Evelyn Waugh Quotes

"Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Manners, Pretty)

"What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?"
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Man, Woman, Youth)

"You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: England)

"We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Class, First, Leading, School, Schools)

"We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: 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
(Related: Belief, Religious)

"There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: 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
(Related: Truth, Growing up, Nation)

"When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Limitations)

"We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Deceit, Discretion, Temper)

"It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Paradise, Promises, Taste, Will)

"Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Books, Duty)

"Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Father, Son, Guest)

"Other nations use 'force'; we Britons alone use 'Might'."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Nations)

"One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Names, Needs, Vocabulary, Will, Words)

"Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: 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
(Related: 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
(Related: Money)

"Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Virtue, Punctuality)

"Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Action, Actions, Worth)

"Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: People, Class, Sexes)

"My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Daughter, Affection, Children, Now)

"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
(Related: 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
(Related: Bed, Needs, Rest, Sleep)

"All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Day, Pleasure)

"Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Crime, Desire, Expression)

"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Art, Destruction, Symbol)

"I put the words down and push them a bit."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Words)

"I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Being, Cliches, Manners)

"If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Being, Country, Literature)

"In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Dying, Quotation, Vice, World)

"He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Wisdom, Instinct, Self)

"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
(Related: Son, Contempt, May, Parents)