Hugh Kingsmill
Hugh Kingsmill
Hugh Kingsmill Lunn, who dropped his last name for professional purposes, was a versatile British writer and journalist. Writers Arnold Lunn and Brian Lunn were his brothers...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth21 November 1889
cured hanging
But bacon's not the only thing / That's cured by hanging from a string.
alive chap hard slit swing throat
What still alive at twenty-two. / A clean, upstanding chap like you! / Sure, if your throat is hard to slit, / Slit your girl's and swing for it.
anger society alive
Society is based on the assumption that everyone is alike and no one is alive.
order imagination soul
There are dons who care for the intellect and the imagination, and there are priests who care for the spirit; but broadly speaking the function of universities and churches alike is to trim and tame enthusiasm, to suppress curiosity, and, in short, to whittle immortal souls into serviceable props of the established order.
friendship family im-sorry
Friends are God's apology for relations.
spring perfect expectations
Most of the avoidable suffering in life springs from our attempts to escape the unavoidable suffering inherent in the fragmentary nature of our present existence. We expect immortal satisfactions from mortal conditions, and lasting and perfect happiness in the midst of universal change. To encourage this expectation, to persuade mankind that the ideal is realizable in this world, after a few preliminary changes in external conditions, is the distinguishing mark of all charlatans, whether in thought or action.
wind names leader
Behind the big names of twentieth-century literature there stands a shadow cabinet of writers waiting to take over once the Wind of Change has blown. My own vote goes to Hugh Kingsmill as leader of this opposition.
ideas substance values
Ideas get substance and value not by being discussed but by being lived.
income mankind difficult
It is difficult to love mankind unless one has a reasonable private income, and when one has a reasonable private income one has better things to do than loving mankind.
egotism detached observers
Hamlet is egotism as it appears to itself, and Don Quixote is egotism as it appears to the detached observer.
dream men self
Hamlet is every man's self-love with all its dreams realized. He wears all the crowns and carries every cross.
mind shapes accuracy
The public mind [is] a cloudy region where only the simplest shapes are discerned with any accuracy.
strings
Bacon's not the only thing that's cured by hanging from a string.
charity may sin
Charity may cover a multitude of sins, but success transmutes them into virtues.