You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure. living, as you all do, on other and by them, you need at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely to keep them quiet for a season.

To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them.

Something was dead in each of us, and what was dead was hope

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

It is perfectly possible to get what you think you want and be miserable. It's possible too, to never get it but deeply enjoy the process of trying. In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.