Max Eastman Quotes

• Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails.

  Max Eastman

  Dog, Laughter, Laughing

  Max Eastman (2008). “Enjoyment of Laughter”, p.34, Transaction Publishers

  103 Copy quote

• It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

  Max Eastman

  Happiness, Funny Inspirational, Humor

  Max Eastman (2008). “Enjoyment of Laughter”, p.36, Transaction Publishers

  41 Copy quote

• A smile is the universal welcome.

  Max Eastman

  Happiness, Smile, Laughter

  Max Eastman (1921). “The Sense of Humor”

  74 Copy quote

• The worst enemy of human hope is not brute facts, but men of brains who will not face them.

  Max Eastman

  Men, Worst Enemy, Brain

  Max Eastman (1962). “Reflections on the failure of socialism”

  19 Copy quote

• Laughter puts your brain, your central nervous system and your whole being into a state of free play.

  Max Eastman

  Laughter, Play, Brain

  9 Copy quote

• Living well is the best revenge.If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

  Max Eastman

  Inspirational, Motivational, Graduation

  27 Copy quote

• The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force.

  Max Eastman

  Real, Equality, Liberty

  14 Copy quote

• Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.

  Max Eastman

  Laughter, Pain, Humor

  9 Copy quote

• People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.

  Max Eastman

  People, Diversity, Favors

  Max Eastman (1951). “Enjoyment of Poetry with Anthology”

  24 Copy quote

• A liberal mind is a mind that is able to imagine itself believing anything.

  Max Eastman

  Believe, Mind, Able

  "The Masses" Magazine, September 1917.

  10 Copy quote

• Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.

  Max Eastman

  Happiness, Laughter, Joy

  Max Eastman (1921). “The Sense of Humor”

  7 Copy quote

• If one were loyal to one's nation only because it was good and true ... one would not be loyal to any nation but to truth and goodness. The idea of patriotism would have no place either in our dictionaries or our lives.

  Max Eastman

  Ideas, Loyal, Goodness

  8 Copy quote

• Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. And a tail is an awkward thing to laugh with, as you can see by the way they bend themselves half double in extreme hilarity trying to get that rear-end exuberance forward into the main scene of action. What puts man on a higher stage of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end.

  Max Eastman

  Happiness, Dog, Laughter

  "Enjoyment of Laughter".

  7 Copy quote

• A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke

  Max Eastman

  Rooms, Next, Poet

  Max Eastman (1939). “Enjoyment of Poetry: With Other Essays in Aesthetics”

  12 Copy quote

• Patriotism is one of the unalterable facts of man's nature. It is a virtue if you like it, and a vice if you don't like it.

  Max Eastman

  Men, Patriotism, Vices

  9 Copy quote

• I don't know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.

  Max Eastman

  Lying, Fall, Thinking

  The Enjoyment of Laughter pt. 3, ch. 4 (1935)

  7 Copy quote

• Humor is a kind of emotional chaos told about calmly and quietly in retrospect.There is always a laugh in the utterly familiar.

  Max Eastman

  Emotional, Laughing, Retrospect

  Max Eastman (2008). “Enjoyment of Laughter”, p.342, Transaction Publishers

  5 Copy quote

• The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

  Max Eastman

  Art, Writing, Defining

  Max Eastman (1951). “Enjoyment of Poetry with Anthology”

  7 Copy quote

• There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure.

  Max Eastman

  Self, Pleasure, Conscious

  Max Eastman (1948). “Enjoyment of living”

  8 Copy quote

• There is truth in the high opinion that in so far as a man conforms, he ceases to exist.

  Max Eastman

  Men, Opinion, Conform

  Max Eastman (1951). “Enjoyment of Poetry with Anthology”

  5 Copy quote

• Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest.

  Max Eastman

  Art, Lying, Style

  Max Eastman (2017). “Enjoyment of Laughter”, p.259, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• He [P.G.Wodehouse] is I believe, the only man living who speaks with equal fluency the American and English languages.

  Max Eastman

  Art, Believe, Men

  Max Eastman (2008). “Enjoyment of Laughter”, p.99, Transaction Publishers

  7 Copy quote

• A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.

  Max Eastman

  Land, Play, Goal

  9 Copy quote

• Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind

  Max Eastman

  Choices, Mind, Unions

  Max Eastman (1951). “Enjoyment of Poetry with Anthology”

  8 Copy quote

• Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

  Max Eastman

  Art, Romance, Bears

  8 Copy quote

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