I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.

Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, and with freedom, courage , and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.

Our natural egoism leads us to judge people by their relations to ourselves. We want them to be certain things to us, and for us that is what they are; because the rest of them is no good to us, we ignore it.

The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.

The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.