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It is not until an age has receded into history, and all its mediocrity has dropped away from it, that we can see it as it is — as a group of men of genius. We forget the immense amount of twaddle that the great epochs produced.
— Arnold Bennett
screenwriter, novelist, autobiographer, diarist, writer, journalist, playwright, literary critic
🔗 Read on Wikipedia1867 – 1931
It is not until an age has receded into history, and all its mediocrity has dropped away from it, that we can see it as it is — as a group of men of genius. We forget the immense amount of twaddle that the great epochs produced.
Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.
Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.
Which of us is not saying to himself--which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: "I shall alter that when I have a little more time"? We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.
The price of justice is eternal publicity.
A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it.
Being a husband is a whole-time job. That is why so many husbands fail. They can't give their entire attention to it.
Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.
Yes books are valuable. But not reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do - of a steady looking at one's self in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be).
A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour.
We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
And, having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.
Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
Money is far commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is just about the commonest thing there is.
The proper, wise balancing of one's whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.
The chief beauty about time
