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Van Wyck Brooks
The American mind,...
The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me, . . . by...
The creative impulses...
The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.
Nothing is sadder...
Nothing is sadder than having worldly standards without worldly means.
Source: A...
As against having...
As against having beautiful workshops, studios, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy...
The man who...
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.
Source: A...
Genius and virtue...
Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright.
It is not...
It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their...
Longfellow is to...
Longfellow is to poetry what the barrel-organ is to music.
Source: The Flowering of...
Nothing is so...
Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve...
The instructed man...
The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people...
No one is...
No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or...
Those of our...
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social...
Magnanimous people have...
Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find...
If men were...
If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the...
People of small...
People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess...