Max Beerbohm Quotes
August 24, 1872 – 20 May 1956
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Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for
a man's footprint.
1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.2. 
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More Max Beerbohm Quotes
Women who love the same man have a kind of bitter freemasonry.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.4.
You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.6.
Beautyand the lust for learning have yet to be allied.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.7.
You will think me lamentably crude: my experience of life has been drawn from life itself.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.7.
She was one of the people who say 'I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like.'
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.9.
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind- legs.But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.9.
The Socratic method is not a game at which two can play.
Max Beerbohm— 1911Zuleika Dobson, ch.15.
The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment in the most beautiful manner.
Max Beerbohm— The Spirit of Caricature (1901)
As a teacher, as a propagandist, Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.
Max Beerbohm— Around Theatres, “A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S” (1924)
Lift latch, step in, be welcome, Sir, Albeit to see you I’m unglad.
Max Beerbohm— A Luncheon
Only the insane take themselves quite seriously.
Max Beerbohm— Quoted in Max by David Cecil (1964), ch. 2
There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as 'form' to literature. It strongly defines its content.
Max Beerbohm— "Fenestralia", Mainly on the Air (1946), The Atlantic (April 1944)
Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. II (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. IV (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
He heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate oneself.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. VII (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
Oxford walls have a way of belittling us; and the Duke was loath to regard his doom as trivial. Aye, by all minerals we are mocked. Vegetables, yearly deciduous, are far more sympathetic.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. VII (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
Death cancels all engagements.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. VII (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
It is so much easier to covet what one hasn’t than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn’t.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. VIII (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
She was one of those people who say "I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like."
Max Beerbohm— Ch. IX (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
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.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. IX (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.
Max Beerbohm— Ch. XIII (Zuleika Dobson (1911))
All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
Max Beerbohm— Note to the 1946 edition
I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.
Max Beerbohm— No. 2, The Pines (1914)
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.
Max Beerbohm— Hosts and Guests (1918), Harper's Monthly (August 1919)
I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.
Max Beerbohm— Servants (1918)
Strange, when you come to think of it, that of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter.
Max Beerbohm— Laughter (1920)
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.
Max Beerbohm— Quia Imperfectum (1920)
To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.
Max Beerbohm— Quia Imperfectum
I was not unpopular [at school]... It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
Max Beerbohm— Max Beerbohm, More (1899) "Going Back to School". Knowles, Elizabeth. "Max Beerbohm". Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford University Press. [4]. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
