No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share Image
Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
No one in this country has any root anywhere; we don't live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that run over… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many,… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me, by newspapers and the Bible. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese… — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background. — Van Wyck Brooks Copy Share
