What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger is woman!
We have progressively improved into a less spiritual species of tenderness – but the seal is not yet fixed though the wax is preparing for the impression.
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
Truth is always strange; stranger than fiction; if it could be told, how much would novels gain by the exchange! How differently the world would men behold!
To withdraw myself from myself (oh that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, there is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.
This is the patent-age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls, all propagated with the best intentions.
They never fail who die in a great cause.
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
There’s naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
