Russell Lynes (1910–91) was an American art historian, photographer, author and managing editor of Harper’s Magazine. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Lynes was the younger son of Adelaide and Joseph Russell Lynes. His older brother was the photographer George Platt Lynes.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Russell Lynes
Cynicism is the intellectual cripple’s substitute for intelligence.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Cynicism
The true snob never rests: there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Truth
If you can’t ignore an insult, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh it off; and if you can’t laugh it off, it’s probably deserved.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Insults
It is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends with polite incredulity.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Mistakes, Faults
No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Writing
A lady is nothing very specific. One man’s lady is another man’s woman; sometimes, one man’s lady is another man’s wife. Definitions overlap but they almost never coincide.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Women
The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can’t ignore it, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh at it; if you can’t laugh at it, it’s probably deserved.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Insults
Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Self-Discovery
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Acceptance
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
—Russell Lynes
Topics: Authors & Writing
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Bernard Berenson American Art Critic
George Lois American Art Director
James Harvey Robinson American Historian
John Ruskin English Art Critic
David McCullough American Historian
James Anthony Froude British Historian
Daniel J. Boorstin American Historian
James Truslow Adams American Historian
Jacques Barzun French-born American Historian
Alfred Whitney Griswold American Historian