I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.

You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.