Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well

Through the history of the world there have always been exploiters and exploited. There always will be ... because the great mass of men are made by nature to be slaves, they are unfit to control themselves, and for their own good need masters.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self indulgence.

For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not the very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.