Thomas de Quincey Quotes About Literature

• Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! A true antithesis to knowledge, in this case, is not pleasure, but power. All that is literature seeks to communicate power; all that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.

  →

  Thomas de Quincey

  'Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected' no. 3, in the 'London Magazine' January-July 1823. De Quincey adds that he is indebted for this distinction to 'many years' conversation with Mr Wordsworth'

  3708

• All that is literature seeks to communicate power

  →

  Thomas de Quincey

  'Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected' no. 3, in the 'London Magazine' January-July 1823. De Quincey adds that he is indebted for this distinction to 'many years' conversation with Mr Wordsworth'

  3798

• There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is -- to teach; the function of the second is -- to move.

  →

  Thomas de Quincey

  Thomas De Quincey (1862). “Leaders in literature”, p.5

  1178

• There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is--to teach; the function of the second is--to move, the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.

  →

  Thomas de Quincey

  Thomas De Quincey (1873). “Leaders in literature”, p.5

  3890

You May Also Like:

Robert Southey

Thomas Carlyle

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Edgar Allan Poe

Charles Dickens

William Hazlitt

William Wordsworth

Hector Berlioz