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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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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
Conditions
Peace
Morbid
War
Surplus
Civilians
Seeks
Remedy
Dues
Condition

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
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When in doubt, choose greatness.
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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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We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
Cyril Connolly
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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 no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
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The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
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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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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.
Cyril Connolly
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We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.
Cyril Connolly
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Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.
Cyril Connolly
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The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.
Cyril Connolly
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Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.
Cyril Connolly
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In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?
Cyril Connolly
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Like those crabs which dress themselves with seaweed, we wear belief and custom.
Cyril Connolly
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As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly
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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
Cyril Connolly
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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