America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

When the gods choose to punish us, they merely answer our prayers.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

The way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Argument's are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Bad artists always admire each others work.

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

Only the shallow know themselves.

There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

The only way a woman can ever reform her husband is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Anyone can make history. Only a great man can write it.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.

Life is far too important to be taken seriously.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I am in a duel to the death with this wallpaper, one of us has got to go.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.