The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents' hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.

A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.

When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of all the seas in one impulse of your soul.

I am the most spontaneous speaker in the world because every word, every gesture, and every retort has been carefully rehearsed.

God has given us a world that nothing but our own folly keeps from being a paradise.

Morality consists of suspecting other people of not being legally married.

Oh, well, if you want original conversations, you'd better go and talk to yourself.