It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.

The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable

The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press... It is not we who silence the press. It is the press who silences us.

Aristocracy is an atmosphere; it is sometimes a healthy atmosphere; but it is very hard to say when it becomes an unhealthy atmosphere. You can prove that a man is not the son of a king, or that he is not the delegate of a definite number of people. But you cannot prove that a man is not a gentleman.