David Hare (dramatist)

"The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still a far healthier potential than some poorer, abandoned arts."

"The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe."

"A weak mind sinks under prosperity, as well as under adversity. A strong and deep mind has two highest tides – when the moon is at the full, and when there is no moon."

"Children always turn toward the light."

"In oratory the will must predominate."

"None but a fool is always right."

"Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth."

"Our poetry in the eighteenth century was prose; our prose in the seventeenth, poetry."

"Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of Nature."

"Purity is the feminine, Truth the masculine, of Honour."

"Smiles are the language of love."

"Some people carry their hearts in their heads; very many carry their heads in their hearts. The difficulty is to keep them apart, and yet both actively working together."

"Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of the mercury in the barometer, indicate little else than the changeableness of the weather."

"The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience."

"The ultimate tendency of civilization is toward barbarism."

"Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail."

"To those whose god is honour, disgrace alone is sin."