but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself

It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.

If it took Labouchere three columns to prove that I was forgotten, then there is no difference between fame and obscurity.

Oh, how I vainly wished to the bearded man in the sky that I was Neapolitan. Why? So I could bring in a fine Neapolitan pest control to help with Queensberry's problem before it gets out of hand.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.

Pleasure without Champagne is purely artificial.

The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist.