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Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.

— John Cowper Powys The Pleasures of Literature (1938)

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More quotes by John Cowper Powys

Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace.

The Meaning of Culture (1929)

The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.

The Complex Vision (1920)

The love that interferes and knows not how to leave alone is a love alien to Nature's ways.

The Meaning of Culture (1929)

The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.

The Meaning of Culture (1929)

Most of the pathetic scenes in almost everybody's life are scenes unnoted by anyone and totally disregarded by the person in question.

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Cowper Powys (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.