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The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.

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
Wholly
Instinct
Pride
Hospitable
Altruistic
Egoism
Mixed

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Only the insane take themselves seriously.
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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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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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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.
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Somehow, our sense of justice never turns in its sleep till long after the sense of injustice in others has been thoroughly aroused.
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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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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.
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The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions.
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Heroes are very human, most of them very easily touched by praise.
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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 easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
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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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Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
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I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
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As a teacher, as a propagandist, Mr. Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.
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I may be old fashioned, but I am right.
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The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
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A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.
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