition will; and, if folks could only know how quickly a “balky” child will, through loving and cuddling, grow into a charming, happy youth, much childish gloom and sorrow would vanish; for a man or woman who is ugly to a child is too low to rank as highly as a wild animal; for no animal will stand, for an instant, anything approaching an attack, or any form of harm to its young. But what a lot of tots find slaps, yanks and hard words for conditions which do not call for such harsh tactics! No child is naturally ugly or “cranky.” And big, gulping sobs, or sad, unhappy young minds, in a tiny body should not occur in any community of civilization. Adulthood holds many an opportunity for such conditions. Childhood should not.”

Quote by Ernest Vincent Wright

Book:Gadsby

Work

Gadsby

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Author

Ernest Vincent Wright
Ernest Vincent Wright

Ernest Vincent Wright was an American author known for his unique writing style, most notably for his novel 'Gadsby,' which is notable for being the first novel written entirely without punctuation. Born in 1873, he passed away on October 7, 1939. more

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“Youth!! Ah, what a word!! And how transitory! But, how grand! as long as it lasts. How many millions in gold would pour out for an ability to call it all back, as with our musical myth, Faust. During that magic part of a child’s growth this world is just a gigantic inquiry box, containing many a topic for which a solution is paramount to a growing mind. And to whom can a child look, but us adults? Any man who “can’t stop now” to talk with a child upon a topic which, to him is“too silly for anything,” should look back to that day upon which that topic was dark and dubious in his own brain. A child who asks nothing will know nothing. That is why that “bump of inquiry” was put on top of our skulls.”

“يبدو أننا أحياناً نفضل أن ندور حول رغباتنا بدلاً من الاعتراف بها لأنفسنا والمجاهرة بها، حتى لا نتحمل في سبيل ذلك بعض العناء كضريبة ضرورية لنيل ما نريد ،أو لأننا نغمغم لأنفسنا بما نرغب ونترقب من الأقدار أن تهبه لنا بغير أن نبدو نحن ساعين إليه أو متلهفين عليه لأننا نخجل أن نجاهر به و-"الخياط العظيم لا يقص كثيراً " كما يقول المثل الصيني ،وإنما يمضي إلى هدفه المحدد بلا تردد فلا يقطع إلا ما يتطلبه تحقيق هذا الهدف أما نحن فإننا نقص في إتجاهات مختلفة وبعيدة عن الهدف الذي نتمناه صامتين وننتظر من يرغمنا على السعادة التي نعرفها ونريدها من أعماقنا”

“As a boy, Ogion like all boys had thought it would be a very pleasant game to take by art-magic whatever shape one liked, man or beast, tree or cloud, and so to play at a thousand beings. But as a wizard he had learned the price of the game, which is the peril of losing one's self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril. Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear's shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. And no one knows how many of the dolphins that leap in the waters of the Inmost Sea were men once, wise men, who forgot their wisdom and their name in the joy of the restless sea.”