My philosophy? I'm always right and you are wrong.

The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art.

The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

[on his deathbed in a Paris hotel room] Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.