--- title: "4 Canon Quotes By Harold Bloom" description: "4 Canon quotes by Harold Bloom. Plus more from Harold Bloom and more Canon sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png" --- > [“If we read the Western Canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly believe we will…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to-form-our-social-political-or/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png) > [We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mortal-and-also-rather-belated/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2c0/harold-bloom-3350_beckett_we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mort_907071.png) > [What is literary tradition? What is a classic? What is a canonical view of tradition? How are canons of accepted classics formed,and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-classic-what-is-a-canonical-view/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cf7/harold-bloom-3350_accepted_what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-cla_1429449.jpg) > [The true use of Shakespeare or of Cervantes, of Homer or of Dante, of Chaucer or of Rabelais, is to augment one's…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervantes-of-homer-or-of-dante-of/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/918/harold-bloom-3350_canon_the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervan_1877368.png) ## More by Harold Bloom > [I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike - and I don't think there really is a distinction between the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/i-realized-early-on-that-the-academy-and-the-literary-world-alike-and/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [I would say that there is no future for literary studies as such in the United States.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/i-would-say-that-there-is-no-future-for-literary-studies-as-such-in/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [“Brecht was a cynical bohemian bogey of the middle classes, but also much more than a mere provocateur. He developed and dramatized his political…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/brecht-was-a-cynical-bohemian-bogey-of-the-middle-classes-but-also/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [The morality of scholarship, as currently practiced, is to encourage everyone to replace difficult pleasures by pleasures universally accessible precisely because they are easier.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/the-morality-of-scholarship-as-currently-practiced-is-to-encourage/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/dark-influences-from-the-american-past-congregate-among-us-still-if/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [“We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/we-read-frequently-if-unknowingly-in-quest-of-a-mind-more-original/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [“You can read merely to pass the time, or you can read with an overt urgency, but eventually you will read against the clock.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/you-can-read-merely-to-pass-the-time-or-you-can-read-with-an-overt/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/in-the-finest-critics-one-hears-the-full-cry-of-the-human-they-tell/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [The idea of Herman Melville in a writing class is always distressing to me.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/the-idea-of-herman-melville-in-a-writing-class-is-always-distressing/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [If I were to sum up the negative reactions to my work, I think there are two primary causes: one is that if there…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/if-i-were-to-sum-up-the-negative-reactions-to-my-work-i-think-there/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [Aesthetic value emanates from the struggle between texts: in the reader, in language, in the classroom, in arguments within a society. Aesthetic value rises…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/aesthetic-value-emanates-from-the-struggle-between-texts-in-the/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/shakespeare-will-not-make-us-better-and-he-will-not-make-us-worse-but/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [Criticism starts - it has to start - with a real passion for reading. It can come in adolescence, even in your twenties, but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/criticism-starts-it-has-to-start-with-a-real-passion-for-reading-it/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [“No one has yet managed to be post-Shakespearean.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/no-one-has-yet-managed-to-be-post-shakespearean/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) > [What is supposed to be the very essence of Judaism - which is the notion that it is by study that you make yourself…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/what-is-supposed-to-be-the-very-essence-of-judaism-which-is-the/) [Harold Bloom](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-bloom/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/canon/harold-bloom/#itemlist", "name": "4 Canon Quotes By Harold Bloom", "numberOfItems": 4, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“If we read the Western Canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly believe we will become monsters of selfishness and exploitation.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harold Bloom" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to-form-our-social-political-or/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“If we read the Western Canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly…” — Harold Bloom", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harold Bloom" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mortal-and-also-rather-belated/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2c0/harold-bloom-3350_beckett_we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mort_907071.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2c0/harold-bloom-3350_beckett_we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mort_907071.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2c0/harold-bloom-3350_beckett_we-possess-the-canon-because-we-are-mort_907071.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time…” — Harold Bloom", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "What is literary tradition? What is a classic? What is a canonical view of tradition? How are canons of accepted classics formed,and how are they unformed? I think that all these quite traditional questions can take one simplistic but still dialectical question as their summing up: do we choose tradition or does it choose us, and why is it necessary that a choosing take place, or a being chosen? What happens if one tries to write, or to teach, or to think, or even to read without the sense of a tradition? Why, nothing at all happens, just nothing.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harold Bloom" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-classic-what-is-a-canonical-view/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cf7/harold-bloom-3350_accepted_what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-cla_1429449.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cf7/harold-bloom-3350_accepted_what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-cla_1429449.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cf7/harold-bloom-3350_accepted_what-is-literary-tradition-what-is-a-cla_1429449.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“What is literary tradition? What is a classic? What is a canonical view of tradition? 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All that the Western Canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude, that solitude whose final formis one's confrontation with one's own mortality.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harold Bloom" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-bloom/the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervantes-of-homer-or-of-dante-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/918/harold-bloom-3350_canon_the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervan_1877368.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/918/harold-bloom-3350_canon_the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervan_1877368.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/918/harold-bloom-3350_canon_the-true-use-of-shakespeare-or-of-cervan_1877368.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The true use of Shakespeare or of Cervantes, of Homer or of Dante, of Chaucer or of Rabelais, is to augment…” — Harold Bloom", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/canon/harold-bloom/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/canon/harold-bloom/", "name": "Canon Quotes by Harold Bloom", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/canon/harold-bloom/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a00/harold-bloom-3350_believe_if-we-read-the-western-canon-in-order-to_827752.png" }, "description": "4 Canon quotes by Harold Bloom. 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