It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life.

The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, [journalism] keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is one's self.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.