The day was so delightful that I wished one could live slowly as one can play music slowly.

a good oyster cannot please the palate as acutely as a bad one can revolt it, and a good oyster cannot make him who eats it live for ever though a bad one can make him dead for ever.

Of Virginia Woolf: The talent of this generation which is most certain of survival.

music is a missionary effort to colonize earth for imperialistic heaven.

Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument.

But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.

To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere.