But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment.

Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure

I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess.

Travelling is the ruin of all happiness. There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

Credulity is the sister of innocence.

I wish the opera was every night. It is, of all entertainments, the sweetest and most delightful. Some of the songs seemed to melt my very soul.

to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

I cannot sleep - great joy is as restless as sorrow.

A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.

Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.

When you're testing to see how deep water is, never use two feet.

Somehow we just dont make the same boisterous fun of Holy Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly, jolly Easter.

How do you regret one of the best nights of your entire life? You don't. You remember every word, every look. Even when it hurts, you still remember.

... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.

All men die. Only a few ever live.

To command, you must first of all speak to the eyes.

I think my real depressions started when I was about 16 and doing The Patty Duke Show. I would go to bed at about 10 o'clock on a Friday night and not get up again until 6:30 Monday morning

Old men make war, young men fight and die