I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before.

Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it

Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.