Literary Birthday – 14 August – John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy was born on 14 August 1867 and died on 31 January 1933.
John Galsworthy Quotes
- A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do. Nothing else.
- Love has no age, no limit; and no death.
- Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal.
- Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.
- It’s always worthwhile before you do anything to consider whether it’s going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary.
- He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to exclude forms not to his personal taste.
- Dreaming is the poetry of Life, and we must be forgiven if we indulge in it a little.
- We are not living in a private world of our own. Everything we say and do and think has its effect on everything around us.
- The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.
John Galsworthy was an English novelist and playwright. His breakthrough as a novelist came with publication of The Island Pharisees, which criticised the egotism of England’s powerful elite. He often explored themes related to social issues, ethical problems, and class distinctions in his literary works. He is best remembered for The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. His evocation of Victorian and Edwardian upper middle-class life and his creation of Soames Forsyte, a dislikable character, nevertheless compels the reader’s sympathy. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932 ‘for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga‘.
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by Amanda Patterson
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