I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.
There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.
She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.
Life isn't long enough for love and art.
The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse.
Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
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