Max Beerbohm Quotes

One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

People are either born hosts or born guests.

Mexicans are not assertive about themselves like Americans. They are shy about themselves

It is of little traits that the greatest human character is composed.

To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.

if you live in New York and you have a guest room, you have guests. So I think it's best not to have a guest room.

Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.

You never display your character more clearly than when you speak about the character of others.

On or about December 1910, human character changed.

It is equally offensive to speed a guest who would like to stay and to detain one who is anxious to leave.

One never gets to know a person's character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.

[We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.

A guest is really good or bad because of the host or hostess who makes being a guest an easy or a difficult task.

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character.

Theresa Rebeck's writing is so scarily funny. I just love how unapologetic she is with her writing: she doesn't try to make her characters likeable or heroic, she just really makes them human. Hopefully, the audience is able to love them in the end - or have whatever feelings that they want to have about all of them - but I love that she doesn't have that agenda. That is something that, as an actress, was really appealing to me; to just get to be in this group of people who are complicated and very human.

Rose goblins are built like porcupines - if you rub them the right way, you don't have to worry about the spines. They're sort of like people in that regard, too.​

If you have a billion Muslims, 900 million of them were not brought into Islam by any kind of invasion, but most of them through the Sufis, because human beings are such that they are affected by people of spiritual character. Certainly when they display nobility and hospitality and gentility and love and are not selfish or aggressive, and they are honest.

Three or four million heads of households don't turn into tramps and cheats overnight, nor do they lose the habits and standards of a lifetime... They don't drink any more than the rest of us, they don't lie any more, they're no lazier than the rest of us.... An eighth or a tenth of the earning population does not change its character which has been generations in the molding, or, if such a change actually occurs, we can scarcely charge it up to personal sin.

To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

You're never going to be gentle enough with the person who is your guest.

You get to know more of the character of a man in a round of golf than in six months of political experience.

It is an error common to many to take the character of mankind from the worst and basest amongst them; whereas, as an excellent writer has observed, nothing should be esteemed as characteristical, of a species but what is to be found amongst the best and the most perfect individuals of that species.

There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.

In order to prove a friend to one's guests, frugality must reign in one's meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.

For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests.