“Woman's first duty in life is to her dressmaker. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered.”
“The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.”
“Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.”
“One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.”
“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes.”
“Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.”
“It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”
“There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”
“The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”
“On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.”
“No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.”
“Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.”
“I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to.”
“While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.”
“There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.”
“The first duty of life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one as yet discovered.”
“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”
“Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.”
“Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.”
“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”
“His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.”
“With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stock broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.”
“One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.”
“The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.”
“The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others.”
“Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.”