Amuse Quotes
More Amuse Quotes
Why does one never hear of government funding for the preservation and encouragement of comic strips, girlie magazines and TV soap operas? Because these genres still hold the audience they were created to amuse and instruct.
John Hoyer Updike— 1985 In the NewYork Review of Books,18 Jul.
I believe that since my life began The most I've had is just A talent to amuse. Heigho, if love were all!
— 1929 'If Love Were All'.
I have always done my sketches, as people would say, for the fun of it... I have worked to amuse myself, and if it has amused the public as well, so much the better for me.
aubrey beardsley— In an interview with The Idler (1896), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 309
Such humble talents as God had given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse, I will try to benefit too; and when I fell it my duty to speak unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, through it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader's immediate pleasure as well as my own.
anne brontë— Preface, 2nd edition (July 22, 1848)
"You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again."
anne brontë— Helen to Arthur (Ch. XXVII : Misdemeanour)
"His idea of a wife is a thing to love one devotedly, and to stay at home - to wait upon her husband, and amuse him and minister to his comfort in every possible way, while he chooses to stay with her; and, when he is absent, to attend to his interests, domestic or otherwise, and patiently wait his return; no matter how he may be occupied in the meantime."
anne brontë— Helen Graham (Ch. XXIX : The Neighbour)
Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?
william least heat-moon— Part Five, Chapter 6
The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
s. j. perelman— As quoted in I Seem to be a Verb (Bantam Books, 1970), p. 62
You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's.
john selden— John Selden, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 29.
You make 'em, I amuse 'em.
dr. seuss— Statement about children, as quoted in Enter, Conversing (1962) by Clifton Fadiman, p. 108
My life is like a music-hall,Where, in the impotence of rage,Chained by enchantment to my stall,I see myself upon the stageDance to amuse a music-hall.
arthur symons— In The Stalls , st. 1
The teacher should use illustrations for the better teaching of the lesson, and never to fill up time, to amuse the class, or to display his own genius.
john heyl vincent— p. 572. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them -- a diminishing number in my case.
evelyn waugh— Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) p. 786
Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war.
villiers, george, 2nd duke of buckingham— Lord Macaulay The History of England from the Accession of James II (London: J. M. Dent, 1934) vol. 1, p. 168.
If you were not to be its victim, this book and body would amuse you with its arrogance. It would make you laugh. Because you were not its victim, you could feel no pain of betrayal.
Peter Greenaway— From the eighth book, "The Book of the Seducer"
My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.
helmut newton— As quoted in Newsmakers (2002) by Laura Avery
I think that the philosopher must, for his own purposes, carry methodological strictness to an extreme when he is investigating and pursuing his truths, but when he is ready to enunciate them and give them out, he ought to avoid the cynical skill with which some scientists, like a Hercules at the fair, amuse themselves by displaying to the public the biceps of their technique.
josé ortega y gasset— pp. 19-20 (What is Philosophy? (1964))
If it is true that one gets used to suffering , how is it that as the years go one always suffers more? No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves.
cesare pavese— 1937-11-21
Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours-ambition is the serious business of life.
walter scott— Ch. 36, Malvoisin speaking to De Bois-Guilbert.
The teacher should use illustrations for the better teaching of the lesson, and never to fill up time, to amuse the class, or to display his own genius.
— John Heyl Vincent, p. 572. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
In a society where dissenting viewpoints are suppressed, those viewpoints are potent and dangerous... Where dissent is tolerated, it rapidly becomes quaint and is viewed as un-sophisticated; people merely amuse themselves with the expression of contrary opinion.
— Oscar, in Melmoth by David Sim, p. 41, 1991.
If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more? No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves.
cesare pavese— Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living, 1937-11-21
Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
samuel johnson— Samuel Johnson, Essay on tea (1757). Quoted in: Handbook of Behavior, Food and Nutrition. Victor R. Preedy, Ronald Ross Watson, Colin R. Martin. Springer, 2011. ISBN: 0387922709, p. 628.
Cards were at first for benefits designed, Sent to amuse, not to enslave the mind.
— David Garrick, epilogue to Edward Moore's Gamester.
Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?
— Part Five, Chapter 6 (Blue Highways (1982))
In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.
aldous huxley— Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception (1954)
Beyond the grave! As the vision rises how this side dwindles into nothing a speck a moment and its glory and pomp shrink into the trinkets and baubles that amuse an infant for a day. Only those things, in the glory of this light, which lay hold of immortality, seem to have any value.
— Randolph Sinks Foster, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212
Young man, there is America which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
— Edmund Burke, speech on Conciliation with America, Works, Volume II.
I don't personally try to balance my work because I operate under the assumption that anyone reading or watching my stuff isn't having a particularly balanced day anyway. But negative attitudes just amuse me more than positive ones.
— Lev Yilmaz in an interview with Matt Baume|Matt Baume of “The San Francisco Appeal” in Interview: Tales of Mere Existence’s Lev Yilmaz
