Quote

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.

Max Beerbohm

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Happiness
Mainspring
Incongruity
Laughter
Joy

More quotes by Max Beerbohm

Image
I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.
Max Beerbohm
Image
The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Death cancels all engagements.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Fate weaves the darkness, which is perhaps why she weaves so badly.
Max Beerbohm
Image
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.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Have you noticed ... there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.
Max Beerbohm
Image
The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.
Max Beerbohm
Image
Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.
Max Beerbohm
Image
I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.
Max Beerbohm
Image
A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.
Max Beerbohm
Image
A crowd, proportionately to its size, magnifies all that in its units pertains to the emotions, and diminishes all that in them pertains to thought.
Max Beerbohm
Image
All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
Max Beerbohm
Image
People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.
Max Beerbohm
Image
I am a Tory anarchist. I should like everyone to go about doing just as he pleased - short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.
Max Beerbohm
Image
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.
Max Beerbohm
Image
I may be old fashioned, but I am right.
Max Beerbohm
Image
I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
Max Beerbohm
Image
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
Max Beerbohm