Lytton Strachey Quotations

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.

Discretion is not the better part of biography.

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.

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.

There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.

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.

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.

With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.

Perhaps the best test of a man's intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.

The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.