Beerbohm Quotes

To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. — Max Beerbohm

For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like. — Max Beerbohm

I believe the twenty-four hour day has come to stay. — Max Beerbohm

No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'. — Max Beerbohm

A committee should consist of three men, two of whom are absent. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

The lower one's vitality, the more sensitive one is to great art. — Max Beerbohm

It depends on each and every one of me. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

The only man who wasn't spoilt by being lionized was Daniel. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

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. — Max Beerbohm

A man's work is rather the needful supplement to himself than the outcome of it. — Max Beerbohm

Death cancels all engagements. — Max Beerbohm

He was too much concerned with his own perfection ever to think of admiring any one else. — Max Beerbohm

To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine. — Max Beerbohm

What a lurid life Oscar Wilde does lead - so full of extraordinary incidents. What a chance for the memoir writers of the next century — Max Beerbohm

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

People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table. — Max Beerbohm

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

Beauty and the lust for learning have yet to be allied ... — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

The loveliest face in all the world will not please you if you see it suddenly eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own. — Max Beerbohm

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.
[1880] — Max Beerbohm

Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint. — Max Beerbohm

People are either born hosts or born guests. — Max Beerbohm

Every one, even the richest and most munificent of men, pays much by cheque more light-heartedly than he pays little in specie. — Max Beerbohm

Beerbohm was a genius of the purest kind. He stands at the summit of his art. — Evelyn Waugh

You will find my last words in the blue folder. — Max Beerbohm

But to die of laughter
this, too, seems to me a great euthanasia. — Max Beerbohm

The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it. — Max Beerbohm

It distresses me, this failure to keep pace with the leaders of thought, as they pass into oblivion. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play. — Max Beerbohm

The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end. — Max Beerbohm

It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter. — Max Beerbohm

Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests. — Max Beerbohm

Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don't mind. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Somehow, our sense of justice never turns in its sleep till long after the sense of injustice in others has been thoroughly aroused. — Max Beerbohm

The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all. — Max Beerbohm

The gods bestowed on Max [Beerbohm] the gift of perpetual old age. — Oscar Wilde

A man never knows what a fool he is until he hears himself imitated by one. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

God is a sort of burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as an old man you try to conciliate him, because he may knock you down. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

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

When I pass my name in such large letters I blush, but at the same time instinctively raise my hat. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

People are too apt to treat God as if he were a minor royalty. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

She kissed her way into society. I don't like her. But don't misunderstand me: my dislike is purely platonic. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

A charming fellow, and so clever: he models himself on me. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be. — Max Beerbohm

I may be old fashioned, but I am right. — Max Beerbohm

Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. — Cynthia Ozick

To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature. — Max Beerbohm

Heroes are very human, most of them; very easily touched by praise. — Max Beerbohm

When hospitality becomes an art it loses its very soul. — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

Every kind of writing is hypocritical. — Max Beerbohm

Mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests. — Max Beerbohm

Sirs, I have tested your machine. It adds a new terror to life and makes death a long-felt want. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

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

I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul. — Max Beerbohm

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter. — Max Beerbohm

Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision. — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

Most women are not as young as they are painted. — Max Beerbohm

I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable. — Max Beerbohm

I'll have that one, please. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

"After all," as a pretty girl once said to me, "women are a sex by themselves, so to speak." — Max Beerbohm

A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her. — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

Tell me, when you are alone with him [ Max Beerbohm ] Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask? — Oscar Wilde

Sometimes I feel that I am a natural born genius in a field of human endeavor that hasn't been invented yet — Max Beerbohm

Every man is a potential genius until he does something. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity. — Max Beerbohm

Among the masked dandies of Edwardian comedy, Max Beerbohm is the most happily armored by a deep and almost innocent love of himself as a work of art. — V.S. Pritchett

People seem to think there is something inherently noble and virtuous in the desire to go for a walk. — Max Beerbohm

Nobody ever died of laughter. — Max Beerbohm

True dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion. — Max Beerbohm

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality. — Max Beerbohm

The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions. — Max Beerbohm

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter. — Max Beerbohm

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality. — Max Beerbohm

Only the insane take themselves seriously. — Max Beerbohm

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. — Max Beerbohm

Not philosophy, after all, not humanity, just sheer joyous power of song, is the primal thing in poetry. — Max Beerbohm

Of course we all know that Morris was a wonderful all-round man, but the act of walking round him has always tired me. — Max Beerbohm

History,' it has been said, 'does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another. — Max Beerbohm

The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends ... — Max Beerbohm

The literary gift is a mere accident - is as often bestowed on idiots who have nothing to say worth hearing as it is denied to strenuous sages. — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

I was born old and get younger every day. At present I am sixty years young. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

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

Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful. — Max Beerbohm

He is an old bore. Even the grave yawns for him. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

My poor fellow, why not carry a watch? — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans. — Max Beerbohm

Pessimism does win us great happy moments. — Max Beerbohm

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

A whipper-snapper of criticism who quoted dead languages to hide his ignorance of life. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree

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

Cynicism is the humor of hatred. — Herbert Beerbohm Tree