Robertson Davies

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”

“Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.”

“The world is a joke. The cosmic joke. It's not suffering that is the deepest thing, but laughter.”

“A happy childhood is a lousy preparation for life.”

“Fanaticism is the brother of hate and the father of persecution.”

“Let your root feed your crown.”

“The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.”

“A man's character is his fate.”

“A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

“Happiness is never grand.”

“The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.”

“What we call luck is the inner man externalized.”

“If you don't know the past, you don't know the present, and you certainly don't know the future.”

“What you have to do is work with the raw material you have, namely you, and never let up.”

“Curiosity, especially intellectual curiosity, is what makes you a human being.”