Max Beerbohm

I utilise all my spare moments. I've read twenty-seven of the Hundred Best Books. I collect ferns.

Read quote

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.

Read quote

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.

Read quote

I utilise all my spare moments. I've read twenty-seven of the Hundred Best Books. I collect ferns.

Read quote

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

Read quote

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.

Read quote

Some people are born to lift heavy weights, some are born to juggle golden balls.

Read quote

Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision.

Read quote

Most women are not so young as they are painted.

Read quote

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.

Read quote

The critic who justly admires all kinds of things simultaneously cannot love any one of them.

Read quote

A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.

Read quote

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

Read quote

You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one whohas failed to find sympathy in men.

Read quote

It is a part of English hypocrisy-or English reserve-that, whilst we are fluent enough in grumbling about small inconveniences, we insist on making light of any great difficulties or griefs that may beset us.

Read quote

There is much to be said for failure. It is more interesting than success.

Read quote

Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk, and at the same time one doesn't like to confront them with their own great themes.

Read quote

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.

Read quote

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.

Read quote

Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.

Read quote

Quotes by Max Beerbohm