Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice. George Gissing More Quotes by George Gissing More Quotes From George Gissing To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity. George Gissing tests understanding capacity How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, and they are free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support! When the most trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly. George Gissing morning mean art The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought. George Gissing honesty soul truth It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience . . . George Gissing stress time children I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything. George Gissing being-single being-yourself men Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion. George Gissing often-is compassion acceptance A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity. George Gissing vacuity cigar hours Money is made at Christmas out of holly and mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch were procurable? George Gissing hollies care christmas I have the happiness of a passing moment, and what more can mortal ask? George Gissing passing-moments passings happiness To be at other people's orders brings out all the bad in me. George Gissing order people No, no; women, old or young, should never have to think about money. George Gissing should young thinking Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman. George Gissing cheerful money use London is a huge shop, with a hotel on the upper storeys. George Gissing hotel london shops Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event. George Gissing calamity events way Have the courage of your desire. George Gissing bravery courage success To every man it is decreed: Thou shalt live alone. Happy they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it. George Gissing solitude common men The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm. George Gissing calm growing mind Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure. George Gissing leisure drinking tea It is because nations tend towards stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all. George Gissing individual stupid moving It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched. George Gissing
