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Quote by Cyril Connolly

“We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.”

Quote by Cyril Connolly

Author

Cyril Connolly was a prominent British literary critic and writer, known for his profound insights into modern literature and culture. His works include literary criticism, novels, and essays, with his most famous works being 'The Enemies' and 'The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft'. Connolly's writing style was unique, characterized by satire and wit. more

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“There is no suicide for which all society is not responsible.”

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“The disasters of the world are due to its inhabitants not being able to grow old simultaneously. There is always a raw and intolerant nation eager to destroy the tolerant and mellow.”

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“The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.”

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Book:Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise

“The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.”

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“Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual.”

Source: Enemies of promise and other essays: an autobiography of ideas

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Book:Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise