Im Krieg machen die Starken die Schwachen zu Sklaven, im Frieden machen die Reichen die Armen zu Sklaven.

I have no objection to anyone’s sex life as long as they don’t practice it in the street and frighten the horses.

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His...

Human life–that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and...

Olvidar un hecho, es modificar el pasado.

Nicio viata nu e stricata cu exceptia celei care este oprita. Daca vrei sa strici caracterul cuiva nu trebuie decat sa il reformezi

the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.

Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

A good friend will always stab you in the front.

Nada mudou. Afastada das sombras irreais da noite, ressurge a vida, na sua realidade já conhecida. Devemos retomá-la onde a deixamos e apodera-se de nós o terrível sentimento de continuidade necessária da energia no mesmo...

Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval.

[J]ene Entsagungen, die die Menschen alberner Weise Tugenden nennen […]

There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one’s soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one’s...

Who, being loved, is poor?

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.

I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now,...

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money

Moral grounds are always the last refuge of people who have no sense of beauty.

If a woman cannot make her mistakes charming, she is only a female.

To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.

I have a business appointment that I am anxious… to miss.

Oh, I can’t explain. 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. It seems to be the...

Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.

America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.

Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Duty is what one expects from others.

It is the duty of every father… to write fairy tales for his children.

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and...

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.

The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, upon the other hand, forgetting that that imitation can be made the sincerest form of insult, keeps on...

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that...

Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.

The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.

Bad artists always admire each others work.

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.

People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar....

If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.

You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of...