"On the other hand, for all their virtues, romances have their defects, which Roberto should have known. As medicine teaches also about poisons, metaphysics disturbs with inopportune subtelties the dogmata of religion, ethics recommends magnificence (which is not of help to everyone), astrology fosters superstition, optics deceives, music rouses lust, geometry encourages unjust dominion, and mathematics avarice—so the art of Romance, though warning us that it is providing fictions, opens a door into the Palace of Absurdity, and when we have lightly stepped inside, slams it shut behind us."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 28, "On the Origin of Novels"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Island of the Day Before
22 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Island of the Day Before →
Related Quotes
"Dissimulating means drawing a veil composed of honest shadows, which does not constitute falsehood but allows truth s…"
"Keep calm. You are speaking of love, you are not loving."
"You must know that beneath this foolishness lies a mystery."
"From the way he recalls it on the Daphne, I tend to believe that at Casale, while he lost both his father and himself…"
"If it seems strange that during a week or more on board the ship Roberto had not succeeded in seeing everything, suff…"
"We have said that he had no particular inclination not to believe what the Jesuit was telling him. But often he enjoy…"
"I lack the courage to summarize all of Roberto's summary, so I will only mention the fourth side, which supposedly ex…"
"But an amorous symbol is forgiven many things, and it never ceases to attract poets."
"The dove is there to signify that the world speaks in hieroglyphics, and there is a hieroglyph that itself signifies …"
"Sir," Pozzo said, "be so kind as to make way for us, for we must go and take up our proper position in order to fire …"