Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he's doing keep behind him.

A yawn is a silent shout.

The diseased pride [of artistic individualists] was not even conscious of a public interest, and would have found all political terms utterly tasteless and insignificant. It was no longer a question of one man one vote, but of one man one universe.