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Home
Authors
Evelyn Waugh
English
Author
About the author
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Mind
#Heaven
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Pretty
#Manners
What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Youth
#Man
#Woman
You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#England
We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#First
#Leading
#School
#Class
#Schools
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Ability
#Friends
There is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Belief
#Religious
There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Ideas
The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Truth
#Nation
#Growing up
When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Limitations
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Temper
#Discretion
#Deceit
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Will
#Taste
#Promises
#Paradise
Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Books
#Duty
Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Son
#Father
#Guest
Other nations use 'force'; we Britons alone use 'Might'.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Nations
One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Words
#Will
#Needs
#Names
#Vocabulary
Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Now
#Old
News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Care
#News
Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in "Old Maid"; the player who is finally left with it has lost.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Money
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Virtue
#Punctuality
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Action
#Actions
#Worth
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#People
#Class
#Sexes
My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Now
#Children
#Daughter
#Affection
Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#God
I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Needs
#Rest
#Sleep
#Bed
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Day
#Pleasure
Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Crime
#Desire
#Expression
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Art
#Destruction
#Symbol
I put the words down and push them a bit.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Words
I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Being
#Manners
#Cliches
If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Being
#Country
#Literature
In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#World
#Vice
#Dying
#Quotation
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#Instinct
#Self
#Wisdom
Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.
Evelyn Waugh,
English
Author
#May
#Parents
#Son
#Contempt