34+ Edmund Wilson Quotes On Education, Religion And Writing

Edmund Wilson was an American critic and essayist who wrote extensively on literature, politics, and culture. He was a prolific writer and was considered one of the most influential critics of the 20th century. He was a strong advocate for modernism and a key figure in the New Criticism movement. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Edmund Wilson on education, religion, life.

Top 10 Edmund Wilson Quotes

1. Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.
2. Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine.
3. No two persons ever read the same book.
4. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
5. There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.
6. The most immoral and disgraceful and dangerous thing that anybody can do in the arts is knowingly to feed back to the public its own ignorance and cheap tastes.
7. Keep going; never stop; sit tight; Read something luminous at night.
8. Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
9. The Jew lends himself easily to Communism because it enables him to devote himself to a high cause, involving all of humanity, characteristics which are natural to him as a Jew.
10. It is certainly very hard to write about sex in English without making it unattractive.

Edmund Wilson Short Quotes

• Old-fogyism is comfortably closing in.
• The human imagination has already come to conceive the possibility of recreating human society.
• They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness.
• Every work of art is a trick by which the artist manipulates appearances.
• I have learned to read the papers calmly and not to hate the fools I read about.
• All Hollywood corrupts; and absolute Hollywood corrupts absolutely.
• I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.
• I think with my right hand.
• Education, the last hope of the liberal in all periods.

Edmund Wilson Famous Quotes And Sayings

One didn't really believe till one saw it demonstrated that giving oneself up completely to art, to emotion, to enjoyment, without planning for the future or counting the cost, produced dreadful disabilities and bankruptcies later. — Edmund Wilson

From the moment a New Yorker is confronted with almost any large city of Europe, it is impossible for him to pretend to himself that his own city is anything other than an unscrupulous real-estate speculation — Edmund Wilson

His style has the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship. — Edmund Wilson

The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another. — Edmund Wilson

On the one hand, I have wanted to supply documentation on myself by including material relevant to my emotions and ideas in my youth; and, on the other, not to let myself down by publishing inferior material. My poetry comes under the latter head. My only advice to the reader is to skip any verse that he sees coming. — Edmund Wilson

I find more and more that I am a man of the 1920s. I still expect something exciting. Drinks, animated conversation, gaiety: the uninhibited exchange of ideas. — Edmund Wilson

The only thing that we can really make is our work, and deliberate work of the mind, imagination and hand, done, as Nietzsche said, ‘notwithstanding,’ in the long run remakes the world. — Edmund Wilson

At 60 the sexual preoccupation, when it hits you, seems sometimes sharper, as if it were an elderly malady, like gout. — Edmund Wilson

The product of the scientific imagination is a new vision of relations - like that of artistic imagination. — Edmund Wilson

In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice. — Edmund Wilson

If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart. — Edmund Wilson

A young poet in America should not be advised at the outset to give up all for the Muse-to seclude himself in the country, to live hand from mouth in Greenwich Village or to escape to the Riviera. I should not advise him even to become a magazine editor or work in a publisher's office. The poet would do better to study a profession, to become a banker or a public official or even to go in for the movies. — Edmund Wilson

I really can't stand any more to pay for a burst of animation when someone comes in for drinks with a depressed and low-keyed next day, in which I have to go around on my hands and knees. — Edmund Wilson

In times of disorder and stress, the fanatics play a prominent role; in times of peace, the critics. Both are shot after the revolution. — Edmund Wilson

The cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg. — Edmund Wilson

Life Lessons by Edmund Wilson

1. Edmund Wilson taught us to be open to new ideas and to challenge our preconceived notions. He believed that being an intellectual meant being open to learning and exploring new perspectives.
2. Edmund Wilson also taught us to be critical of the world around us and to use our knowledge and understanding to make the world a better place. He believed that it was important to be an engaged and active citizen.
3. Finally, Edmund Wilson taught us to be fearless in our pursuit of knowledge and to never be afraid to ask difficult questions. He believed that knowledge was the key to unlocking the mysteries of the world.