Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world. — Van Wyck Brooks Cream Copy Share Image
The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses. — Van Wyck Brooks Creative Copy Share Image
Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright. — Van Wyck Brooks Found Copy Share Image
The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he… — Van Wyck Brooks Ashamed Copy Share Image
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 Ancestry Copy Share Image
No one in this country has any root anywhere; we don't live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that… — Van Wyck Brooks America Copy Share Image
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. — Van Wyck Brooks Courage Copy Share Image
There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of… — Van Wyck Brooks Authority Copy Share Image
The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me, by newspapers and… — Van Wyck Brooks Bible Copy Share Image
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 Always Copy Share Image
Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it.… — Van Wyck Brooks Jealousy Copy Share Image
How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and… — Van Wyck Brooks Bent Copy Share Image
It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take… — Van Wyck Brooks Geese Copy Share Image
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background. — Van Wyck Brooks Backgrounds Copy Share Image
The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes. — Van Wyck Brooks Important Copy Share Image
Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means. — Van Wyck Brooks Mean Copy Share Image
Longfellow is to poetry what the barrel-organ is to music. — Van Wyck Brooks Barrels Copy Share Image
Nothing is sadder than having worldly standards without worldly means. — Van Wyck Brooks Having Copy Share Image
A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in… — Van Wyck Brooks Ashamed Copy Share Image
Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side. — Van Wyck Brooks Earnest Copy Share Image
As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day. — Van Wyck Brooks Beautiful Copy Share Image
If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at… — Van Wyck Brooks Bother Copy Share Image
No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped… — Van Wyck Brooks Book Copy Share Image
How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and… — Van Wyck Brooks Business Copy Share Image
Once you have a point of view all history will back you up. — Van Wyck Brooks History Copy Share Image
