"It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable."

M. H. Abrams Literature See all quotes by M. H. Abrams →

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“When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that.”

“John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend. And Harold Bloom, another former student.”

“The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.”

“The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives.”

“If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.”

“I think most of the things I published have been published out of desperation, not because they were perfected.”

Resonant Thoughts

"In the present temper of the Irish people...the extension of the suffrage now would be merely to strengthen the element which opposes the connexion with England, and strikes for independence. ... You,…"

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil

Politics1830–1903

#time

"Buddha declared before his death that he would be coming again after twenty-five centuries, and that his name would be Maitreya. Maitreya means the friend. Buddhas don't come back; no enlightened pers…"

— Rajneesh

Philosophy1931–1990

#history

"Here you may suppose the Father to say when driving His bargain with Christ for you. The Father speaks. "My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now …"

— John Flavel

Politics1630–1691

#justice

"Madam, don't bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans."

— Robert E. Lee

Military1807–1870

#politics