Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.

The only way to atone for being occasionally overdressed is to be massively overeducated.

I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.

The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.

The truth is never pure and rarely simple.

I have a simple taste, only the best.

I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art.