Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favorite form of self-indulgence.

Common sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.

I do not believe the people who tell me that they do not care a row of pins for the opinion of their fellows. It is the bravado of ignorance.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too.

If you refuse to accept anything but the best, very often you get it.

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell ... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

It was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up.

Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

People ask you for criticism but they only want praise.

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish; to bewail it senseless.

The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.

Tolerance is another word for indifference.