Phyllis Bentley famous quotes

In every art the desire to practice it precedes both the full ability to do so and the possession of something worthwhile to express by its means.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Art #Mean #Practice

It's a useful rule in Anglo-American communications that the English should double, and the Americans halve, the number of words they would normally employ.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Communication #Numbers #Speech

your actions live after you till this globe is dissolved; they pass inevitably down as an inheritance from one generation to another. ... decency and integrity, courage and compassion, are always well worth while; they are not lost, but pass on down the generations; we are indeed the heirs of all the ages.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Integrity #Compassion #Age

when one married a man, it was clear to me, one married also the sink and the stove ...
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Marriage #Men #Wife

There are two roads to every place, and the wise man chooses the pleasant one.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Wise #Men #Two

My idea of marriage, as of every other partnership, ... is that each member shall contribute to it his or her personality, unrepressed and uncoerced. Thus, and only thus, we obtain the most complex synthesis possible, which may well surpass in beauty, as it surely does in interest and human value, the separate elements of such an association.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Marriage #Ideas #Personality

Retracing the various episodes of one's life, one is disconcerted to discover that one was not as noble as one thought oneself at the time.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Noble #Episodes #Oneself

These last years are as important as any that have gone before, nor will any other of our years vitiate or excuse them. The struggle continues.
-- Phyllis Bentley

#Struggle #Years #Important

Poems very seldom consist of poetry and nothing else; and pleasure can be derived also from their other ingredients. I am convinced that most readers, when they think they are admiring poetry, are deceived by inability to analyse their sensations, and that they are really admiring, not the poetry of the passage before them, but something else in it, which they like better than poetry.

The obedient in art are always the forgotten . . . The country is glorious but its beauties are unknown, and but waiting for a real live artist to splash them onto canvas . . . Chop your own path. Get off the car track.

Design should do the same thing in everyday life that art does when encountered: amaze us, scare us or delight us, but certainly open us to new worlds within our daily existence.

As a kid, I was always into art at the same time as computers, and eventually I realised I was making more interesting stuff with my keyboard than with my hands. I really enjoyed modifying computer games more than playing them, so that got me into programming.

Has it led you to the conclusion that photography is an art ? Or it is simply a means of recording ? "I'm glad you asked that. I've been wanting to say this for years. Is cooking an art ? Is talking an art ? Is even painting an art ? It is artfulness that makes art, not the medium itself. Of course photography is an art - when it is in the hands of artists."

A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a chap will put up with almost everything, which means he won't care about anything enough to get out of a chair.A country of public insouciance and private, grubby guilt, where you can believe anything as long as you don't believe it too fervently. A country where the highest aspiration is for a quiet life.

Humility means that one should not be anxious to have the satisfaction of being honored by others.

I find placebos uplifting and exhilarating. It means that taking action--no matter what the action is--might help you feel better.

Let's face it, I only practice yoga because the classes are always packed with beautiful women.

I'll put an end to the idea that a woman's body belongs to her . . . the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand.