Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes - ah, they have all the necessary leisure.

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.