The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.

I have been right, Basil, haven’t I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare’s plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth.

To make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

You told me you had destroyed it." "I was wrong. It has destroyed me.

One should always be in love.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.