The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

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.

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.

Writing is the supreme solace.

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

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.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.