The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .

Chastity - the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.

I'm sick. I've eaten civilisation and I'm sick.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.

When truth is nothing but truth, it's unnatural, it's an abstraction that resembles nothing in the real world.

Most loverspicture to themselves, in their mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see every day. They are in love with somebody else--their own invention. And sometimes there is a secret reality; and sometimes reality and appearance are the same. The discovery, in either case, is likely to cause a shock.