English essayist & caricaturist (1872-1956)
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.
MAX BEERBOHM
The Spirit of Caricature
We do not say of Love that he is myopic. We do not say of Love that he is astigmatic. We say quite simply, Love is blind. We might go further and say, Love is deaf. That would be a profound and obvious truth. We might go further still and say, Love is dumb. But that would be a profound and obvious lie. For love is always an extraordinarily fluent talker.
MAX BEERBOHM
A Christmas Garland
No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.
MAX BEERBOHM
And Even Now
The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
Has the gift of laughter been withdrawn from me? I protest that I do still, at the age of forty-seven, laugh often and loud and long. But not, I believe, so long and loud and often as in my less smiling youth. And I am proud, nowadays, of laughing, and grateful to any one who makes me laugh. That is a bad sign. I no longer take laughter as a matter of course.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
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.
MAX BEERBOHM
Quia Imperfectum
Death cancels all engagements.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
If a man carry his sense of proportion far enough, lo! he is back at the point from which he started. He knows that eternity, as conceived by him, is but an instant in eternity, and infinity but a speck in infinity.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
There is laughter that goes so far as to lose all touch with its motive, and to exist only, grossly, in itself. This is laughter at its best. A man to whom such laughter has often been granted may happen to die in a work-house. No matter. I will not admit that he has failed in life. Another man, who has never laughed thus, may be buried in Westminster Abbey, leaving more than a million pounds overhead. What then? I regard him as a failure.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
Vulgarity has its uses. Vulgarity often cuts ice which refinement scrapes at vainly.
MAX BEERBOHM
letter, May 21, 1921
Not philosophy, after all, not humanity, just sheer joyous power of song, is the primal thing in poetry.
MAX BEERBOHM
And Even Now
Twenty years ago, ten years ago, I should have laughed, and have professed to you that I had merely smiled. A very young man is not content to be very young, nor even a young man to be young: he wants to share the dignity of his elders. There is no dignity in laughter, there is much of it in smiles. Laughter is but a joyous surrender, smiles give token of mature criticism. It may be that in the early ages of this world there was far more laughter than is to be heard now, and that aeons hence laughter will be obsolete, and smiles universal--every one, always, mildly, slightly, smiling. But it is less useful to speculate as to mankind's past and future than to observe men. And you will have observed with me in the club-room that young men at most times look solemn, whereas old men or men of middle age mostly smile; and also that those young men do often laugh loud and long among themselves, while we others--the gayest and best of us in the most favourable circumstances--seldom achieve more than our habitual act of smiling. Does the sound of that laughter jar on us? Do we liken it to the crackling of thorns under a pot? Let us do so. There is no cheerier sound. But let us not assume it to be the laughter of fools because we sit quiet. It is absurd to disapprove of what one envies, or to wish a good thing were no more because it has passed out of our possession.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.
MAX BEERBOHM
And Even Now
The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
A man who doesn't reel on receipt of his death-warrant may yet break down when he has had time to think it over.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
Everywhere he found his precept checkmated by his example.
MAX BEERBOHM
Zuleika Dobson
To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.
MAX BEERBOHM
And Even Now
As a teacher, as a propagandist, Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.
MAX BEERBOHM
"A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S", Around Theatres
The literary gift is a mere accident--is as often bestowed on idiots who have nothing to say worth hearing as it is denied to strenuous sages.
MAX BEERBOHM
Letters of Max Beerbohm, 1892-1956