Faith is the path of least resistance.

The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she perpetrates a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, glancing around to see whether anybody notices--and to make sure that somebody notices.

Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.

We grow hostile to many an artist or writer, not because we finally come to see he has deceived us, but because he thought no subtler means were required to ensnare us.

The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

The way to transmute your iron duty into gold in everyone's eyes is this: always deliver more than you promise.