I don't believe that to understand is necessarily to pardon, but I feel that to understand makes one forget that one cannot pardon. Rebecca West More Quotes by Rebecca West More Quotes From Rebecca West Olive Schreiner is less a woman than a geographical fact. Just as one thinks of Egypt as a foreground for the Pyramids, so South Africa seems the setting of that warm, attractive, aggressive personality. Her work is far inferior to her. Rebecca West egyptpyramidsthinking it is necessary that we should all have a little of the will to die, because otherwise we would find the performance of our biological duty of death too difficult. Rebecca West dutyshouldlittles Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas. Rebecca West numbersbookideas I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise. Rebecca West beliefblessingcomforting Bad art is maintained by the neurotic, who is deadly afraid of authentic art because it inspires him to go on living, and he is terrified of life. Rebecca West goes-oninspireart Art and propaganda have this much connection, that if a propaganda makes art impossible, it is clearly damned. Rebecca West connectionsimpossibleart An audience proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who have never practiced continuous application to an exacting process cannot settle down to simple watching; they must chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock. Rebecca West orangesimplefeet Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument. Rebecca West firejusticemean whatever a work of art may be, the artist certainly cannot dare to be simple. He must have a nature as complicated and as violent, as totally unsuggestive of the word innocence, as a modern war. Rebecca West simplewarart What is art? It is not decoration. It is the re-living of experience. Rebecca West decorationart art is at least in part a way of collecting information about the universe. Rebecca West informationwayart If it be ungentlemanly to kiss and tell, it is still further from gentlemanliness to pray and tell. Rebecca West kissingstillspraying I had a glorious father, I had no father at all. Rebecca West gloriousfather The case against religion is the responsibility of God for the sufferings of mankind, which makes it impossible to believe the good things said about Him in the Bible, and consequently to believe anything it says about Him. Rebecca West responsibilitysufferingbelieve The redemptive power of divine grace no longer seemed credible, nor very respectable in the arbitrary performance that was claimed for it. Rebecca West arbitrarydivinegrace Unfortunately, all gatherings convened for the betterment of the human lot show a tendency to gas themselves, and not with laughing-gas either. Rebecca West tendenciesgatheringlaughing The word 'idiot' comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature. Rebecca West fatecellsmen There are two kinds of imperialists - imperialists and bloody imperialists. Rebecca West imperialismkindtwo I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations that have to be honored, and a legal system which can be trusted to step in when that sense fails. Rebecca West legal-systemstepsjustice Mozart eliminates the idea of haste from life. His airs could not lag as they make their journey through the listener's attention; they are not the right shape for loitering. But it is as true that they never rush, they are never headlong or helter-skelter, they splash no mud, they raise no dust. Rebecca West musicjourneyair
