“I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug”
As quoted in in Contemporary American Novelists, 1900-1920 (1922) by Carl Clinton Van Doren
Context: I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational.
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James Branch Cabell130
American author 1879–1958Related quotes
“Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer
The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), ch. 3
Jane Austen book Emma
Variant: Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
Source: Emma (1815)
“In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away”
Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights
I Am the Only Being (1836)
Source: Wuthering Heights
Context: I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born
In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day
“I want leisure to read—an immense amount.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter
Source: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
“The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
1910s, A Treatise on Parents and Children (1910)
Context: The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation; and the pre-occupied person is neither happy nor unhappy, but simply alive and active, which is pleasanter than any happiness until you are tired of it.
“The more simple the society, the more leisured its way of life.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 29
