Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.

It is often a mistake to combine two pleasures, because pleasures, like pains, can act as counter-irri-tants to each other.

Wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice.

A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.

The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy.

All real democracy is an attempt like that of a jolly hostess to bring the shy people out.