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

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

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We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
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For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
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It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.
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Sheep with a nasty side.
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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.
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The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.
Cyril Connolly
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We fear something before we hate.
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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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A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious retreat of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.
Cyril Connolly
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In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together.
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Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
Cyril Connolly
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Believing in Hell must distort every judgement on this life.
Cyril Connolly
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Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.
Cyril Connolly
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The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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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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There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.
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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English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid one attractive, one vulgar one noble, one ape-like one serious and sincere, one undignified and false one far-sighted, one short EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.
Cyril Connolly