While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.

Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.