The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
“Age and Death,” Afterthoughts (1931)
Quotations by:
Smith, Logan Pearsall
Growing old is no gradual decline, but a series of tumbles, full of sorrow, from one ledge to another. Yet when we pick ourselves up we find no bones are broken; while not unpleasing is the new terrace which stretches out unexplored before us.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
“Last Words,” All Trivia (1933)
Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
(Attributed)
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Myself” (1931)
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts (1931)
(Source)
Don’t laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Age and Death” (1931)
The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil’s traps for artists.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
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
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “In the World” (1931)
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
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.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
How awful to reflect that what people say of us is true!
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
That we should practise what we preach is generally admitted; but anyone who preaches what he and his hearers practise must incur the gravest moral disapprobation.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Myself” (1931)
All Reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn’t a God.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions!
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 1 (1931)
I cannot forgive my friends for dying; I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 2 “Age and Death” (1931)
(Source)
When they come down from their Ivory Towers, idealists are apt to walk straight into the gutter.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 3 (1931)
All Reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 3 (1931)
It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 4 (1931)
The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
All Trivia, “Last Words” (1933)
What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they’ve taken away?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
All Trivia, “Last Words” (1933)
There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
All Trivia, “Last Words” (1933)
The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
All Trivia, “Last Words,” (1933)
Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang “Auld Lang Syne” and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the full moon through a blur of great, romantic tears?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
More Trivia, “Last Words” (1934)