I walk the world in wonder.
The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.
What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.
The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing.
Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One.
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.
Pleasure without Champagne is purely artificial.
Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself. Sometimes I am so clever I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.
Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the ‘L’ section, and find the word ‘life.’
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.