Logan Pearsall Smith Quotes

Thank heavens, the sun has gone in and I don’t have to go out and enjoy it.

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood.

To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober.

It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people ... To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.

The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.

What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thoughts; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. They would make my fortune if I could catch them; but always the rarest, those freaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave just as outrageously as the world allows.

It is certainly curious that among all the millions of books that have been written on every conceivable subject, so few writers have really tried to describe the tissue of their thoughts and the actual taste of consciousness. And yet this is, after all, our most immediate and direct experience, the only experience of whose reality we are absolutely certain.

Hearts that are delicate and kind and tongues that are neither; — these make the finest company in the world.

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he's only trying on one face after another till he finds his own.

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, Idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.

There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.