Cyril Connolly

Cyril Connolly

19 quotes

Known primarily as an English writer, Cyril Connolly also happens to be one of the most quotable figures in our collection. Their thinking spans from Fear to Wisdom, revealing a mind that refused to stay in one lane. Our collection holds 22 quotes from Cyril Connolly, each offering a different angle on Fear, Wisdom, War, Success, and Science. One quote that captures their voice: "The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife."

“Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

All Quotes by Cyril Connolly

“Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

“Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.”

— Cyril Connolly

Imagination

“The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.”

— Cyril Connolly

Art

“The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.”

— Cyril Connolly

Success

“It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.”

— Cyril Connolly

Nature

“Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.”

— Cyril Connolly

Home

“The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.”

— Cyril Connolly

Food

“The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.”

— Cyril Connolly

Health

“In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.”

— Cyril Connolly

War

“As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

“We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving.”

— Cyril Connolly

Love

“Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.”

— Cyril Connolly

Family

“The dread of lonliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

“Hate is the consequence of fear we fear something before we hate it a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

“Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.”

— Cyril Connolly

Faith

“No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.”

— Cyril Connolly

Morning

“Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.”

— Cyril Connolly

Wisdom

“There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.”

— Cyril Connolly

Fear

“There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.”

— Cyril Connolly

Wisdom