All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.
Cyril ConnollyRead
When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Acceptance of our flaws is essential for clarity and happiness.
Cyril Connolly's quote suggests that when we turn away from the darker aspects of human nature—both in ourselves and in others—we risk falling into despair and confusion. The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and confronting these uncomfortable truths to attain a clearer perspective on life and ultimately achieve happiness.
Themes
Human NatureLoveMiseryClear ThinkingAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing our flaws.
More from Cyril Connolly
All quotes →When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?
Cyril ConnollyRead
A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends.
Cyril ConnollyRead
The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.
Cyril ConnollyRead
We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
Cyril ConnollyRead
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let out.
Cyril ConnollyRead
Similar quotes
Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.
Rod SerlingRead
Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
Robert Green IngersollRead
They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.
Primo LeviRead
Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence.
Angela CarterRead
The possibility of killing one's self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable.
Leo TolstoyRead