Quotes about guests

Quite a nasty piece of work. Not the sort of person you'd want to have dinner with. [On the subject of Mr. Bean]

— Rowan Atkinson

One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

— Sir Max Beerbohm

Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it is called) in company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.

— Lord Chesterfield

Visitors are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not visit, would do nothing.

— William Cowper

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.

— Benjamin Franklin

When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.

— Oliver Goldsmith

A civil guest will no more talk all, than eat all the feast.

— George Herheri

A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly.

— Homer

To be an ideal guest, stay at home.

— Edgar Watson Howe

Making a long stay short is a great aid to popularity.

— Kin Hubbard

Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest.

— Kin Hubbard

The first day, a guest; the second, a burden; the third, a pest.

— Edouard R. Laboulaye

No one can be so welcome a guest that he will not annoy his host after three days.

— Titus Maccius Plautus

Every guest hates the others, and the host hates them all.

— Albanian Proverb

Fish and guests smell at three days old.

— Danish Proverb

Frank Harris has been received in all the great houses -- once!

— Oscar Wilde