There is only one good — to act according to the dictates of one’s conscience.
There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.
There are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.
There are bad people everywhere, but among the bad there are some good one.[Везде есть люди дурные, а между дурными и хорошие.]
The opportunity of doing mischief occurs a hundred times in a day, and that of doing good but once a year.
The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.
That’s the curse of the reading class. We can be seduced by a good story even at the least opportune moments.
Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole.
Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval. When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
