Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism.

One of the reasons, surely, why women have been credited with less perfect veracity than men is that the burden of conventional falsehood falls chiefly on them.

Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.

Social distinctions concern themselves ultimately with whom you may and may not marry.

Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

Originality usually amounts only to plagiarizing something unfamiliar.