I have my own way of dividing people, as I suppose most of us have. There are those whom I can talk to, and those whom I can't.

Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.

To have a man who can flirt is next thing to indispensable to a leader of society.

One only says it is one's duty when one has something disagreeable to do.

The ideal is the flower-garden of the mind, and very apt to run to weeds unless carefully tended.

As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.

It is so seldom in this world that things come just when they are wanted.

Laughing is not the first expression of joy. ... A person laughs in idleness, for fun, not for joy. Joy has nothing, nothing but the old way of tears.

Even in misery we love to be foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknowledged as more bitter than that of others.

Good works may only be beautiful sins, if they are not done in a true spirit.

All perfection is melancholy.

Loyalty will always be found in the things you regret because it mattered.

It doesn't pay to listen much to what human beings have to say in their evaluation of you, since they don't evaluate themselves very properly.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, where does that leave God??

The gold standard sooner or later will return with the force and inevitability of natural law, for it is the money of freedom and honesty.

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.

With vivid words your just conceptions grace, Much truth compressing in a narrow space; Then many shall peruse, but few complain, And envy frown, and critics snarl in vain.

Sometimes you’re loved because of your weaknesses. What you can’t do is sometimes more compelling than what you can.

Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy. (about Guernica).

I like the challenge. I do not like the attention.

I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.