The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
Life is a nightmare that prevents one from sleeping.
I beg your pardon, I didn’t recognise you – I’ve changed a lot.
Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.
Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.
If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.
If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.
To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
It is better to be beautiful then to be good, but it is better to be good then to be ugly.
I can believe anything provided it is incredible.
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.
When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Oh! I don’t think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.