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The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

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
Civilized
Likely
Atheism
Civilization
Literature
Life
Uncivilized
Forgiven

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

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No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.
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The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
Cyril Connolly
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We fear something before we hate.
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How many books did Renoir write on how to paint?
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Believing in Hell must distort every judgement on this life.
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Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium.
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Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.
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It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.
Cyril Connolly
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Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
Cyril Connolly
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Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.
Cyril Connolly
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Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
Cyril Connolly
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When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide.
Cyril Connolly
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When I write after dark the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose.
Cyril Connolly
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Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
Cyril Connolly
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The lesson one can learn from Firbank is that of inconsequence. There is the vein which he tapped and which has not yet been fully exploited.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.
Cyril Connolly
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When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
Cyril Connolly