Northrop Frye Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Northrop Frye quotes, Northrop Frye sayings, and Northrop Frye proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Literature is a human apocalypse, man's revelation to man, and criticism is not a body of adjudications, but the awareness of that revelation, the last judgement of mankind. Northrop Frye
The ups and downs of this cosmos may sometimes be acknowledged to be metaphorical ups and downs, but until about Newton's time most people took the "up" of heaven and the "down" of hell to be more or less descriptive. Northrop Frye
The distance between pupil and teacher diminishes as the former gets older: by the end of high school the teacher should be a a fellow student. Northrop Frye
Learning things is linear; growth is a curve, and learning hs to be bent in that curve before it's part of a personality. Northrop Frye
In an immature society culture is an import; for a mature one it is a native manufacture which eventually becomes an export. Northrop Frye
Culture is born in leisure and an awareness of standards, and pioneer conditions tend to make energetic and uncritical work an end it itself, to preach a gospel of social unconsciousness, which lingers long after the pioneer conditions have disappeared. Northrop Frye
There doesn't seem to be a recognized yoga of art, not that it matters, for there is one anyway, and I don't have to pretend to myself, as I should to students, that I know what it means. Suppose I call it Sutra-Yoga. Sutra, like strophe & verse, means the turn, the vortical twist of the mind in the imagined form. Northrop Frye
Restoration is an often disastrous solution: tourists in English cathedrals hear a good deal about the vandalism of Cromwell's soldiers, but the devastation wrought by Victorian restorers has been often far worse, however much better the motive. Northrop Frye
We have manic people talking about the Age of Aquarius, where everything is just going to be wonderful, and then we have depressive people talking about atomic bombs and the destruction of civilization. Northrop Frye
Niels Bohr is said to have advised Einstein to stop telling God what to do: the advise would be relevant to a lot of people besides Einstein. Northrop Frye
There is no such thing as inherent or built-in relevance; no subject is relevant in itself, because every field of knowledge is equally the centre of all knowledge. Northrop Frye
What is relevant to the student is not what is related to what or where he is at the moment, but to what he may become or where he may arrive as the result of being a student. Northrop Frye
I think that relevance is something which the student has to establish for himself, whatever he studies. If he can't do that he isn't worthy of the very impressive and dignified title of student. Northrop Frye
In adolescence particularly there are strong pressures toward introversion on the one hand, and rigid conformity to group action on the other. Both of these, as we saw in the hippie movement of a few years ago, tend to make a fetish of inarticulateness. Northrop Frye
For many people the hippie movement is something to drop into and out of. Northrop Frye
A few years ago it was they who led the cult of doing one's own thing, but now they are turning increasingly to communes and social settlements, rather like the Utopian projects of the nineteenth century. Northrop Frye
I can't imagine a social worker, for example, devoting herself to such a profession unless she had in her mind, at some level of consciousness, a vision of a better society than the one she's actually engaged with day after day. Northrop Frye
The reason why detectives in detective stories are so preternaturally intelligent is that they're angels. Guardian angels of society; avenging angels for the murder. Everyone is guilty of something, so all the major character are suspects. Northrop Frye
Consciousness in a world which with or consciousness is only a mechanism: damn uncomfortable situation. Northrop Frye
The world of waking consciousness represents for the creative imagination, a low level of reality. Northrop Frye
Creation wasn't necessarily made for the sake of human consciousness, but consciousness is the human response to creation. Northrop Frye
Consciousness is a magician who controls the demon of will. Northrop Frye
To increase consciousness is to increase mobility by metaphor. Northrop Frye
Everyone should be proud of being what he is, otherwise, something has gone seriously wrong. Northrop Frye
Nothing except a positive illusion can possibly have a future, Northrop Frye
There are two kinds of illusion, the negative illusion which merely fails to be a reality, and the illusion which exists as a potentiality or model in the mind, as a fiction which does not yet exist but may be brought into existence or realized by a creative mind. Northrop Frye
If the human race were to destroy both itself and the planet it lives on, that would be the final triumph of illusion. Northrop Frye
Surely, living in an illusion is the greatest of torments, and becoming disillusioned ought to feel like being let out of jail. Northrop Frye
The mystic finds, at the heart of the illusion of space, a real presence. Northrop Frye
If any literary work is emotionally 'depressing,' there is something wrong with either the writing or the reader's response. Northrop Frye