Top 200 Robertson Davies Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way.”

— Robertson Davies

52. “I was afraid and did not know what I feared, which is the worst kind of fear.”

— Robertson Davies

53. “Be sure to choose what you believe and why you believe it, because if you don’t choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you.”

— Robertson Davies

54. “No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.”

— Robertson Davies

55. “A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.”

— Robertson Davies

56. “The people who fear humor – and they are many – are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.”

— Robertson Davies

57. “On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.”

— Robertson Davies

58. “There is more to marriage than four bare legs under a blanket.”

— Robertson Davies

59. “The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can’t afford a yes man.”

— Robertson Davies

60. “He was a genius – that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.”

— Robertson Davies

61. “Money, it is often said, does not bring happiness; it must be added, however, that it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.”

— Robertson Davies

62. “The division between art and deviousness and crime is sometimes as thin as a cigarette paper.”

— Robertson Davies

63. “Civilization rests on two things: the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and the voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendid civilization be without both?”

— Robertson Davies

64. “When irony first makes itself known in a young man’s life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.”

— Robertson Davies

65. “Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman.”

— Robertson Davies

66. “I was not sure I wanted to issue orders to life; I rather liked the Greek notion of allowing Chance to take a formative hand in my affairs.”

— Robertson Davies

67. “This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.”

— Robertson Davies

68. “All eras of history are an equal distance from eternity.”

— Robertson Davies

69. “My dear fellow, my whole life is moved by the principle that the one thing which is more important than peace is music. It is because I believe that I am poor.”

— Robertson Davies

70. “The pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to another living creature.”

— Robertson Davies

71. “The young are often accused of exaggerating their troubles; they do so, very often, in the hope of making some impression upon the inertia and the immovability of the selfish old.”

— Robertson Davies

72. “The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.”

— Robertson Davies

73. “The inert mind is a greater danger than the inert body, for it overlays and stifles the desire to live.”

— Robertson Davies

74. “The nature of happiness is such that happiness retreats the more intensely you pursue it.”

— Robertson Davies

75. “If you’re going to do something that looks evil, don’t smear it with icing and pretend it’s good; just bloody well do it and keep your eyes peeled.”

— Robertson Davies

76. “Curiosity is part of the cement that holds society together.”

— Robertson Davies

77. “Whoever declares a child to be “delicate” thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.”

— Robertson Davies

78. “Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.”

— Robertson Davies

79. “It is a waste of time to dissipate one’s moral zeal in disapproving of royal persons who have mistresses.”

— Robertson Davies

80. “Canada has one of the highest rates of insanity in any civilized country and one reason might be that life in many places is so desperately dull.”

— Robertson Davies

81. “There can be no doubt that Samuel Marchbanks is one of the choice and master spirits of this age. If there were such a volume as Who Really Ought To Be Who his entry would require several pages.”

— Robertson Davies

82. “May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.”

— Robertson Davies

83. “In a government like ours, the Crown is the abiding and unshakable element in government; politicians may come and go, but the Crown remains and certain aspects of our system pertain to it which are not dependent on any political party. In this sense, the Crown is the consecrated spirit of Canada.”

— Robertson Davies

84. “We live in a world where bulk is equated with quality.”

— Robertson Davies

85. “Secrets are the blood of life. Every big thing is a secret, even when you know it, because you never know all of it. If you can know everything about anything, it is not worth knowing.”

— Robertson Davies

86. “When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.”

— Robertson Davies

87. “Pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars.”

— Robertson Davies

88. “When a man is down on his luck he seems to consume all he can get of coffee and doughnuts.”

— Robertson Davies

89. “If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life.”

— Robertson Davies

90. “Women tell men things that men are not very likely to find out for themselves.”

— Robertson Davies

91. “Clarity is not a characteristic of the human spirit.”

— Robertson Davies

92. “All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children...”

— Robertson Davies

93. “I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read.”

— Robertson Davies

94. “A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.”

— Robertson Davies

95. “The clerisy are those who seek, and find, delight and enlargement of life in books. The clerisy are those for whom reading is a personal art.”

— Robertson Davies

96. “To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.”

— Robertson Davies

97. “I still have trouble identifying grammatical structures by name, though I know them as matters of usage.”

— Robertson Davies

98. “Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind.”

— Robertson Davies

99. “But as a skeptic I am dubious about science as about everything else, unless the scientist is himself a skeptic, and few of them are. The stench of formaldehyde may be as potent as the whiff of incense in stimulating a naturally idolatrous understanding.”

— Robertson Davies

100. “People are not saints just because they haven’t got much money or education.”

— Robertson Davies