A Quote by Denis Diderot

Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

Denis Diderot

Quote Topics

Deficiency Fall Fault Greatest May Merely Poet Shakespeare Taste Which

Quote Author

Denis Diderot
French - Editor
October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784

I acknowledge Shakespeare to be the world's greatest dramatic poet, but regret that no parent could place the uncorrected book in the hands of his daughter, and therefore I have prepared the Family Shakespeare.

Thomas Bowdler

Shakespeare is, after all, Britain's greatest poet and dramatist.

Sam Wanamaker

One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.

Horace Walpole

Every artist is linked to a mistake with which he has a particular intimate relation. There is the mistake of Homer, of Shakespeare — which is perhaps, for both, the fact of not existing. Every art draws its origin from an exceptional fault, every work is the implementation of this original fault, from which come to us a new light and a risky conception of plenitude.

Maurice Blanchot

We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he was certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.

Mary Wortley Montagu

In prosperous fortunes be modest and wise, The greatest may fall, and the lowest may rise: But insolent People that fall in disgrace, Are wretched and nobody pities their Case.

Benjamin Franklin

Shakespeare, who is probably the greatest writer and poet of the English language, lived in a time that was politically very conservative and it's reflected in his writings.

Alex Cox

To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others fall short. A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.

Virginia Woolf

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

Charles Caleb Colton

Your medical documents will say Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome that is AIDS. What that means you have got this challenge of immune deficiency. Alright what causes immune deficiency? HIV. Alright. Is that all that causes immune deficiency? The medical textbooks will say there are other things that cause immune deficiency. There is also genetic immune deficiency that is a different phenomenon.

Thabo Mbeki

More than any other poet, Whitman is what we make him; more than any other poet, his greatest value is in what he suggests and implies rather than in what he portrays, and more than any other poet must he wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of himself.

John Burroughs

A person with taste is merely one who can recognize the greatest beauty in the simplest things.

Barbara Taylor Bradford

Taste is one of the five senses, and the man who tells us with priggish pride that he does not care what he eats is merely boasting of his sad deficiency: he might as well be proud of being deaf or blind, or, owing to a perpetual cold in the head, of being devoid of the sense of smell.

E. F. Benson

A fine lady; by which term I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and manner, down to every gesture, which heaven forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful, and therefore I welcome it in the name of the author of all beauty. I value it so highly that I would fain see it extend not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the laborer's hovel and the needlewoman's garret.