Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
About Rebecca West
Dame Cecily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph and The New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman.
More quotes from Rebecca West
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
There is in every one of us an unending see-saw between the will to live and the will to die.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one’s mere personal life, that one has merely lived.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
He is every other inch a gentleman.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
I write books to find out about things.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person’s mind.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist
It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.
British writer, journalist, literary critic, and feminist