This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.

Women prefer emotions to reasoning.

Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.

It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.

Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.