The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed. — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
The job of the poet is to render the world-to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love,… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
The connectedness of things is what the educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity. No human capacity is great enough to permit a… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you.… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
“Nothing stays not even change, That can grow tired of it's own name; The very thought too much for it. Somewhere in air a… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
The genius of the Marx Brothers is for parody. They never are themselves. They exist too abundantly to be content with being that -… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king. — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
The literature of the world has exerted its power by being translated. — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying, things that you… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are those who do it to the limit of their ability. We can… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail. — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it… — Mark Van Doren Copy Share Image
