It is not permissible to lie merely to save one's face. But it is sometimes permissible to lie to save another person's face.

The real drawback to the simple life is that it is not simple. If you are living it, you positively can do nothing else. There is not time.

The indiscreet questioner - and by indiscreet questions I mean questions which it is not conceivably a man's duty either to the community or to any individual to answer - is a marauder, and there is every excuse for treating him as such.

I know exaggerators of both kinds: people whose lies are only picturesque adjectives, and people whose picturesque adjectives are only lies.

democracy always makes for materialism, because the only kind of equality that you can guarantee to a whole people is, broadly speaking, physical.

Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism.

What passes for an original opinion is, generally, merely an original phrase. Old lamps for new - yes; but it is always the same oil in the lamp.