Max Beerbohm

“When I am in the country I wish to be alone, and when I am in London I wish to be alone; but in London I can be alone.”

“Death cancels all engagements.”

“The only irreparable stupidity is that of blaming others for our own misfortunes.”

“No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.”

“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”

“Most women are not so young as they are painted.”

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

“All fantasy should have a logic of its own.”

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”

“Only the insane take themselves seriously.”

“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.”

“It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.”

“History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.”

“I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.”

“The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.”

“Nobody can be amusing who does not seem to be trying to be.”

“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.”

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

“The one real goal of education is to leave a man wondering.”