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Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, lead to ruin. Publius Cornelius Tacitus		Monday Mar 31, 2025
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

About Annie Dillard

	Annie Dillard
	Annie Dillard (born 30 April 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, best known for her narrative nonfiction. She has also published poetry, essays, literary criticism, autobiography, and fiction. She is married to the historical biographer Robert D. Richardson, Jr. Read More

Popular Annie Dillard Quotes

The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit, till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.

Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower are they nature's privileged pets?

Somewhere, and I can't find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No,' said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?'

I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: "The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness." . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision.

Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

You can't test courage cautiously.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing.... The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, If I did not know about god and sin, would I go to hell?. No, said the priest, not if you did not know, Then why, asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me?

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