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

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Only the insane take themselves seriously.
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Heroes are very human, most of them very easily touched by praise.
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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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Every one, even the richest and most munificent of men, pays much by cheque more light-heartedly than he pays little in specie.
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People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.
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The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
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All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
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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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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 delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.
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The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
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Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.
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I may be old fashioned, but I am right.
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Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk, and at the same time one doesn't like to confront them with their own great themes.
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It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like.
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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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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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A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.
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