Quote

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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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
Civilization
Deposit
Present
Combustion
Deposits
Past
Formed
Without
Discovered
Country
Active
Countries
Neither

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Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.
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How many books did Renoir write on how to paint?
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In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together.
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
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The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe.
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From now on - specialize never again make any concession to the ninety-nine percent of you which is like everyon else at the expense of the one percent which is unique.
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Hate is the consequence of fear we fear something before we hate a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.
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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
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We create the world in which we live if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.
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The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.
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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.
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Like the bee its sting, the promiscuous leave behind them in each encounter something of themselves by which they are made to suffer.
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Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.
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We fear something before we hate.
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When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.
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The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
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Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.
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Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.
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Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.
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Melancholy and remorse forms the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality.
Cyril Connolly