David Cecil > Quotes

“It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so have been inspired to do so by a strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some sort of an ideal kingdom on earth.”
― David Cecil, Library Looking-Glass : A Personal Anthology

“The visible structure of Jane Austen's stories may be flimsy enough; but their foundations drive deep down into the basic principles of human conduct. On her bit of ivory she has engraved a criticism of life as serious and as considers as Hardy's.”
― David Cecil

“The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities that make it precious and by indicating the angle of visions from which its beauties are visible. But many critics do not realize their function. They aim not to appreciate, but to judge; they seek first to draw lines about literature and then bully readers into accepting these laws.”
― David Cecil

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street. -William Blake

This admirable couplet should be posted in conspicuous places all over England. The truth it embodies is threatened by two parties of opinion: on the one hand by those who hold it as a sin against nature to try and control the increase of population in any way and on the other by those who believe in 'growth', the pursuit at all costs of a standard of living which entails more and more industrialization and urbanization. If the believers in nature have their way, England will in the end be so full of people that they will be jostling each other even on mountains: if the believers in 'growth' have their way, the whole country will be covered with streets and we shall hardly be aware that mountains exist.”
― David Cecil, Library Looking-Glass : A Personal Anthology

“It is not to be imagined that William entered on this new chapter of his wedded life with rosy expectations. However, he had long ago given up expecting much of anything. Drama, as usually happens in real life, had ended not in tragic denouement, but in lassitude and anti-climax. In pity, in exasperation, in ironical apathy, he settled down to his accustomed round.”
― David Cecil, The Young Melbourne

“Love had turned out the most painful of all his disillusionments. Further, the misfortunes of his wedded life had intensified that morbid self-protectiveness, that propensity at all costs to avoid trouble, which was a major defect of his character.”
― David Cecil, The Young Melbourne

“Born to be a husband and a father, he found himself, through no fault of his own, when near on seventy, a childless widower; well liked by many, but needed by none.”
― David Cecil, Melbourne

“She lacked those colder qualities that carry the Lady Melbournes of this world securely to prosperity. Too soft-hearted, too ungoverned, she could not take a firm line with herself or anyone else.”
― David Cecil

“No, life was an insoluble conundrum; and all that a sensible man could do was to try and get through it with as little unplesantness to himself and everyone else, as possible; in private to be considerate and detached, in public to do what little he could to guide the world down its uncharted course with the minimum of friction. This generally involved doing very little. It certainly meant refusing to risk an immediate disturbance for the sake of a problematical future good. As for ultimate truth, the nearest an honest man could hope to get to that, was to be vigilantly faithful to the conclusions of his own reason and experience; not to let his candid impressions be distorted by convention or cowardice or the deceptions of his own vanity. Probably, these personal conclusions were as far from the truth as everything else. But they were the only things of which he had first-hand evidence. Anyway only good could come of speaking one's mind, even if it did shock people. "It is a good thing to surprise:, he once said. By shaking others out of the complacency one might make them realize how ill-founded human convictions are.”
― David Cecil, The Young Melbourne

“I like what is joyous and agreeable," he ejaculated, "I hate what is disagreeable and melancholy.”
― David Cecil, Melbourne

“The fault of opposition", he remarked, "is a determination to make differences where few exist and those trifling.”
― David Cecil, The Young Melbourne

“We are happy in proportion as we believe ourselves and our life to be of value; and few people are so disinterested or so conceited as to trust wholly to their own judgment in this matter.”
― David Cecil, Melbourne