Virginia Woolf Quotes
-
The history of most women is hidden either by silence, or by flourishes and ornaments that amount to silence.
-
war is a man's game ... the killing machine has a gender and it is male.
-
For nothing was simply one thing.
-
And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.
-
it is strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners, or in dreams
-
Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.
-
Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.
-
Let us not take for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.
-
Be truthful, and the result is bound to be amazingly interesting.
-
Without self awareness we are as babies in the cradles.
-
You cannot lecture on really pure poetry any more than you can talk about the ingredients of pure water-it is adulterated, methylated, sanded poetry that makes the best lectures.
-
I like people to be unhappy because I like them to have souls.
-
Life would split apart without letters.
-
I am not so gifted as at one time seemed likely.
-
Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.
-
I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me.
-
To let oneself be carried on passively is unthinkable.
-
There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.
-
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with someone, up went her back like a cat's; or she purred.
-
When the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning, it satisfies the senses amazingly.
-
Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.
-
Nothing, however, can be more arrogant, though nothing is commoner than to assume that of Gods there is only one, and of religions none but the speaker’s.
-
For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.
-
I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by his heroism, virtue, and honour. I think the best these men can do is not talk about themselves anymore.