Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of Science is that it is not emotional.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
