Appreciation Quote by Mark Twain

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

— Henry David Thoreau

The only literary men are those who have to work at it.

— George Ade

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

— John Steinbeck

The only just literary critic," he concluded, "is Christ, who admires more than does any man the gifts He Himself has bestowed.

— Anonymous

It's hard to judge literary merit.

— Henry Rollins

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to…

— Edwin Percy Whipple

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

— Voltaire

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature…

— Samuel Johnson

We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he…

— Lionel Trilling

The literary man has a circle of the chosen few who read him and become his only public. . . . What more natural…

— Amado Nervo

A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.

— Marcel Proust