... it is a great mistake to confuse conventionality with simplicity ... it takes a good deal of intelligence and a great many inhibitions to follow a social code.

There are inquiries which are a sort of moral burglary.

The principle of fashion is . . . the principle of the kaleidoscope. A new year can only bring us a new combination of the same elements; and about once in so often we go back and begin again.

if you are perfectly willing to shock an individual verbally, the next thing you will be doing is to shock him practically.

For never doubt that those souls who live least by the flesh feel themselves most defiled by its defilement.

All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.

On the whole, I should say that the person who likes to lie should never, in any circumstances, be allowed to. Leave the lying to the people who hate it. You will not find them indulging often.