No More Learning

The basis of every scandal is an absolute immoral certainty.

People talk so much about the beauty of confidence. They seem to
entirely ignore the much more subtle beauty of doubt. To believe is very
dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live,
to be lulled into security is to die.

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one
must be a mediocrity.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names
to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions, my one
quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in
literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled
to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.

A high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either
one's health or one's happiness.
There are terrible temptations that it requires strength--strength and
courage--to yield to. To stake all one's life on one throw--whether the
stake be power or pleasure I care not--there is no weakness in that.
There is a horrible, a terrible, courage.

Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs.

All charming people are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally,
I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling,
I suppose.

All men are monsters. The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well.
A good cook does wonders.

There is no such thing as an omen.

Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.