If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.
Cyril ConnollyWhen young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
Cyril ConnollyHate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate; a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.
Cyril ConnollyCivilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-Prés: there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.
Cyril Connolly