All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

Whatever happens, never forget that people would rather be led to perdition by a man, than to victory by a woman.

There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that one sometimes needs help with moving the piano.

Motherhood is neither a duty nor a privilege, but simply the way that humanity can satisfy the desire for physical immortality and triumph over the fear of death.

... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.