Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the present with the past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-PrTs there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.
More Quotes from Cyril Connolly:
A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent.Cyril Connolly
The English masses are lovable they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that they are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it they will learn only to be bored in a new way.
Cyril Connolly
It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.
Cyril Connolly
Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.
Cyril Connolly
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.
Cyril Connolly
The person who is master of their passions is reason's slave.
Cyril Connolly
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Based on Topics: Countries Quotes, Flowers Quotes, Past Quotes, Present Quotes, Society & Civilization QuotesBased on Keywords: assimilating, combustion, gide, granada, lorca, matisses, proust, seventeenth-century
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