black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Remember that, however patient your study, you will never in adult life learn any language perfectly; the best you can hope for is to be a bore.

Evelyn Waugh

I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I’m old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.
EVELYN WAUGH

Bury Happiness Misery Myself Old Place Precious Remember Ugly
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

Appearance Enough Heaven Human Invention Mindset
If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
EVELYN WAUGH

Happiness Politics Science
O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin.
EVELYN WAUGH

Forgiveness God Philosophy Religious Sin
I don’t believe that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn’t been told about it. It’s like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn’t been told it existed.
EVELYN WAUGH

Believe Existence Fall Love Marriage Myself People
Enclosing every thin man, there’s a fat man demanding elbow-room.
EVELYN WAUGH

Demand Man Room
It is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based.
EVELYN WAUGH

Acceptance Civilization Possible Time
My children weary me. I can only see them as defective adults: feckless, destructive, frivolous, sensual, humorless.
EVELYN WAUGH

Children Destruction Family Father Myself See
There is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand new book.
EVELYN WAUGH

Books Feeling Open Thrill
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read.
EVELYN WAUGH

Care Media News Reading
The only thing that it is advisable to know in any language is the numerals; and even there, you can do a lot with the fingers.
EVELYN WAUGH

Advice Fingers Language Yourself
I did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience.
EVELYN WAUGH

Common Experience Live Misery Myself Possible
Here I am,’ I thought, ‘back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.
EVELYN WAUGH

Dignity Forest Myself Power Ruin Thinking
Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.
EVELYN WAUGH

Art Charm Death Existence Fear Greatness Kill Love Myself Touch Yourself
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
EVELYN WAUGH

Boredom One Liner Punctuality Time Virtue
A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions , but of intelligence, skill, taste, proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline.
EVELYN WAUGH

Art Beautiful Discipline Experience Thinking Work
Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.
EVELYN WAUGH

Art Artist Design Strike Value
I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.
EVELYN WAUGH

Best Book Novel Travel Worst
I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point-blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo of truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which have been deposited the delicate layers of ornament.
EVELYN WAUGH

Live Myself Popular Reading Truth Wrong
Mr. Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.
EVELYN WAUGH

Future Generation Happiness Himself Live World
Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the most characteristic – that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character Food Soft Warm
Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.
EVELYN WAUGH

Feeling Heart Broken Herself Local Simplicity
I put the words down and push them a bit.
EVELYN WAUGH

Myself Voice Word
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

Lost Money Philosophy Player
I think there’s almost nothing I can’t excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.
EVELYN WAUGH

Excuse Image Myself Stupidity Thinking Worship
The splendid thing about education is that everyone wants it. Like influenza, you can give it away without losing any of it yourself.
EVELYN WAUGH

Education Lose Yourself
Words should be an intense pleasure just as leather should be to a shoemaker.
EVELYN WAUGH

Happiness Intense Shoes Word

Remember that, however patient your study, you will never in adult life learn any language perfectly; the best you can hope for is to be a bore.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Remember that, however patient your study, you will never in adult life learn any language perfectly; the best you can hope for is to be a bore.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Evelyn Waugh Quotes