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Longinus Quotes
Greece
Longinus (or Pseudo-Longinus) is the name conventionally given to the author of an influential work of literary criticism, On the Sublime, the author's real name being unknown. He wrote in Greek and probably lived in the 1st century AD.
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11 quotes
Utterances which appear inspired are often not sublime but merely childish.
For art is only perfect when it looks like nature and Nature succeeds only when she conceals latent art.
In ordinary life, nothing is truly great which it is great to despise; wealth, honor, reputation, absolute power — anything in short which has a lot of external trappings.
Those whose thoughts and habits all their lives are trivial and servile cannot possibly produce anything admirable or worthy of eternity. Words will be great if thoughts are weighty.
Genius needs the curb as often as the spur.
It is our nature to be elevated and exalted by true sublimity. Filled with joy and pride, we come to believe we have created what we have only heard.
The images make for confusion rather than forcefulness. Examine each in the light of day and it gradually sinks from the terrible to the ridiculous.
If a man is afraid of saying anything which will outlast his own life and age, the conceptions of his mind are bound to be incomplete and abortive; they will miscarry and never be brought to birth whole and perfect for the day of posthumous fame.
Sublimity is the echo of a noble mind.
For all who aim at grandeur, in trying to avoid the charge of being feeble and arid, fall somehow into this fault, pinning their faith to the maxim that "to miss a high aim is to fail without shame."
Nothing is truly great which it is great to despise; wealth, honor, reputation, absolute power—anything in short which has a lot of external trappings—can never seem supremely good to the wise man because it is no small good to despise them. People who could have these advantages if they chose but disdain them out of magnanimity are admired much more than those who actually possess them.
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