As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.

I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.

Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.

Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

An idea that isn't risky is hardly worth calling an idea.

The English public always feels perfectly at ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.