35 Inspirational Virginia Woolf Quotes On Success

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. An important influence in Virginia Woolf’s early life was the summer home the family used where she first saw the Godrevy Lighthouse, which was to become central to her novel To the Lighthouse (1927). Woolf’s childhood came to an abrupt end in 1895 with the death of her mother and her first mental breakdown. Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. May these Virginia Woolf Quotes On Success inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.

1. “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Virginia Woolf

2. “I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you’re everything that exists, the reality of everything.” Virginia Woolf

3. “All extremes of feeling are allied to madness.” Virginia Woolf

4. “Just in case you ever foolishly forget, I’m never not thinking of you.” Virginia Woolf

5. “It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.” Virginia Woolf

6. “A perfect treat must include a trip to a second-hand bookshop.” Virginia Woolf

7. “Be truthful, and the result is bound to be amazingly interesting.” Virginia Woolf

8. “As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” Virginia Woolf

9. “I feel all shadows of the universe multiplied deep inside my skin.” Virginia Woolf

10. “Never pretend that the things you haven’t got are not worth having.” Virginia Woolf

11. “In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.” Virginia Woolf

12. “How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?” Virginia Woolf

13. “Intimacy is a difficult art.” Virginia Woolf

14. “A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.” Virginia Woolf

15. “The way to write well is to live intensely.” Virginia Woolf

16. “I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.” Virginia Woolf

17. “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.” Virginia Woolf

18. “But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb, the self that took the veil and left the world — a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.” Virginia Woolf

19. “The eyes of others our prisons, their thoughts our cages.” Virginia Woolf

20. “A light here required a shadow there.” Virginia Woolf

21. “I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” Virginia Woolf

22. “Style is a very simple matter, it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.” Virginia Woolf

23. “A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life.” Virginia Woolf

24. “If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.” Virginia Woolf

25. “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” Virginia Woolf

26. “Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.” Virginia Woolf

27. “Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle – for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being, rigidity is death, conformity is death, let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.” Virginia Woolf

28. “I am rooted, but I flow.” Virginia Woolf

29. “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf

30. “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” Virginia Woolf

31. “I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.” Virginia Woolf

32. “Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.” Virginia Woolf

33. “Yield to that strange passion which sends you madly whirling round the room.” Virginia Woolf

34. “Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.” Virginia Woolf

35. “Distorted realities have always been my cup of tea.” Virginia Woolf

I hope you enjoyed these Virginia Woolf Quotes On Success. Do let us know which one was your favorite in the comments section below.

Check Out A Video About Why Should You Read Virginia Woolf From Iseult Gillespie At TED-Ed:

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