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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The cliche is dead poetry.

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

Miller is not really a writer but a non-stop talker to whom someone has given a typewriter.