Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine.

To suppose as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.

A slight touch of friendly malice and amusement towards those we love keeps our affections for them from turning flat.

The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.

Thank Heaven, the sun has gone in, and I don't have to go out and enjoy it.

What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they've taken away?

A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.

We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast.

All my life, as down an abyss without a bottom. I have been pouring van loads of information into that vacancy of oblivion I call my mind.

If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth.

People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

If you are losing your leisure, look out; you may be losing your soul.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there is no God.

Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income.

It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.

How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.

Only a generation of readers will span a generation of writers.

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

It is through the cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in.

Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave as outrageously as the world lets them.

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.

What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.

There are people who, like houses, are beautiful in dilapidation.

It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.

What's more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?

There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

But, after all, we are a young nation, and vanity is a fault of youth.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood - we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we.

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.

The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality.