Topic

Interest

James is most fully himself here: it is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance. He also offers the simpler version: drink to make other people more interesting. Lamb finds newspapers always leave the reader feeling disappointed; Eschenbach notes that fashion, once universal, is immediately out of date. Chesterton on novelty-seekers and gullibility as the key to genuine adventure. The collection is preoccupied with what genuinely holds attention versus what merely stimulates it — the difference between interest that deepens the longer you pursue it and curiosity that is satisfied by a headline. Good for anyone thinking about what deserves sustained focus as opposed to what merely gets it.

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Quotes

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Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence

An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex

So soon as a fashion is universal, it is out of date

Words are only painted fire; a book is the fire itself.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing

I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled

He was a bold man that first eat an oyster

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating

Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.

Talk six times with the same single lady and you may get the wedding dress ready

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone

The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back

I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.

The most successful person is usually the one with the best information

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on