Arnold Bennett > Quotes

“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.”
― Arnold Bennett

“The proper, wise balancing of one's whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“Any change, even a change for the better is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”
― Arnold Bennett

“Which of us is not saying to himself--which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: "I shall alter that when I have a little more time"? We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“The real Tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-he never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.”
― Arnold Bennett

“A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Title: A Comedy in Three Acts

“Nearly all bookish people are snobs, and especially the more enlightened among them. They are apt to assume that if a writer has immense circulation, if he is enjoyed by plain persons, and if he can fill several theatres at once, he cannont possibly be worth reading and merits only indifference and disdain.”
― Arnold Bennett

“One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change - not rest, except in sleep.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.”
― Arnold Bennett

“You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“The second suggestion is to think as well as to read. I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year. Unless you give at least 45 minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your 90 minutes of a night are chiefly wasted.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. If you have formed...literary taste...your life will be one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place.”
― Arnold Bennett, Literary Taste

“...a life in which conduct does not fairly well accord with principles is a silly life; and that conduct can only be made to accord with principles by means of daily examination, reflection, and resolution.”
― Arnold Bennett

“without the power to concentrate that
is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience true life is impossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. ”
― Arnold Bennett

“It is difficult to make a reputation, but is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made --- so faithful is the public.”
― Arnold Bennett

“We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.”
― Arnold Bennett

“...happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.”
― Arnold Bennett

“. . . humanity walks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“If you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by ingeniously planning out a timetable with a pen on a piece of paper, you had better give up hope at once.If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions;
if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin. Lie down again and resume the uneasy doze which you call your existence.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“Jane Austen? I feel that I am approaching dangerous ground. The reputation of Jane Austen is surrounded by cohorts of defenders who are ready to do murder for their sacred cause.”
― Arnold Bennett

“Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“The manner of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had once been young. That he had grown old, and was now dead. That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to that. Everything came to that.”
― Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale

“I will never cease advising my friends and enemies to read poetry before anything.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.”
― Arnold Bennett

“The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“the chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your career.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.

-i got this quote from a john buccigross column (ESPN.com). the reason why i got it, was that i got pissed at this woman i used to work with that always sent quotes with her e-mails that she thought made her look smart....we're both teachers....anyhow....i thought this quote made me seem extra smart, but really, i think it's kinda lame....”
― Arnold Bennett

“And since nothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothing hurt us or gives us pleasure except within the brain, the supreme importance of being able to control what goes on in that mysterious brain is patent.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day