“To tell the truth I do not much believe in these supposed effects of classical studies.”

Refusing to exaggerate the moral benefits of his own academic discipline · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Criticism
• Education
• Sincerity

“I could not say that I have a favourite among my poems.”

Resisting the invitation to rank his own poetic work · Letter to an admirer

• Criticism
• Poetry
• Writing

“Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.”

A famously sardonic complaint about unwillingness to think · Preface to Juvenal, Saturae

• Criticism
• Humour
• Thought

“Not to be a textual critic is no reproach to anyone, unless he pretends to be what he is not.”

Valuing intellectual honesty above pretensions to expertise · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Humility
• Sincerity

“Because a man is not a born critic, he need not therefore act like a born fool.”

Arguing that disciplined thought can compensate for limited natural aptitude · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Discipline
• Wit

“It is no good for a rhinoceros to hunt for fleas: he does not know where they are, and could not catch them if he did.”

A comic image for the importance of sensitivity and aptitude · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Humour
• Skill

“Every problem which presents itself to the textual critic must be regarded as possibly unique.”

Emphasising judgement and attention to individual circumstances · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Individuality
• Understanding

“Of course you can have hard-and-fast rules if you like, but then you will have false rules, and they will lead you wrong.”

Warning against simple rules imposed upon complicated human problems · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Understanding
• Wisdom

“Whatever he reads about textual criticism in books, or hears at lectures, he should test by reason and common sense.”

Advocating independent judgement rather than passive acceptance of authority · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Independence
• Reason

“It is purely a matter of reason and of common sense.”

Rejecting unnecessary mystification in scholarly practice · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Criticism
• Reason
• Simplicity

“Textual criticism is a science, and, since it comprises recension and emendation, it is also an art.”

Balancing systematic scholarship with the need for individual judgement · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

• Art
• Criticism
• Knowledge

“Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out.”

Warning that analysis can sometimes diminish poetic experience · Lecture, The Name and Nature of Poetry, 1933

• Criticism
• Poetry
• Understanding

“Georgian Poetry, with my three excluded, contains, I think, the best poems of the century.”

Offers both generous praise of his contemporaries and a modest aside about himself · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Criticism
• Humility
• Poetry

“I burned many copybooks which contained fugitive pieces of my own because I thought it were better for them to die young and be happy than live to be reviled.”

A witty description of ruthless self-editing and dissatisfaction with early work · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Criticism
• Humour
• Writing

“For a long time I did little but criticise and rearrange my books, separating, as it were, the sheep from the goats.”

Reading critically became part of his education as a writer · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Books
• Criticism
• Learning

“Shelley was innocent of such sins and poor Keats never heard of them.”

His criticism gives way to warm admiration for Shelley and Keats · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Criticism
• Influence
• Poetry

“Tennyson was too conventional for my taste and nearly always spoiled his work with a prologue or an epilogue full of loud bombast or conceit.”

A strikingly forthright judgement on one of the major Victorian poets · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Convention
• Criticism
• Style

“The poems of the former which had erstwhile pleased me seemed too full of colour, too full of metaphor and often too disconnected.”

Shows Ledwidge developing definite ideas about poetic restraint and coherence · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Criticism
• Metaphor
• Style

“I began to pick faults with Longfellow and Tennyson.”

Marks the transition from youthful admiration to independent critical judgement · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Criticism
• Growth
• Poetry

“If you have a success, you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.”

Expressing deep suspicion of popularity as a reliable measure of artistic achievement · Conversation, recalled by Morley Callaghan

• Art
• Criticism
• Fame

“The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish.”

Rejecting predetermined symbolism while leaving readers free to find meanings beyond the literal story · Letter to Bernard Berenson, 13 September 1952

• Criticism
• Symbolism
• Writing

“It's awfully hard to talk or write about your own stuff because if it is any good you yourself know about how good it is.”

Explaining the awkwardness writers face when judging or discussing their own work · Letter to Malcolm Cowley, 17 October 1945

• Criticism
• Humility
• Writing

“I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.”

Defending deliberate restraint against critics who mistook stylistic choice for inability · Letter, 26 August 1940

• Criticism
• Style
• Writing

“God knows, people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp-following eunuchs of literature.”

An unusually fierce expression of his distrust of professional literary criticism · Letter to Sherwood Anderson, 23 May 1925

• Criticism
• Independence
• Literature