82 quotes
Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
This Business of Living (1935)
All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition.
This Business of Living (1935)
All our "most sacred affections" are merely prosaic habit.
This Business of Living (1935)
Generations do not age. Every youth of any period, any civilization, has the same possibilities as always.
This Business of Living (1935)
We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.
This Business of Living (1935)
There is nothing fine about being a child: it is fine, when we are old, too look back to when we were children.
This Business of Living (1935)
Narrating incredible things as though they were real—old system; narrating realities as though they were incredible—the new.
This Business of Living (1935)
Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
This Business of Living (1935)
Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it—only then—for the first time.
This Business of Living (1935)
There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.
This Business of Living (1935)
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies.
This Business of Living (1935)
Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own.
This Business of Living (1935)
We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God.
This Business of Living (1935)
The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
This Business of Living (1935)
Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality.
This Business of Living (1935)
Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.
This Business of Living (1935)
There is only one pleasure—that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
This Business of Living (1935)
Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.
This Business of Living (1935)
The most banal thing, discovered in ourselves, becomes intensely interesting. It is no longer an abstract banality, but an amazing co-ordination between reality and our own individuality.
This Business of Living (1935)
What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.
This Business of Living (1935)