Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
What of Art? -It is a malady. – Love? -An Illusion. – Religion? -The fashionable substitute for Belief. – You are a sceptic. -Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith. – What are you? -To define is to limit.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.
Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.
The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.
The only good thing to do with good advice is pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.