Ernest Dimnet Quotations

Many men absorbed in business show such a rare quality of culture that we are surprised at it. The reason invariably is partly because hard work and even the weariness it leaves carry a nobility with them, but also because there is no room in such lives for inferior mental occupation.

The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.

Americans cannot realize how many chances for mental improvement they lose by their inveterate habit of keeping six conversations when there are twelve in the room.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.

Most people suspend their judgment till somebody else has expressed his own and then they repeat it.

All serious conversations gravitate towards philosophy.

A school is a place through which you have to pass before entering life, but where the teaching proper does not prepare you for life.

Reading, to most people, means an ashamed way of killing time disguised under a dignified name

Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate chastisement.

Do not read good books-life is too short for that-read only the best.