6 Quotes & Sayings By Leonard Woolf

Leonard Woolf (1880–1969) was an English playwright, critic, journalist and biographer. A member of the Bloomsbury Group, he is best known for his critical works, particularly his 1920s essay The Common Reader which influenced literary criticism in the United States through the 1950s. His autobiography is a memoir of his life.

1
Suddenly I heard Virginia’s voice calling to me from the sitting room window: “Hitler is making a speech.” I shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead. Leonard Woolf
2
The mere fact that a very large number of people believe such a thing and that the world would be a better place if it were true, is no reason for believing that it is true. Leonard Woolf
3
Novels by serious writers of genius often eventually become best-sellers, but most contemporary best-sellers are written by second-class writers whose psychological brew contains a touch of naïvety, a touch of sentimentality, the story-telling gift, and a mysterious sympathy with the day-dreams of ordinary people. Leonard Woolf
4
Leonard Woolf in a letter to Lytton Strachey said he hated John Maynard Keynes "for his crass stupidity and hideous face". Leonard Woolf
5
Life is not an orderly progression, self-contained like a musical scale or a quadratic equation... If one is to record one's life truthfully, one must aim at getting into the record of it something of the disorderly discontinuity which makes it so absurd, unpredictable, bearable. Leonard Woolf