Remarks by Francis Hastings Doyle | V2Melody Quotations

Search

Topic

Browse topics

Showing 17 of 17 remarks

“because it is rather a shy process to send a shoulder of mutton to the owner of a deer park.”

His self-deprecating reason for not sending Tennyson a copy of his newly published poems · Letter to Mr Cameron, 13 November 1866

“Books of this kind have little claim to be valued as literature in any high sense of the word; their principal object, indeed, is to help on, more or less, future historical research.”

Distinguishing the historical value of personal recollection from purely literary ambition · Reminiscences and Opinions, Chapter I

“When anyone, as I am now doing, approaches the age of seventy-four, he ought to be able to tell his juniors something worth listening to.”

A wry reflection on age, experience, and the obligation to pass something worthwhile to younger generations · Reminiscences and Opinions, Chapter I

“The great desire of a good citizen should be to fill up, as far as possible, the gulfs that separate one set of Englishmen from another.”

Presenting civic life as a work of bridging social divisions · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“Though this education had been carried on in a somewhat abnormal fashion, by conversation rather than by books, it was not, in my judgment, any the worse on that account.”

Recognising conversation as a genuine form of education · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“There were others equally good in their way, of which I remember the outlines, but as they are longer and more elaborate, I could only quote them imperfectly, and, that being so, it is better not to quote them at all.”

Preferring omission to an inaccurate quotation · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

Memory
Truth

“If I failed to teach, I gathered out of my failure some instruction for myself, which he never managed to do.”

Finding a lesson for himself in a failed attempt to teach · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“If the grief is only a half grief, conjured up by the imagination to play with like a toy, then, in my opinion, the bard had better hold his tongue.”

Rejecting manufactured grief as a basis for poetic utterance · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“If a poet really sorrows over the death of a friend to that degree that he cannot, as a relief to the soul, refrain from pouring out his sorrow in song, I think his utterance should be natural and straightforward.”

Insisting that genuine grief in poetry should sound natural rather than affected · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“Definitions of poetry indeed are always more or less unintelligible.”

Wryly resisting attempts to define poetry too neatly · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

Poetry
Truth

“Now, in my opinion, the critic ought not to be over-fastidious, but to take broad, bold, and tolerant views of whatever comes under his ken.”

Calling for criticism broad enough to recognise different kinds of merit · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

Art
Truth

“An average English intellect requires time to take in and digest what you say to it.”

Arguing that listeners need time to absorb spoken thought · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

Art
Truth

“Like champagne, the brightest iridescences of wit depend upon the surrounding atmosphere, and cease to shine when they cease to reflect its immediate influence.”

Comparing wit to something whose sparkle depends upon setting and company · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“Most of these conversations, as is the case with all the finest and wittiest talk, have effervesced away for ever.”

Observing how even brilliant conversation can vanish once its moment has passed · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“I write from memory alone; and of memory the principal fountain-head is, and must be, the association of ideas.”

Treating association as the natural engine of autobiographical memory · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

Memory
Truth

“It has always been my belief that a more living knowledge of the past is to be obtained by studying the State Trials than by poring over formal narrations, however highly esteemed.”

Arguing that vivid primary records can bring the past to life · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886

“Indeed, what I am about to give to the world resembles rather a spirit distilled from the vin ordinaire of a life-talk, and bottled for future use, than a literary production.”

Describing memoir as the distilled essence of remembered conversation · Reminiscences and Opinions, 1886