Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.

Love! What is love? It's nothing. It's just a word. It doesn't exist. Only pleasure is important.

Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.