All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

I don't recognize you - I've changed a lot.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.

Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.