Gerald Brenan

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“The cliche is dead poetry.”