Max Beerbohm Quotes

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

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

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

Humility is a virtue and it is a virtue innate in guests.

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

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

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

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

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

The past is a work of art free of irrelevancies and loose ends.

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.

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.

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