As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.

Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses.

Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Ethics, like natural selection, make existence possible. Aesthetics, like sensual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and variety and change.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.

You can fake intelligence, but you can't fake wit.