The purpose of art is to discover beauty and hide the artist.
The value of ideas has nothing to do with the sincerity of the person who expresses them.
Man is less himself when he speaks of himself. Let him wear a mask and you will hear the truth from him.
Man may believe in the impossible, but he will never believe in the improbable.
The man who can command a conversation at a lunch in London can command the world. The future belongs to a dandy.
The more art imitates an age, the less it conveys its spirit.
The fewer the punishments, the fewer the crimes.
The more objective a work seems to us, the more subjective it is. Shakespeare may indeed have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the streets of London, or seen the servants of feuding families quarreling in the market-place, but Hamlet comes from his soul, and Romeo is born of his passion.
Ambition is the last refuge of the unlucky.
The members of the House of Commons have nothing to say and that is exactly what they say.
What is the truth? When it comes to religion, it is nothing more than the known opinion that has managed to survive for centuries.
What is a cynic? A man who values everything, but does not know what is truly precious.
To be natural, you need to be able to be a hypocrite.
To regain my youth, I am ready to do anything; only not to get up early, not to exercise, and not to be a useful member of society.
To conquer a man, a woman has only to awaken the worst in him.
To acquire the reputation of a wonderfully educated man, you must talk to every woman as if you were in love with her, and to every man as if you were bored with him.
To understand yourself at least partially, you must understand everything about others.
People's feelings are much more interesting than their thoughts.
A sensitive person is one who will certainly crush other people's bullshit, if she herself suffers from such a thing.
The sense of duty is exactly what we want to see in others.
Foreign dramas are always unbearably banal.
Egoism does not consist in the fact that man lives as he wants, but that he forces others to live according to his principles.
Exams mean absolutely nothing. If you are a gentleman you know as much as is necessary, and if you are not a gentleman, all knowledge does you harm.
Aesthetics is superior to ethics. It is part of a higher realm of spirituality. In the formation of personality, even the sense of color acquired through it is more important than the knowledge of good and evil.
These gold rimmed cigarettes are terribly expensive. I only smoke them when I'm in debt.
This is not my business. That's why I'm interested. My affairs always give me an air of sadness. That's why I prefer the foreign ones.
It's monstrous the way people behave today: they talk behind your back, and they tell the truth.
There is an awfully hard activity: doing nothing.
Often the echo is much more beautiful than the voice it repeats.
The boy wants to be faithful, but he is not; the old man would like to cheat, but he can't