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Civilization itself, the at any rate habitable dwelling which was to be shored up by the war, wears a strange new air of precariousness.

— Charles Edward Montague Disenchantment (1922)

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More quotes by Charles Edward Montague

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Disenchantment (1922)

Nothing in language is immutably fixed: the best writers are constantly changing it. Absolute government by dictionary would mean the arrest of this healthy process of change and growth.

The true delight of travel, the one that is going to print itself unaccountably and indelibly on you, seems to prefer to come as a thief in the night, and not at the hours you specially fix for its entertainment.

The Right Place (1924)

Patriotism has served, at different times, as widely different ends as a razor, which ought to be used to keep your face clean and yet may be used to cut your own throat or that of some more innocent person.

The Right Place (1924)

We are all heirs to the loveliness of the visible world; but only by process of art can we be inducted into possession of this large estate. Some authentic poet or artist has to intervene and give the property its rights and empower it to attain perfection in our sight.

A Writer's Notes on his Trade (1930)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

One country, one constitution, one destiny.

Daniel Webster

Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Edward Montague (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.