A live unexamined isn't worth living. I will add, "A life unlived isn't worth examining.

You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.

Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkenness.

I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.

Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.

We spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well, the secret of life is in Art.

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.