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Rebecca West [1892-1983] Irish

Rank: 102
Author

Dame Cicely Isabel Fairfield DBE, known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer.

Art, Communication, Intelligence, Life, Mom, Science, Space, Trust, War

Quote	Tags	Rank
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.		101
Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.	Trust	102
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.		103
Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.		104
People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.		105
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.		106
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.	Science, War	107
Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.	Art	108
Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.	Life	109
All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.		110
Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.		111
It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster.		112
There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.	Intelligence	113
He is every other inch a gentleman.		114
Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.	Space	115
It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.		116
A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.		117
A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.		118
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.		119
Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.	Communication	120
Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.	Mom	121
I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?		122
Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.		123
It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.		124
I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.		125
The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.		126
I write books to find out about things.		201
Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.		202
We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.		203
International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.		204
Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.		205
Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.		206
The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one's mere personal life, that one has merely lived.		207
There is in every one of us an unending see-saw between the will to live and the will to die.		208
Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.		209
But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.		210
There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.		211
The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.		212

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