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I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.

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
Take
Unawares
Dissolve
Prefer
Master
Laughter
Masters
Shall

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The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
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The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
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It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
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For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like.
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The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.
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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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All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
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Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.
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Only the insane take themselves seriously.
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Death cancels all engagements.
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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 was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
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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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Fate weaves the darkness, which is perhaps why she weaves so badly.
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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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