Robertson Davies

"A truly great book should be reread immediately upon finishing it."

"The whole of education is summed up in this: to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things."

"To assume that a person is either dishonest or a fool is cruel and often wrong."

"The society of women is the element of good conversation."

"We are all monsters, but the grace of God is enough."

"The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to an idealized past."

"Virtue is not something that comes to us by accident; it must be cultivated."

"A marriage without conflict is probably a marriage without passion."

"The test of a man is what he does with power."

"Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."

"Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, over the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved."

"The human animal is a creature of habit; he is happiest when following an established routine."

"A man's reputation is like his shadow—sometimes it follows him and sometimes it precedes him."

"The real threat to freedom is not external but internal."

"There is no financial investment better than education."

"The man who is always talking about being a real man usually isn't."

"Obsession is a young man's game, but success is an old man's reward."

"The test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two opposed ideas at the same time."

"To say that a man is vain means little unless we know of what he is vain."

"Art is the effort of man to express not what he sees but what he feels."

"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever."

"Happiness is a hard mistress; very few men ever know her touch."

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

"The good are often disappointed when they look for gratitude."

"The purpose of literature is to explain the human experience and expand it."

"Real joviality is a much rarer thing than most people suppose."

"The truth about art is that those who make it are often less reliable as judges of it than those who merely enjoy it."

"Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations."

"Man's greatest strength is in his ability to imagine."

"A lawyer is a person who, while shaking your hand, counts your fingers."