Max Beerbohm Quotes
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Most women are not as young as they are painted.
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No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.
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Everywhere he found his precept checkmated by his example.
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He heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate oneself.
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A crowd, proportionately to its size, magnifies all that in its units pertains to the emotions, and diminishes all that in them pertains to thought.
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Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
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We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans.
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It is so much easier to covet what one hasn’t than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn’t.
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Just as 'pluck' comes of breeding, so is endurance especially an attribute of the artist. Because he can stand outside himself, and (if there be nothing ignoble in them) take pleasure in his own sufferings, the artist has a huge advantage over you and me.
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I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased - short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.
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Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
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As a teacher, as a propagandist, Mr. Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.
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All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
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There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success.
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The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
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To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.
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To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people.
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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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She was one of those people who say 'I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like.'
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Nobody ever died of laughter.
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There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as 'form' to literature. It strongly defines its content.
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The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
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When hospitality becomes an art it loses its very soul.
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The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.