Changeable women are more endurable that monotonous ones; they are sometimes murdered but never deserted.

Civilization is a disease produced by the practice of building societies with rotten material.

I do not waste my time writing pot-boilers: the pot must be boiled, and even my pot au feu has some chunks of fresh meat in it. ...I have no time to boil myself down; and anyhow I could not do so and preserve all the necessary nutriment and the flavoring on which the digestibility depends.

All classes in proportion to their lack of travel and familiarity with foreign literature are bellicose, prejudiced against foreigners, fond of fighting as a cruel sport - in short, dog-like in their notions of foreign policy.

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.

Be as romantic as you please about love ... but you mustn't be romantic about money.

Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. . . . It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.