With intellectuals, moral thought is often less a tonic that quickens ethical action than a narcotic that deadens it.

It is one of the sublime provincialities of New York that its inhabitants lap up trivial gossip about essential nobodies they've never set eyes on, while continuing to boast that they could live somewhere for twenty years without so much as exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors across the hall.

Highly educated bores are by far the worst; they know so much, in such fiendish detail, to be boring about.

In art, there are tears that do often lie too deep for thoughts.

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.

Individualism is rather like innocence: There must be something unconscious about it.

A great maxim of personal responsibility and mature achievement: "Do it yourself" is now the enthroned cliche for being occupied with nonessentials.