Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.

Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the...

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.

He wants to enslave you.”I shudder at the thought of being free.

L’inferno e il paradiso sono tutti e due dentro di noi.

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Silently we went round and round,And through each hollow mindThe memory of dreadful thingsRushed like a dreadful wind,And horror stalked before each man,And terror crept behind.

What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be...

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.

Sono così intelligente che a volte non capisco una sola parola di quel che sto dicendo.

Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?

In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don’t think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very...

And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.

The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope.

People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people...

It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him.

tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come...

That is one of the great secrets of life Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are...

in every pleasure, cruelty has its place…

They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.

Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. (Mr. Dumby, Act III)

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it...

Don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue.

Women treat us [men] like humanity treats gods – they worship us and keep bothering us to do something.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want...

We all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope...

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the...

Jemanden zu beeinflussen bedeutet, ihm eine fremde Seele zu geben.

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle...

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.

People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.