It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.

So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape.

There is no sin except stupidity.

Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them

Artists reproduce themselves or each other, with wearisome iteration. But criticism is always moving on, and the critic is always developing.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.