Mark Van Doren Quotes

It is astonishing how few stories have been told perfectly.

I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying, things that you don't have to take care of anymore, and the grass stops growing.

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension - the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed.

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

To be what no one ever was, to be what everyone has been: Freedom is the mean of those extremes that fence all effort in.

The genius of the Marx Brothers is for parody. They never are themselves. They exist too abundantly to be content with being that - they must go on, by the rapidest of transitions, to being something else. Groucho, in my opinion the bright star among the three, is never anything but the thing he is at the moment pretending to be.

Weightless in water, swift as the wind, Subtle of purpose - a feather blown - I go with my oarsmen where they will, My beautiful body and theirs all one.

Respect for the Truth is an acquired taste.

Great periods of poetry begin with an inordinate self-consciousness, and only gradually attain to the natural.

There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are those who do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present. We can be all here. We can ... give all our attention to the opportunity before us.

For Tolstoy ... anything that human beings do has its glory ... I think he can be said to have hated nothing that ever happened.

Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at this moment exactly proportional to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better.

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

Nothing stays
not even change,
That can grow tired
of it's own name;
The very thought
too much for it.
Somewhere in air
a stillness is,
So far, so thin-
But let it alone.
Whoever we are
it is not for us

Our best chance for happiness is education.