Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm (August 24, 1872 – May 20, 1956) was an English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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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.
All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
Death cancels all engagements.
Fate weaves the darkness, which is perhaps why she weaves so badly.
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.
I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.
I was a modest, good-humored boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
In every human being one or the other of these two instincts is predominant: the active or positive instinct to offer hospitality, the negative or passive instinct to accept it. And either of these instincts is so significant of character that one might as well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
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.
It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
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 up.
Most women are not so young as they are painted.
Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
One has never known a good man to whom dogs were not dear; but many of the best women have no such fondness. You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men. For the attractive woman, dogs are mere dumb and restless brutes- possibly dangerous, certainly soulless. Yet will coquetry teach her to caress any dog in the presence of a man enslaved by her.
Only the insane take themselves quite seriously.
The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
Categories: Max Beerbohm, Quotes of the day
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