Цитаты из книги Selections. Volume one

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

Scepticism is the beginning of faith.

I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions; my one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. A man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes.

Так называемые «безнравственные» книги — это те, которые показывают миру его пороки, вот и все.

Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something stupid.

Each of us has heaven and hell in him.

Но помни одно:из всего,что вечно,самый краткий срок у любви.

Society, civilised society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating.

Только наше воображение заставляет раскаяние следовать по пятам за преступлением. Только воображение рисует нам отвратительные последствия каждого нашего греха. В реальном мире фактов грешники не наказываются, праведники не вознаграждаются. Сильному сопутствует успех, слабого постигает неудача. Вот и все.

В детстве мы любим своих родителей. Став взрослыми, судим их.

Между капризом и "вечной любовью" разница только та, что каприз длиться несколько дольше.