If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter.
The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Tradition is a guide not a jailer.
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her... but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
There are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
I don`t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
