Evelyn Waugh quotes

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. (Evelyn Waugh)
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them...
Evelyn Waugh
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.
Evelyn Waugh
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
Evelyn Waugh
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
Evelyn Waugh
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
Other nations use 'force'; we Britons alone use 'Might'.
Evelyn Waugh
To know and love another human being is the root of all wisdom.
Evelyn Waugh
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.
Evelyn Waugh
You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.
Evelyn Waugh
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)
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
Evelyn Waugh
I put the words down and push them a bit.
Evelyn Waugh
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
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
Evelyn Waugh
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
When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
Evelyn Waugh
O God, make me good, but not yet.
Evelyn Waugh
Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.
Evelyn Waugh
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
That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down. (Evelyn Waugh)
Of children as of procreation-the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable.
Evelyn Waugh
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
Evelyn Waugh
To understand all is to forgive all.
Evelyn Waugh
Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying.
Evelyn Waugh