WIST Quotations

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3

Dave — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:57:03 +0000

The book, the statue, the sonata, must be gone upon with the unreasoning good faith and the unflagging spirit of children at their play. Is it worth doing? — when it shall have occurred to any artist to ask himself that question, it is implicitly answered in the negative. It does not occur to the child as he plays at being a pirate on the dining-room sofa, nor to the hunter as he pursues his quarry; and the candour of the one and the ardour of the other should be united in the bosom of the artist.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3
(Source)

Collected in Across the Plains, ch. 10 (1892).

Barzun, Jacques -- Interview (1986-12-04) by John C. Tibbetts, “Jacques Barzun on Robert Schumann”

Dave — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 16:00:41 +0000

My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don’t need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let’s play him more.

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Interview (1986-12-04) by John C. Tibbetts, “Jacques Barzun on Robert Schumann”
(Source)

Mencken, H. L. -- “The Blushful Mystery: Art and Sex,” Prejudices: First Series (1919)

Dave — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 14:47:24 +0000

The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man — that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense — has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.

H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“The Blushful Mystery: Art and Sex,” Prejudices: First Series (1919)