J

J. B. Priestley

14 quotes

A name that surfaces again and again in collections of great quotes, J. B. Priestley clearly understood the power of language. The range of their thinking — from Age to Society — speaks to an intellectual restlessness that shows in every quote. Browse 17 quotes by J. B. Priestley that cover ground from Age, Society, Respect, War, and Smile. A favorite of many readers: "The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence."

“Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.”

— J. B. Priestley

Humor

All Quotes by J. B. Priestley

“If we openly declare what is wrong with us, what is our deepest need, then perhaps the death and despair will by degrees disappear.”

— J. B. Priestley

Death

“We pay when old for the excesses of youth.”

— J. B. Priestley

Age

“Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.”

— J. B. Priestley

Marriage

“Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.”

— J. B. Priestley

Humor

“I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.”

— J. B. Priestley

Hope

“The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”

— J. B. Priestley

Communication

“Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.”

— J. B. Priestley

Age

“We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.”

— J. B. Priestley

Society

“When I was young there was no respect for the young, and now that I am old there is no respect for the old. I missed out coming and going.”

— J. B. Priestley

Respect

“The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.”

— J. B. Priestley

Age

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”

— J. B. Priestley

Morning

“To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - this is happiness.”

— J. B. Priestley

Happiness

“There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.”

— J. B. Priestley

Age

“Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.”

— J. B. Priestley

War