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Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

Graham Greene

We never get accustomed to being less important to other people than they are to us.
GRAHAM GREENE

Important People Value Worth
God save us always,’ I said ‘from the innocent and the good.
GRAHAM GREENE

God Goodness Innocence Save
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil – or else an absolute ignorance.
GRAHAM GREENE

Ego Evil Happiness Ignorance Man Myself Point
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
GRAHAM GREENE

Challenge Lying Seek Success Truth
There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.
GRAHAM GREENE

Live Point Return Time
Most things disappoint till you look deeper.
GRAHAM GREENE

Appearance Deep Disappoint
It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.
GRAHAM GREENE

Human Interest Strike
Death will come in any case, and there is a long afterwards if the priests are right and nothing to fear if they are wrong.
GRAHAM GREENE

Case Death Fear Priest Wrong
I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can’t love and do nothing.
GRAHAM GREENE

Hands Love Myself Taste Touch
Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.
GRAHAM GREENE

Age Curiosity Moral Wisdom
I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.
GRAHAM GREENE

Existence God Hate Yourself
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
GRAHAM GREENE

Cold Diamond Heart Oneself Precious Value Warmth
Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
GRAHAM GREENE

Harm Innocence Lost Meaning World
Hate is a lack of imagination.
GRAHAM GREENE

Hate Imagination One Liner
It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.
GRAHAM GREENE

Change Dangerous Greatness
There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim.
GRAHAM GREENE

Joke Side Victim
The truth has never been of any real value to any human being – it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
GRAHAM GREENE

Human Mathematics Philosophy Pursue Reality Relation Truth Value Worth
Her face looked ugly in the attempt to avoid tears; it was an ugliness which bound him to her more than any beauty could have done. It isn’t being happy together, he thought as though it were a fresh discovery, that makes one love–it’s being unhappy together.
GRAHAM GREENE

Avoid Beautiful Discover Face Happiness Love Tears Togetherness Ugly
Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.
GRAHAM GREENE

Despair Goal Impossible Pay Price
An autobiography is only ‘a sort of life’ – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.
GRAHAM GREENE

Beginning Errors Life Necessary Selection
One can’t love humanity. One can only love people.
GRAHAM GREENE

Humanity Love Oneself People
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.
GRAHAM GREENE

Better Lying Seek Truth
One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.
GRAHAM GREENE

Question Talent Time Willing Work
Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.
GRAHAM GREENE

Attraction Beautiful Body Success War
Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness, a point with no width, occupying no space.
GRAHAM GREENE

Absence Forever Mathematics Occupy Space Time
For an artist to think in terms of success is like a priest trying to think in terms of success.
GRAHAM GREENE

Artist Success Thinking
The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You’re there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see – every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.
GRAHAM GREENE

Boredom Greatness Party People Word Writing

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

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Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

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