Quotes by Max Eastman

A smile is the universal welcome.

— Max Eastman

Happiness

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails.

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

Success

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Hope

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

— Max Eastman

Life

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

Truth

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom

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

— Max Eastman

Wisdom