A biography for Lytton Stracheyhasn’t been written yet.
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
“When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved.”
“But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist.”
“Modern as the style of Pascal's writing is, his thought is deeply impregnated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. He belonged, almost equally, to the future and to the past.”
“In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national - it is universal.”
“There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.”
“English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.”
“The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.”
“Englishmen have always loved Moliere.”
“The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.”
“The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.”
“A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile”
“With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.”
“Discretion is not the better part of biography.”
“In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought.”
“How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question.”
“Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.”
“When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.”
“It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.”
“For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian──ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection that unattainable by the highest art.”