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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.

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
Mere
Sage
Worth
Accident
Often
Literary
Nothing
Denied
Idiot
Strenuous
Accidents
Sages
Hearing
Bestowed
Gift
Idiots

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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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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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Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
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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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It distresses me, this failure to keep pace with the leaders of thought, as they pass into oblivion.
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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.
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It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
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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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But to die of laughter--this, too, seems to me a great euthanasia.
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The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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Only the insane take themselves seriously.
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I may be old fashioned, but I am right.
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Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.
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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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A man's work is rather the needful supplement to himself than the outcome of it.
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The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.
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No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.
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Nobody ever died of laughter.
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Heroes are very human, most of them very easily touched by praise.
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