The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Some temptations are so great it takes great courage to yield to them.

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything.

Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.

Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance — And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead?