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Max Beerbohm citations

Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm, né le 24 août 1872 à Kensington , et mort le 20 mai 1956 à Rapallo , est un homme de lettres, critique littéraire, écrivain, caricaturiste et dandy britannique. Il était le demi-frère cadet de l'acteur et producteur Herbert Beerbohm Tree et l'oncle d'Iris Tree. Il fait ses études à la Charterhouse School et au Merton College, à Oxford.

Il est fait chevalier en 1939 par le roi George VI.

Ses caricatures et ses pastiches sont restés fameux pour leur manière de brocarder, généralement sans méchanceté, la prétention, l'affectation et l'inconséquence de ses contemporains les plus en vue.

Ses récits en prose et ses premières pièces de théâtre, quant à eux mêlent la fiction et l’autobiographie, la satire sociale et le fantastique, le pastiche et la facétie. Ils se font aussi le miroir de la vie littéraire londonienne — ses clubs d’écrivains, ses rivalités d’auteurs — à laquelle Beerbohm fut mêlé de près, et qu’il dépeint avec verve. Ses nombreuses références au contexte dans lequel il évoluait ne l'empêchent pas de verser dans la fantaisie. La mystification est en effet son sujet de prédilection et il se révèlera expert dans l’art d’échafauder des supercheries littéraires ou d'intriguer son lecteur avec des contes à dormir debout. Wikipedia  

✵ 24. août 1872 – 20. mai 1956   •   Autres noms Henry Maximilian Max Beerbohm
Max Beerbohm photo
Max Beerbohm: 36   citations 0   J'aime

Max Beerbohm: Citations en anglais

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

The Spirit of Caricature (1901)

“The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. XV

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

No. 2, The Pines (1914)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. VII

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a whole flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilization. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost —- he becomes a unit in unreason.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

“She was one of those people who say "I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like."”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

“He heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate oneself.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. VII

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Quia Imperfectum
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.”

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Max Beerbohm

"1880" (1895) from The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/twomb10.txt

“Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.”

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Max Beerbohm

Quia Imperfectum
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Laughter (1920)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“The Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.”

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Max Beerbohm

"A Note on George the Fourth," http://books.google.com/books?id=NA0HAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+NonConformist+Conscience+makes+cowards+of+us+all%22&pg=PA250#v=onepage The Yellow Book (October 1894)
"King George the Fourth," http://books.google.com/books?id=OvlGAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+Nonconformist+Conscience+makes+cowards+of+us+all%22&pg=PA63#v=onepage The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896)

“As a teacher, as a propagandist, Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.”

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Max Beerbohm

Around Theatres, “A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S” (1924)

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Servants (1918)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“He was too much concerned with his own perfection ever to think of admiring any one else.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. III

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm livre Mainly on the Air

"Fenestralia" http://books.google.com/books?id=YZMhAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+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%22&pg=PA147#v=onepage, Mainly on the Air (1946), The Atlantic ( April 1944 http://books.google.com/books?id=5KAGAQAAIAAJ&q=%22There+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%22&pg=PA85#v=onepage)

“She was a young person whose reveries never were in retrospect. For her past was no treasury of distinct memories, all hoarded and classified, some brighter than others and more highly valued. All memories were for her but as the motes in one fused radiance that followed her and made more luminous the pathway of her future.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. II

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Quia Imperfectum (1920)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“One has never known a good man to whom dogs were not dear; but many of the best women have no such fondness. You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men. For the attractive woman, dogs are mere dumb and restless brutes — possibly dangerous, certainly soulless. Yet will coquetry teach her to caress any dog in the presence of a man enslaved by her.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. VI

“For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun’s bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?"”

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Max Beerbohm

his answer.”
Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IV

“All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.”

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Max Beerbohm

Note to the 1946 edition
Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911)

“The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IV

“I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.”

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Max Beerbohm

More, “Going Back to School” (1899)

“Just as "pluck" comes of breeding, so is endurance especially an attribute of the artist. Because he can stand outside himself, and (if there be nothing ignoble in them) take pleasure in his own sufferings, the artist has a huge advantage over you and me.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. XV

“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.”

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Max Beerbohm

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. VIII

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