The Arnold Bennett Calendar

It is characteristic of the literary artist with a genuine vocation that his large desire is, not to express in words any particular thing, but to express himself, the sum of his sensations. He feels the vague, disturbing impulse to write long before he has chosen his first subject from the thousands of subjects which present themselves, and which in the future he is destined to attack.

In the mental world what counts is not numbers but co-ordination.

In England, nearly all the most interesting people are social reformers: and the only circles of society in which you are not bored, in which there is real conversation, are the circles of social reform.

Anthology construction is one of the pleasantest hobbies that a person who is not mad about golf and bridge—that is to say, a thinking person—can possibly have.

That part of my life which I conduct by myself, without reference—or at any rate without direct reference—to others, I can usually manage in such a way that the gods do not positively weep at the spectacle thereof.

It’s quite impossible to believe that a man is a genius, if you’ve been to school with him, or even known his father.

It is the privilege of only the greatest painters not to put letters on the corners of their pictures in order to keep other painters from taking the credit for them afterwards.

Your own mind has the power to transmute every external phenomenon to its own purposes.

Anything would be a success in London on Sunday night. People are so grateful.

The one cheerful item in a universe of stony facts is that no one can harm anybody except himself.

The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a quiver of the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is, is the ordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be abhorrent, nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature. Can we exceed nature? In the presence of the primeval and ever-continuing forces of nature, can we maintain our fantastic conceptions of sin and of justice? We are, and that is all we should dare to say.

The art of life, the art of extracting all its power from the human machine, does not lie chiefly in processes of bookish-culture, nor in contemplations of the beauty and majesty of existence. It lies chiefly in keeping the peace, the whole peace, and nothing but the peace, with those with whom one is “thrown.”

We have our ideals now, but when they are mentioned we feel self-conscious and uncomfortable, like a school-boy caught praying.

After the crest of the wave the trough—it must be so; but how profound the instinct which complains!

The performance of some pianists is so wonderful that it seems as if they were crossing Niagara on a tight-rope, and you tremble lest they should fall off.

The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind thoughts.

It is indubitable that a large amount of what is known as self-improvement is simply self-indulgence—a form of pleasure which only incidentally improves a particular part of the human machine, and even that part to the neglect of far more important parts.

The average man has this in common with the most exceptional genius, that his career in its main contours is governed by his instincts.

The most beautiful things, and the most vital things, and the most lasting things are often mysterious and inexplicable and sudden.

An accurate knowledge of any subject, coupled with a carefully nurtured sense of the relativity of that subject to other subjects, implies an enormous self-development.

The great artist may force you to laugh, or to wipe away a tear, but he accomplishes these minor feats by the way. What he mainly does is to see for you. If, in presenting a scene, he does not disclose aspects of it which you would not have observed for yourself, then he falls short of success. In a physical and psychical sense power is visual, the power of an eye seeing things always afresh, virginally as though on the very morn of creation.

It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same god-like and superior impartiality.

He who speaks, speaks twice. His words convey his thoughts, and his tone conveys his mental attitude towards the person spoken to.

The man who loses his temper often thinks he is doing something rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so far is this from being the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself.

The female sex is prone to be inaccurate and careless of apparently trivial detail, because this is the general tendency of mankind. In men destined for a business or a profession, the proclivity is harshly discouraged at an early stage. In women, who usually are not destined for anything whatever, it enjoys a merry life, and often refuses to be improved out of existence when the sudden need arises. No one by taking thought can deracinate the mental habits of, say, twenty years.

Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human qualities—and its general effect on the progress of the world is not entirely beneficent—but it is the greatest of human qualities in friendship.

There is a certain satisfaction in hopelessness amid the extreme of misery. You press it to you as the martyr clutched the burning fagot. You enjoy it. You savour, piquantly, your woe, your shame, your abjectness, the failure of your philosophy. You celebrate the perdition of the man in you. You want to talk about it brazenly; even to exaggerate it, and to swagger over it.

The great public is no fool. It is huge and simple and slow in mental processes, like a good-humoured giant, easy to please and grateful for diversion. But it has a keen sense of its own dignity; it will not be trifled with; it resents for ever the tongue in the cheek.

The beauty of horses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and irrational as young girls, is a thing apart; and what is strange is that their vast strength does not seem incongruous with it. To be above that proud and lovely organism, listening, apprehensive, palpitating, nervous far beyond the human, to feel one’s self almost part of it by intimate contact, to yield to it, and make it yield, to draw from it into one’s self some of its exultant vitality—in a word, to ride—I can comprehend a fine enthusiasm for that.

The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in water. One class, the more dashing, dashes into a cold tub every morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation’s backbone.

Although you may easily practise upon the credulity of a child in matters of fact, you cannot cheat his moral and social judgment. He will add you up, and he will add anybody up, and he will estimate conduct, upon principles of his own and in a manner terribly impartial. Parents have no sterner nor more discerning critics than their own children.