A. E. Housman

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#discrimination #dull #good #great #great literature

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#choose #dead #did #here #land

If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#bristles #ceases #into #line #memory

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#american #conceal #cunning #diabolical #every

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#average man #conservative #critic #criticism #man

The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#god #i #keep #laws #man

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#act #am #because #bristles #ceases

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed. ↗

— A. E. Housman

#bleed #cannot #deed #hand #hell