As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

Barbarism is needed every four or five hundred years to bring the world back to life. Otherwise it would die of civilization.

The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals.

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.