I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it.
A man filled with meat turns his back on the dry bones of political doctrine. Fanatical devotion to the ruling party comes more readily from the materially deprived At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody’s else advice.
The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.
The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.
Advice to first year medical students: In anatomy, it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.
It’s always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there’s no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him.
Look after your laundry, and your soul will look after itself.
Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation’s character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good.
I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.
Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy.
No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.
Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
The good traveler has the gift of surprise.