Nothing more predisposes someone in our favour than to let him rob you a little.

I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure; indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.

Perfect is determined in shortened measures of time, not over long periods of time or lifetimes. It would be unnatural.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.