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There is in the human race some dark spirit of recalcitrance, always pulling us in the direction contrary to that in which we are reasonably expected to go.

Max Beerbohm

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Max Beerbohm
Age: 83 †
Born: 1872
Born: August 24
Died: 1956
Died: May 20
Caricaturist
Comedian
Drawer
Essayist
Illustrator
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Painter
Poet
Watercolorist
Writer
London
England
Sir Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm
Sir Beerbohm
Henry Maximilian Beerbohm
Humans
Direction
Always
Contrary
Expected
Mankind
Race
Dark
Reasonably
Spirit
Humankind
Human
Pulling

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Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
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The literary gift is a mere accident - is as often bestowed on idiots who have nothing to say worth hearing as it is denied to strenuous sages.
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After all, as a pretty girl once said to me, women are a sex by themselves, so to speak.
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It is a part of English hypocrisy or English reserve, that whilst we are fluent enough in grumbling about small inconveniences, we insist on making light of any great difficulties or grief's that may beset us.
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In every human being one or the other of these two instincts is predominant: the active or positive instinct to offer hospitality, the negative or passive instinct to accept it. And either of these instincts is so significant of character that one might as well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
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Nobody ever died of laughter.
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It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks but that is another matter.
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I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.
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To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people.
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Death cancels all engagements.
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Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.
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Improvisation is the essence of good talk. Heaven defend us from the talker who doles out things prepared for us but let heaven not less defend us from the beautiful spontaneous writer who puts his trust in the inspiration of the moment.
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Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.
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I may be old fashioned, but I am right.
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True dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion.
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I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
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The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.
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No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.
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Strange when you come to think of it, that of all countless folk who have lived on this planet, not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter.
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A man's work is rather the needful supplement to himself than the outcome of it.
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