Lafcadio Hearn Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Lafcadio Hearn quote about:
- Art,
- Literature,
- Study,
-
“No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole universe changes and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new ethics.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Some persons have ventured to say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that they began to discover how beautiful it was.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is the want of an index.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“A proof of really great art is that it is generally true - it seldom falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about them than any other kind of literature.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry - the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“I may venture to say, loosely, that in Judo there is a sort of counter for every twist, wrench, pull, push or bend. Only the Judo expert does not oppose such movements at all. No, he yields to them. But he does much more than yield to them. He aids them with a wicked sleight that causes the assailant to put out his own shoulder, to fracture his own arm, or in a desparate case, even to break his own neck or back.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending Western subjects.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“The tea ceremony requires years of training and practice ... yet the whole of this art, as to its detail, signifies no more than the making and serving of a cup of tea. The supremely important matter is that the act be performed in the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming manner possible.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“In the world of reality the more beautiful a work of art, the longer, we may be sure, was the time required to make it, and the greater the number of different minds which assisted in its development.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the Japanese student, if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western poetry.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite faded away.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“As a result, the highly civilized man can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he has a great advantage over the savage.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“In order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand - or at least to learn to understand - the beauty of stone.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“The fact, however, to which I want to call attention is that the master of Judo never relies upon his own strength. He scarcely uses his own strength in the greatest emergency. Then what does he use? Simply the strength of his antagonist. The force of the enemy is the only means by which that enemy is overcome.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be superstitious or useless, prove today on examination to have been of immense value to mankind.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one's self: "Well, who are the best people to live with?”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“There are two methods for the literary study of any book - the first being the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from both points of view.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter - with infinite subtlety - spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go, - and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet; - and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“Contemporary literature in the West has shown some signs of ethical change.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn -
“It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.”
-- Lafcadio Hearn
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