The view that honesty is something, and even a virtue, belongs, it is true, to those private opinions which are forbidden in this age of public opinions.

Energy wasted on negative ends.

The man loves danger and sport. That is why he loves woman, the most dangerous of all sports.

There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.

At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.

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.

Whatever harm the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.