It seems as though every time you learn something new you have to give up something.

Without danger I cannot be great. That is how I pay for Abel's blood. Danger and fear follow my steps everywhere. Without them courage would have no sense. And it is courage, courage, courage that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor.

Nowadays a parlor maid as ignorant as Queen Victoria was when she came to the throne would be classed as mentally defective.

To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.

I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.

You are my inspiration and my folly. You are my light across the sea, my million nameless joys, and my day's wage. You are my divinity, my madness, my selfishness, my transfiguration and purification. You are my rapscallionly fellow vagabond, my tempter and star. I want you.

The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary. rather tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise.