The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

Live the wonderful life that is in you.

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

I am Irish by race but the English have condemned me to talk the language of Shakespeare.

I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.