It is sweet to dance to violins When love and life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

All great ideas are dangerous.

Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Learned conversation is either the affectation of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally unemployed.

It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.