A Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy. Sell to the movies.

Vladimir Nabokov

Quote Topics

Appear Flaws Frighten Giant Ill Interviewers Movies Out Playboy Point Predecessors Renown Sell Tempered Time

Quote Author

Vladimir Nabokov
American - Novelist
April 22, 1899 - July 2, 1977

When you see anyone complaining of such and such a person's ill-nature and bad temper, know that the complainant is bad-tempered, forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person, because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.

Rumi

Provocation doesn't make me ill-tempered: it only shows me how ill-tempered I am.

C. S. Lewis

The beauty of social media is that it will point out your company's flaws; the key questions is how quickly you address these flaws.

Erik Qualman

Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.

C. S. Lewis

O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.

Leonardo da Vinci

You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.'

Epictetus

I get the Playboy thing a lot. People assume I go out with bimbos. I couldn`t go out with bimbos if I tried! I scare them off! The women that like me are smart. So I go to the Playboy Mansion four or five times a year, but people think I go all the time.

Bill Maher

I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated ill-shaven giant (but a giant who's a genius on his best days).

Ian Mcewan

I was bloody ill-tempered when I was young.

Ingmar Bergman

Of ill-temper there are three kinds: irascibility, bitterness, sullenness. It belongs to the ill-tempered man to be unable to bear either small slights or defeats but to be given to retaliation and revenge, and easily moved to anger by any chance deed or word. Ill-temper is accompanied by excitability of character, instability, bitter speech, and liability to take offence at trifles and to feel these feelings quickly and on slight occasions.

Aristotle

Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes.

Donald Rumsfeld

After living in the mansion for a year, I did miss dating, and there were times when I was out during the day or at therapy school or even at Playboy parties where I met guys. It's only natural. I needed to have my own life, or I would have gone crazy. But at the same time, I didn't want to disrespect Hugh Hefner or the Playboy name - that always came first.

Kendra Wilkinson

The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures.