Max Beerbohm Quotes
- To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.
- All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
- No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.
- Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
- A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her.
- Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.
- It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
- I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.
- One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
- We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans.
- Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people…
- The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.
- To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.
- Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
- People are either born hosts or born guests.
- Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.
- I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
- Most women are not as young as they are painted.
- No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.
- People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.