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Doris Lessing Quotes

List of quotations and sayings by the english writer Doris Lessing on topics like work, love, people

  • That's what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life, but in a new way.

    — Doris Lessing on learning
    32
  • In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

    — Doris Lessing on education
    9
  • It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

    — Doris Lessing on triviality
    8
  • There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.

    — Doris Lessing on oneself
    5
  • Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

    — Doris Lessing on mistakes
    5
  • What are the best Doris Lessing quotes?
    Try the Top 10 list of Doris Lessing quotes and images

  • Better Counsel comes overnight.

    — Doris Lessing on advice
    4
  • It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

    — Doris Lessing on identity
    3
  • Laughter is by definition healthy.

    — Doris Lessing on laughter
    3
  • A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.

    — Doris Lessing on prayer
    3
  • Borrowing is not much better than begging;

    just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.

    — Doris Lessing on debt
    3
  • Pearls mean tears.

    — Doris Lessing on crying
    2
  • If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.

    — Doris Lessing on cats
    1
  • About Doris Lessing

    Name Doris Lessing
    Quotes 33 quotations
    Nationality English
    Profession Writer
    Birthday October 16
    About Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
    Top topics work, love, people, learning, life
  • What is a hero without love for mankind.

    — Doris Lessing on heroesheroism
    1
  • Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

    — Doris Lessing on fame
    1
  • Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

    — Doris Lessing on humanity
    1
  • Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

    — Doris Lessing on science
    1
  • Related Authors

    • Publilius Syrus
    • Dale Carnegie
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    • Alan Watts
    • William Hazlitt
    • Napoleon Hill
    • Samuel Johnson
    • G. K. Chesterton
    • Ayn Rand
    • Elbert Hubbard
    • Charles Darwin
    • Charles Dickens
    • William Shakespeare
    • Francois de la Rochefoucauld
    • Francis Bacon
    • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate, that you don't need love when you do or that you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

    — Doris Lessing on love
    0
  • There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.

    — Doris Lessing on laws
    0
  • Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line.

    What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

    — Doris Lessing on politics
    0
  • The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.

    — Doris Lessing on superstition
    0
  • The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

    — Doris Lessing on age
    0
  • This world is run by people who know how to do things.

    They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

    — Doris Lessing on equipped
    0
  • With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates.

    It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

    — Doris Lessing on climates
    0
  • That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

    — Doris Lessing on learning
    0
  • This world is run by people who know how to do things.

    They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we --we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

    — Doris Lessing on professionalism
    0
  • What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate.

    To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

    — Doris Lessing on capable
    0
  • A public library is the most democratic thing in the world.

    What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

    — Doris Lessing on library
    0
  • Literature is analysis after the event.

    — Doris Lessing on books
    0
  • I don't know much about creative writing programs.

    But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

    — Doris Lessing on creative
    0
  • Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

    — Doris Lessing on cases
    0
  • That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

    — Doris Lessing on learning
    0
  • In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

    — Doris Lessing on cooks
    0
  • Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

    — Doris Lessing on blossom
    0
  • Related Topics

    • learning
    • suddenly
    • understand
    • understood
    • life
    • education
    • university
    • greater
    • part
    • law
    • tolerate
    • fools
    • triviality
    • pettiness
    • mark
    • great
    • people
    • treat
    • trifles
    • important
    • matters
    • oneself
    • persuade
    • real
    • sin
    • mistakes
    • trust
    • friend
    • faults
    • love
    • woman
    • angel
    • advice
    • counsel
    • overnight

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