No More Learning

More marriages are ruined nowadays by the common-sense of the husband
than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a
man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational
being.

It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like
stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner-parties.

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work
when there is no definite object of any kind.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most
difficult and the most intellectual. To Plato, with his passion for
wisdom, this was the noblest form of energy.

To Aristotle, with his passion for knowledge, this was the noblest form
of energy also. It was to this that the passion for holiness led the
saint and the mystic of mediaeval days.

Youth! There is nothing like it. It is absurd to talk of the ignorance
of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any
respect are persons much younger than myself. They seem in front of me.
Life has revealed to them her latest wonder.

Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an
art.

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to life. The
old are in life's lumber-room. But youth is the lord of life. Youth has
a kingdom waiting for it. Everyone is born a king, and most people die
in exile--like most kings.

All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.

Society, civilised society at least, is never very ready to believe
anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It
instinctively feels that manners are of more importance than morals, and
in its opinion the highest respectability is of much less value than the
possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation
to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner or poor wine is
irreproachable in his private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot
atone for half-cold entrees.

While, in the opinion of society, contemplation is the gravest thing of
which any citizen can be guilty, in the opinion of the highest culture
it is the proper occupation of man.