Sunday quotables

Having decided to follow through with this writing thing once more, I've opted to start each week with a set of quotes. And befittingly, I will draw this time from "A Writer's Commonplace Book" by Rosemary Friedman, which I recently completed and suggest without reservation to anyone looking for a penetrating set of reflections from some of the greatest minds of all-time:

"We do not receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
-- Marcel Proust [1871-1922], French novelist

"Genius is partly a matter of choice."
-- Colin Wilson [1931-], British writer and philosopher

"Education has produced a vast population able to read, but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."
-- George Macaulay Trevelyan [1876-1962], English historian

"Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a critic."
-- Jean Sibelius [1865-1957], Finnish symphonic composer

"Television is a fantasy which destroys everything."
-- Malcolm Muggeridge [1903-1990], British journalist, author, and satirist