Gerald Brenan

Writer

14 Quotes

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

Miller is not really a writer but a non-stop talker to whom someone has given a typewriter.

Intellectuals are people who believe that ideas are of more importance than values. That is to say, their own ideas and other people's values.

The cliche is dead poetry.

You generally hear that what a man doesn't know doesn't hurt him, but in business what a man doesn't know does hurt.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

As I get older I seem to believe less and less and yet to believe what I do believe more and more.

Middle age snuffs out more talent than even wars or sudden death does.

We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

In a happy marriage it is the wife who provides the climate, the husband the landscape.

Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know that it is money.

If you wish to be brothers, let the arms fall from your hands. One cannot love while holding offensive arms.

A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.