Literary Birthday – 1 October – Austin O’Malley

Austin O’Malley was born 1 October 1858, and died 26 February 1932.

10 Quotes

1. Originality in literature is only a new coat of paint on an old house.
2. Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel. (Keystones of Thought)
3. The most dangerous savages live in cities.
4. Prose is a photography, poetry is a painting in oil-colours.
5. Art is awkward until technique has become an unconscious habit.
6. The smaller the head, the bigger the dream.
7. The reason we constantly discover new truth in Shakespeare is that his complete understanding of the particular includes the universal.
8. Those that think it permissible to tell white lies soon grow colour blind.
9. We go to a book as Narcissus went to the fountain, see ourselves therein, and are enamoured.
10. A translation of a poem is like a plaster cast of a statue.

Austin O’Malley was an American physician, humourist, and a professor of English literature at University of Notre Dame.  He is best known for writing Keystones Of Thought.

Source for Image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austin_O%27Malley_(1858-1932)_circa_1915_cropped.png

Bain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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