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Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.

Cyril Connolly

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Cyril Connolly
Age: 71 †
Born: 1903
Born: September 10
Died: 1974
Died: November 26
Critic
Literary Critic
Novelist
Writer
Coventry
England
UK
Cyril Vernon Connolly
Thought
Atheism
Retained
Without
Sin
Poisons
Belief
Paralysis
Faith
Redemption
Christian
Poison
Lost
Christians
Sense
Saving
Action
Brought
Paralyses

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Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.
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Industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems
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Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
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Like those crabs which dress themselves with seaweed, we wear belief and custom.
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There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.
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Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear will be lurking.
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It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.
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As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
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No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.
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Beautiful women must think about their beauty as capitalists think about their investments or politicians about their majorities it is all they have to insure their places in the world.
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The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.
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When in doubt, choose greatness.
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Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
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There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defense-line of custom and habit we must sleep and therefore we must dream.
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Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
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Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.
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That sinister Stonehenge of economic man, Rockefeller Center.
Cyril Connolly
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The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.
Cyril Connolly
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Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.
Cyril Connolly
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The disasters of the world are due to its inhabitants not being able to grow old simultaneously. There is always a raw and intolerant nation eager to destroy the tolerant and mellow.
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