Quotes from 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.

She was one of the people who say: "I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like."

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

Anywhere but in England it would be impossible for two solitary men, howsoever much reduced by influenza, to spend five or six days in the same hostel and not exchange a single word. This is one of the charms of England.

One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

She was one of those people who said I don't know anything about music, but I know what I like.

Only the insane take themselves seriously.

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

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.

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other." [ 1880 ]

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

Death, as he had said, cancelled all engagements.

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

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

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.

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

But 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.

Nobody ever died of laughter.

It is the privilege of nobility to condescend.

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

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

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

Does the stag in his hour of victory need a diploma from the hind?

Because I was a pedant. I tried to ignore you, as pedants always do try to ignore any fact they cannot fit into their pet system.