Max Beerbohm Quotes & Sayings

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

From those pedestals which intersperse the railing of the Sheldonian, the high grim busts of the Roman Emperors stared down at the fair stranger in the equipage. Zuleika returned their stare with but a casual glance. The inanimate had little charm for her. — Max Beerbohm

By its very looseness, by its way of evoking rather than defining, suggesting rather than saying, English is a magnificent vehicle for emotional poetry. — Max Beerbohm

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

Our hero's unreasoning rage was fed by a not unreasonable jealousy. It was clear to him that Zuleika had forgotten his existence. To-day, as soon as he had killed her love, she had shown him how much less to her was his love than the crowd's. And now again it was only the crowd she cared for. He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as she threaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously, confidingly, producing a penny from one lad's elbow, a threepenny-bit from between another's neck and collar, half a crown from another's hair, and always repeating in that flute-like voice of hers: Well, this is rather queer! — Max Beerbohm

One is taught to refrain from irony, because mankind does tend to take it literally. In the hearing of the gods, who hear all, it is conversely unsage to make a simple and direct statement. So what is one to do? The dilema needs a whole volume to itself. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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. — Max Beerbohm

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

I am a Tory anarchist. I should like everyone to go about doing just as he pleased - short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed. — 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

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

Improvisation is the essence of good talk. Heaven defend us from the talker who doles out things prepared for us; but let heaven not less defend us from the beautiful spontaneous writer who puts his trust in the inspiration of the moment. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

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

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

It, one suspects, must have had much to do with the evocation of what is called the Oxford spirit - that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to them who as youths were brought into ken of it, so exasperating to them who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasmal air, not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has helped Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar race of artist-scholars, scholar-artists. The — Max Beerbohm

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

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

Death cancels all engagements. — Max Beerbohm

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

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 grief's that may beset us. — Max Beerbohm

She did not look like an orphan, said the wife of the Oriel don, subsequently, on the way home. The criticism was a just one ... Tall and lissom, she was sheathed from the bosom downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with emeralds. Her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and behind her ears, as an orphan's should be. Parted somewhere at the side, it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the little face between. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

There is in the human race some dark spirit of recalcitrance, always pulling us in the direction contrary to that in which we are reasonably expected to go. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment in the most beautiful manner. — Max Beerbohm

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

Explain yourself!" he commanded.
"Isn't that rather much for a man to ask of a woman?"
"I don't know. I have no experience of women. In the abstract, it seems to me that every man has a
right to some explanation from the woman who has ruined his life." (page 90) — Max Beerbohm

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. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

Pessimism does win us great happy moments. — 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

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

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

I could no more marry a man about whom I could not make a fool of myself than I could marry one who made a fool of himself about me. Else had I long ceased to be a spinster. — Max Beerbohm

Only the insane take themselves seriously. — 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

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

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

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. — Max Beerbohm

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

Have you noticed ... there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists. — 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

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

Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

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. — Max Beerbohm

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

Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

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

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

Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision. — Max Beerbohm

For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun's bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?" his answer. — 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

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

Undergraduates owe their happiness chiefly to the consciousness that they are no longer at school. The nonsense which was knocked out of them at school is all put gently back at Oxford or Cambridge. — Max Beerbohm

Every kind of writing is hypocritical. — Max Beerbohm

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

If a man carry his sense of proportion far enough, lo! he is back at the point from which he started. He knows that eternity, as conceived by him, is but an instant in eternity, and infinity but a speck in infinity. — Max Beerbohm

Nobody ever died of laughter. — Max Beerbohm

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

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

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

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

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

Has the gift of laughter been withdrawn from me? I protest that I do still, at the age of forty-seven, laugh often and loud and long. But not, I believe, so long and loud and often as in my less smiling youth. And I am proud, nowadays, of laughing, and grateful to any one who makes me laugh. That is a bad sign. I no longer take laughter as a matter of course. — Max Beerbohm

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

The unforgettable thing in his life is usually not a thing he has done or left undone, but a thing done to him - some insolence or cruelty for which he could not, or did not, avenge himself. — 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

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

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

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

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