David Hare (dramatist)

“To those whose god is honour, disgrace alone is sin.”

“Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail.”

“The ultimate tendency of civilization is toward barbarism.”

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

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

“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.”

“Smiles are the language of love.”

“Purity is the feminine, Truth the masculine, of Honour.”

“Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of Nature.”

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

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

“None but a fool is always right.”

“In oratory the will must predominate.”

“Children always turn toward the light.”

“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.”

“The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.”

“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.”