"Men who are never flagrantly dishonest are at times unveracious in small matters, colouring or suppressing facts with a conscious purpose; and writers who never stole an idea nor pretended to honours for which they had not striven, may be found lapsing into small insincerities, speaking a language which is not theirs, uttering opinions which they expect to gain applause rather than the opinions really believed by them. But if few men are perfectly and persistently sincere, Sincerity is nevertheless the only enduring strength. The principle is universal, stretching from the highest purposes of Literature down to its smallest details. It underlies the labour of the philosopher, the investigator, the moralist, the poet, the novelist, the critic, the historian, and the compiler. It is visible in the publication of opinions, in the structure of sentences, and in the fidelity of citations."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from EnglandLiterary criticsPhilosophers from EnglandJournalists from EnglandBiographers from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Henry_Lewes
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
George Henry Lewes
George Henry Lewes (April 18, 1817 β November 30, 1878) was an English philosopher, biographer, novelist, and literary and dramatic critic. He was also controversially long engaged in an open marriage with his legal wife and openly lived with George Eliot (a.k.a. Mary Anne Evans) in a romantic relationship.
51 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by George Henry Lewes β
Related Quotes
"Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed."
"The only cure for grief is action."
"Remember that every drop that falls, bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility."
"A man may be buoyed up by the efflation of his wild desires to brave any imaginable peril; but he cannot calmly see oβ¦"
"To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of thosβ¦"
"Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God bβ¦"
"The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced β thatβ¦"
"Instead, therefore, of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man iβ¦"
"Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families."
"Science is the systematic classification of experience."