Max Beerbohm Quotes
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Most women are not as young as they are painted.
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Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
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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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All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
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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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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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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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We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans.
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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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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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Some people are born to lift heavy weights, some are born to juggle golden balls.
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Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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Nobody ever died of laughter.
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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 say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people.
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There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success.
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To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.
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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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She was a young person whose reveries never were in retrospect. For her past was no treasury of distinct memories, all hoarded and classified, some brighter than others and more highly valued. All memories were for her but as the motes in one fused radiance that followed her and made more luminous the pathway of her future.
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The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
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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.