#literature

There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause. ↗

— Mao Zedong

#art #cause #classes #detached #fact

But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark. ↗

— John Updike

#imagery #inspirational #love #lovers #metaphor

I'm a big believer in pairing classics with contemporary literature, so students have the opportunity to see that literature is not a cold, dead thing that happened once but instead a vibrant mode of storytelling that's been with us a long time - and will be with us, I hope, for a long time to come. ↗

— John Green

#believer #big #big believer #classics #cold

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing. ↗

— Stephen Greenblatt

#actually #else #give #i #i think

Poetry, it is often said and loudly so, is life's true mirror. But a monkey looking into a work of literature looks in vain for Socrates. ↗

— Franz Grillparzer

#life #literature #looking #looks #loudly

...the wise words of a friend and guide rang in my head. 'How would you distinguish a true servant of God from a traitor?...You should take especial notice of how a person speaks, not of other things, but of God. ↗

— Harry Blamires

#english-literature #god #religion #truth #wisdom

Contemporary literature in the West has shown some signs of ethical change. ↗

— Lafcadio Hearn

#contemporary #ethical #literature #shown #signs

For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete. ↗

— Lafcadio Hearn

#education #english #english literature #general #general knowledge

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

#both #english #english literature #extraordinary #fiction

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

#been #cultivated #east #europe #european