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Quote by Cyril Connolly

“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.”

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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“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.”

Knows Should Running Able Form Pleasure Taken Air Materials Conversation Should Have Noise Miserable Isolation Tolerate Composition Betrayed Talkers

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.”

Culture Next Goal Civilization Constant Corruption Factors Luxury Superstitions Decay Skepticism Weariness Decadence Epoch Manure

Author:Cyril Connolly

“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

“Nothing dates like hate and in literature a little of it goes a very long way.”

Way Littles Long Hate Literature Long Way

Book:The evening colonnade

Source: The evening colonnade

“Promise is the capacity for letting people down.”

People Promise Capacity

Book:Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise

“A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious retreat of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.”

Years Past Century Talent Danger Travel Findings Dull Hotel Allowing Composition Bedroom Retreat Twentieth Century

Book:Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise

“Most people spend most of their days doing what they do not want to do in order to earn the right, at times, to do what they may desire.”

People Want May Desire Order Work

Book:Speak for yourself, John: the life of John Mason Brown, with some of his letters and many of his opinions

Source: Speak for yourself, John: the life of John Mason Brown, with some of his letters and many of his opinions

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.”

Certain Blood Land Crime Revolution Guilty Civil War Brown American Civil War Abolition Abolitionist John Brown

Author:John Mason Brown

“The critic is a man who prefers the indolence of opinion to the trials of action.”

Men Action Opinion Critics Trials Indolence

Author:John Mason Brown

“I have a Vision of the Future, chum. The workers flats in fields of soya beans tower up like silver pencils, score on score.”

Vision Fields Workers Score Silver Flats Towers Pencils Beans Visions Of The Future Chum

Book:Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of Betjeman's Religious Verse

Source: Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of Betjeman's Religious Verse