In every age in which books have been produced, the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Since when was genius found respectable?
The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.
What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.
I'm not really book-smart.
There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.
It seems this is an age of clever critics who keep bewailing the fact that there are no works worthy of criticism.
There is something that falls short of perfection in every book, without exception, something influenced by the age, even something ridiculous; just like everyone, without exception, has weaknesses.
My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books - not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today's reader is smarter.
There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
No opposing quotes found.